Really not a whole lot coming up for January so here we have… 5 (*Edit* 3) Multiplatform games! That’s… it really. No good/interesting/popular exclusives for anything.
So let’s go at this quickly!
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Final Fantasy XIII-2 01/31 (PS3, 360)
I’m one of the 3 people who actually enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII. It had a fine leveling system, good characters (ignoring Hope and Sazh), an okay-ish story and a really good battle system. This one seems very similar, though I hope some elements are ironed out (such as a few minor things in the fighting system), but I have good hopes for this, as long as the QTEs I’ve seen in some videos aren’t as annoying as they could end up being. I’ll be picking this up.
NeverDead 01/31 (PS3, 360)
This looks potentially interesting. It’s a third-person shooter action game where you play as an immortal character. You seem to have guns and melee weapons, and you can lose or remove body parts as you want and you can retrieve them by rolling over them or something like that. Not sure how dying/challenge will work with a character that can’t die even if he removes his head, but the gameplay videos I’ve seen actually don’t seem THAT bad… I’ll rent it.
SoulCalibur V 01/31 (PS3, 360)
I’ve never been really good at Soul Calibur, nor do I enjoy them that much. Not that I think they’re bad of course, I think Soul Calibur is probably the best 3D-style fighter out there… just not my style of fighting game. I’ll definitely give this a try when Dave gets it though 
. Things I’ve seen about this game do seem quite interesting.
PC RELEASES
Fortune Summoners 01/17
An insanely cutesy action-RPG with crazy combos and on-the-fly character change. It’s a bit steeply priced compared to other games that were localized by Carpe Fulgur, but with a 20+ hours long game that has quite good gameplay (I can tell from the demo, which was well over an hour long just for the prologue), the 25$ price tag isn’t that unwarranted. And how often to japanese indie games get officially localized over here? I think it’s something that may be worth encouraging, especially if the game ends up being really good… DEMO!
I haven’t made “Biggest Surprises” and “Biggest Disappointments” posts yet, not sure if I will… So here’s what we have right now! Again, no overall GotY post, but I don’t think it’s really needed, I think all the posts as a whole display a large variety of awesome games we got this year. Sadly we had to skip over a bunch of great games, otherwise we would have had 5-15 winners per category (other than Wii and 360), and I just decided to highlight my personal favorites. I’m sure other people/everyone else have different winners, and that’s obviously fine too.
So here it is:
2011 DS winners
2011 3DS winners
2011 Wii winners
2011 Xbox 360 winners
2011 PS3 winners
2011 Downloadable winners
2011 Multiplatform winners
So here we have: over 9000 Wii releases, 13 multiplatform releases, 4 3DS releases, 2 PS3 releases and 2 Xbox 360 releases… OH and 1 PC release (almost forgot that, silly me). Don’t forget this only includes games that will probably be good, or popular games. No shovelware here (other than Call of Duty), and no/very few downloadable games (since release dates rarely pop up early for these).
Read on and tell us what you’re getting!
WII RELEASES
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 11/20
Ah yes, a new Zelda, and holy shit does it look glorious. Nothing more to say here, buy it!
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Goldeneye 007: Reloaded 11/01 (PS3, 360)
The Goldeneye remake on Wii was complete shit… by which I mean it was Call of Duty with the Goldeneye story with some messed up details and random stupid changes. This is looking to be the same thing… IN HD! Shit in HD is still shit though.
Sonic Generations 11/01 (PS3, 360, 3DS)
Ah Sonic, coming back with what might possibly be the second good Sonic game this generation! (note: Sonic 4 Episode 1 was the first) I’m not entirely sure what to think of this one yet. The demo that was set in the classic style of gameplay was really well done, though that can change if the level design starts sucking later on, and I’m not totally hyped up for the “new” gameplay style, but the demo at least convinced me that it’s at least not AS shitty as the terrible Sonic Colors. I’m picking it up, but I’m still very unsure if that’s a good idea or not. Good thing it’s so cheap on Steam.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North 11/01 (PC, PS3, 360)
Just saw it on some release lists, figured it might interest some people…. I have no idea what this game is like, and I don’t care.
Burgertime World Tour 11/02 on Xbox 360 (Also coming to PSN, PC and WiiWare later in the month, date currently unknown)
I rarely put downloadable games on here, but this one is worth it. How long has it been since a NEW Burgertime game anyways? And this actually looks really good from what I’ve seen. It keeps the classic gameplay philosophy but adds some new gameplay elements and level design gimmicks. Should be worth checking out.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 11/08 (Pc, PS3, 360)
Activision is once again releasing this game. This is the EIGHTH time they’ve release the same game this generation (ninth if you want to count “Call of Duty Classic” which is downloadable)… This is getting completely crazy guys (who am I kidding, it was already crazy at the third re-release)… Bah, who am I kidding, this will sell the inevitable undeserved millions and will make Actvision huge wads… of cash. Maybe soon people will realize they’re buying the same crappy game over and over… *looks at Madden*… Yeah, that’s not happening.
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection 11/08 (Ps3, 360)
Strangely enough, this doesn’t contain MGS1… may I ask why? Instead it’s Peace Walker (unless you’re in japan, in which case you’re getting MGS1 (on PSN, so not in HD) but not Peace Walker)… just a bit weird. Either way, this is an interesting pack for people who didn’t get the same collection (minus HD, minus Peace Walker, plus MGS1) on PS2 a few years back.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 11/11 (PC, PS3, 360)
One of the most hyped game this year. I’m personally not too interested (I’ll just rent it), but it doesn’t look terrible by any means. I’m gonna say this is one to watch out for, it’s probably gonna have hundreds of hours of gameplay if you want do to everything/if you don’t get bored of it before doing everything.
Rayman Origins 11/15 (PS3, X360, Wii, 3DS)
Seems to be really cool. Graphically it’s beautiful, but it also looks really fun to play. And a new Rayman game that’s actually about Rayman himself and not those fucking rabbits? CRAZY!
Need for Speed: The Run 11/15 (PC, PS3, X360, Wii, 3DS)
A seemingly standard Need for Speed game… with completely stupid and random “parkour” segments which are controlled by QTEs (at least in the original trailer I saw, the demo didn’t feature any of that)… not interested, the demo was very unimpressive.
Saints Row: The Third 11/15 (PC, PS3, 360)
Why hello there weird GTA clone. I actually haven’t played any of these, and I won’t start here, but at least I can say the devs of SR seem to take the game less seriously than the GTA series of late, so this is full of wacky weirdness, making it at least more imaginative than what GTA.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 11/15 (Ps3, 360)
A bit of a kick in the balls to release a much better version of the game (12 more characters, bunch of new stages, a couple new modes, spectator mode, complete rebalance, etc.) for 40$ only 8 months after the original which cost 60$, BUT at least this is looking really awesome. The new characters (other than Nemesis and Frank West) look really cool (my favorites so far being Firebrand and Mr top tier…. I mean Phoenix Wright), the Heroes and Heralds mode looks interesting and there’s tons of rebalancing done too.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations 11/15 (PC, PS3, 360)
It’s Assassin’s Creed. And again it’s milking Ezio for all he’s worth, instead of going to a new setting or something. Anyways, you already know if you want this or not. I personally don’t like this series with it’s 100% mindless “platforming” (hold a button and a direction and the game will do everything on its own!) and button-mashy combat with no real strategy/fun… But a lot of other people clearly do (or at least enjoy the plot enough to suffer through the gameplay), so if you do, check it out!
The King of Fighters XIII 11/22 (PC, PS3, 360)
Didn’t really enjoy KoFXII… Not sure what it was about it, I just couldn’t get into it (though KOF as never my fighting game series of choice). Not planning on trying this one.
PLAYSTATION 3 RELEASES
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception 11/01
The Uncharted games, despite having rather uninspired gameplay (standard cover-based TPS with nothing that sets it apart from any other game in the genre), remains interesting due to being actually really good action movies in the vein of Indiana Jones. I’m sure this will continue the tradition of “fairly boring gameplay, good story/cutscenes”. I’m gonna rent it for sure.
Tekken Hybrid 11/22
Not a big Tekken fan myself, but for people who are, this includes the Tekken 3D movie, Tekken Tag Tournament HD and Tekken Tag 2 Prologue, so it should be a nice package for fans.
3DS RELEASES
Cave Story 3D 11/08
The original Cave Story is a very fun Metroid-style platformer. This looks… pretty much identical from what I’ve seen, but with 3D graphics (that do look quite good from what I’ve seen). Probably not a bad buy, but I question if 40$ is a good price point for it since you can still get the original for free… maybe if there’s enough new content…
Super Mario 3D Land 11/13
This will kick ass. Nothing more to say.
Shinobi 11/15
Not really sure about this one yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ll at least rent it. It’s been a while since the last side-scrolling Shinobi game (I’d say Saturn off the top of my head (Shinobi Legions) but I might be wrong), so this is interesting on that premise alone, and the gameplay looks okay from what I’ve seen.
Nano Assault 11/22
The third in the not-acclaimed-but-still-really-good Nanostray series by Shi’nen. This one takes on various gameplay styles. The ones I’ve seen were twin-stick shooter and a star fox-style “space” shooter, but I’m guessing there’s going to be regular side-scrolling shooter levels as well. Looks very solid.
PC RELEASES
Serious Sam 3: BFE 11/22
Another FPS this year that I’m interested in, partly because it takes on an “oldschool” style of gameplay in FPS, with some exploration for secrets but, most of all, badass fast-moving action and awesome weapons. Looks like this could be really good… hopefully.
XBOX 360 RELEASES
Otomedius Excellent 11/01
It was delayed again? Seriously? Come on guys, just release the damn thing… there’s already DLC available for it, so why is the game not out yet? *insert blurb about how it looks to be a kickass gradius game*
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary 11/15
It’s Halo.
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed anything. Not sure why, since there’s a few games I wanted to talk about… maybe someday… but whatever, here’s one that no one is talking about now, and that no one (except maybe CGR) will ever talk about for various reasons:
1. It’s a movie tie-in for a children’s (and for children at heart) film.
2. It’s a 10$ downloadable game that’s a movie-tie in, thus it’s low budget and most people will think it sucks due to that.
3. It’s a boxing game.
Real Steel is based on a movie that I haven’t seen and probably won’t see until/if I rent the DVD/Blu-Ray. When I saw this on the PSN store, I almost ignored it but saw that there was a demo so I gave it a chance anyways. The moment I saw the “Yuke’s” logo in the start-up, I was expecting a lame game, since they’re the guys who make the crappy UFC Undisputed games. And then, after playing, I bought the game…
So read on and see what the game is like!
Developer: Yuke’s
Publisher: Yuke’s
Date of Release: October 18th 2011
Platforms: XBLA, PSN (PSN version reviewed)
Genre: Boxing
Rated E10+ for Everyone over 10
Gameplay
The gameplay is very reminiscent of the Fight Night series (and surprisingly/thankfully not much of the UFC series). The controls are very simplified though. Compared to Fight Night’s huge variety of punches you can do with modifier buttons and the right analog stick+various button pressses, here you have on jab button for each fist and one stronger punch button for each fist, with changes to the punches depending on the direction you press to do it. You can assign up to 4 special punches as well, each to one of the face buttons, which you can do by holding R1 and pressing that button). Some tech moves are unblockable (meaning you HAVE to avoid it) and others are destruction moves (cause major damage to body parts or outright destroys them), while others are just stronger punches. On the defensiveside you can sway with L2+the analog stick, which is useless as far as I’ve tried, you have dashes in any direction with L1 which are by far the best way to avoid punches, and you can block with R2 (pressing it at the exact moment an attack would hit you does a parry, which leaves the opponent open to attacks for a moment). It’s actually very easy to play, the controls aren’t too complicated to adapt to, especially if you’ve played Fight Night before hand.
As far as actual gameplay goes, well, it’s boxing, but with robots. It uses robot designs from the movie, but your own robot is completely new and customizable (more on that later). I don’t think I have to explain what boxing is… So to get to the specifics, each punch removes some of the robot’s “full health” and a larger chunk of health that will regenerate over-time (similar to red health in the MvC games). The lower the health, the more likely the robot is to get knocked down (it’s automatic knock down if you get it down to 0). If a robot is not getting hit, he’ll regenerate some of this “red health”. In addition to health, you have a “power charge” meter. Punching and dashing will take away some of that power and, if your meter runs dry, your robot will stagger for a few moments, leaving him open to attack, and will remain in a weakened state (less defense, slower and weaker punches) until the power meter refills (punching while in that state slows down the regeneration and you cannot dash either). This gives good strategy snice you can’t just mash the opponents to death.
Another way to beat your opponents is to do something you won’t usually see in boxing games: by ripping their head off. You see, each body part other than the legs here are prone to damage separate from the normal health bar. You see your robot’s damage in the UI. When a body part gets lower in damage it changes color. Orange means that a destruction attack, or even just a storng punch, can knock that part off. You can lose an arm or 2 (I think the match is an instant loss if you lose both arms, though that actually has yet to happen to me), or a solid blow to the head can knock it off as well (resulting in a KO). I’m actually not sure if you can just rip out the body section of a robot, though it does have its own HP as well. You have to be careful with those arms though since, if you lose one of them, tech attacks are completely disabled.
The weak link here is getting knocked down. To get up, you have to spin the left analog stick to fill up a meter then press a face button (each button has its own meter) to fill up that button’s meter (said meter goes down over-time, by the way). Fill up each button’s meter before the 10-count and you’ll get up… I REALLY hate this system. It’s nearly impossible to get back up if you get knocked down twice in a round (though the opponent’s robot can sometimes get up easily if you knock them down 3-4 times in the same round (there’s no 3 knock-down rule in effect)). Maybe I’m doing this wrong, but I really hate this system.
Oh, and a minor annoyance: there’s invisible walls so you can’t get too far away from your opponent. You can’t go to, say, one end of the ring while the opponent is at the other.
Customization/Grinding
A VERY LARGE part of this game is grinding. You get money when fighting other robots (you get money either way, but obviously more when you win, and sometimes extra parts or repair kits when you win). After each battle, it’s highly suggested to repair your robot (costs about 2000$ per battle from what I’ve experienced, less if you really kick the crap out of your opponent, and you can repair some parts for free with repair kits(1 part per repair kit)), and, with the left-over money, you can save up to buy parts for your robot. Different heads, bodies, left and right arms, left and right fists, legs, core parts (generator, motherboard, fluids for the hydraulic systems) can all be equipped on your robot. Each part affects different stats (core HP, sub HP(HP for that particular part), defense, durability, mobility, punch speed, attack power, movement speed, power charge, power recovery, health recovery, weight, energy use, and a couple more). The stronger you make your robot, the better chance you stand in higher ranks/online.
The grinding part comes partly from having to make money to buy better parts, but also from the fact that enemies get much stronger than you really fast. To get better parts for your robot, you obviously need money, which goes up fairly slowly and goes down really fast when you buy stuff. So a lot of the time you’ll just be re-fighting old opponents for cash and experience. Ah yes, the experience. The “problem” here is that you get a certain TYPE of experience depending on your actions. Dodging properly (and sometimes pulling off fast combos) gets you speed experience. Hitting the opponent effectively gives you offense experience. Guarding/parrying gives you guard experience. Knocking an opponent down gives you performance experience. Destroying body parts or at least damaging them heavily gives you destruction experience. Getting enough experience of each type will give you levels of that particular type. Here’s the weird part though: that experience does NOT make you or your robot stronger directly. Instead, getting more experience gives you access to locked equipment in the shop (so, even if you can see equipment in the shop, you can’t buy it until you’re leveled up enough). Each part has its own level requirement, so you have to work hard on getting those points up (For example, one may ask you to have 12 offense, 14 speed, 13 guard, 10 destructive and 11 performance, and if you’re low on one, you can’t buy the part). From what I’ve seen, Guard and speed were the tougher ones to build up at first, butI figured that fighting the scrapbot will make it easier to grind those up (just block/evade for whole rounds). Offense is actually the one that builds up slower. Also, most equipment is completely locked until you reach certain points in the “campaign”.
So you’ll be spending a LOT of time getting those levels up and gaining enough money to buy parts for your robot. It’s really quite a big grind. Some people might hold it against the game. I personally don’t, but I would understand if you do.
“The Catch”
This is actually a fairly high-quality release for a 10$ game, so what’s the catch? Well, the store has 2 options: a standard store where you use cash won from battles, and another “DLC” store where you can buy parts with actual money (and, from what I’ve seen, without level requirements). Each part is 2$, and you can buy a whole robot for 10$ (basically getting all the parts in it for half price). You can also buy money and repair kits. THIS is the catch in the game. You CAN totally ignore it, that’s what I’m doing, but if you’re willing to waste your money, you can get some of the best parts, or extra in-game money, without even playing the game. That certainly makes the game much easier though, and much less grindy (a robot with a “power level” of 6000 will walk over anything for a while in the “campaign” without even having a chance to lose). I think this option is a bit stupid, but frankly it’s not affecting my enjoyment of the game, so I won’t hold it against the game.
Presentation
There’s one aspect of the presentation that really annoys me: there’s no commentator! Frankly, the game sounds a bit bland overall, and adding an announcer or 2 would definitely liven it up. Otherwise, it’s what you’d expect: the robot models look fine but nowhere near as good as the same robots in the movie obviously (at least from what I’ve seen in trailers). The sound is metal pounding on metal, nothing really out of the ordinary here. Despite this being a 10$ game, there aren’t any glaring graphical problems or obvious “we had to cut back on this” parts, it’s just a few months of development more shy of full disc release quality.
Overall
Real Steel was a huge surprise for me. I mean, how often do you find a very good and very cheap downloadable game BASED ON A KIDS MOVIE? I have no clue how this happened, but there it is, probably the only good movie licensed game on an HD console this generation (I’m not counting Ghostbusters since that’s more like a sequel to the movies than a movie-based game), and it’s a cheap 10$ DLC game. Congrats, Yuke’s, con-fucking-grats.
The game has fun boxing gameplay with simple controls (it may have less depth than Fight Night Round 4, but that doesn’t make it less fun), lots of customizing, it looks quite good considering it’s a 10$ game that actually takes very little space on the hard drive. The grinding may be a drawback to some people, but I frankly didn’t mind. The presentation lacks polish (no commentator, what?), but that’s understandable for a low-budget game. My only really big problem with the game is how you get up from getting knocked down (I counter that problem by not getting knocked down as much as I can, even sacrificing an arm if need be).
If this sounds like something you might enjoy, definitely check it out.
]]>Let’s see… for October 2011 we have: 9 multiplatform releases, 3 PS3 releases, 3 3DS releases, 2 Xbox 360 releases, 2 PC releases and the first truly great Wii release of the year (note: yes Mario Sports Mix was good, but definitely not GREAT)! Don’t forget this only includes interesting or potentially popular games, and it maybe be missing a couple hidden gems (and downloadable games, these rarely get release dates this fast). I try to not include shovelware in these lists.
So read on and see what you’ll be buying!
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Dark Souls 10/04 (PS3, 360)
A spiritual successor to the highly popular Demon’s Souls on PS3. This time it’s a multiplatform title, but it seems to retain the gameplay style and difficulty-type of the original. I’ll only be renting this, but it’s looking mighty fine from what I’ve seen.
Spider-Man: Edge of Time 10/04 (PS3, 360, Wii, 3DS, DS)
Seems very similar to Shattered Dimensions. Not too sure about that one. Shattered Dimensions was… okay… but it was definitely not worth a purchase. I’m expecting the same here.
Rage 10/04 (PC, PS3, 360)
I always look reluctantly at FPS. This may have been made by id, and some things I’ve seen looked interesting (especially since it reminded me of Borderlands a little bit), but… I don’t know, FPS tend to disappoint me most of the time, so I’ll not get any hype for this. I’ll probably check it out eventually though.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record 10/11 (PS3, 360, PC)
The first Dead Rising was boring, the second one was pretty much the same but with a few added gameplay elements so it wasn’t AS bad… This seems like it’s just gonna be DR2 with Frank West… meh (and no, I don’t care that he’s covered wars, you know).
Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure 10/16 (PS3, 360, PC, Wii, 3DS)
I don’t know about this one… You can collect figurines, and get them scanned into the game somehow. It seems to be a fairly standard 3D platformer, but here you have access to 32 characters…. as long as you have the figurines. I’ll be honest, I’m not expecting this to really catch on.
Batman: Arkham City 10/18 (PC, PS3, 360)
Arkham Asylum was a very solid puzzle-y brawler/stealth game, and ended up being one of the very few modern licensed games to not be terrible. I haven’t actually seen anything in regards to its sequel, but I am still excited to check it out (had it pre-ordered for months now). I only hope a few things are modified here, to make it even better than the first. I’m pretty hyped.
Battlefield 3 10/25 (PC, PS3, 360)
This has been played up to be the competition for MW3, with both the advertisers, gamers and overall press talking about how much greater it’s gonna be… but from what I’ve seen it’s just another bland military FPS with no defining elements, it might as well be called “MW3 with more vehicles and better graphics”. The non-vehicle moments are 100% identical to any CoD game… Even the box art has the exact same lack of originality/fun as the CoD series’ box art… Get Serious Sam 3 instead!
The King of Fighters XIII 10/25 (PS3, 360)
King of Fighters XII kinda disappointed me… I can’t say why though, it just didn’t get me like older KoF games. I’m not even sure I’ll try this one. We’ll see.
Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi 10/25 (PS3, 360)
DBZ fighting games always kinda failed to really impress me. This seem very much the same as previous Tenkaichi games.
3DS RELEASES
Tetris: Axis 10/07
Looks like Tetris! Not really much to say here…
Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns 10/11 (also coming to DS, but I decided to ignore that)
To be completely honest, I haven’t played a Harvest Moon game since the SNES… I have no idea if the series has done any changing since then. Maybe I’ll have to check a newer one soon…
Pokemon Rumble Blast 10/24
I played the demo for the original Pokemon Rumble on Wiiware, and it SUCKED. You’d think a Pokemon action game like this would have the potential to be great but… Yeah, my expectations for this are super-low.
PC RELEASES
Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter 10/04
I have no idea what that’s gonna be like. So I won’t comment on it! *thumbs up*
Might & Magic: Heroes VI 10/11
The Heroes of Might and Magic series is a very cool Strategy-RPG series. By building up your city and conquering other cities, you can build an army and take over the rest of the land. As of now my favorite in the series remains the third, but I’ll probably end up checking this one out eventually. Should be good.
PLAYSTATION 3 RELEASES
Twisted Metal 10/04
(Haven’t found the official box art, will update when I do)
The videos I’ve seen look very… Twisted Metal-like (duh). You have access to more vehicles, and you even have sniper rifles to take out enemies from far away… I’m not really convinced about this game though, I might rent it.
Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One 10/18
Ratchet & Clank with 4 players! It looks like a simplified and super-linear version of Ratchet & Clank. It DOES look fun though, but it’s probably not terribly interesting to play alone.
The House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut 10/25
House of the Dead Overkill was an amazingly fun on-rails shooter on the Wii. I don’t know what kind of extra content this is getting, but it’s probably gonna be awesome. Sadly, I don’t have a Move to check it out.
NINTENDO WII RELEASES
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland 10/24
The first really good Wii release of the year! This was a very long time coming. This is the first real Kirby game on a console since Crystal Shards on the N64. And it looks AMAZING. No offense to Epic Yarn, I quite liked it (despite the slow gameplay and total lack of challenge), but THIS is what a Kirby game should be like. And a 4-player option kicks ass here too, it’s probably gonna be a fun game to play while hanging out with friends (since all the playable characters look to play differently).
XBOX 360 RELEASES
Forza Motorsport 4 10/11
Forza 3 was solid. I’m expecting the same amount of solid-ness from this one. Not sure what Kinect really does in regards to the gameplay here though, seems kinda pointless to me.
Dance Central 2 10/25
It’s Dance Central… If you liked the first one, this seems to be identical beyond having new dance moves and new songs.
This is a game that took many players by surprise. Atlus gave it their all on this one: a really surprising collector’s edition, an aggressive and widespread marketing campaign and overall giving a lot of attention to what would have been a largely ignored game. But it comes out and becomes a success? Pretty awesome.
I’ve been mildly interested in the game from the start, but I was unsure if the block-pushing gameplay would really get me or not(puzzle games are a hit-or-miss with me), so I went ahead and rented it before deciding whether I’d buy it or not. So here are my impressions on this quirky puzzler!
(You can consider this a review if you want, since there most likely WON’T be a full review for this game. I write my impressions post as extensively as I can after all, and play a large amount of a game before writing it. I may be missing some story elements, in which case I’ll make only small mentions of the story, or as little as possible, but by and large I tend to know the gameplay pretty well when I get to writing an impressions post.)
Developer: Atlus Co.
Publisher/Localization Team: Atlus Co.
Date of Release: July 26th 2011
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: Puzzle
Rated M for Mature
Story
Vincent is a bit of a loser, but he’s got a good life, a girlfriend (Katherine), a bunch of friends and a job. However, his life is turned upside-down once he cheats on his girlfriend (though he remembers none of that for some reason) with a girl called Catherine and he starts having nightmares every night where, if he dies there, he dies in real life (though he also doesn’t remember the dreams when he wakes up). To top it off, his girlfriend is having talks about marriage, and she’s pregnant, so Vincent has to deal with that, while struggling for his life every night in the nightmares. The story turns out being… not too bad. I haven’t finished the game yet, due in part to me only playing the game as a rental and playing it on normal mode, so I couldn’t really get far in the story (though I am pretty far in the game) since I was spending more time on the puzzles.
This game has an M rating, and this time it’s for ACTUAL mature content, not just “blood and gore and tits” that games usually get M ratings for. It’s a story about dealing with your mistakes and growing up and having to take responsibility for your actions (in this case, cheating on your girlfriend and having to stop being a slob to take care of your family), and I find that the game deals with that in a very adult way, even if some elements are a bit on the wacky side due to the presentation (like Vincent’s jaw dropping like CRAZY when he hears shocking news). It’s rare that games will really deal with subject matter like this, and I love it. Now, I haven’t completed the game, which I guess has 2 endings at least, so I can’t comment on everything, but I’ll just say I’m anxiously waiting for the time I’ll buy the game so I can see the end.
My only problem, as far as I got, is that I have a little bit of trouble believing the relationship between Vincent and Katherine (his girlfriend)… You barely see them with each other, they seem to only see each other at a restaurant every few days, and not much otherwise… kinda makes you wonder when they had time to get Katherine pregnant… but some backstory that gets mentioned does make it bit more believable, and this game only covers a small amount of time so maybe it’s just one time where they don’t see each other much, and, once again, I didn’t finish the game so maybe some things you see after the part I was at really show this relationship to “click” more.
Gameplay
The gameplay here is actually fantastic. The meat of it is during the “dream” sequences in the story, where Vincent has to climb a tower made of blocks as fast as possible, otherwise he falls down the tower and dies. You go through those sections by pulling and pushing blocks (as well as hanging off of them) to create a path to the top. Blocks can not only stand on top of other blocks but ALSO on the edge so they can float in midair as long as they touch another block’s edge. If no edges touch a block, they’ll fall down (be careful not to get crushed!). There’s various techniques you can use here, especially in regards to hanging off of the blocks since you can also move around when you’re hanging. A fun part is that, between levels, you can talk to other people (who appear as sheep to you) about techniques, and find ways you traverse parts of the puzzles that you may not have figured out yourself.
The game starts you off with only normal blocks, but, as it advances, it slowly starts introducing different types of blocks like ice, spiky traps of death, bombs, slow-moving blocks, unmovable blocks and a couple more. This is actually great, because the game is structured very well. You’ll get introduced to a type of block, and, after a few basic puzzles with those blocks, you’ll be thrust into more complicated puzzles using those block, and eventually they’ll start just putting all the blocks together. In that regard Catherine is very retro-style in its gameplay. Rather than just being the same all the way through with little variation, Catherine manages to have a lot of variety due to the puzzle design and the way in which different kinds of puzzles are brought in due to the variety of blocks.
At the final level of every nightmare, you’ll have a “boss battle”, which represents something going on in Vincents life (for example: a baby, his girlfriend, an ass monster (no, really)). Here, you do the same thing as the other levels, pulling and pushing blocks to get to the top. Except here you have a big monster chasing you from the bottom, so you have to climb the tower a whole lot faster, and each boss has a special attack that can mess you up in certain ways, like making you fall down or transforming blocks or reversing your controls. These levels are all sorts of fun, and easily the toughest in the game (well, there’s one of them that was super easy, but the rest? Fuck I lost a lot of lives >_<).
In addition to the puzzles, there’s a bit of a “dating sim” element, but, since I haven’t finished the game, let alone finished it twice, I don’t really know how much of an effect the choices you make have over the plot, or if they even change things in individual cutscenes (you do see the “morality” meter pop up during conversations, so maybe there are “on-the-fly” dialogue and action changes, but I can’t say for sure). If you don’t care about morality systems like this, don’t fret because the core of the gameplay, despite spending a lot of time on the story, is still the puzzle element.
Difficulty
This game will kick your ass. A lot. When you start a game up, you’ll generally want to start in normal mode, right? Well, that’s what I did here, and the game instantly gave me a warning: “This mode is for experienced players, are you sure you want to play on normal?”. I just figured that Normal would be a fair challenge, and that easy would be too easy. Well, after a few levels in normal mode I started dying a LOT. Most hard modes aren’t this tough. I didn’t give up on it though, and I’ve been having a lot of fun trying to figure those puzzles out. After seeing some videos of easy mode, I’m pretty happy I stuck with normal mode because easy looks way too easy.
And the difficulty never feels cheap because you get TONS of lives. Every pillow you pick up gives you 2 lives, so, basically, if you die in an area where you can easily pick up pillows, you’ll actually be gaining lives rather than losing them, even if you die, so you never really have to worry about losing all your lives. It’s very balanced, and it DOES give you checkpoints at set parts of every level (generally after really tough parts), so it will never completely overwhelm you.
Presentation
The presentation is pretty good, if you like anime style. The actual anime scenes are superb, and the parts with 3D models, while not especially technically advanced, do look kinda good stylistically, though I kinda wish the game would keep the anime look throughout the “story” segments and would use the 3D models for the dream sequences (they could have the story segments be all anime with a few pauses to respond to text messages and such, giving you control there is rather useless). The areas in the nightmare are probably the best part, they look suitably creepy and weird, really nice-looking stuff here. And the bosses look as creepy as they should as well.
The game also boasts really solid voice acting for the most part, all the voices are quite convincing as far as I’ve played, no problem there at all.
Overall
This game is great. The retro-style in regards to the gameplay design definitely helps, but really it’s just a well-constructed game. The non-puzzle parts do great in drawing the player into the story (though I can see how not everyone will enjoy it), and the puzzles are awesome. And I’m always happy when a modern game comes out that’s not afraid to kick my ass. If you don’t like anime at all, I doubt Catherine will sway you, and the game does boast really long and random loading times (taking 30+ seconds to load the bar when you were already IN the bar in the first place is rather random and stupid), but those are rather minor problems when the gameplay is as interesting as it is here.
I’ll just say, at the very least, give Catherine a try. Even if you’re skeptical (like I was), you may end up enjoying it a lot.
]]>It may be the summer drought, but there’s still a few interesting releases, right?
Here we have: 1 3DS game, 1 DS game, 2 PS3 games, 1 360 game that was delayed from last month and 3 multiplatform title. Keep in mind this is just “hardcore” games and potentially good games, there’s tons more if you count the shovelware (though I DO include one or two pieces of shovelware this time, by obligation).
So check it out and see what you’ll be buying in August!
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron 8/16 (PS3, 360)
After playing the demo for this, it looks like this may be the top action game of the year. The fighting is fun, you get a nice variety of attaks from just one attack button and it seems to offer a good challenge. I’m looking forward to this one.
Bodycount 8/23 (PS3, 360, PC)
(did they just open up photoshop and do that in 2 minutes? Worst cover of the year, seriously)
A First-Person Shooter. Yay…. we definitely don’t have enough of those this generation… Low expectations on this one, doesn’t seem like it’s anything special.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution 8/23 (PC, PS3, 360)
Whoa, new Deus Ex! I haven’t seen that much of this game, but the few gameplay videos I did see were quite interesting, with the character customizing and actually fun-looking/varied gameplay. I’ll give it a look.
Madden NFL 12 8/30 (360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PSP)
Same game as last year with roster update that should seriously be DLC by now… What more is there to say? Millions of idiots will go out to buy it even though they’ve bought it already every year for the last 14 years, and nothing is gonna stop that.
3DS RELEASES
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked 8/23
I haven’t played the original DS version of Devil Survivor, so I’m pretty excited to check out this updated version. It seems quite interesting, and apparently it’s challenging (as is a tradition with SMT games). An early but probably really good RPG for the 3DS, yay!
PLAYSATION 3 RELEASES
Bleach: Soul Resurreccion 8/02
This basically looks like Dynasty Warriors with Bleach characters. It actually seems pretty good as far as Dynasty Warriors clones go.
No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise 8/16
It’s No More Heroes. It was a pretty good game on the Wii, and it’s probably gonna be pretty good here too. And, looking on amazon.com, it’s budget-priced too! (not on amazon.ca, but amazon.ca sucks anyways)
Sometimes it’s a great feeling to play a low-budget game that’s made solely with the idea of being fun to play, rather than concentrating on pointless stuff like graphics and story. And that’s what EDF is all about.
The previous game in the series, Earth Defense Force 2017, was a ton of fun, even though it was clearly made with a 2 dollar budget.
Let’s check it out and see how this one holds up, shall we?
Developer: Vicious Cycle
Publisher: D3Publisher
Date of Release: July 1st 2011
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Third-person shooter
Rated T for Teen
Gameplay
The gameplay is sweet and simple: There’s tons of enemies attacking you, and you have to kill them. To do so, you can use a variety of weapons: Assault rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, missile launchers and shotguns are part of your arsenal. One interesting thing though is that there’s not just one weapon in each type, but a bunch of them to unlock. At first you have a limited selection, but as you kill enemies and rank up, you get new weapons to use, may it be stronger versions of old weapons, or completely new and unique weapons (like a grenade launcher that shoots grenades that split up into 4 homing missiles). There’s actually a lot of variety when it comes to the weapon selection in this game, because there’s actually multiple character classes to use, each with their own basic stats, special abilities and weapon selection. Ranking up also boosts a variety of things like your life bar and turret defense. A mild change here from the previous game is that you don’t just shoot anthills until they break down, you actually have to place explosives on them to destroy them.
One slight problem I have is that it’s a bit easy at first (AKA in normal mode). In offline mode, you have 2 computer-controlled allies running around and helping you clear out enemies (and they’re actually pretty competent for the most part), which is fine. But, if you die, your allies can come by to revive you, and you only ever actually lose if your whole team dies. Normal mode is basically there to level you up for Hard mode… which will probably kick your ass if you haven’t leveled enough, or at least challenge you. So while the difficulty is really low at first, the game really starts kicking your ass fast. Moreso in survival mode, due to the lack of healing items (you have to survive quite a few waves before health pick-ups appear). And if somehow the game isn’t challenging you enough, well, you can always turn off the bots that are helping you (which is an option that unlocks once you’re done with normal mode).
Performance Issues
There’s occasional slowdown when there’s a lot of some on the screen. Otherwise the game pretty much never chugs. The one big problem is with the audio, there’s random points where you’ll start hearing weird beeping sounds for a few minutes. It always eventually stops, but it’s there and it can be annoying.
Why this game kicks ass
1. The graphics are sub-par… and that’s a good thing. You see, since the graphics aren’t up to the modern generation’s high standards, the development cost was lower, but also the developers were able to work harder on making the game actually fun to play, rather than just making it pretty to look at. Yes the graphics are a few steps up from EDF 2017, but they keep it simple for the most part, and basically re-use the same template for the whole game when it comes to environment.
2. There’s no story. That’s good because it lets the player get in the action right away without having to sit through hours upon hours of boring exposition/predictable plot twists/bad character development that most games have. The plot here is simple: Aliens are attacking, you have to shoot them. The story arcs are basically “shoot stuff” and “don’t die”. No game ever really needs more than that.
3. It goes for gameplay that’s consistently fun to play even despite a distinct lack of depth and it sticks with it. The simple mechanics and gameplay style never stops being fun (even if you play through the same parts over and over).
4. Funny dialogue. I doubt they took really long to write the dialogue here. But damn is it fun. It’s every cheesy alien movie mixed in one, with stupid and funny lines thrown all the time.
Overall
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is a great game, especially if you’re looking for something simple and fun to play, rather than a big boring cinematic experience that’s been the standard this generation. It’s not a bad thing to play a game that just has solid fun gameplay and nothing else, and this game is proof of that.
It’s fun, it looks fine by me, the lack of story enhances the game and there’s a lot of replay value, since the game is just purely fun (that and added difficulty levels and the Survival mode which will just kick your ass to oblivion and the remixed campaign). There’s also online and split-screen multiplayer, so it’s great stuff overall.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- It’s fun
- It doesn’t try too hard
- Replay value
- Only 40$ (at launch)
- As far as I know: Good online
Cons
- Sometimes it lags a little bit (but not much) and there’s annoying audio bugs
- Ranking up is REALLY slow, it can get annoying if you want to level each class
I never played the first American McGee’s Alice, beyond a demo back when it came out which left me unimpressed. The art I saw for the game was generally very nice, but the actual game didn’t really click with me.
Madness Returns, however, seemed pretty interesting in previews I’ve seen, so I decided I’d check it out as soon as it came out, though negative reviews all around made me decide to just rent it.
Since I haven’t come close to finishing the game (done with chapter 2), this is an impressions post rather than a review, though honestly I doubt the game throws any curveballs gameplay-wise, so I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everything that is to be seen here (considering the total lack of BOSSES in the game…). So read on and see what I thought (I’ll make it short).
Developer: Spicy Horse
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Date of Release: June 14th 2011
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Genre: 3D Platformer
Rated M for Mature (why?)
Basic gameplay
The basic gameplay is quite simple: jump on platforms, kill dudes, go to the next place where you’ll jump on platforms and kill dudes. The platforming is okay, though I find it incredibly easy since you actually have 3 extra jumps once you’re in the air AND a glide move ALA Princess Peach in Mario 2 (but less awesome). There’s generally not a lot of variety in the platforming, mostly due to how easy every jump is (so you do them all in the same way). And there’s no penalty for falling in holes, you just go back before the jump. The only variety comes from shrinking, which sometimes reveals invisible platforms (though the game places flowers around areas where you might want to shrink so you’re never at a loss as to where to go).
Combat is very Zelda Ocarina of Time-ish. You can target single enemies, you have a knife which has a single combo attack (more hits are added when you level the knife up), and you have extra weapons assigned to other buttons like the pepper grinder and the hobby horse. You have a dodge move as well, which is super versatile since it essentially lets you teleport behind enemies in addition to letting you dodge attacks in any direction. So combat ends up being super simple, with the only challenges being the first time you encounter the bigger enemy with 3 masks. You can level up your equipment, making it stronger or adding more hits, using teeth that enemies drop or that you find in various destructible objects. And if you’re having trouble against a bunch of enemies? Well, if you’re down to one health, you can go into a super-powered mode that makes you invincible and makes you stronger…. this is especially useful against multiple enemies since they seem to always drop health when you’re in this mode.
The problem here is that the gameplay wears thin really fast. It felt to me that I saw everything the game had to offer in the first hour of gameplay. And frankly I wasn’t having a whole lot of fun with it. It all worked well, but it felt to me like it should have been so much more fun to play. It may be due to the complete lack of challenge, it never feels like you’re actually in any trouble, so you’re just going with the flow… The game is just holding your hand all the way through, you barely feel like you’re playing it at all. Even the completely random side-scrolling shooter level didn’t really manage to break the monotony for me. It did bring variety, but not enough to actually make the experience as a whole terribly fun.
Graphics
Quality-wise… Alice’s hair looks lame, and there’s low-res textures all over the place. But overall it does look good enough to portray the style very well. Stylistically, this looks great. It’s a bit like if Tim Burton (the one who made Nightmare Before Christmas, not his less talented clone who made that Alice film) took the Alice story and made it in his own style. There’s a lot of very interesting locations, though each chapter has the very same look all the way through so the areas start looking the same. There’s a few nice touches here, like Alice having different clothes depending on the area she’s in.
A problem here is that, since you can jump so far, a lot of areas end up feeling empty, though that problem does start to die down in the second chapter (I don’t know if it goes back to feeling empty later on though).
Performance issues
I don’t know if this is a problem on the PC or Xbox 360 version, but the PS3 version has terrible performance issues. It totally lags out each time you pick up a memory, the framerate keeps chugging, sometimes the physics mess up… This really feels like an incomplete game at times.
Overall
The basic gameplay is solid enough, but it’s not really fun. I have ragged on negative reviews of this game before and… frankly I still do. The complaints I’ve seen have generally been stupid (stuff like “the platforming has traps that can kill you”… No, I’m not kidding), and none of the reviews really commented on whether the gameplay is fun or not. So I’ll say it: It’s not fun. It had a lot of potential, and the controls are really good for the most part so… I have no idea where they went wrong. It just feels really bland and it has nothing that really defines it. It’s just… there. I’ll say rent it if you’re a fan of Alice, otherwise don’t bother.
]]>We have 1 3DS releases, 3 multiplatform releases, 1 Xbox 360 release.
Read on and see if you’re picking anything up!
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon 7/05 (PS3, 360)
The previous Earth Defense Force on the 360 was definitely a cheap game. It was cheaply made, had various issues and it didn’t have much depth… but damn was it fun to play. I’m hoping this one will be similar. And it’s budget-priced as far as I can see too.
Call of Juarez: The Cartel (PC, PS3, 360) 7/19 (PS3, 360, PC)
Rule of thumb: if a game title starts with “Call of”, it sucks. The last Call of Juarez game was pretty bad, so I have no expectations for this one.
Catherine 7/26 (PS3, 360)
I’m not sure about this… the characters and story seem protentially interesting, but the gameplay just seeming a big repetitive block-moving puzzle makes me wonder if I’d even get much gameplay out of this.
3DS RELEASES
Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions 7/26
This actually seems like a nice release for the 3DS. You get 3 Pac-Man games and 3 Galaga games. You have the classic versions of both, the recently-remixed versions of both (Pac-Man Championship Edition, Galaga Legions (though not DX for either of these)) and a completely new game for each (pac-man gets platformer that you have to tilt the system to move him around, while Galaga gets a first-person space shooter).