Plants Vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Tower Defense

ESRB: N/A (I'd say it's an E10+ for cartoony zombie dismemberment)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 24/8

Developer: PopCap Games

Wiki page

I can handle free-to-play games. I really can. I still play Avengers Alliance on Facebook and a new game called Ascend on XBLA. But this particular free-to-play game makes it really hard for me to see it as an actual attempt at making a sequel rather than the cheap, dirty cash-grab that it is. I'm not going to be particularly verbose this week. I'll cut to the chase.

Please spend money to NOT play our game!

The original Plants Vs. Zombies didn't really have a story, so neither does this one. But it does try a familiar sequel treatment by having the player do the same thing as last time but in different time periods. Ultimately this means that different zones have different zombies to fight rather than different zones being more oriented around different sets of plants. So I'll give it a good grade for the effort there.

Play the same level again? Hooray!

A similar lack of effort went into the gameplay. While the story and setting are accomplished by minimalist design choices- which works for both this game and the last one- the gameplay was what kept the game interesting before. Here, it's a number of things taken away without much added. The newest additions are plant food and super powers. The first is accumulated off of random zombies and can be used on an individual plant to make it briefly ultra-powerful. Visually and tactically satisfying at times, but when and how much plant food you have don't make it feel like a fully balanced part of the game. The super powers are used simply by spending coins, which can either be farmed or bought with real world cash. Basically, both are ways to cheat at the game but at least the plant food is rationed off in a way that seems custom tailored to the difficulty of a given level.

Other than being able to repeat levels to earn stars (which only serve to prevent you from playing the rest of the game) and a new key system which keeps you from new upgrades and tantalizing you into spending real world money, there's nothing else new. With a game like Plants Vs. Zombies, I can see how little needs to be added on to improve it. But this is definitely getting into the territory of feeling like a weird spin-off rather than an official sequel. 

There aren't many new plants and many old plants are completely gone AND a shocking number of favorite plants from the first game can only be acquired with real life money (Ex: Snow Pea, Jalapeno, Imitater). The few new plants aren't all gems either. Bonk Choy and Snap Dragon don't seem useful most of the time. And the Lightning Reed seems to completely replace the Bloomerang. Plants can no longer be upgraded (for example, the Twinflower is now its own individual plant) which allows for more variety in your arsenal, but that variety is generally only needed because certain unique zombies for a zone require a unique plant from that zone to beat (like the Spring Bean, which is ONLY useful on the pirate levels). The challenge mode maps in the previous game let you change out plants as you got further in, so you could use regular Sunflowers at first and then equip Twinflowers later. But now challenge mode has frustrating random plant selection and less depth because there's less need to switch plants around.

How can I live without Imitater and Snow Pea? Wahhhh!

Conclusion:

Just some more Plants Vs. Zombies levels packaged as a free-to-play game. I bought a bundle of items for eight bucks, I think, because I feel it's good to spend money on a game if one plays that game a lot. Doing some research on my phone, I found that the original game only costs $1 on the App Store. If you haven't played this franchise before, do yourself a HUGE favor and just play that one.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Third Person Cover Shooter; Sub-genre: Squad-based RPG

ESRB: M (profanity and machine gun violence)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 18/8

Developer: 2K Marin

Wiki page

This is such an amazing year for games with unusual and unfortunate development cycles. Here we have a game that had a bad premise from the beginning that they tried to change time and time again to get it to work. But the end result is actually surprisingly good, I'd say. In fact, it's only minor grievances that grind in my head and turn into bigger problems that force me to scale back from a three star rating. I say this because before, during, and after my time playing Metro: Last Light I felt like I was burnt out on games and bored. But this one was fun enough that I managed to complete it on the hardest difficulty and enjoyed doing so. I wanted to classify this as one of those games that's "just a fun game," but it fell short of that. Here's why.

In the 60's, men were required to wear suits and hats into combat.

Why does this game take place in 1962? Why does any story take place at any certain time? This represents a deliberate choice on the part of the storyteller. Some fantasy settings like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings muddy up the concept of time and make the universe being shown have no connection with our own. This is done to establish unique rules for that universe and properly prepare the audience so that they can understand the surroundings. A movie like Inglourious Basterds takes place in the 40's because the characters are directly involved in World War II and a plot to assassinate Hitler. So how does the setting serve this game?  As far as I can tell, it's so that the main character (William Carter) can look dapper and wear a hat while he shoots aliens. And he doesn't even wear that hat past the first couple levels.

I want to point this out because this is where the minor problems that become big problems immediately become evident. This game doesn't know what to give the audience; it's just some random ideas flung out there. Does this game feel like an XCOM game? No. Does it emphasize the nostalgia of the 60's or use this time period to influence the path of the story? No. Going further, I argue that it doesn't know many other important elements of its story. Is this game supposed to be serious or silly? I would say serious because everyone's so damn somber and angry the whole time and no one seems to be enjoying a war with "little green men." But then the music teeters on becoming a fun, brassy old timey serial romp as you charge into battle with your Ghostbusters backpack while being dropped off by a black pilot that no one even mentions is black. Yeah. Wouldn't that be kind of a big deal in 1962? Deliberately avoiding this kind of heavy subject seems like something that belongs in a more light-hearted game.

And then there's the ending. I won't give any spoilers, but it goes from being a simple enough story of repelling an alien invasion into a story rife with "video game nonsense." You know what I mean? Needless, silly plot twists that just leave the audience confused. My advice to video game writers is to just make a simple, effective story. If you try too hard to defy our expectations, you end up denying us things we WANT. That's the thing about expectations; sometimes they reflect what we want from a story rather than causing us to groan about you being cliche.

All in all I'd rate this story as "tolerable." But what we all wanted was a light-hearted adventure with nostalgic silliness! Have Carter say things like, "Listen here, toots. Don't you worry your pretty little head about those little green men. I'm gonna go up to their leader and belt him right in the kisser. You'll see." And then he tips his hat as he makes his way to the inter-galactic bar brawl while some fun and memorable music accents the action. I found myself humming things like the theme to The Naked Gun and Cowboy Bebop as I wished the game would just stop having a stick up its rear and be FUN already. I say all these things because I think Carter is pretty cool! The artists managed to capture a face that's reminiscent of actors like Clint Eastwood, Peter Fonda, or maybe even Humphrey Bogart or something... I don't know. And his voice was over-the-top as the "older, grizzled war veteran," but that makes it all the better in a more light-hearted story. He doesn't have to express a full range of emotions, he just needs to be cool.

Men just don't look like this anymore.

Completely ignoring the setting, the gameplay works great. While your teammates are complete idiots (as is unfortunately the case in many squad-based games) you can exercise a decent level of specific control over them. This is amplified by the fact that many of their abilities don't require line of sight. That helped massively while playing on the hardest difficulty as I was able to run clear away from the battlefield and throw abilities from behind an entire mountain so I could safely pick things off one by one. I did this more often than I liked since the game features a dreaded backwards difficulty curve. On lower difficulties, though, that should be lessened. Along with the ability to actually move around from cover to cover more often. Although that is still ill-advised and requires a defensive cooldowns to be blown. Personally I feel that I always find myself locked down in the same spot for too long in these games and The Bureau inflicts that problem big time. But when you get used to strangling the AI and abusing it to get what you want, the end result is often rewardingly tactical.

Despite my enjoyment of the combat, I believe this might be the highest point of warning to consumers. You see, my time with the Mass Effect series has shown me something. And that's that most players are too lazy to use the tactical features. Watch any gameplay video of this game (or Mass Effect or Dragon Age) and you'll see many people avoiding using the ability wheel, usually using it begrudgingly. I'd wager I spend well over 75% of my time issuing orders around. That other 25% is expending only a few rounds. If that sounds unpleasant, then you likely won't play the game as it was meant to be and you won't get the appeal.

Bringing up this wheel gives you so much more!

Conclusion:

Not a game for XCOM fans or people nostalgic for decades past. It's really just a tactical shooter with some RPG elements (especially lots of talking). Even the RPG elements are shallow due to oversimplified classes and conversations with choices that generally don't affect anything. The ending is stupid, too. Maybe this is best suited for achievement hunters since it's not too difficult to get 34/34 awards in a single ~18 hour playthrough. Although I did miss one due to a possible bug ("Spring Cleaning").

Metro: Last Light

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: First Person Shooter; Sub-genre: Stealth

ESRB: M (profanity, machine gun violence and arbitrary female nudity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 24?/??

Developer: 4A Games

Wiki page

I suppose this was bound to happen eventually. For the first time I am attempting to review a game that I played but did not play completely to the end. Looking at a walkthrough on Gamefaqs.com, I've determined that I've gotten about halfway through it. So why am I still reviewing it? Well, it took a significant chunk of my time away from me. So I'm writing a review, dammit. But why did I stop playing it? It's simple: it's booooooooooooring. 

Oh, boy! Nothingness!

I put it on a harder difficulty and that did little to make the game a challenge (there's another difficulty you can add called "Ranger Mode" but that is only available as a pre-order bonus or paid DLC). Perhaps if I played the game as the achievements screen wanted me to by using all stealth and not killing anyone I would have had a challenge. But considering the lack of features in stealth (your best weapons are waiting, melee punching, and blinding night vision) and the fact that that is a boring way to play a game that gives you a whole bunch of guns, consumables, and ways to customize said guns I don't see why I would want to. The problem with both the stealth and the gunplay is that they exist in these limiting levels and they step on each other's toes. The game takes place in an underground subway thing so most of your time is spent in incredibly cramped, dark hallways. The enemies are bored out of their minds staring at the black walls so there's no extra fun things to watch while you wait and survey the land. A game like Hitman: Blood Money makes waiting interesting because the NPC's have THINGS TO DO so it's fun to see what their lives entail. Also, in that game and not this one, the levels are big and open with all kinds of paths to explore. Another stealth-heavy game, The Last of Us, makes stealth interesting through use of tension. Here, it doesn't matter if you fail because you have a selection of awesome guns with unending ammo; at any point you can just blast everyone in sight. And because of all the stealth mechanics in place the enemies are so much easier to defeat using conventional methods.

There are some levels that take place topside, out of the subway, but they are shorter. You have to manage your gas mask filters and can run out of air if you waste too much time. So instead of allowing me to explore this beautifully tragic world I'm forced to hurry along and finish the level. The ONE thing I kept wanting to do in this game was explore. This game does NOT want you to explore. Even if you find an area to be a little more open, it is very minorly so and only rewards you with some gas mask filters to make up for lost time (that's if you are lucky).

Look out, Spiders! Next you might have to fight a Giant Rat!

If this game has a strong point, it is the story. Not that I cared about what was going on for a single second, but this world has been carefully crafted. For some reason the player character doesn't speak. That wouldn't be so strange if not for the fact that he narrates the opening of the game and between each level. Is he just socially awkward or something? Luckily, everyone in the world is rather used to dealing with psychotic mutes and is able to maintain a one-way conversation as though that's a commonplace practice. Putting that aside as best I can, it's hard to connect with this game. I tend to blame myself for this one as this setting is too familiar for me. A setting is generally much more emphasized in a video game than any other media because the player is meant to form his or her own feelings and opinions on it rather than view those things occurring to the characters in the story. I've seen this stuff before, so I just don't care.

So the world was destroyed by nuclear war yet, somehow, Nazi's are back?

Conclusion:

A competently put-together game. It has no flaws other than my expectations for something more. It should probably be given three stars, but because I was so unbelievably bored it became a one star. I compromised and gave it two.

Deadpool

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Beat-'em-up; Sub-genre: Third Person Shooter

ESRB: M (excessive uncensored profanity and sexual language, excessive blood)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 16/8

Developer: High Moon Studios

Wiki page

Wade breaks the fourth wall by imitating how the player feels playing this game.

For the first time I feel the need to explain my conclusion right at the beginning. I can get into details below, but let's get this straight now: this is a one star game. The second star I had to give because the writing captures so much of what this comic book character is about. Even if you don't give a crap about the Marvel character, this is one of the strangest and most insane games I've played. Not in the sense of acid trip games that try to bend your mind (many Indie and Japanese games try to accomplish this), though. It tries so hard to illustrate how broken and self-absorbed Deadpool's (Wade Wilson) crazy mind sees things that it's never really clear what is going on. Yeah, it's played off as a joke that Deadpool doesn't care about the plot... constantly. But it becomes a curiosity trying to figure out what's on screen versus what is actually supposed to be happening in the world around him. This is particularly noticeable when completely and unnecessarily impossible things happen- like when Deadpool's dog, Shuggems, inexplicably makes his way to Genosha from the other side of the globe- and when other heroes do things out of character. Also, at some point Wade is talking to Death herself and Cable asks him, "Who are you talking to?" There are any number of things to pull the player in, especially with such a good performance on the part of the actor playing the titular character, and many of you who aren't humorless robots like myself will enjoy how funny this game supposedly is (I did still get a couple laughs out of it).

Humor in video games: hit the player in the face with it.

Unfortunately this is a video game. And it's not going for high art like Journey. So that means people gotta enjoy pushing buttons. High Moon went out of their way to throw a lot of STUFF for the player to use in combat. I can see how they wanted Deadpool to fight like Batman (not the character, the game) by putting a lot of focus on gadgets and counters. But it has none of the polish or brilliant decision-making of the Arkham games. Swapping weapons and "throwables" is awkward and not explained through the UI (user interface), often causing me to take a lap around the cycle before finding the thing I want. Then there's the unnecessary combos. Oh, joy. So many combos I'll never use. Always helpful. Good use of your animation department, having them do that instead of focusing on making everything cleanly flow and randomly change. Nevermind the nitty gritty, the counter system falls short in big, obvious ways. Since dodging and countering are the same button, there will be tons of times that Deadpool will stop to counter someone when you are trying to get the hell out of danger. And I can tell they tried to code it so that other enemies will not attack during a successful counter, thus making an attempt at the instantly choreographic feel that the timing of the Arkham games have. But High Moon didn't figure out all the prioritizing and invincibility frames that Rocksteady did. Topping it off are the Momentum bar moves (like "Musou" or super moves). The button combinations to use them are horribly difficult to spit out in a clutch situation (LB+A or LB+B etc.) and the start up and ending frames combined with the lack of directional movement cause endless, frustrating misses. To sum it up, the beat-'em-up portion of the game is nothing special. It tries, but not hard enough.

What really steps on the toes of the combat is the level design. I'm convinced that the levels in this game are somehow stock levels. You know, like stock photos or clip art? I say this because Deadpool stumbles on everything and has no room to breathe! Not only that, but they are all such boring set pieces: a sewer, ruins, an office building, a prison, and floating rocks. That doesn't go hand-in-hand with fantastical powers and insane, reality warping, goofy nonsense.

You know what else mucks up the combat? The third person shooter aspects. The problem with combining these genres is that it means one of two things: guns will be way more useful and the player will strive to use them as much as possible (like Space Marine) or the guns will simply be a means of extending your combo (like Bayonetta). The former turns the beat-'em-up parts into a waste of time, and the latter makes guns into nothing more than a fancy light show. Deadpool... somehow causes both grievances. At least on the harder difficulties, since things have so many more hit points. All guns save for the laser guns are ineffective in one way or more. And only the laser guns can hit things at long range reliably. Keep in mind that there are no consumables or super moves to fight things at these harsh distances either. And for some strange reason Deadpool seems to have a lead allergy. Yeah, a guy who reportedly "can't die" is easily killed by a simple pistol. Moreover, for a guy who actually has a significant level of regenerative healing power, it takes him a hell of a long time to get his health back. Is that supposed to be another joke? That his regeneration is WORSE than every other game that overuses that feature? Topping all this off is the enemy AI. My word they are spazzy! They dart, lunge, spin around, and just do whatever they want all while hipfiring with 100% accuracy. Deadpool has an aim assist feature to deal with this. The best way to describe how that works is to simply say that it doesn't.

Another thing that I feel is some kinda running joke are the checkpoints. They are improperly placed as they force you to rewatch cutscenes because you died on an obviously difficult part of the game. And despite having the ability to put as many checkpoints as they want during a simple section of walking, they never give the player that leniency during a trying section of platforming or an overlong, multi-wave battle with a horde of enemies. Furthermore, items on the ground respawn from previous checkpoints. Yeah! So any time you are able to backtrack to an earlier checkpoint (one level has several checkpoints all within the same little area) you can take a lap around and pick it all up again.

I still remember Deadpool just being a loudmouth. I miss him not being so overplayed.
I don't miss Rob Liefield's artwork, though.

Conclusion:

For what it's worth, it's a game that tries hard to please both comics fans (specifically of Deadpool's comics) and gamers alike. As far as I know, it just got hit with the "licensed game" bug and couldn't fight it all the way. Hell. Deadpool complains about the budget constantly during the game. Probably had budget issues, yo.

Fuse

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Third Person Cover Shooter; Sub-genre: Forced Co-op

ESRB: M (cartoony blood and profanity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 12/8

Developer: Insomniac Games

Wiki page

I was hoping this would at least be a 2 out of 3 stars. And there are a lot of things that could have been done that could have made it such. Maybe it could have even been three stars. Sometimes the little things can make all the difference. This isn't a bad game, really. It just doesn't provide players with what we really want by missing too many notes. There are also BIG misses, too, so I'm not just dinging them purely from being nit-picky.

Calling your game "Fuse" is a pretty big mistake, too.

You almost called it "Overstrike." Who decided to change that? Can I have his/her job?

I can't really comment on the story other than to say it gets in the way. I know I've been singing the praises of The Last of Us and Mass Effect for having such immersive stories, but this is a co-op game. And, really, co-op games need as little story as possible. Video games present an interesting challenge to writers in that their time to explain and talk about things is generally very limited. The reason being is that it's a GAME. Ergo, every second a player spends not playing is frustrating. And this effect becomes heightened exponentially for every player added to the mix. Look at a game like Left 4 Dead as a good example: the story is pretty much explained just by the premise and setting while the ambient chatter of the characters is all you get for personality and motives. Now look at Fuse: uninteractive cutscenes that are awkwardly long and don't make a whole lot of sense; not at first glance (mine was "so... we're mercenaries or something?") and not in the story telling itself. When I beat the last boss with my co-op buddy, we both had no idea who he was, what his motives were, or what relation any of us had to him. He said something about bringing peace through terrifying nuclear war, but that's it. It's hard to pay attention, too, in a co-op situation. People crack jokes, walk around and get snacks... it's not the most suitable to immersive gaming.

Stopping to climb walls like Prince of Persia is also distracting.

I've said co-op a lot. If you haven't guessed, this is the type of game that gives you crappy AI controlled teammates that you're forced to have with you at all times if you don't have three other people to play with. You know, Insomniac, I commend you trying so hard to make co-op a thing again. But why alienate solo players? You decided to just leave yourself open to the inevitable complaints of how dumb the AI is. Why? You're only shooting yourself in the foot. Here are some ways you can make the non-player characters less annoying:

1. Make them invincible.

2. Give them unlimited ammo (already present?)

3. Make them care about the damn objectives; either making them able to do them or understand how to help the player do them.

4. Make them prioritize reviving the player above all else.

5. Make them understand the rules of the game, for crying out loud!

That number five one? One of the characters is a healer. I seriously got healed by her a total of one time during the campaign. Sure, we didn't figure out that we needed to spend her skill points for her for a while, but that still was a good several hours that she never did it when she could have. And why doesn't she just get some default skillset when I don't actively control her? Who would want to play a healer just to heal non-player characters?

I haven't even gotten to the actual gameplay yet. The enemies are too unvaried and don't have unique enough designs. Those that do have unique designs use robotics that feel out of place and unexplained (this may be due to the fact that the game got a redesign at some point during its development since it was originally called "Overstrike"). Boss characters have a stupid amount of health with little feedback on what is effective against them. I understand shooting their fuel tanks, but what about xeno-whatever guns and using their combo effects? And the characters all have virtually the same talent tree! Why have four completely different classes play so similar? And why is Dalton (the meathead) the ONLY one with a weapon fully committed to being his class (that being "shield guy")? I think Kimble as a sniper/chain lightning(?) guy is cool. But Izzy's assault rifle sucks. It's supposed to be for crowd control, but the stun takes so many hits to trigger that a lot of times you can simply just kill whoever you are trying to stun. And Naya can turn invisible. That is NOT helpful in a game so oriented around teamwork. What's funny is that the same ability is incredibly useful in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer. But that's because there are objectives that it can be used to achieve while the group survives and kites bad guys. 

This all lends the game the feel of being an overlong demo. There are clearly some ideas at play, but the good ones are few before more half-hearted ones take place for everything else.

Look how buff Dalton is. This in no way affects his abilities compared to the others!

There is a single multiplayer game mode aside from the main campaign: Echelon. A strange name for what we all know as "horde mode." Funny enough, this is all I really could want from a game like this. The execution doesn't offer as much content as Mass Effect 3's, but the little improvements this game does have give it some strength. ME3's multiplayer is an entirely slapped together affair. And its clunky controls really drag it down. So one big strength for Fuse is that it looks and feels a lot cleaner. The buttons are much better (a dedicated cover button!) and the animations are smoother; characters can enter cover from any direction easier and don't have crappy hiccups like having their reload animations reset while sliding to a wall. But Fuse has the opposite problem: boring enemy design, less classes with less depth, less maps (all borrowed from single player, too), and spawning and objectives are a little bit sloppier (I've had a weapon crate spawn so far away with so many enemies on it that there was no way to even touch it before it was destroyed!).

More confounding is the matchmaking system. The game REQUIRES there be one player for each character. So if you really want to play as, say, Dalton? Hope you're willing to wait longer to find a game where a Dalton spot is open. It's also strange that a failed map will reload with the same four people, but a successful map will kick all four people separately back to the matchmaker. That's backwards! I don't want to keep playing with losers, I want to keep playing with winners!

Playing games with people who aren't stoned or drunk is actually really damn fun, believe it or not!

Conclusion:

If you're really hungry for a co-op game, you will enjoy this purely for being a co-op game. Don't plan on playing split-screen, though, since the screen is split the wrong way: vertically!

Additional notes on split-screen:

In my experience with XBox live, the "guest" player's progress never gets saved. So I used a second account for the second player. Only one of the two accounts is a "gold" account, so that meant we had to play in offline mode; we were stuck with computer controlled teammates. Cold dog!

Journey

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Artsy; Sub-genre: Platformer

ESRB: E10 (I honestly don't know what makes it above an E)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): Not applicable/2

Developer: Thatgamecompany

Wiki page

I guess I stopped believin', Journey, because I really didn't find you to be that impressive. You are very pretty and have nice sand and snow effects for an Indie game, but your simple visual story was meaningless and you don't offer enough gameplay interactivity for me to consider you a game. I'm sorry if I'm rude, I'm merely going to be as short with you as you were with me.

Journey is about finding your way to Tuna Mountain... a mountain which does not exist.

There is no story. No emotion, personality, or conflict. No more so than a painting of a pretty landscape. Yes, you can take a lot of meaning from paintings... especially when a bunch of them comprise a two hour game. But that's not enough to call it a "story." The main character, who I assume is named Steve Perry, just walks towards a mountain. Normally I don't give spoilers, but that's literally the entire story. I didn't find an emotional connection because no connection was offered. What's more, despite being such a simple story it still managed to squeeze in a Deus Ex Machina. How deep and meaningful.

"Why are there now two of me? Is this a new power?" -my reaction to multiplayer

I daresay there's even less gameplay to be offered than story. Steve Perry is capable of really high, floating jumps and he can chirp loudly. The former is used for "duh video games" and the latter as his only means of interacting with everything. The jump is flowing and well-tuned and has the intriguing limitation of needing a power gauge to use it. But this is never developed into a complex mechanic. Neither is chirping. Ultimately, Steve spends the majority of his time just moving forward.

I must have forgotten that this game had multiplayer, because it surprised the hell out of me when it happened. Randomly in the middle of my game I noticed another hooded figure (with no gamer tag, chat, or messages indicating someone had joined), who I assumed was named Neal Schon. Admittedly, this was the highlight of my game but for the wrong reasons. I was watching Neal's movements, confounded by how human-like this sudden NPC was acting. Then while we were making our way up a freezing, snowy mountain he became irritated with my constant chirping. So he jumped off a cliff and died forever. I was saddened by this turn of events, and it wasn't until the end credits that the game told me that I was indeed joined by another player. "Neal," I thought, "You don't have the patience to walk forward for two hours? You must suck at video games."

This game has none of their hits on it!

Conclusion:

I'm not much of an artsy guy. I'll admit that. But this game just made me bored. I was actually glad it was so short! I'll give them credit for trying hard and doing something unusual, but I am not as quick to offer my enthusiasm as everyone else seems to be. And hey! I played Braid and loved it despite it's ridiculous pretentiousness. Why? Because it was FUN.

And if you want a PS3 game with pretty landscapes that makes you cry, try The Last of Us. THAT is quite a journey. Whew!

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: First Person Shooter

ESRB: M (Cartoony blood splatter, profanity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 8/4

Developer: Techland

Wiki page

Another DLC stand-alone game from an established franchise like Farcry 3: Blood Dragon. I'm not entirely sure what this trend is, but I kind of like it. I'm worried that it means big companies are trying to invade the sales space of Indie games, but they're still quite nice. So far, each has had a $15 price tag on day one. Now these games are much smaller than the "legit" entries of the franchise, but considering the length of them they are a deal and a half (at least in terms of "gameplay hours," which gamers often make more important than we should). I find myself hoping a franchise I like- say, Mass Effect- would try it out as well. Not every game needs to be some $60 giant budgeted affair with a ridiculously long development time. And I don't want to always dedicate so much time to a game. There's nothing wrong with a quickie, yo.

Oh yeah! Wait, this game features like one cutscene total worth of female. What is this ad for?

The story of this game is basically the draw of it. When someone wants a cowboy game, they want to enjoy a good cowboy setting with lots of cowboy cowboy'ing. It functions well, for the most part. Nothing that astounds me or is too immersive. Just a fun romp of a tall tale from a drunken guy with a southern accent. I will complain that the music wanders around in genres, making me wonder if it's just some leftovers from other games. I know this isn't something that is generally worth noting, but in this case it becomes downright distracting to enjoying the setting. The cutscenes and levels follow a simplified format, but it's well suited to this lower-budget attraction. The ending does wrap the game up well, but it does something that offends many: a binary choice is given with no precedent to it. Quite precisely, the game just pauses and asks you to either spare the final bad guy or kill him (in a rather awkward menu, I might add). I chose to spare him, which made no sense. Especially considering the crazy amounts of people Silas (the player character) kills during the story to find him. I'd have preferred there be no choice at the end at all, but Techland probably wanted to give us a reason to play through the game a second time for more of those precious gameplay hours.

Bullet time! Everyone's favorite!

A bit ago I reviewed Max Payne 3 and shot it down for relying too much on bullet time. I will admit that being able to slow time to make perfect head shots is still fun, it definitely works better in a shorter game. It also helps that this game has a mini-leveling system with skills. Once you get to a high level, you can do some ridiculous crap like create infinite bullet time combos (so long as the enemies come at you fast enough). But this is where the game is showing its "not terrible but not great" aspects. Like a realistic shooter, you spend the entire game using the same guns to shoot the same kind of enemies over and over. Which is weird because this is a game about tall tales from the west at their tallest. Why not throw some Frankensteins or Gundams at us? I don't know. You do get to fight ghosts, but they are the same as regular people. There are boss fights and duels, but neither of those are ever interesting. I found myself dreading them and being happy when they were over.

They even manage to squeeze in a turret section here and there. Really?

Conclusion:

A fun, cheap vignette. But not strong enough in any category to feel vital for any kind of gamer.

Defiance

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: MMO; Sub-genre: Third Person Shooter, RPG

ESRB: M (Blood splatter from machine guns, but mostly profanity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): n/a

Developer: Trion Worlds

Wiki page

This is an ambitious undertaking. A video game and TV series launched simultaneously? The video game is an MMO? The MMO is an action shooter? And they're backed by small potatoes? Man. Some of the largest games in the world have difficulty with launching on multiple platforms at once. How did these guys do it all? We all assumed it would just be a broken, unplayable train wreck. To our delighted surprise, this game actually works. And it works far better than I expected it to. That still doesn't make it a good game, though.

The ambition caught my attention. But you have to do a good job to keep my attention.

A fair assumption would be that the shooter controls wouldn't translate out. MMO's are known to involve things like targeting and hit chance, while shooters only go off manual aim. Not only that, but latency is a constant issue in an MMO. Most of them skate away with it because the game design doesn't require the pinpoint precision of a tense action game. Somehow the shooting in this game is almost spot on despite the reliance on servers and the loads they bear. I noticed some discrepancies here and there when it came to landing shots- sometimes generous, sometimes denied- but mostly these issues I could attribute to having the aim assist turned on. Normally I turn those off, but I figured, "It's an MMO!" I regret that. If you're a shooter fan, turn it off. The biggest problem I ran into were choppy framerates in high traffic fights. But I was playing on XBox 360, just to test the game's mettle further! And... also because I'm very comfy with the XBox's controls. Which leads me to another compliment: the game is stupidly easy to get into. Yeah! It just uses your XBox Live sign in. Creating an account for the game is optional! And even that process takes about two less steps than I thought it would. Astounding, since even the most technologically advanced studios make this process as irritating as possible. 

If only the whole game was this intelligent. For all these pluses, the game boils down to being an MMO grind in no time flat. Sure, there's plenty of questing and even a good helping of cutscenes with recorded dialogue. But every quest is so similar: go click on three things, waves of guys attack you at each step. Next quest? Go click on four things, waves of guys attack you at each step. And every other activity is approached the same way. Like Arkfalls. Holy crap, those are constant! A big rock falls out of the sky and you fight waves of guys to claim it. The enemy design almost seemed competent, being that you do have to use different tactics to fight hellbugs than humanoids. But too quickly a pattern is noticed. Either you run in circles for days or you are hiding in cover and abusing long range weapons. 

The classless system feels unique at first. But it is problematic in important ways. You get a "skill point" for each "level" you earn. And each perk can have three points sunk into it. But you have to equip each perk into a perk slot; unequipped perks do nothing. Perk slots unlock very slowly, and many perks have to be acquired to unlock farther perks. The end result is that you go many, MANY levels where you spend points that do absolutely nothing to your character. And even when you are spending points on something you want, you probably can't equip the perk you just got yet. The idea is that you can eventually level so much that you can buy every skill you want for several different builds of character because the game allows you to swap between different builds at the character screen. An interesting idea, but not a good one. This makes alternate characters pointless, renders each individual build less deep, and only benefits people who want multiple builds while the more single-minded player (which I believe is the majority of people) gets less out of his/her character.

One last thing: there are no auction houses, no banks, and no major cities. MMO's are about community, and the lack of these things really hinder the player base from becoming that.

It just isn't an MMO if you can't idle around on an epic mount around hundreds of other players.

Here's a question, Defiance: do I HAVE to watch the TV show? Because I don't know what in the flying frick is going on! With zero introduction, my character got in a plane crash and was then told to go explore. Something called an EGO, which is half Cortana from Halo and half Angel from Borderlands (and all Navi from Ocarina of Time), continually tells you what to do. Whether its basic gameplay (things like telling you to defend yourself and to "keep doing what you're doing") or pointing out what the icons on the User Interface mean, it's just too blatant. And it never stops, no matter what your level is. It seems like a minor thing, since it's basically like having a Quest Helper add-on in World of Warcraft. But this is 100% of the story, man. This dumb AI acting like some oddly emotional "emotionless" girl and telling you what to do and think. Your character can't talk, so this is the only thing you get to listen to after quest NPC's do their little dance.

I tried looking through the knowledge index to no avail. But even then, why should I? Clever writers would make a world I can understand just by experiencing it. And the setting they've made is no help at all. It's supposed to be Earth. The city of Defiance (which the game oddly does NOT take place in, it takes place in San Francisco) is actually Saint Louis only renamed after some battle or something. That's all I know and that's from some extracurricular reading. I have no clue what happened to the Earth, how bad the damage was, why there are all these different kinds of aliens and mutants, where this Ark came from, WHY the Ark is important, and on and on. Unfortunately it makes me understand why things like a zombie apocalypse are a popular setting: people understand that concept already. Whatever the hell is going on here needs an entire 2 hour movie to explain, if not more. And it gives us nothing. Maybe if I watched the show religiously and read the Wikia AND read every little thing I found in the game I would eventually piece it all together. But... MAN. That is a lot of work just to be able to understand the basic setting, nevermind all the other details!

None of this even matters, though, because the characters and dialogue are so bad that I can assume everything is just random cliches and ideas hobbled together. The story of the "main" missions and the "episode" missions both involved a maguffin. Each one could fit in the palm of your hand. Literally, one story featured an item that looked like a Christmas Tree-shaped ornament and the other was an ash tray. And each mission just involved trying to find the damn thing with non-stop steps to get to it. Intermixed with this are the stories of the NPC's you are helping, which are completely lazy and nonsensical. For example, I ran a quest where I met some genius mechanic. After enlisting her help, her assistant gets kidnapped off-camera by a man who also happens to be the same person who killed the mechanic's father. Once this villain is killed, she almost verbatim gives a speech about how revenge doesn't make her feel any better that you can probably quote before seeing it. Everything comes out as some sloppy cut-and-paste from everything else you've ever seen with some awful acting behind it. In particular, the Nolan character (who seems to be some kind of main character in the show) couldn't be bothered with putting inflection in any of his lines.

Keep shooting. That's the plan. No, I'm not a robot.

I did try the multiplayer briefly. 

I did all but one of the co-op maps (I already decided to stop playing by the time I unlocked the last one). Those were functional, at least they were congruent with the single-player experience and met my expectations for what a group would be like. My biggest complaint on those was that I didn't see a point to doing them. In MMO's, generally the group activities are the most rewarding. While I can appreciate doing something just for fun, that doesn't work in an MMO. The reason being is that people will stop doing it if it distracts them from important grinding. 

The PvP was equally as messy as I expected it to be, but also as functional as the rest of the game. While everything seemed to work, there are only four maps total: two deathmatch, one where you hold capture points, and one that was labeled 64 vs. 64 that I couldn't fathom being anything less than a choppy nightmare when played on console. The capture points one had lost me after only two games. I think maybe people who play Battlefield could get into it, but being an item-based game might still ruin it. It's far too large, open and hectic to become any kind of strategic battle of wits. And the team deathmatch is just victim to less-than-great map design; the one that supports more players is too confined and both maps have strange spawning habits. Regardless, the game is "leveless." Players' level of power is displayed as an "EGO rating." Because of this, PvP matches will feature everyone from 1 rating to 5 million rating (or whatever the cap is). 

Even though the game goes to great lengths to normalize items and talents, you are still subject to playing with extremely powerful players at every turn. The amount of knowledge and careful character crafting someone can do by the time they reach a rating of 2000 or so makes them ridiculously more powerful than a newbie. This normalization affects a great deal of the game, since MMO's are all about progressing your character, and it is almost completely ineffective. What a waste!

Blur: useless in PvE, godlike in PvP.

Conclusion:

As an MMO, this game offers none of the things MMO players want other than an infinite grind and mostly functional gameplay. As an action shooter, it only offers a mountain of MMO features that slow you down for days/weeks/months just to get to lazy and 100% repetitive sequences. An interesting game to talk about, but that's it. But hey: no subscription fee!

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Side Scrolling Platformer

ESRB: K-A (This is now an E rating)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 10/4

Developer: Nintendo

Wiki page

I talk about this game frequently. While I'm definitely not the type who thinks video games were better "back then" than now, this is one of the ones I find is worthy of the nostalgia. I've played it through a few times, each time maybe 5 or more years apart, and it still holds up. This might even be considered a game that helped push us to where games are now; easier but with more content and shinies to make up the gameplay hours. Although it isn't THAT easy. Either that or I'm somehow getting worse at this game. I made liberal use of my emulator's freeze state capability. By the way, I would have played this on Wii's Virtual Console but apparently Nintendo doesn't want my money because they never put it there.

I could still make this jump. But... wow, man. Platforming!

While this is a platformer, much of the game doesn't simply revolve around managing jump arcs from place to place. There's considerably less death pits than previous games as this one does not rely wholly on that one concept. Furthermore, not everything is to be jumped on. Unlike earlier Mario games where Mario has to find a flower or a leaf or something to be able to do anything interesting, Yoshi has a whole arsenal available to him from level one. He can eat things, throw eggs, butt stomp, and he also has other power-ups that afford him zany godlike qualities. For example, he can MORPH into a freaking helicopter! Arguably, these transformations make no sense but- back then- these things were a technological wonder. And when has Mario ever made sense? One of the best things about Super Mario World was the introduction of Yoshi. This game throws him into the spotlight and never feels forced or repetitive. Almost every single level has something new for the player, and the difficulty curve- while slow- peaks neatly towards the end. The boss fights are generally too easy, but level to level everything just looks and feels so well designed.

This fight reminds me of Super Mario Galaxy. A lot of this game is the foundation for later stuff.

With older games, it's not necessary to comment on the story. But this game actually has a little bit of one! Or... maybe it has as much as others, it just has room on the cartridge for some text screens. One at the beginning and one at the end. A wizard guy yells at you from time to time, and because of this and the clear setting (an island full of Yoshi's, duh) it feels more like a proper work of fiction rather than some insane acid trip. But it is based on a series of games that look like acid trips, so some of that is inescapable.

Pre-rendered CG stork looking like the cover of a Rush album. Oh yeah.

Conclusion:

If you've got an SNES emulator and are looking for a new game to try and you haven't played this, this should DEFINITELY be on your list. If you're a PC gamer and you don't have any emulators: why are you a PC gamer? C'mon, man. Get an emulator!

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Beat-'em-up; Sub-genre: Stealth

ESRB: M (dismemberment and gore, profanity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 8/4

Developer: Platinum Games

Wiki page

Last week I ascended the lofty heights of The Last of Us only to be treated to that much higher a fall when I played this game. Looking back on this and considering other reviews on it, I do wonder if I was too harsh. But then I think about the fact that this game caused me so much pain that I wanted to quit on several occasions and was happy to be RID of it when it ended. Also, I kept a list of all the design choices I disagreed with while playing. Within a few minutes of starting this game up, I knew I was going to need to do so. I don't think I even need to go that far, but I'll provide my list at the bottom anyway just for fun. I should point out that I've never played any of the Metal Gear games. Crazy, I know. But I'm not that big on stealth (and this isn't a stealth game, so I figured I'd try it).

Note this game did not come out for Wii, but it sports a decidedly Wii-like main feature.

I really feel like I don't even need to justify much. One design decision immediately gets in your face and ruins the entire game: blocking. To block, you press towards the enemy and attack. Because Raiden, the main character, fights with a sword, most of the time this means he'll interpret your attempt to block by moving forward and attacking. Furthermore, because Raiden fights with a melee weapon, this means you'll ALWAYS be pressing toward the enemy and attacking. This is because that is the entire point of the game. The fact that they made one command perform completely adverse moves is completely beyond any kind of logic. AND Raiden doesn't clash swords when you do it either. He just holds his sword up like he's waiting for the blow to come to him. It makes no sense. I seriously feel like ending the article right here on just how mind-blowingly stupid this concept is. You might be saying, "Well, every button is already assigned. There's no more room." Oh yeah? How about B? B is used to perform Zandatsu while in Sword Mode and to perform Ninja Kills in stealth. These are two modes that are entirely separate from normal combat. It works perfectly to just press B to do this. Duh! Of course you don't have to do that, Platinum Games, you could have reworked the controls to be less stupid in general. Another solution would be to program the camera to be less stupid (like in the Batman: Arkham games) and then remove the lock-on button. The lock-on button isn't useful most of the time and when it is, it's only marginally better than the alternative of never knowing where your lightning-fast enemies have run off to. This paragraph is getting too big, so I'll just summarize by saying that this game brings nothing good to the beat-'em-up genre (unlike the Batman: Arkham games, which everyone should copy rather than crap something like this out) and the new ideas it does bring (this crappy block and Sword Mode) are not interesting to begin with and only serve to make the game frustrating.

The combat feels more like THIS Batman iteration. That feeling being PURE HATRED.

Having not played any of the previous games, I am at a large loss when talking about the story. I saw some of Metal Gear Solid 4's cutscenes, and that seemed like some kind of incomprehensible acid trip so I didn't bother to look further. No worries, though, this game is designed for newbies to be able to pick up! What they did for us was they injected a ton of exposition and awkward inhuman dialogue where the characters discuss things they already know very well. Like Raiden will sometimes discuss with Kevin how Private Military Companies are bad, and then Kevin will retort that the PMC they are in is more morally responsible. To which Raiden will agree, being that's why he joined in the first place. Then there's discussions of current and past events where each person is forced to say, "Yeah, I know that." It's unfortunate that there's so much information to dole out, but really this game is so simple it's just unnecessary. Luckily the player is saved from hours of dialogue because the NPC's are all tucked away in a menu that never needs to be looked at. I tried talking to them, but I just got bored from these weird discussions that often involved a ton of techno-babble (many of the discussions are PURELY about techno-babble). Also... the writing is very Japanese. I just have to say that, man. Despite all this, the story (eventually) was what kept me chugging through the terrible combat. There's even one scene in particular I found philosophically deep and touching. And then there's this part where Doktor informs Raiden that Mistral's breasts are not fake. That conversation feels more appropriate for a game about chopping up robots while heavy metal music blasts into your ears. So the tone is... genuinely video game-y. It's so something that would only happen in a (Japanese) video game that there's no other way to describe it. Without getting into spoilers, the last boss is some kind of parody of how ridiculous this game is. At least, I think he is. I don't know how else to interpret the tone of this game.

I think Mistral is leftover from Platinum Games' Bayonetta.

The one additional feature this game has are VR missions. They are bonus challenges that earn you extra experience that for some reason can only be played during the campaign mode (an added dumbness to this is that starting a VR mission sends you back to your most recent checkpoint in the campaign). Every mission involves the same combat and stealth as in the campaign only with more fighting and less level design and story. These help further illustrate how weak both of those areas are in the game, so I do not find them a worthwhile addition. I actually did not complete all of them because they are unlocked with hidden collectables. You know, I try to play each game thoroughly but this game apparently didn't want me to. So I didn't. I only played like half of 'em. They pissed me off anyway, screw 'em.

Conclusion:

I don't know who this game is for. It's nothing like the other Metal Gear games and it's not even the same developer. The hack and slash elements are awful and the story is too dense for newbies. I can only say that by itself this game is not worth the frustration.

Itemized Whining!

1. Game is instantly frustrating

2. Sword Mode is disorienting every time. Have to press forward to get near enemies but forward becomes "look up" once entered. This means you look up when entering Sword Mode.

3. Range of sword attacks is unforgiving. And yet an early cut scene shows Raiden slicing things a mile away from him.

4. Block move is same button as attack. This is IDIOTIC.

5. Raiden is WAY more powerful in cut scenes than in-game. Also, Raiden is capable of much more interesting things while in cut scenes that would have made amazing gameplay if he could ever call on them in combat at will.

6. Difficulty of challenges makes no sense. Challenge 4 simply involves running forward.

7. Raiden stops in place when he attacks while running over things with Ninja Run.

8. Raiden cannot cleanly run through things while slashing them (IE a gate). This makes sequences where Raiden has to run through gates oddly clumsy because he gets stuck on the gate.

9. "Zandatsu" is not an english word. Also, the prompt for the player to do so at an opportune moment is in Japanese letters. This is incomprehensible AND is vital to playing the game correctly.

10. The ability to do the better block by waiting longer is never explained.

11. Slicing people apart is absolutely NOT precise at all. It is entirely random at times when you slice people apart in the ways you want, unless you slowly spend all your time lining up a single hit.

12. X and Y can be used during sword mode. This is never offered to the player.

13. Enemies cannot be figured out naturally. The best way to understand an enemy is to find them in a VR mission and fight them over and over by trying EVERYTHING on them.

14. The targeting for Raiden's slash during sword mode is not easy enough to see.

15. D pad becomes locked out while moving. Raiden has to calmly stand perfectly still for a second before it will work. Why?

16. There is a red flash to indicate when a move can be blocked, yet there are blockable moves that do not flash.

17. Raiden can be easily hit stunned to death. EASILY.

18. VR mission 8 says to eliminate all enemies with ninja kill. It does NOT specify that being spotted is an auto-fail.

19. Raiden cannot simply move in the direction pressed when running. He has to make a very slow U-turn

20. Game has NO concept of difficulty curve.

21. Raiden has no method of dodging or recovery once staggered.

22. Camera is absolutely terrible. This is 2013.

23. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-iQpLT92RY even players getting "top" scores look clumsy.

24. Targeting in this game is both unnecessary and causes Raiden to hit the wrong target. Furthermore, when actually selecting a target this makes the game more disorienting at times.

25. The sai attack that pulls Raiden towards his enemy has CONSTANT pathing errors.

26. Every enemy has a combo that hits multiple times. Every hit of such combo leads into the other hits with no way of escaping it. This means they intentionally coded into the game several points where the player is frustrated and unable to play.

27. Every single move in the game locks onto Raiden; curving in 270 degree curves to connect on him. None of Raiden's even come close to having this much leniency in their targeting. This is incredibly frustrating.

28. Enemies can hit Raiden even when he is 12 feet in the air and CLEARLY out of range of the move's arc.

29. Last boss fight is LONG with NO CHECKPOINTS in its longest phase.

30. On the longest phase of last boss fight, there seems to be no thought in terms of how much the screen can be filled with fire. Because his moves are chosen randomly, damage can become unavoidable and cause Raiden to bounce around between wafts of fire.

31. Last boss has a dash move which he can instantly interrupt with a combo AND has inexplicable invincibility frames when he doesn't choose to take a free combo.

32. Ripper mode doesn't work on bosses.

33. Management of super meter irrelevant on boss fights.

34. Very possible to make game "unbeatable" if player is caught on a hard section with low healing items up.

35. Item menu too slow to be relied on in intense situations.

36. Too many combos syndrome; there are a million combos but they are way too long to ever complete or too complicated and numerous to bother to remember. The usefulness of each combo is questionable, too, so I just use the most basic stuff. It would be better to focus the combos into a short list where each one is useful for a specific situation. Or just be like Batman and have no combos.

37. Ninja Run is not as clean at parkour as the guy from Prototype 2. Try again.