The Abyss Odyssey demo evoked the same sense of excitement that I get when playing a new Metroidvania or Rogue-like game, so I paid for the full game without hesitation. What I got falls far short of the legacy of those genres. Here's why:
At its core, Abyss Odyssey is a simple rogue-like title. The entirety of the gameplay revolves around exploration of the titular Abyss, and death resets (most of) your progress and generates a new layout for the game's only dungeon.
It's a classic formula. It's also not something that hits consoles very often, so it's a nice treat when it does.
Sadly, the rest of the details are disappointing.
The goal is always to reach the bottom of the Abyss to defeat the warlock residing there. While the structure of the rooms along the way changes with each iteration, the overall layout is always the same - three columns of rooms with only a small handful of connections between them.
For the most part, you won't find much incentive to explore. Sure, there are chances at finding some shiny new loot, but your inventory is limited to only a few usable items and most of the stuff you'll find isn't very compelling. It's the kind of system where a single powerful weapon marginalizes the rest of your equipment, so once you find one, there's no reason to pursue anything but the main objective.
And the main objective is really all there is. Once you figure out how everything works, you can easily clear the Abyss in about an hour, and your only option is to do it all again. No sidequests, no special difficulty settings, and basically no longevity, as you can't even look to collect powerful items because you lose them when you complete the game.
To make matters worse, the intervening parts aren't all that great, either.
Moving and fighting in the Abyss is similar to a side-scrolling beat 'em up. You have a couple basic attacks, a few more powerful skills that evolve according to simple RPG experience levels (which are the only things that don't reset upon death), and some straightforward 2D platforming sections. It's simple, but that's not the biggest problem.
Unfortunately, the control scheme is awkward. I experienced noticeable input lag at times, where the player character hesitated to perform any actions I made. You can certainly get used to that kind of thing, but it makes combat with usually aggressive monsters pretty frustrating.
Screen transitions also don't scroll smoothly. While running through an area, the graphics will get a little jumpy, making some of the trickier platforming sections frustrating, too. It's probably just another form of that underlying lag, but the result is a game that feels woefully unpolished.
That said, there is a pretty cool mechanic for capturing monster souls for your use. It's never explained outside the tutorial pages in the options menu (and who does that, right?), but you can take on the form of a vanquished foe to dominate your enemies. While it's a nifty idea, it's not very deep, and many of the monsters are annoying to control anyway, so it's only a minor bright spot.
Basically, the game is short, frustrating, and it gets stale much too quickly to be worth the price tag.
Of course, there's a little more to it. A couple of unlockable characters add some diversity to the gameplay as each has a distinct play style. You can also collect a bunch of journal pages, filling in some of the warlock's backstory. There's nothing earth-shattering, but it's nice to have the option to delve a bit more deeply into the game's (admittedly still weak) storyline.
It's also worth praising some of the game's aesthetics. Many of the environments have lovely backgrounds, and it features several hauntingly beautiful tunes. It's certainly not good enough to make up for the tedious gameplay, but it is a pretty game.
But that's really all you get with Abyss Odyssey - a short, tedious romp through a surprisingly pretty world. If you're looking for something to mindlessly grind away at, this one isn't the worst choice you could make; otherwise, though, I'd stay away.
My Rating: 3/10 - bad.
Showing posts with label XBLA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label XBLA. Show all posts
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Game Review - Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 (XBLA, 2014)
Let's be honest: Magic: The Gathering is an expensive hobby. Competitive decks can cost $200+, and even acquiring the collection to build casual decks can run into the triple digits. The cost combined with the expansive (and continually growing) set of rules and interactions can be a daunting obstacle to anyone interested in the game.
Over the past few years, the annual update of Duels of the Planeswalkers has served as an excellent, low-cost introduction to the game. For about $15 you've been able to get a nice little Magic package: sleek stand-alone games with nice tutorials, several interesting pre-constructed decks, and a few hundred hand-picked cards (of more than ten thousand from Magic's history) that showcase some of the game's more popular mechanics.
Historically, most Magic veterans would point interested newcomers to the most recent iteration of Duels of the Planeswalkers to get their feet wet.
That may not be such a great idea this year.
DotP 2015 takes a big step forward with its fully customizable deck building, but it takes a couple colossal steps back in other ways - terrible starting decks raise the barrier for entry for new players, and fewer game modes mean advanced players won't find nearly as much content as previous versions.
Let's start at the beginning:
When you first start the game, you'll be lead directly into a tutorial. This introduction to Magic is essentially an interactive lecture, and it's about as good a lesson on the basics as you're going to get unless you sit down and talk to a veteran player. For that purpose, DotP is still unparalleled.
After covering the basic mechanics, the game lets you choose your starting deck. Veteran planeswalkers will recognize the choices as each of Ravnica's guilds, but their basic strategies are also described in plain English. Again, it's a good way to ease newer players into this complicated game.
But that's where it all falls apart. The game is ultimately built around unlocking new cards to improve your decks as you progress, so the starting decks are particularly weak. The final tutorial duel, which is a straight-up game against an AI-controlled deck letting you see the rules in action, is hard. The AI's deck is just better than yours, and I could only progress into the rest of the game (I couldn't figure out any way to skip this tutorial battle) after reducing the difficulty to the lowest setting and retrying until my opponent had terrible draws. It's an absolutely unreasonable barrier to enter the majority of the game.
Things only get marginally better from there. The single-player portion of the game consists of a sequence of themed enemy decks covering some of Magic's iconic locations and characters. After each win, you'll be rewarded with a virtual booster pack, which will add a handful of new cards to your collection.
Those duels will be a struggle until you get a fair number of new cards, though. It's the same problem as in the tutorial - your starting deck is weaker than the decks you'll face, which means you'll need to win through superior luck in the first several matches of the game. It gets better as you go along, but it's certainly an uphill battle.
Once you've unlocked a good fraction of the nearly 1,000 cards (including copies) available in-game, you'll find a pretty nice Magic constructed format awaiting. With fully customizable deck building, your collection allows for a wide variety of archetypes. It seems like there are a number of solid decks, so I imagine the multiplayer side will develop an interesting metagame. Taking your deck online to battle other mages is definitely the highlight of the game, and with the customization available, it's a ton of fun.
However, I imagine that this system will be tough for new players. In previous DotP titles, the available decks were more or less at the same power level, with only relatively minor modifications being possible. Here, it's entirely on you to put together a decent deck to be competitive because the starting decks are terrible. If you haven't already developed rudimentary deck building skills, you're not going to get a whole lot of help from the game.
I suspect the deck building feature makes this version of DotP much less accessible newbies, which is exactly the opposite of what DotP has historically been about.
Given the emphasis on deck building, I would have expected the process of building a deck to be a lot smoother. The deck builder uses the same format as previous games, showing available cards in one row and the cards included in your deck on another. You can apply some filters that make things more manageable, but you're still only able to see a handful of cards on the screen at a time, so it's hard to get a holistic picture of the deck you've thrown together. Add the sluggishness of the whole process (scrolling through the cards can be tedious) and the process of building your deck is a bit of a chore.
Another downside deals with the cards you can use in deck building. To start, many of the cards you'll play against in the single-player game aren't available, so you'll see some cool ideas that you'll never be able to use yourself. There are also a number of "premium" cards that can only be unlocked through microtransactions giving you premium booster packs. Those cards aren't oppressively powerful by any means, but it's annoying not to be able to access all the cards just for the price of admission.
The menu system is also abysmal. Loading times are long, and important features are buried in several layers of menus. The worst offender is without a doubt changing your active deck: instead of being able to change your deck while in a multiplayer lobby (you know, if you decide you want to try one of the other decks you've put together), you have to back out to the main menu, enter the "deck equipping" menu, choose the deck you want, back out to the main menu, and re-enter your multiplayer lobby. It's an arduous task for doing something that should have been very simple, and it's just the most egregious example of poor design.
Another frustrating point is the surprising lack of game modes. If you want to play DotP 2015, you're stuck playing duels and free-for-alls. There are no casual formats like two-headed giant or archenemy like in previous iterations of the DotP franchise. They even omitted the challenge mode from previous games that gave you a game scenario and asked you to find a way to win on your next turn. Those challenges were cool Magic puzzles, but there's nothing like that here.
In the end, you get a fantastic explanation of Magic's basics and a frustrating process for unlocking cards that eventually leads to a thoroughly enjoyable multiplayer game. But this fully-customizable deck building came at a significant cost, as many previous features of the series have been omitted, and newer planeswalkers may find the barrier to entry to be a little too high.
As a result, I actually think that this year's Duels of the Planeswalkers is better suited to regular Magic players. If you're already familiar with Magic and you can trudge through the tedium of the single-player features, this is a decent online Magic game with a pseudo-Standard format. If you're looking for a way to introduce a friend to the game, however, you're much better off looking to previous versions.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Over the past few years, the annual update of Duels of the Planeswalkers has served as an excellent, low-cost introduction to the game. For about $15 you've been able to get a nice little Magic package: sleek stand-alone games with nice tutorials, several interesting pre-constructed decks, and a few hundred hand-picked cards (of more than ten thousand from Magic's history) that showcase some of the game's more popular mechanics.
Historically, most Magic veterans would point interested newcomers to the most recent iteration of Duels of the Planeswalkers to get their feet wet.
That may not be such a great idea this year.
DotP 2015 takes a big step forward with its fully customizable deck building, but it takes a couple colossal steps back in other ways - terrible starting decks raise the barrier for entry for new players, and fewer game modes mean advanced players won't find nearly as much content as previous versions.
Let's start at the beginning:
When you first start the game, you'll be lead directly into a tutorial. This introduction to Magic is essentially an interactive lecture, and it's about as good a lesson on the basics as you're going to get unless you sit down and talk to a veteran player. For that purpose, DotP is still unparalleled.
After covering the basic mechanics, the game lets you choose your starting deck. Veteran planeswalkers will recognize the choices as each of Ravnica's guilds, but their basic strategies are also described in plain English. Again, it's a good way to ease newer players into this complicated game.
But that's where it all falls apart. The game is ultimately built around unlocking new cards to improve your decks as you progress, so the starting decks are particularly weak. The final tutorial duel, which is a straight-up game against an AI-controlled deck letting you see the rules in action, is hard. The AI's deck is just better than yours, and I could only progress into the rest of the game (I couldn't figure out any way to skip this tutorial battle) after reducing the difficulty to the lowest setting and retrying until my opponent had terrible draws. It's an absolutely unreasonable barrier to enter the majority of the game.
Things only get marginally better from there. The single-player portion of the game consists of a sequence of themed enemy decks covering some of Magic's iconic locations and characters. After each win, you'll be rewarded with a virtual booster pack, which will add a handful of new cards to your collection.
Those duels will be a struggle until you get a fair number of new cards, though. It's the same problem as in the tutorial - your starting deck is weaker than the decks you'll face, which means you'll need to win through superior luck in the first several matches of the game. It gets better as you go along, but it's certainly an uphill battle.
Once you've unlocked a good fraction of the nearly 1,000 cards (including copies) available in-game, you'll find a pretty nice Magic constructed format awaiting. With fully customizable deck building, your collection allows for a wide variety of archetypes. It seems like there are a number of solid decks, so I imagine the multiplayer side will develop an interesting metagame. Taking your deck online to battle other mages is definitely the highlight of the game, and with the customization available, it's a ton of fun.
However, I imagine that this system will be tough for new players. In previous DotP titles, the available decks were more or less at the same power level, with only relatively minor modifications being possible. Here, it's entirely on you to put together a decent deck to be competitive because the starting decks are terrible. If you haven't already developed rudimentary deck building skills, you're not going to get a whole lot of help from the game.
I suspect the deck building feature makes this version of DotP much less accessible newbies, which is exactly the opposite of what DotP has historically been about.
Given the emphasis on deck building, I would have expected the process of building a deck to be a lot smoother. The deck builder uses the same format as previous games, showing available cards in one row and the cards included in your deck on another. You can apply some filters that make things more manageable, but you're still only able to see a handful of cards on the screen at a time, so it's hard to get a holistic picture of the deck you've thrown together. Add the sluggishness of the whole process (scrolling through the cards can be tedious) and the process of building your deck is a bit of a chore.
Another downside deals with the cards you can use in deck building. To start, many of the cards you'll play against in the single-player game aren't available, so you'll see some cool ideas that you'll never be able to use yourself. There are also a number of "premium" cards that can only be unlocked through microtransactions giving you premium booster packs. Those cards aren't oppressively powerful by any means, but it's annoying not to be able to access all the cards just for the price of admission.
The menu system is also abysmal. Loading times are long, and important features are buried in several layers of menus. The worst offender is without a doubt changing your active deck: instead of being able to change your deck while in a multiplayer lobby (you know, if you decide you want to try one of the other decks you've put together), you have to back out to the main menu, enter the "deck equipping" menu, choose the deck you want, back out to the main menu, and re-enter your multiplayer lobby. It's an arduous task for doing something that should have been very simple, and it's just the most egregious example of poor design.
Another frustrating point is the surprising lack of game modes. If you want to play DotP 2015, you're stuck playing duels and free-for-alls. There are no casual formats like two-headed giant or archenemy like in previous iterations of the DotP franchise. They even omitted the challenge mode from previous games that gave you a game scenario and asked you to find a way to win on your next turn. Those challenges were cool Magic puzzles, but there's nothing like that here.
In the end, you get a fantastic explanation of Magic's basics and a frustrating process for unlocking cards that eventually leads to a thoroughly enjoyable multiplayer game. But this fully-customizable deck building came at a significant cost, as many previous features of the series have been omitted, and newer planeswalkers may find the barrier to entry to be a little too high.
As a result, I actually think that this year's Duels of the Planeswalkers is better suited to regular Magic players. If you're already familiar with Magic and you can trudge through the tedium of the single-player features, this is a decent online Magic game with a pseudo-Standard format. If you're looking for a way to introduce a friend to the game, however, you're much better off looking to previous versions.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Achievement Guide - Inherit the Earth in Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015
Inherit the Earth in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015.
To earn this achievement, you need to use Mentor of the Meek's ability to draw 3 or more cards in a single turn.
Mentor of the Meek's ability triggers any time you get a new small creature: "Whenever another creature with power 2 or less enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay 1. If you do, draw a card." We just need to have lots of little dudes enter the battlefield once the Mentor is in play to get this one!
I'll provide the deck list that I used, but first I'll outline some basic strategic considerations so that you have an idea of why certain things are included, both to help you use that deck and to allow you to make changes as needed if you're finding that it doesn't quite work for you.
Deck Strategy:
A single-colored deck eliminates any concerns about having the right kinds of lands and generally makes life a lot simpler and more consistent. Seeing that the Mentor is white, a mono-white is the way to go.
As you might imagine, the Mentor's ability can easily get prohibitively expensive. You'll have to spend three mana drawing cards, leaving less mana to actually cast those creature spells.
As such, in addition to the Mentor, we want lots of cheap ways of making little weenies to trigger his ability. Fortunately, white has a bunch of 1-costing creatures in this game. If you can hold on to three of those while building up to 6 total mana, you're good to unload them all at once to nab the achievement. Don't overlook spells like Raise the Alarm, which also generate creatures for one mana each (essentially).
The Convoke mechanic is a nice way around the cost problem, too, as your creatures (including Mentor of the Meek himself!) can allow you to cast some spells. Triplicate Spirits is perhaps the best spell for this task, as it already creates three little spirits to trigger your Mentor. If you can get six creatures in play, you'll only need three open mana to draw your cards.
As always, we'll want to devote some of our resources to staying alive. I'm partial to straight kill spells like Divine Verdict. Resolute Archangel is also very nice for prolonging your life, as it can negate all the damage you take over several turns. Since we're looking to make tons of dudes anyway, Seraph of the Masses is excellent on defense.
Deck List:
After each card name, I'll list the area that you can find that particular card (i.e., if you don't have the listed number of copies, which plane you should explore to earn more).
1 Elite Vanguard (Shandalar)
4 Selfless Cathar (Innistrad)
2 Trained Caracal (Ravnica)
2 Loyal Pegasus (Theros)
2 Ajani's Pridemate (Theros)
2 Lone Missionary (Zendikar)
3 Raise the Alarm (Shandalar)
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos (Theros)
2 Mentor of the Meek (Innistrad)
1 Banisher Priest (Zendikar)
4 Attended Knight (Shandalar)
2 Divine Verdict (Theros)
3 Angelic Edict (Ravnica)
2 Triplicate Spirits (Zendikar)
1 Resolute Archangel (Innistrad)
3 Seraph of the Masses (Innistrad)
24 Plains
Technique:
Because there are only two copies of Mentor of the Meek in the game, the trickiest part about this achievement is surviving long enough to draw a copy. If you're patient, you can cast every creature spell you draw to hold the line until you draw the Mentor, at which point you just sandbag creatures until you can make three enter the battlefield in the same turn. It's definitely doable, but it might take well over 20 turns to make it happen.
An alternative is to restart your duel until you have the Mentor, a couple cheap creatures, and a few lands in your opening hand. This plan is a little bit more dangerous, as you won't be able to defend yourself during the first few turns of the game, but it'll get you there a lot more quickly if it works.
This deck obviously works best against creature-heavy decks without many removal spells. I tried it in a few different cases and it seemed to work pretty well, so you can reasonably expect to win with this deck while trying to unlock more cards. It does work particularly well against the "Tangled Growth" encounter on Zendikar, as 6-10 weenies are usually enough to hold the AI's forces back.
Let me know if you have other insights into earning this achievement!
To earn this achievement, you need to use Mentor of the Meek's ability to draw 3 or more cards in a single turn.
Mentor of the Meek's ability triggers any time you get a new small creature: "Whenever another creature with power 2 or less enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay 1. If you do, draw a card." We just need to have lots of little dudes enter the battlefield once the Mentor is in play to get this one!
I'll provide the deck list that I used, but first I'll outline some basic strategic considerations so that you have an idea of why certain things are included, both to help you use that deck and to allow you to make changes as needed if you're finding that it doesn't quite work for you.
Deck Strategy:
A single-colored deck eliminates any concerns about having the right kinds of lands and generally makes life a lot simpler and more consistent. Seeing that the Mentor is white, a mono-white is the way to go.
As you might imagine, the Mentor's ability can easily get prohibitively expensive. You'll have to spend three mana drawing cards, leaving less mana to actually cast those creature spells.
As such, in addition to the Mentor, we want lots of cheap ways of making little weenies to trigger his ability. Fortunately, white has a bunch of 1-costing creatures in this game. If you can hold on to three of those while building up to 6 total mana, you're good to unload them all at once to nab the achievement. Don't overlook spells like Raise the Alarm, which also generate creatures for one mana each (essentially).
The Convoke mechanic is a nice way around the cost problem, too, as your creatures (including Mentor of the Meek himself!) can allow you to cast some spells. Triplicate Spirits is perhaps the best spell for this task, as it already creates three little spirits to trigger your Mentor. If you can get six creatures in play, you'll only need three open mana to draw your cards.
As always, we'll want to devote some of our resources to staying alive. I'm partial to straight kill spells like Divine Verdict. Resolute Archangel is also very nice for prolonging your life, as it can negate all the damage you take over several turns. Since we're looking to make tons of dudes anyway, Seraph of the Masses is excellent on defense.
Deck List:
After each card name, I'll list the area that you can find that particular card (i.e., if you don't have the listed number of copies, which plane you should explore to earn more).
1 Elite Vanguard (Shandalar)
4 Selfless Cathar (Innistrad)
2 Trained Caracal (Ravnica)
2 Loyal Pegasus (Theros)
2 Ajani's Pridemate (Theros)
2 Lone Missionary (Zendikar)
3 Raise the Alarm (Shandalar)
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos (Theros)
2 Mentor of the Meek (Innistrad)
1 Banisher Priest (Zendikar)
4 Attended Knight (Shandalar)
2 Divine Verdict (Theros)
3 Angelic Edict (Ravnica)
2 Triplicate Spirits (Zendikar)
1 Resolute Archangel (Innistrad)
3 Seraph of the Masses (Innistrad)
24 Plains
Technique:
Because there are only two copies of Mentor of the Meek in the game, the trickiest part about this achievement is surviving long enough to draw a copy. If you're patient, you can cast every creature spell you draw to hold the line until you draw the Mentor, at which point you just sandbag creatures until you can make three enter the battlefield in the same turn. It's definitely doable, but it might take well over 20 turns to make it happen.
An alternative is to restart your duel until you have the Mentor, a couple cheap creatures, and a few lands in your opening hand. This plan is a little bit more dangerous, as you won't be able to defend yourself during the first few turns of the game, but it'll get you there a lot more quickly if it works.
This deck obviously works best against creature-heavy decks without many removal spells. I tried it in a few different cases and it seemed to work pretty well, so you can reasonably expect to win with this deck while trying to unlock more cards. It does work particularly well against the "Tangled Growth" encounter on Zendikar, as 6-10 weenies are usually enough to hold the AI's forces back.
Let me know if you have other insights into earning this achievement!
Achievement Guide - Defensive Line in Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015
It's not often that I can come up with procedures for earning video game achievements before a multitude of guides are available online, so I'm excited to share my solutions when possible. The next few posts will focus on various challenges in Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015.
Defensive Line in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015.
To earn this achievement, you must deal 20 damage with Vent Sentinel in a single game.
Vent Sentinel is a red defender with a unique activated ability - 1R, Tap: Vent Sentinel deals damage to target player equal to the number of creatures with defender you control. Obviously, the key to dealing 20 damage with Vent Sentinel is to have a bunch of defenders in play, and you probably want to make Vent Sentinel your win condition so you know you're not going to fall a couple points of damage short.
I'll provide the deck list that I used, but first I will outline some basic strategic considerations so that you have an idea of why certain things are included, both to help you use that deck and to allow you to make changes as needed if you're finding that it doesn't quite work for you.
Deck Strategy:
The basic plan is to play a deck with a bunch of defenders and various other ways of keeping yourself alive. Black and blue are good choices for survival, as both have relatively cheap responses to whatever your opponent may be doing and have a fair number of defenders.
From black, I'm a big fan of removal like Tribute to Hunger for the extra life gain, and from blue, I find counterspells like Dissolve and bounce spells like Voyage's End to be really powerful, in part due to their Scry effects to filter out things you don't want to be drawing. Extra card draw from blue is also a plus.
With at least three colors involved, you'll also be looking to fix your colors of mana to ensure you don't get stuck with a hand full of uncastable spells. The Traveler's Amulet artifact is useful in this regard, but green also excels at finding good sources of mana.
As such, I settled on a four-color deck: Red for Vent Sentinel, Black for removal, Blue for counterspells and removal, and green for mana ramp/fixing. The ramp and fixing are certainly the most important part of the equation, so the deck is a little heavy on Forests to make it more consistent.
Deck List:
After each card name, I'll list the area that you can find that particular card (i.e., if you don't have the listed number of copies, which plane you should explore to earn more).
Blue
4 Doorkeeper (Ravnica)
2 Voyage's End (Theros)
1 Dissolve (Theros)
2 Thassa's Bounty (Theros)
Black
3 Tribute to Hunger (Innistrad)
3 Corpse Blockade (Ravnica)
3 Ogre Jailbreaker (Ravnica)
Red
4 Vent Sentinel (Zendikar)
Green
4 Grave Bramble (Innistrad)
4 Cultivate (Theros)
Artifacts
2 Traveler's Amulet (Theros)
3 Gargoyle Sentinel (Innistrad)
1 Avarice Amulet (Theros)
1 Meteorite (Shandalar)
Land
6 Island
4 Swamp
3 Mountain
7 Forest
1 Gruul Guildgate (Ravnica)
1 Simic Guildgate (Ravnica)
1 Golgari Guildgate (Ravnica)
Technique:
The plan as described above is to survive long enough to get Vent Sentinel in play with 4+ other defenders and start shooting your opponent. The Avarice Amulet is in there just to help you draw more cards if you don't hit a copy of the Sentinel quickly enough; the Meteorite helps with color problems and can occasionally kill a pesky creature when necessary.
With four colors, it's important to be careful when choosing which lands to tap to cast spells. Make sure that you're always leaving the lands that you'd need to cast the next spell you want for that turn.
Using this setup, I was able to get the achievement on my first try. I didn't worry about what deck I was playing against (I used this as an opportunity to unlock some more cards by exploring Zendikar), but it's definitely stronger against more creature-heavy decks. Stay away from decks that run a lot of spells that will just kill your creatures outright.
Let me know if you have other insights into earning this achievement!
Defensive Line in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015.
To earn this achievement, you must deal 20 damage with Vent Sentinel in a single game.
Vent Sentinel is a red defender with a unique activated ability - 1R, Tap: Vent Sentinel deals damage to target player equal to the number of creatures with defender you control. Obviously, the key to dealing 20 damage with Vent Sentinel is to have a bunch of defenders in play, and you probably want to make Vent Sentinel your win condition so you know you're not going to fall a couple points of damage short.
I'll provide the deck list that I used, but first I will outline some basic strategic considerations so that you have an idea of why certain things are included, both to help you use that deck and to allow you to make changes as needed if you're finding that it doesn't quite work for you.
Deck Strategy:
The basic plan is to play a deck with a bunch of defenders and various other ways of keeping yourself alive. Black and blue are good choices for survival, as both have relatively cheap responses to whatever your opponent may be doing and have a fair number of defenders.
From black, I'm a big fan of removal like Tribute to Hunger for the extra life gain, and from blue, I find counterspells like Dissolve and bounce spells like Voyage's End to be really powerful, in part due to their Scry effects to filter out things you don't want to be drawing. Extra card draw from blue is also a plus.
With at least three colors involved, you'll also be looking to fix your colors of mana to ensure you don't get stuck with a hand full of uncastable spells. The Traveler's Amulet artifact is useful in this regard, but green also excels at finding good sources of mana.
As such, I settled on a four-color deck: Red for Vent Sentinel, Black for removal, Blue for counterspells and removal, and green for mana ramp/fixing. The ramp and fixing are certainly the most important part of the equation, so the deck is a little heavy on Forests to make it more consistent.
Deck List:
After each card name, I'll list the area that you can find that particular card (i.e., if you don't have the listed number of copies, which plane you should explore to earn more).
Blue
4 Doorkeeper (Ravnica)
2 Voyage's End (Theros)
1 Dissolve (Theros)
2 Thassa's Bounty (Theros)
Black
3 Tribute to Hunger (Innistrad)
3 Corpse Blockade (Ravnica)
3 Ogre Jailbreaker (Ravnica)
Red
4 Vent Sentinel (Zendikar)
Green
4 Grave Bramble (Innistrad)
4 Cultivate (Theros)
Artifacts
2 Traveler's Amulet (Theros)
3 Gargoyle Sentinel (Innistrad)
1 Avarice Amulet (Theros)
1 Meteorite (Shandalar)
Land
6 Island
4 Swamp
3 Mountain
7 Forest
1 Gruul Guildgate (Ravnica)
1 Simic Guildgate (Ravnica)
1 Golgari Guildgate (Ravnica)
Technique:
The plan as described above is to survive long enough to get Vent Sentinel in play with 4+ other defenders and start shooting your opponent. The Avarice Amulet is in there just to help you draw more cards if you don't hit a copy of the Sentinel quickly enough; the Meteorite helps with color problems and can occasionally kill a pesky creature when necessary.
With four colors, it's important to be careful when choosing which lands to tap to cast spells. Make sure that you're always leaving the lands that you'd need to cast the next spell you want for that turn.
Using this setup, I was able to get the achievement on my first try. I didn't worry about what deck I was playing against (I used this as an opportunity to unlock some more cards by exploring Zendikar), but it's definitely stronger against more creature-heavy decks. Stay away from decks that run a lot of spells that will just kill your creatures outright.
Let me know if you have other insights into earning this achievement!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Game Review - Super Time Force (XBLA, 2014)
Occasionally a game comes along that executes a concept so well that you're genuinely sad when it's over. Super Time Force is one of those games.
Channeling some of the best in gaming from the 80's, the highly-pixelated Super Time Force is a side-scrolling action game at heart. You'll fight through several stages in 7 distinct worlds, each with its own diverse set of characteristic enemies. The game starts with three playable characters with different weapons and unique abilities. Over the course of the campaign, you can unlock a dozen more, providing no shortage of skills at your disposal.
Even just those details, combined with a fluid control scheme and somewhat complex level design, make for a solidly entertaining game.
Of course, that's just the foundation for the game's real draw. What sets Super Time Force apart is, unsurprisingly, its use of time as a gameplay mechanic.
At any point during a stage, you have the option of taking a "time out." During a time out, you can rewind to an earlier point in the level to redo some sequence and change your active character, letting you switch to someone better suited for a particular challenge.
The coolest part, though, is that anytime you rewind the level, your previous actions are not reset. Your precise motions will still be carried out, allowing you to focus on other enemies or objectives or even to save a character from an untimely death (giving you a powerup in the process). As a result, in many stages you may have 8 or more shadows running around with you, firing their weapons, destroying enemies and other obstacles, each representing an earlier sequence of your own gameplay.
It's an awesome idea, and it's awesomely implemented. Many of the stages are designed in such a way that you cannot possibly beat them within the given time limit without setting up multiple characters to work together. Bosses are a great example - your damage output with one character is simply not enough to defeat the bosses; you must make good use of the time out feature to survive those fights.
It all amounts to a side-scroller with a strategic twist. Deciding how to set up your future actions sometimes requires thinking three or four sequences ahead. You can only use at most 40 time outs in a single level though, so you can't quite brute force your way through everything.
To be honest, I don't think my description quite does it justice. It's a really cool concept, and it's tons of fun.
Super Time Force also has a good balance of difficulty. Some of the stages are a little challenging to complete in the first place (though I never actually failed at any of them; 40 time outs is a lot), but earning all the medals in each stage, which requires reaching the end quickly enough, can be really tough. Nabbing all the collectibles isn't bad, but you really have to optimize your run to meet those timing challenges.
There's also a "Super Hardcore" mode available after beating the game, which makes the game quite a bit more difficult, and leaderboards for competing for the best overall medal counts and times.
Basically, there's a high skill ceiling and a competitive component for players interested in that sort of thing.
To top it all off, this phenomenal gameplay is embedded in a clever little story. It follows the titular group's mission to defend the world from the robot invasion of 1987 and other awesome things, like saving the dinosaurs from extinction and navigating the Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world of the 1990s.
While the storyline and writing are pretty silly, it never substitutes randomness for lightheartedness, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with this sort of plot. It's full of pop culture references and amusing dialogue, making for an all-around entertaining game.
The presentation is fantastic, too. The pixelated graphics and chiptune-esque audio do a great job of dredging up nostalgia, but it's still fresh and detailed enough not to actually look dated. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I'd say it's a pretty good stylistic choice.
My only real complaint is that it's just much too short. I completed the storyline in under 6 hours, which included replaying a few levels to try to get more medals. Grabbing the rest of the game's achievements (which don't require earning the time challenge medals, so they're not too difficult) took another hour or so, leaving me desperately craving more levels to explore and bosses to fell.
Due to its length, Super Time Force may be a bit pricy for the amount of game time it provides, but it's still one of the most fun and satisfying games I've played in a while. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Channeling some of the best in gaming from the 80's, the highly-pixelated Super Time Force is a side-scrolling action game at heart. You'll fight through several stages in 7 distinct worlds, each with its own diverse set of characteristic enemies. The game starts with three playable characters with different weapons and unique abilities. Over the course of the campaign, you can unlock a dozen more, providing no shortage of skills at your disposal.
Even just those details, combined with a fluid control scheme and somewhat complex level design, make for a solidly entertaining game.
Of course, that's just the foundation for the game's real draw. What sets Super Time Force apart is, unsurprisingly, its use of time as a gameplay mechanic.
At any point during a stage, you have the option of taking a "time out." During a time out, you can rewind to an earlier point in the level to redo some sequence and change your active character, letting you switch to someone better suited for a particular challenge.
The coolest part, though, is that anytime you rewind the level, your previous actions are not reset. Your precise motions will still be carried out, allowing you to focus on other enemies or objectives or even to save a character from an untimely death (giving you a powerup in the process). As a result, in many stages you may have 8 or more shadows running around with you, firing their weapons, destroying enemies and other obstacles, each representing an earlier sequence of your own gameplay.
It's an awesome idea, and it's awesomely implemented. Many of the stages are designed in such a way that you cannot possibly beat them within the given time limit without setting up multiple characters to work together. Bosses are a great example - your damage output with one character is simply not enough to defeat the bosses; you must make good use of the time out feature to survive those fights.
It all amounts to a side-scroller with a strategic twist. Deciding how to set up your future actions sometimes requires thinking three or four sequences ahead. You can only use at most 40 time outs in a single level though, so you can't quite brute force your way through everything.
To be honest, I don't think my description quite does it justice. It's a really cool concept, and it's tons of fun.
Super Time Force also has a good balance of difficulty. Some of the stages are a little challenging to complete in the first place (though I never actually failed at any of them; 40 time outs is a lot), but earning all the medals in each stage, which requires reaching the end quickly enough, can be really tough. Nabbing all the collectibles isn't bad, but you really have to optimize your run to meet those timing challenges.
There's also a "Super Hardcore" mode available after beating the game, which makes the game quite a bit more difficult, and leaderboards for competing for the best overall medal counts and times.
Basically, there's a high skill ceiling and a competitive component for players interested in that sort of thing.
To top it all off, this phenomenal gameplay is embedded in a clever little story. It follows the titular group's mission to defend the world from the robot invasion of 1987 and other awesome things, like saving the dinosaurs from extinction and navigating the Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world of the 1990s.
While the storyline and writing are pretty silly, it never substitutes randomness for lightheartedness, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with this sort of plot. It's full of pop culture references and amusing dialogue, making for an all-around entertaining game.
The presentation is fantastic, too. The pixelated graphics and chiptune-esque audio do a great job of dredging up nostalgia, but it's still fresh and detailed enough not to actually look dated. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I'd say it's a pretty good stylistic choice.
My only real complaint is that it's just much too short. I completed the storyline in under 6 hours, which included replaying a few levels to try to get more medals. Grabbing the rest of the game's achievements (which don't require earning the time challenge medals, so they're not too difficult) took another hour or so, leaving me desperately craving more levels to explore and bosses to fell.
Due to its length, Super Time Force may be a bit pricy for the amount of game time it provides, but it's still one of the most fun and satisfying games I've played in a while. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Game Review - Child of Light (XBLA, 2014)
About a month ago, a friend and I lamented the fact that there haven't been any good turn-based RPGs recently. It's an old school style of gameplay that has fallen out of favor in the last decade, sure, but I still enjoy those strategic battles from time to time.
Child of Light's arrival last week filled that hole in my gaming heart. While not strictly speaking turn-based, Child of Light is a fabulous game that does a lot of things right.
The game's biggest success is its overall aesthetic - Child of Light is stunning from the moment you boot it up. It features a whimsical world with characters and monsters straight out of classic fairy tales. The graphics are incredible; smooth animation plus gorgeously detailed (and dynamic!) backgrounds do a fantastic job setting the stage, and each of the game's areas is as lovely as the last.
Child of Light is very possibly the most beautiful game I've ever played.
The sound quality is similarly high. The major melodies throughout the game are haunting, effectively combining the fantasy tone with the tragedy and despair prominent in the plot (more on that shortly). There are spurts of narration with voice acting, which are also well done, but they're brief enough to be forgettable. Even so, there's not a blemish in the game's overall presentation.
Thankfully, the rest of the game makes pretty good use of this fantastic foundation.
The story revolves around a young Austrian princess, Aurora, whose death sends her father into a spiral of depression in traditional fairy tale fashion. Her death is just a ruse, however, as she was actually transported to Lemuria, a mystical world populated by a variety of unusual creatures.
Aurora soon learns of Lemuria's plight: the Queen of the Night has stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars, leaving the entire world in eternal darkness. Helping the people of Lemuria is Aurora's only chance to return home, so she embark on a quest to find and defeat the Queen of the Night.
As you can likely tell, the plot is as influenced by classic coming-of-age fairy tales as the overall aesthetic. It's a little shallow when compared to its inspiration, as the sources of evil are pretty poorly developed, and it could stand to shake up the genre a little more (the characters are almost exclusively one-dimensional), but it's an enjoyable narrative nonetheless.
The best part of the story, however, is that the script is written entirely in rhyming verse. It's essentially an epic poem, and while it is occasionally very forced (as rhymes can be), it's quite impressive. This rhyming structure is even used as comedic relief at times.
When all is said and done, Child of Light presents a unique and enjoyable world to explore.
To top it off, the gameplay is a sleek meld of 2D exploration (think Metroidvania, though much more linear) and turn-based RPG combat.
The overworld exploration is full of goodies to uncover with excellent movement controls to boot. Colliding with an enemy in the world will enter combat, which I'd say is the most compelling part of the game.
The basics are pretty standard fare: Battles use an active battle system, where each character progresses along an action gauge. The rate at which the gauge fills is determined by a character's speed statistic, but the action pauses every time you need to issue a command.
However, there are two features that keep these battles interesting. First, after selecting which action a character will perform, there is a brief "casting" period. The duration of casting varies from ability to ability, but the important bit is that any time an enemy lands an attack against a character while they're casting, they will be interrupted and push them back down the action gauge. Enemies can also be interrupted, so fights become more an issue of managing interruptions than choosing the most powerful attacks. It's a cool system, making combat more tactical, and it's implemented pretty darned well.
Second, you're able to influence battles by moving what amounts to a cursor between the participants. If you highlight a friendly character, you can heal them; if you choose an enemy instead, you can slow their progress on the action gauge. Either action depletes some energy (which can also be used outside battle to heal your party), leading to an active component of these otherwise turn-based battles.
These ideas (plus a few other, less notable but also important features) are integrated almost seamlessly, giving a surprisingly fulfilling combat system.
Early on, these fights can get a little tedious, but there was a point within the first few hours where I noticed a big jump in difficulty. After that, nearly every battle was a challenge, which was refreshing, as many RPGs these days are full of filler content. To be fair, I played through the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting, so maybe the lower difficult setting isn't as exciting. I was pretty satisfied with it overall.
Though I've been praising Child of Light throughout this review, it's worth noting that there are some frustrating flaws.
The most obvious is that the game is relatively short. Once I completed the story and all the game's achievements, I had spent less than 15 hours on it, which includes a fair amount of experience grinding to deal with a couple of the bosses. There was a ton of potential for a longer adventure, and while I'm happy they didn't drag it out with monotonous quests, I would have liked to have seen more content, especially in terms of side quests (as there are only a few minor side quests).
Another big complaint deals with the skill system - each playable character has a pretty large, seemingly complicated skill tree, though each reduces to three linear branches. Basically, it looks like there's a lot more strategy involved in skill development than there actually is.
So it's not perfect, but those are relatively minor criticisms. All things considered, Child of Light is an incredibly charming and entertaining game. It's a beautiful game that's definitely worth your time.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Child of Light's arrival last week filled that hole in my gaming heart. While not strictly speaking turn-based, Child of Light is a fabulous game that does a lot of things right.
The game's biggest success is its overall aesthetic - Child of Light is stunning from the moment you boot it up. It features a whimsical world with characters and monsters straight out of classic fairy tales. The graphics are incredible; smooth animation plus gorgeously detailed (and dynamic!) backgrounds do a fantastic job setting the stage, and each of the game's areas is as lovely as the last.
Child of Light is very possibly the most beautiful game I've ever played.
The sound quality is similarly high. The major melodies throughout the game are haunting, effectively combining the fantasy tone with the tragedy and despair prominent in the plot (more on that shortly). There are spurts of narration with voice acting, which are also well done, but they're brief enough to be forgettable. Even so, there's not a blemish in the game's overall presentation.
Thankfully, the rest of the game makes pretty good use of this fantastic foundation.
The story revolves around a young Austrian princess, Aurora, whose death sends her father into a spiral of depression in traditional fairy tale fashion. Her death is just a ruse, however, as she was actually transported to Lemuria, a mystical world populated by a variety of unusual creatures.
Aurora soon learns of Lemuria's plight: the Queen of the Night has stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars, leaving the entire world in eternal darkness. Helping the people of Lemuria is Aurora's only chance to return home, so she embark on a quest to find and defeat the Queen of the Night.
As you can likely tell, the plot is as influenced by classic coming-of-age fairy tales as the overall aesthetic. It's a little shallow when compared to its inspiration, as the sources of evil are pretty poorly developed, and it could stand to shake up the genre a little more (the characters are almost exclusively one-dimensional), but it's an enjoyable narrative nonetheless.
The best part of the story, however, is that the script is written entirely in rhyming verse. It's essentially an epic poem, and while it is occasionally very forced (as rhymes can be), it's quite impressive. This rhyming structure is even used as comedic relief at times.
When all is said and done, Child of Light presents a unique and enjoyable world to explore.
To top it off, the gameplay is a sleek meld of 2D exploration (think Metroidvania, though much more linear) and turn-based RPG combat.
The overworld exploration is full of goodies to uncover with excellent movement controls to boot. Colliding with an enemy in the world will enter combat, which I'd say is the most compelling part of the game.
The basics are pretty standard fare: Battles use an active battle system, where each character progresses along an action gauge. The rate at which the gauge fills is determined by a character's speed statistic, but the action pauses every time you need to issue a command.
However, there are two features that keep these battles interesting. First, after selecting which action a character will perform, there is a brief "casting" period. The duration of casting varies from ability to ability, but the important bit is that any time an enemy lands an attack against a character while they're casting, they will be interrupted and push them back down the action gauge. Enemies can also be interrupted, so fights become more an issue of managing interruptions than choosing the most powerful attacks. It's a cool system, making combat more tactical, and it's implemented pretty darned well.
Second, you're able to influence battles by moving what amounts to a cursor between the participants. If you highlight a friendly character, you can heal them; if you choose an enemy instead, you can slow their progress on the action gauge. Either action depletes some energy (which can also be used outside battle to heal your party), leading to an active component of these otherwise turn-based battles.
These ideas (plus a few other, less notable but also important features) are integrated almost seamlessly, giving a surprisingly fulfilling combat system.
Early on, these fights can get a little tedious, but there was a point within the first few hours where I noticed a big jump in difficulty. After that, nearly every battle was a challenge, which was refreshing, as many RPGs these days are full of filler content. To be fair, I played through the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting, so maybe the lower difficult setting isn't as exciting. I was pretty satisfied with it overall.
Though I've been praising Child of Light throughout this review, it's worth noting that there are some frustrating flaws.
The most obvious is that the game is relatively short. Once I completed the story and all the game's achievements, I had spent less than 15 hours on it, which includes a fair amount of experience grinding to deal with a couple of the bosses. There was a ton of potential for a longer adventure, and while I'm happy they didn't drag it out with monotonous quests, I would have liked to have seen more content, especially in terms of side quests (as there are only a few minor side quests).
Another big complaint deals with the skill system - each playable character has a pretty large, seemingly complicated skill tree, though each reduces to three linear branches. Basically, it looks like there's a lot more strategy involved in skill development than there actually is.
So it's not perfect, but those are relatively minor criticisms. All things considered, Child of Light is an incredibly charming and entertaining game. It's a beautiful game that's definitely worth your time.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Game Review - Hexodius (XBLA, 2013)
I've always been a fan of the classic arcade style of gameplay. Easy-to-learn mechanics and a relatively high skill ceiling make this kind of game perfect for killing ten minutes or challenging everything you've got for a new high score, especially now that the coin-eating component is (mostly) obsolete.
Hexodius is a recent iteration of that classic formula, and it plays the role pretty well. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but it is a solid twin-stick shooter, and therefore worthy of your attention if you're into that sort of thing.
First, the basics: Hexodius is essentially your standard shoot 'em up. You work through stages flooded with waves of enemies, destroying everything you can for the highest score possible. Classic arcade action at its finest.
Game modes are divided between a "story" campaign, which uses a thin plot to push you through a quasi-nonlinear series of arenas and boss fights, and an "arcade" mode, in which you have three minutes to beat your friends' high scores.
It's a simple formula, but it's executed nicely. The story mode has levels with a variety of objectives, keeping things interesting as you trudge through dozens of stages. The boss fights can be taxing, especially if you're going for the highest possible rank, but the other levels tend to be pretty forgiving, making them feel like filler after sinking a few hours into the game.
Progressing through the story mode unlocks six different arcade mode arenas; those arenas are where the game's challenge really shines. Earning an "A" rank in any arcade arena is an impressive feat, as it requires quick thinking and reflexes to get the necessary score. It's definitely a case of "easy to learn, hard to master."
In a slight deviation from the standard shoot 'em up style, Hexodius gives you the opportunity to equip up to four secondary weapons and three upgrades, adding a tactical element to the genre. I found myself settling on one particular arrangement for the majority of the story mode, but when tackling the arcade, incremental advantages start to have huge implications. It's nice to be able to experiment with different equipment to find the one that fits your playstyle best.
It all works out pretty well, giving a simple but smooth action experience. There's not a whole lot of flourish, but the fundamental mechanics are sound, so the game tends to be pretty fun. The individual stages can usually be completed within five minutes, too, so it's a great game for killing a little time here and there. It's great entertainment in short bursts, only really showing its major flaws if you dedicate a few straight hours to it.
As for the superficial side of things, there's nothing to impressive to see or hear with this one. The music and sound effects are forgettable, and the graphics are pretty much standard fare for this kind of thing these days.
The story mode took me a little over five hours to complete (according to the in-game clock), but it seems like there's near-infinite replayability in the arcade if you're interested in securing a spot at the top of the leaderboards. As such, there's probably not enough content to justify the price of admission for your average gamer, but fans of twin-stick shooters or players looking for the occasional ten-minute filler will find a solid title in Hexodius.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Hexodius is a recent iteration of that classic formula, and it plays the role pretty well. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but it is a solid twin-stick shooter, and therefore worthy of your attention if you're into that sort of thing.
First, the basics: Hexodius is essentially your standard shoot 'em up. You work through stages flooded with waves of enemies, destroying everything you can for the highest score possible. Classic arcade action at its finest.
Game modes are divided between a "story" campaign, which uses a thin plot to push you through a quasi-nonlinear series of arenas and boss fights, and an "arcade" mode, in which you have three minutes to beat your friends' high scores.
It's a simple formula, but it's executed nicely. The story mode has levels with a variety of objectives, keeping things interesting as you trudge through dozens of stages. The boss fights can be taxing, especially if you're going for the highest possible rank, but the other levels tend to be pretty forgiving, making them feel like filler after sinking a few hours into the game.
Progressing through the story mode unlocks six different arcade mode arenas; those arenas are where the game's challenge really shines. Earning an "A" rank in any arcade arena is an impressive feat, as it requires quick thinking and reflexes to get the necessary score. It's definitely a case of "easy to learn, hard to master."
In a slight deviation from the standard shoot 'em up style, Hexodius gives you the opportunity to equip up to four secondary weapons and three upgrades, adding a tactical element to the genre. I found myself settling on one particular arrangement for the majority of the story mode, but when tackling the arcade, incremental advantages start to have huge implications. It's nice to be able to experiment with different equipment to find the one that fits your playstyle best.
It all works out pretty well, giving a simple but smooth action experience. There's not a whole lot of flourish, but the fundamental mechanics are sound, so the game tends to be pretty fun. The individual stages can usually be completed within five minutes, too, so it's a great game for killing a little time here and there. It's great entertainment in short bursts, only really showing its major flaws if you dedicate a few straight hours to it.
As for the superficial side of things, there's nothing to impressive to see or hear with this one. The music and sound effects are forgettable, and the graphics are pretty much standard fare for this kind of thing these days.
The story mode took me a little over five hours to complete (according to the in-game clock), but it seems like there's near-infinite replayability in the arcade if you're interested in securing a spot at the top of the leaderboards. As such, there's probably not enough content to justify the price of admission for your average gamer, but fans of twin-stick shooters or players looking for the occasional ten-minute filler will find a solid title in Hexodius.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Game Review - Mars: War Logs (XBLA, 2013)
I'm always looking for a great new RPGs. Immersing myself in an expansive world and seeing an epic story unfold or building my character(s) with the skills and equipment I find useful are some of the highlights of modern gaming.
Mars: War Logs is not one of those games.
While some aspects of the game make strong first impressions, evoking memories of Knights of the Old Republic with its aesthetic and basic controls, the whole thing rapidly deteriorates into a long sequence of tedious fetch quests, a frustrating real-time combat system, and a generally forgettable storyline that lacks momentum.
War Logs opens with a young soldier called Innocence describing the situation (a war on Mars) while he's taken to a POW camp. Immediately after exiting the prisoner train, a large prisoner threatens Innocence with rape.
This scenario is just the first of many scenes throughout the game that seem to have been written by a 12-year-old trying to be "edgy;" it seems totally out of place given the nature of the situation (a war prisoner is going to rape a kid from the same side of the conflict right out of the gate?) and the view of the world that we get elsewhere (after this initial confrontation, the camp as a whole seems surprisingly friendly and inviting).
And that's essentially the whole game: a vaguely oppressed group of prisoners deals with their situation and the occasional bout of unnecessary adult content.
To make matters worse, the story is divided into three acts, but they are only loosely related. The major issues introduced during each segment are hastily resolved during brief cutscenes, so you get a few disjointed storylines rather than the coherent narrative as you might expect from an RPG.
Overall, the story in Mars: War Logs lacks the depth and the polish to be anything more than a passing interest.
The gameplay sadly doesn't pick up the slack; there's just nothing really inspiring about it.
While the quests throughout the game aren't too unusual for a modern RPG, the lackluster story fails to mask the tedious elements. Nearly every quest reduces to "go here, fight them, get this," and its hard to overlook the repetitive structure.
Combat doesn't add much enjoyment, either. To be fair, there are a few nice technical features: battles are handled in real-time, playing almost like a third-person action game, and they're usually pretty intense, as 3+ enemies will all come at you simultaneously.
The problem with fighting lies in some of the details. First off, the introductory tutorials present strategies that are irrelevant during your first major encounter (and many encounters throughout the game). The ability to break an opponents guard seems totally ineffective against certain types of enemies, so rather than engaging them as the game teaches you, it forces you to develop new strategies almost immediately. That's just frustrating design.
Second, the level design forces you into combat more often than not. Ordinarily that setup wouldn't be a huge deal, but the game places some emphasis on being able to sneak around; I was almost never able to avoid fights, and the skills directly associated with sneakiness were impossible to use in most of the plot-oriented fight sequences.
As a result of the poor combat design, you're kind of pigeonholed into following a couple of paths through the game's skill trees. It looks like there are some interesting options to explore, but it's really a false choice - if you don't prep yourself for straight combat, you can very easily find yourself stuck in a near-unwinnable fight.
The gameplay is frustrating at almost every turn.
Sadly, the disappointment doesn't stop there. While the voice acting and overall sound design are generally pretty good (though never particularly outstanding), the art direction is uninspired. Yes, the whole thing takes place on Mars, so the dusty red setting is expected, but the fact that nearly every area is a rundown slum gets tiring, as there's no aesthetic incentive to explore.
The end result is a game that's just not very entertaining. It has some nice ideas, and the overall vibe evokes some nostalgia, but it rapidly becomes a tedious exercise.
If you're looking for an enthralling story with fun mechanics, you should look somewhere else.
My Rating: 2/10 - terrible.
Mars: War Logs is not one of those games.
While some aspects of the game make strong first impressions, evoking memories of Knights of the Old Republic with its aesthetic and basic controls, the whole thing rapidly deteriorates into a long sequence of tedious fetch quests, a frustrating real-time combat system, and a generally forgettable storyline that lacks momentum.
War Logs opens with a young soldier called Innocence describing the situation (a war on Mars) while he's taken to a POW camp. Immediately after exiting the prisoner train, a large prisoner threatens Innocence with rape.
This scenario is just the first of many scenes throughout the game that seem to have been written by a 12-year-old trying to be "edgy;" it seems totally out of place given the nature of the situation (a war prisoner is going to rape a kid from the same side of the conflict right out of the gate?) and the view of the world that we get elsewhere (after this initial confrontation, the camp as a whole seems surprisingly friendly and inviting).
And that's essentially the whole game: a vaguely oppressed group of prisoners deals with their situation and the occasional bout of unnecessary adult content.
To make matters worse, the story is divided into three acts, but they are only loosely related. The major issues introduced during each segment are hastily resolved during brief cutscenes, so you get a few disjointed storylines rather than the coherent narrative as you might expect from an RPG.
Overall, the story in Mars: War Logs lacks the depth and the polish to be anything more than a passing interest.
The gameplay sadly doesn't pick up the slack; there's just nothing really inspiring about it.
While the quests throughout the game aren't too unusual for a modern RPG, the lackluster story fails to mask the tedious elements. Nearly every quest reduces to "go here, fight them, get this," and its hard to overlook the repetitive structure.
Combat doesn't add much enjoyment, either. To be fair, there are a few nice technical features: battles are handled in real-time, playing almost like a third-person action game, and they're usually pretty intense, as 3+ enemies will all come at you simultaneously.
The problem with fighting lies in some of the details. First off, the introductory tutorials present strategies that are irrelevant during your first major encounter (and many encounters throughout the game). The ability to break an opponents guard seems totally ineffective against certain types of enemies, so rather than engaging them as the game teaches you, it forces you to develop new strategies almost immediately. That's just frustrating design.
Second, the level design forces you into combat more often than not. Ordinarily that setup wouldn't be a huge deal, but the game places some emphasis on being able to sneak around; I was almost never able to avoid fights, and the skills directly associated with sneakiness were impossible to use in most of the plot-oriented fight sequences.
As a result of the poor combat design, you're kind of pigeonholed into following a couple of paths through the game's skill trees. It looks like there are some interesting options to explore, but it's really a false choice - if you don't prep yourself for straight combat, you can very easily find yourself stuck in a near-unwinnable fight.
The gameplay is frustrating at almost every turn.
Sadly, the disappointment doesn't stop there. While the voice acting and overall sound design are generally pretty good (though never particularly outstanding), the art direction is uninspired. Yes, the whole thing takes place on Mars, so the dusty red setting is expected, but the fact that nearly every area is a rundown slum gets tiring, as there's no aesthetic incentive to explore.
The end result is a game that's just not very entertaining. It has some nice ideas, and the overall vibe evokes some nostalgia, but it rapidly becomes a tedious exercise.
If you're looking for an enthralling story with fun mechanics, you should look somewhere else.
My Rating: 2/10 - terrible.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Game Review - Foul Play (XBLA, 2013)
The beat 'em up genre is almost as old as gaming itself, usually featuring games with simple enough mechanics that you can pick it up, play for 15 minutes, and then move on - ideal for classic arcade action. Foul Play takes that successful formula and gives it a wonderful aesthetic. It's not groundbreaking, but it's a damn fine game. Here's why:
Foul Play tells the tale of dapper Baron Dashforth, expert Daemonologist, and his capable apprentice Mr. Scampwick as they travel the turn-of-the-twentieth-century world investigating strange daemonic events. While the plot isn't very complex, it gives the protagonists enough of a reason for witty banter and a variety of locales (ranging from Cairo to Atlantis) to be a great premise. The script never had any real laugh-out-loud moments, but it definitely made me chuckle a few times, so I'd say it got the job done.
The real charm of the game comes from the fact that it's all presented as a stage show. The player characters battle a variety of monsters (all of which are clearly people wearing costumes) in front of a cheering audience, giving the whole thing a rather unique ambiance. As the set changes, you'll see feet moving props, and sometimes a fallen enemy will get up and run off stage. You will occasionally see a stagehand making a mistake or goofing off, and although those moments are scripted, they make the game feel very lighthearted. It's a cute way of managing the overall art direction, and it hits the mark.
Perhaps the most fun feature of Foul Play is the fact that this play atmosphere translates into one of the gameplay's major mechanics. Rather than having a health bar, the top of the screen prominently displays a meter gauging the audience's mood. If they're enjoying the show because you're dispatching foes quickly with a variety of attacks, the meter will fill and you'll get point multipliers. On the other hand, if your enemies manage to land a hit on you, the meter will drop, ending the stage if it falls all the way to zero. This mood meter also serves as a level timer of sorts, as the audience's interest will naturally decay over time if you don't do something exciting. Combine this mechanic with cheers and boos as things happen on stage and you have a style that is surprisingly well-integrated into the gameplay itself.
Due to this consistency of aesthetic and mechanics, Foul Play is generally a blast to play.
There are, of course, other mechanics - a combo system, new abilities that unlock as you level up, and special items that you can equip for extra effects - but I found that most of those other features were not nearly as entertaining as the core gameplay. Similarly, while there are a number of nice audiovisual flourishes that pop up throughout the game, the underlying stage play and related sound effects drew my attention most of the time. It's a pretty slick game, and while it has a handful of bells and whistles, it doesn't really need them.
My biggest complaint is overall difficulty. The game itself can likely be completed by most players in 5-8 hours, which isn't terrible for a downloadable game, but I never really felt challenged by it. Most stages do have a number of special challenges you can complete (completing all the challenges for one stage will net you one of those special equipable items), and getting the full 5-star score in some of the acts can require a few attempts, but even then, nothing really stood out as genuinely challenging. As such, once you've completed the story and mastered all the challenges, there's not a whole lot of replay value.
Overall, Foul Play is a great addition to the beat 'em up genre. With a quirky atmosphere and solid gameplay, it's good for half a dozen hours of entertainment, but its lack of longevity and relatively low difficulty lead me to think it won't be changing anyone's mind about the genre. If you're interested in some classic arcade action in a beautiful package, though, Foul Play is definitely one to check out.
My Rating: 8/10 - great.
Foul Play tells the tale of dapper Baron Dashforth, expert Daemonologist, and his capable apprentice Mr. Scampwick as they travel the turn-of-the-twentieth-century world investigating strange daemonic events. While the plot isn't very complex, it gives the protagonists enough of a reason for witty banter and a variety of locales (ranging from Cairo to Atlantis) to be a great premise. The script never had any real laugh-out-loud moments, but it definitely made me chuckle a few times, so I'd say it got the job done.
The real charm of the game comes from the fact that it's all presented as a stage show. The player characters battle a variety of monsters (all of which are clearly people wearing costumes) in front of a cheering audience, giving the whole thing a rather unique ambiance. As the set changes, you'll see feet moving props, and sometimes a fallen enemy will get up and run off stage. You will occasionally see a stagehand making a mistake or goofing off, and although those moments are scripted, they make the game feel very lighthearted. It's a cute way of managing the overall art direction, and it hits the mark.
Perhaps the most fun feature of Foul Play is the fact that this play atmosphere translates into one of the gameplay's major mechanics. Rather than having a health bar, the top of the screen prominently displays a meter gauging the audience's mood. If they're enjoying the show because you're dispatching foes quickly with a variety of attacks, the meter will fill and you'll get point multipliers. On the other hand, if your enemies manage to land a hit on you, the meter will drop, ending the stage if it falls all the way to zero. This mood meter also serves as a level timer of sorts, as the audience's interest will naturally decay over time if you don't do something exciting. Combine this mechanic with cheers and boos as things happen on stage and you have a style that is surprisingly well-integrated into the gameplay itself.
Due to this consistency of aesthetic and mechanics, Foul Play is generally a blast to play.
There are, of course, other mechanics - a combo system, new abilities that unlock as you level up, and special items that you can equip for extra effects - but I found that most of those other features were not nearly as entertaining as the core gameplay. Similarly, while there are a number of nice audiovisual flourishes that pop up throughout the game, the underlying stage play and related sound effects drew my attention most of the time. It's a pretty slick game, and while it has a handful of bells and whistles, it doesn't really need them.
My biggest complaint is overall difficulty. The game itself can likely be completed by most players in 5-8 hours, which isn't terrible for a downloadable game, but I never really felt challenged by it. Most stages do have a number of special challenges you can complete (completing all the challenges for one stage will net you one of those special equipable items), and getting the full 5-star score in some of the acts can require a few attempts, but even then, nothing really stood out as genuinely challenging. As such, once you've completed the story and mastered all the challenges, there's not a whole lot of replay value.
Overall, Foul Play is a great addition to the beat 'em up genre. With a quirky atmosphere and solid gameplay, it's good for half a dozen hours of entertainment, but its lack of longevity and relatively low difficulty lead me to think it won't be changing anyone's mind about the genre. If you're interested in some classic arcade action in a beautiful package, though, Foul Play is definitely one to check out.
My Rating: 8/10 - great.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Game Review - Contrast (XBLA, 2013)
One of the great joys of the gaming world is discovering
some under-appreciated title and enjoying the hell out of it before any of your
friends. I like to keep an eye out for
new releases that aren't accompanied by the multi-million dollar fanfare that big
game companies bring to the table, and I especially like to give smaller
developers a vote of confidence with my wallet.
Naturally, when I saw Contrast’s release yesterday, I was
intrigued. A game that combines clever
manipulation of light and shadow with a gritty noir art style? Of course I’m in! While it starts strong, however, the game
fails to build any serious momentum, so though it’s fun and interesting, it’s
not very exciting. Here’s why:
Contrast gives you control of Dawn, the best friend of a
young girl named Didi. It opens with
Didi’s mother tucking her into bed for the night, only to have Didi immediately
escape her room to go watch her mother’s performance at a local cabaret. What ensues is a somewhat cliché story about
hard times and desperate men, which is awfully disappointing because the plot
could have been much more engrossing.
But that’s ok, because Dawn is invisible to everyone but
Didi, and Didi and Dawn are the only characters the player ever gets to see;
all other characters are represented only by the shadows they cast. That is an incredibly cool storytelling
device, and it makes the otherwise lackluster storyline a lot more entertaining.
That visual element gets mixed into the core components of
the gameplay, too. Dawn has the unique
ability to transform into a shadow on a lighted wall, allowing her to interact
directly with other shadows and maneuver through areas that would otherwise be
inaccessible. As such, the majority of
the game revolves around the manipulation of light and shadow. It’s a really nifty mechanic, allowing for clever
puzzles and surprising interactions with the environment.
The game’s biggest flaw is the lack of difficult
puzzles. I didn't find any of them to be
very hard at all, although there were a couple that took a while because I
couldn't quite figure out what the game wanted me to do (the source of the
worst kind of puzzle frustrations…). The
end result is a mere 3-5 hour experience without a whole lot of challenge,
which just seems way too short for the $15 price tag. It was fun while it lasted, but it was much
too brief.
In the end, Contrast feels like a beautifully-packaged proof
of concept. The wonderful art style and
animation (save for the shadows’ hands – they all look like they’re wearing
Mickey Mouse’s gloves) coupled with subtle music develop a wonderful
atmosphere, and the voice acting is solid, even if the script is a little stereotypical.
With all that said, there are a few plot pieces that appear
in the latter half of the game that hint at a complex back story, but those
ideas aren't really developed. They
either seem like bizarre twists just for the sake of having a twist (i.e.,
twists that don’t really serve a narrative purpose), or they could be
intentionally setting up DLC or a sequel.
I have no idea if there are already plans for new content in the future,
but even if there will be another adventure somewhere down the line, it kind of
feels like a cheap shot to leave those threads hanging.
Contrast is a beautiful game based on a clever
mechanic. It’s interesting to see it in
action, and it requires the player to approach the game world in a somewhat
unusual way, which makes it fairly entertaining. It’s awfully short, it’s pretty easy, and it
has virtually no replay value, so the price of admission seems a bit steep, but
it’s worth a look if you like puzzle games and are hankering for a neat new
mechanic. It may not win any awards, but
it’s a decent way to spend an afternoon.
My Rating: 6/10 – decent.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Monday Magic - Game Review - Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 (XBLA, 2013)
With the upcoming release of Magic’s annual Core set, we
also get a relatively new treat from Wizards of the Coast: a new version of the
Duels of the Planeswalkers game. While Wizard’s premier Magic Online is generally the best place for computer-based Magic, but
its minimalist interface and microtransaction model may prove hostile for newer
players. DotP bridges that gap, giving a
sleek design and a much user-friendlier electronic Magic experience. And each iteration of DotP has been better
than the last; 2014 is no exception.
My Rating: 9/10 – awesome.
For those familiar with the series, you know what’s coming:
new decks, new cards, and a new gameplay mode.
This year’s new mode is Sealed, which finally allows you to build your own decks from scratch, albeit
with a limited card pool. There are also
unlockable titles and personas (in-game avatars of sorts) in addition to
traditional achievements, so some fun new challenges await.
For those unfamiliar with the series, let me back up a
bit. Magic is a very deep and strategic
customizable card game that pits your deck against your opponent’s in the quest
to be the last player standing. I
unfortunately can’t comment on the efficacy of the in-game tutorials, as I am
already familiar with Magic’s mechanics, but there are a series of tutorials
(and pop-up messages the first time something interesting happens during a
match) to help teach the basics. It’s a
fun game, and I’d certainly say it’s worth learning.
I can, of course, comment on everything else. DotP is essentially an excellent Magic
simulation. The state of the game is
clearly laid out in front of you, with your hand displayed at the bottom of the
screen, and cards and abilities that you’re able to play are highlighted. You can easily pause the normal turn
progression to consider your next move or examine the cards on the battlefield
(you can zoom in on every card in play or in your hand to read the text more
easily). It manages to streamline a lot
of the gameplay while having options to allow experienced players to fiddle
with some intricate details if they want, so it seems easy to adapt to your
particular familiarity with the game.
But there are a few hiccups.
Selecting some cards on the field can be a little unintuitive, but some
practice with the control scheme makes it second nature. Awkwardness with choosing how to spend mana
is perhaps a more vital flaw, but the game’s assumptions about the best way to
spend mana tend to be pretty good; I rarely found myself needing to assign mana
differently than the default option.
Maybe the sexiest thing, though, is the fact that a few of
the big bomb cards have animated illustrations.
When you zoom in on some cards, the pictures will wriggle or pan, giving
really cool effects to some of the biggest creatures in the game. While not game-changing, it’s a really cool
touch.
To be fair, what happens during a match is basically the
same as previous iterations of the DotP formula; the meat of the game comes in
the form of preconstructed decks and the relevant game modes.
As with other DotP titles, 2014 brings along a campaign,
complete with a relatively thin storyline and some moderately interesting
cinematics. This game has you teaming up
with Chandra Nalaar, the preeminent red mage, in her quest to find Ramaz. There’s not much there beyond a simple excuse
to visit a variety of Magic’s well-known planes (Alara, Zendikar, Innistrad,
and Ravnica are all there) to battle with cards drawn from the last several
years of Magic. The cinematics won’t
blow you away (Chandra’s face is a bit on the uncomfortable side of the uncanny
valley), but there are only a couple of them, and they aren’t really that
important at the end of the day.
Progressing through the campaign will pit you against a
variety of “encounters,” which are enemy decks that will play the exact same
cards each time you face them, and several duels with other planeswalkers. A few of the encounters are neat, employing
strange tactics or starting you with some weird deficit, but most of them are
just straightforward battles; once you get the hang of what’s going on, it’s
easy to choose the best deck for the job.
By the end of the campaign, I was just blazing through most of the
encounters anyway, so they felt more like speed bumps than exciting duels.
You’ll come across a major planeswalker representing one of
the planes after completing three encounters.
These duels proceed as normal games, your deck against theirs, so
battling planeswalkers is where you’ll really be playing Magic. As in previous DotP games, each deck follows
some specific theme, this time including a big Eldrazi deck, a sliver deck, and
an annoying Dimir deck that insists on returning cards to the top of your
library… Defeating a planeswalker
unlocks their deck for future use and also allows you to challenge one of the
primary planeswalkers (Garruk, Chandra, Jace, Ajani, and Liliana) of Magic lore
in a bid to earn their deck as well.
The basic campaign system is fine, although I would have
liked to have seen more of the clever encounters (or just fewer encounters) and
more planeswalker opponents. There are a
total of 10 decks to unlock, and they’re fun to play, even if they are a bit
limited – there aren’t any decks with non-standard win conditions (so no mill),
but they do a decent job of spanning the heavy aggro to heavy control spectrum. Winning a match with a deck unlocks a new
card that you can add to it (up to 30 new cards per deck), allowing some degree
of customization even if you still can’t build a deck from scratch for the
campaign.
Another disappointment is the overall difficulty – I
approached the whole campaign on the hardest setting, and it seems like the
only change is that your opponents manipulate luck. Even then, nothing is terribly difficult for
an experienced spellslinger, so easier settings for newer players probably
won’t be too tough, either.
All-in-all, the campaign is pretty fun, so the complaints
aren’t too serious.
Following in DotP tradition, there’s also a challenge mode,
which sticks you in the middle of a game and tasks you with winning during that
turn. Very few of the challenges in this
game require complex tricks, though, so they’re generally pretty easy.
The highlight of the game is the sealed mode. Sealed gives you a set of booster packs (each
containing 15 random cards) and then allows you to build a deck from those
cards. You can then progress through the
sealed campaign, using your newly-constructed deck against six opponents. It’s an incredible mode because it finally
allows you to build a deck from the ground up, a feature previously unavailable
in DotP.
And it’s fun. The
card pool mostly comes from the upcoming set, although there are some cards
from earlier core sets shoved in there, too (probably – the new set hasn’t been
completely spoiler yet).
It is, however, not unlimited. At the outset you can only start two sealed
decks, and opening additional sealed slots costs $2 each. It’s sad that we still don’t have complete
freedom in designing new decks as we please, but it’s a nice step in the right direction.
Of course, there are also multiplayer modes, allowing you to
use the game’s preconstructed decks against other players, or you can test your
sealed decks in online battlefields. My
only gripe on that front is the lack of obvious matchmaking ratings – it seems
like you just match up with another player, not necessarily one who is on a
similar skill level. The result could be
rather discouraging for newer players, particularly as time wears on and the
servers are populated primarily by dedicated players.
Overall, my only other complaint is that special game modes
from previous versions weren’t included in some fashion, even if only as
offline custom games. I would love to
see some of these decks used in archenemy or planechase, but I certainly understand
that they’d drop modes to keep from making earlier DotP titles totally
obsolete.
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 is a great next step for
casual electronic Magic games. Although
not as expansive as veteran Magic players may want, the sealed game mode brings
much more freedom to the game, making it feel more like playing tabletop
Magic. While it has its disappointments,
the biggest flaw is that it’s over too soon, as the slick presentation and
effective execution make it almost as
fun as shuffling a deck yourself and giving it a go. At $10, I highly recommend it for anyone
interested in trying Magic and seasoned players, and it’s at least worth a look
for everyone else.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Game Review - State of Decay (XBLA, 2013)
A little over 17 years ago, Resident Evil made survival
horror a mainstream gaming genre. As the
underlying technology has advanced and games have become more sophisticated, I’ve
gotten more and more excited about a true survival game, one that focuses more
on staying alive than the classic horror elements that usually accompany
them. I imagine a game with RPG
elements, as the initially out-of-shape protagonist “levels up” while
developing the skills necessary for surviving the post-apocalyptic world. Many games have captured those RPG features
quite well, but I’ve never seen those features embedded effectively in a survival
game.
Until I played State of Decay .
State of Decay
is a true survival game, where gathering supplies is (almost) as important as
fighting off zombie hordes. Members of
your ragtag group of the living will hone their skills in the process, becoming
more proficient fighters, marksmen, scavengers, and all-around athletes as they
struggle to survive. It’s a really neat
system, as you’ll have to make time to find more food or medical supplies
between excursions to eradicate particularly heavy zombie infestations or make
deals with neighboring groups.
It also features a particularly interesting (and I think
realistic) emphasis on the community.
There’s not really a main character per se, but rather a group that
evolves as new survivors are brought in or old members are torn apart by the
undead.
This setup leads to one of the most exciting features of the
game: as you control a character, they will eventually get fatigued and taking
excessive damage leads to more permanent injuries, both of which reduce that
character’s effectiveness. A fatigued
and/or wounded character needs to take a break to recover, which can be
accomplished simply by switching to another active character for a time.
Characters will also bring specialized skills to benefit the
whole team; for example, a good cook can prepare better meals for better
bonuses (assuming you have the food supply), and someone with medical experience
can help treat the wounded more effectively.
Combined with the characters’ gradually improving skills, this feature
sets the stage for the game’s focus on realistic and challenging survival.
Another consequence of the group-centric play is the fact
that a character’s death is permanent, and you might even need to take a
mortally wounded ally to a secluded spot to prevent them from becoming a
zombie. To hammer these impacts home,
the game automatically saves your progress and doesn’t give you the option of
maintaining multiple save files; a character’s death is immediately saved and
can’t be undone without restarting the game completely.
Unfortunately, the biggest flaws in the game come from an
incomplete application of the challenge of survival. First off, with the right items, it’s
possible to prevent a character from ever becoming fatigued, so you can run
around with the same dude for days with no repercussions. Furthermore, as a character’s skills reach their
highest levels, he or she will become incredibly efficient at slaying
zombies. As a result, the last third or
so of the game abandons the tension of sneaking by a group of zombies to loot a
convenience store, instead allowing the player to eliminate all zombies in the
area with ease. It undermines what I’d
say is undoubtedly State of Decay ’s
strongest feature, which is terribly disappointing.
The emphasis on community also falls a bit short because it
fails to capitalize on emotional tensions.
Despite a generally well-written script and great voice acting (I’d say
that one of the primary characters is one of the best-presented characters I’ve
seen in a game), the characters are surprisingly unfazed by their friends and
loved ones dying. If you lose a
character, you’ll hear a few bland platitudes, but none of the emotional
breakdowns that I’d expect.
To be fair, these facts are only disappointments because the
game does so well with so much – the survival-based gameplay is compelling, the
characters and their interactions are realistic, and it’s generally a clever
game. It just doesn’t hit all the high
notes, and the last 6-8 hours of an 18ish hour campaign get awfully repetitive.
As for some other details: State of Decay won’t blow you away graphically, but
it doesn’t distract from the gameplay and it does have a few nice animations
(watching characters jump into the back of a pickup, for example).
Sound quality is pretty darned good, too, with zombies
sounding appropriately squishy, and phenomenal voice acting, as previously
mentioned. One complaint on the sound is
a relative lack of voice actors; with a constantly-evolving game world and
random new characters appearing at times, it’s no surprise that voices will be
reused, but it seems like there are a total of four actors for the entire
game. It gets a little tiring.
The open-world setup is used quite effectively, giving the
player the freedom to explore the world as desired. New infestations and neighboring strongholds
will appear from time to time, so it doesn’t feel like a stagnant world; it’s a
little different every time you play. The
randomly generated side quests aren’t terribly interesting (they’re always
effectively “get this thing” or “kill zombies here”), but they’re pretty fun
until the fourth or fifth time you’re asked to do the same thing.
State of Decay
is an exciting game with a lot of promise.
The first game I’ve played that uses RPG elements to provide compelling
survival-based gameplay, it’s an interesting and enjoyable game. It has its flaws, but I think it’s a proof of
concept for true survival games. I’m
really excited to see where this genre will go in the future.
My Rating: 8/10 – great.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Game Review - Pid (XBLA, 2012)
Very rarely do we get to see a game that is objectively
fantastic in just about every way but still somehow manages to be less than the
sum of its parts. Pid is one of those
games. Carefully and lovingly designed,
Pid has all the pieces necessary for an incredible platformer, but the bits in
between prevent it from being a truly amazing gaming experience. Here’s why:
From the moment you first boot up the game, Pid’s unassuming
presentation clearly indicates that it’s not going to beat you over the head with
plot points or tutorials, as tends to be so common these days. The simple title and menu screens set a very
mellow and subtle vibe. It’s quite
refreshing, actually.
That vibe persists into the game itself. Starting a new game gives you a brief, wordless
introduction to the story, and then plops you down into the first gorgeous
area. The surreal art direction shows a
beautifully detailed and somewhat stylized world. The character models are a bit blocky, but
that feature adds to their bizarre charm, and they’re supported by wonderful
backgrounds that show miles of landscape.
The subtle ambient music provides an extra level of haunting beauty, as
it always complements the visual style of an area and hints at an underlying
sadness.
In short, Pid is a damn beautiful game.
And the story is similarly understated. The protagonist, a boy named Kurt, is left in
a strange world after he falls asleep on a bus, and all he wants is to hop on
the next bus back home. He soon
discovers, however, that the busses haven’t been running – the first people he
encounters have been waiting for years
for the bus – so he embarks on a quest to find some way to get home.
The truly wonderful part of the story is the fact that it’s
told almost exclusively through short dialogues with random characters you meet
throughout the game. There aren’t
extensive cutscenes or painfully overt expositions; it’s all presented in a
very organic way, which further emphasizes the game’s subtle beauty. The plot itself isn’t groundbreaking, but
it’s sufficiently interesting to make it enticing.
All these elements add up to a great passive experience for the player, but the gameplay makes it more than an interactive movie.
Pid’s basic premise is that Kurt gets ahold of an artifact
that allows him to create beams of light on nearly any surface that will propel
him away from that surface. He can only
have two of these beams active at a time, and they disappear after nine
seconds, which severely limits their overall power.
Still, these beams add a wrinkle to the basic platforming
formula that makes it feel like a totally unique game. Indeed, instead of being a simple platformer,
Pid plays a bit more like a puzzle game, as your destination may be clear, but
the arrangement of beams that will get you there is not. As a result of the beams’ timed lifespans,
you’ll encounter a number of obstacles that require both clever planning and
quick execution to proceed to the next room.
The difficulty ramps up pretty rapidly, with an increasing
need for precise jumps and beam placement.
Fortunately, the game is pretty forgiving; if you die, you’ll respawn
almost immediately at the nearest checkpoint (and checkpoints are
plentiful). A few boss fights provide
decent spikes in difficulty, so it proves to be a rather challenging game overall
(I died a little over 250 times in my first run through the game, according to
an end-game tally of my overall stats).
Furthermore, the gameplay evolves a bit over time, with new
mechanics appearing as you progress. These
mechanics take the form of new items and enemies, but they always manage to
keep the gameplay from getting stale.
Pid is all-around an amazingly designed game. So why isn’t it perfect?
The most obvious flaw is undoubtedly the overall
length. It took me about 6 hours to
complete the game, which is a little on the short end, but there is a bit of an
upside: the hard mode you unlock by completing the game is a different
experience altogether (it is much
harder with more enemies and dangerous obstacles everywhere), effectively
doubling the content, so it’s really not bad.
Pid didn’t strike me in nearly the way I would have expected
given the amazing basis on which the game is built. I think it ultimately comes down to one
simple fact: the areas don’t seem to go quite far enough before introducing a new mechanic. Although it is quite tough, Pid always seemed
to transition into a new area right when successfully completing the challenges
was getting really rewarding. It was
almost like the game presents difficult scenarios but then cuts you off right
before you get the exhilarating rush of overcoming a brutal challenge. This flaw, like so many aspects of Pid, is
subtle, but it had a really significant impact of my enjoyment. To be fair, it was still good fun, but it
isn’t nearly as awesome as it seems it should be.
Pid is a beautiful game, and it’s incredible on paper, but a
relatively minor flaw holds it back from being the best game in recent memory. It is fabulous for platforming fans,
but it’s unlikely to convert anyone due to a small flaw that undermines the game’s
otherwise compelling gameplay.
My Rating: 7/10 – good.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Game Review - Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (XBLA, 2013)
Disclaimer: I have
never played any of the proper Far Cry games, so I cannot comment on any
exciting improvements or disappointing failures in Blood Dragon when compared
to the rest of the Far Cry franchise.
It’s rare that a good parody comes along these days. Cheap laughs and overplayed jokes are commonly
used to pad otherwise promising parody, and in the gaming industry, most
parodies are conspicuously lacking in good gameplay.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon manages to beat both of those
stereotypes, providing a gaming experience that is both funny and fun, albeit
for only a few short hours.
Blood Dragon makes its intentions known in the opening
sequence, where the audience is introduced to the player character through a
series of heavily pixelated cutscenes.
Clearly channeling the storytelling techniques of NES games of the late
80’s (Ninja Gaiden comes to mind), the introductory scene sets the stage for a
loving look back at many gamers’ roots.
That nostalgia influences just about everything in the game, from the
over-the-top action to the soundtrack and even the collectible VHS tapes you
can find scattered around.
Set in 2007, Blood Dragon is an alternate history tale
following a cyborg commando created in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. This commando, Rex, finds himself on an
isolated island on a mission of revenge with world-altering consequences. Also giant glow-in-the-dark lizards that shoot
lasers from their eyes, but mostly saving the world.
Although the narrative is quite short (I was able to finish
the game, including all optional objectives, in under six-and-a-half hours), it
is fantastically written. Most games
that emphasize humor front-load their material, making the beginning funny and
the later stages downright cringeworthy, but Blood Dragon distributed the
laughs pretty evenly. It was never
overwhelmingly hilarious, but it consistently drew some chuckles from me
throughout. Put that story in a
well-designed graphical package coupled with a powerful soundtrack, and you get
a great overall presentation.
Supporting the entertaining script is a rather impressive
first-person shooter. As is standard
these days, Blood Dragon has the usual FPS weaponry (pistol, shotgun, rifle,
etc.) and several upgrades for each. There
are, however, a couple of unique features that set it apart from most FPS
titles:
First, set in an open-world environment, the game has the
general feel of a role-playing game. You
earn “Commando Points” (CP), which are essentially experience points, that will
gradually give access to more abilities (sadly, however, you don’t have any
choice in what order Rex obtains his skills – they automatically unlock at
certain points), and there are a number of side quests you can pursue. Granted, the side quests are awfully
repetitive (they are all “go here, kill stuff, get rewarded”), but it does mix
the gameplay up a bit. You can also
assault enemy-held garrisons and, once you’ve cleared all the opposition, use
it as a base. Again, there’s not a whole
lot of depth here, and the garrisons weren’t integrated into the story at all,
but it’s still nice to have secondary objectives with in-game rewards.
Second, Blood Dragon has a heavy emphasis on stealth (which
I love). Sneaking up on an enemy
combatant and killing him silently gives advantages, both in terms of CP bonuses
and by allowing you to quickly murder several nearby enemies in
succession. There’s also the obvious
benefit of not alerting all baddies in the area to your presence, so there are
plusses all around. To make it even
sweeter, Rex has the ability to track enemy soldiers, allowing him to slip
through areas more easily.
Of course, it’s not all good. The game thrusts an annoying escort mission
on you in the introductory area (seriously?), but fortunately you don’t have to
deal with anything like that again. It’s
also painfully short, begging for a longer story to flaunt its fabulous
writing, and there’s nothing to do once you’ve completed all the quests.
All-in-all, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is pretty entertaining while
it lasts, but the repetitiveness of side quests and relative lack of content
make its 1200 MSP price tag a bit of a tough sell. Still, as a cleverly written homage to the
80’s with solid gameplay, it makes good use of the time it has. Fun and funny, Blood Dragon is a good romp
through a retro-futuristic wasteland.
My Rating: 7/10 – good.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Achievement Report - May 4, 2013
Another very slow week, I wasn't able to game nearly as much as I would've liked. Fortunately the rest of my team carried us in the GTASC, so we've survived to another week (only 64 teams left!).
GTASC
I earned exactly one achievement this week: "Learner" in Dark Messiah: Might and Magic Elements, another game that's been in my library for about a year now. It doesn't seem like a horrible game, but it's definitely on the bad side of average. I still haven't played enough of it to get a feel for how difficult/annoying the achievement list is, so I'll hold off on those sorts of comments for now.
Kingdom of Loathing
I had a similarly lackluster week in the Kingdom because I wasn't able to play every day this week. As a result, my only accomplishment was finishing another run several days behind schedule.
Moving forward: If I can get back on track and manage 6-day Avatar of Jarlsberg runs, I should be able to complete two more before the end of the challenge season. That would give me enough bonus karma to be able to make the remaining primary class skills hardcore permanent (there are only four that I don't already have) plus the remaining sea skills and a couple others. I'm drawing ever closer to marking all the game's skills hardcore permanent, although it'll still probably take another year to get enough karma for everything. At least I'm almost done with everything except special skills.
Once the next challenge path is released, I think I'll go for one more AoJ run to grab the trophy for hitting level 30, which I'll also use as an excuse to get one of the other level 30 trophies and to complete another Basement run for my fifth telescope piece. After that, giving the new challenge path a whirl should finish out the month.
StarCraft II
I actually spent the more time playing StarCraft than anything else this week. The only major milestone was nabbing the 3v3 Versus AI Coverage: Elite, which means I can move on the 2v2 vs Elite AI achievements. I'm getting close to finishing all the versus AI achievements, which I find really exciting as it means I'll be able to focus entirely on the competitive ladder.
And that's basically it. I hope to get a lot more gaming done in the next week. Until then, tschüss.
GTASC
I earned exactly one achievement this week: "Learner" in Dark Messiah: Might and Magic Elements, another game that's been in my library for about a year now. It doesn't seem like a horrible game, but it's definitely on the bad side of average. I still haven't played enough of it to get a feel for how difficult/annoying the achievement list is, so I'll hold off on those sorts of comments for now.
Kingdom of Loathing
I had a similarly lackluster week in the Kingdom because I wasn't able to play every day this week. As a result, my only accomplishment was finishing another run several days behind schedule.
Moving forward: If I can get back on track and manage 6-day Avatar of Jarlsberg runs, I should be able to complete two more before the end of the challenge season. That would give me enough bonus karma to be able to make the remaining primary class skills hardcore permanent (there are only four that I don't already have) plus the remaining sea skills and a couple others. I'm drawing ever closer to marking all the game's skills hardcore permanent, although it'll still probably take another year to get enough karma for everything. At least I'm almost done with everything except special skills.
Once the next challenge path is released, I think I'll go for one more AoJ run to grab the trophy for hitting level 30, which I'll also use as an excuse to get one of the other level 30 trophies and to complete another Basement run for my fifth telescope piece. After that, giving the new challenge path a whirl should finish out the month.
StarCraft II
I actually spent the more time playing StarCraft than anything else this week. The only major milestone was nabbing the 3v3 Versus AI Coverage: Elite, which means I can move on the 2v2 vs Elite AI achievements. I'm getting close to finishing all the versus AI achievements, which I find really exciting as it means I'll be able to focus entirely on the competitive ladder.
And that's basically it. I hope to get a lot more gaming done in the next week. Until then, tschüss.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Game Review - Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (XBLA, 2013)
Many of the most iconic classics of gaming are platformers
(Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, and Mega Man, for example), so it’s not surprising
that you’ll still find a great platformer on occasion, even in today’s market of deep
role-playing games and competitive first-person shooters.
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is definitely one of those
shining gems in the modern gaming landscape.
Twisted Dreams begins rather simply: two sisters a playing
with a crystal on a bed (?) when one gets dragged through some magical portal
and the other follows in an attempt to save her sibling. You control Giana, the second of the sisters,
as she explores a fantastic dream world in search of her sister.
And that’s it for the story.
But, then again, platformers have never been known for immersive
stories.
The brilliance of Twisted Dreams lies in the simplicity of
its gameplay and its overall presentation.
On the most basic level, the gameplay is exactly what you’d expect from
a platformer: you progress through a series of stages, hopping from platform to
platform, and occasionally bouncing off enemies’ heads. Shortly into the game, however, you learn of
a major deviation from this simple formula.
Giana can twirl, which allows her to glide for slower falls, and she can
dash, giving her a chance to reach ledges she wouldn’t be able to catch using
jumps alone.
Special abilities like those aren’t exactly exciting, as
nearly all games these days have some sort of similar gimmick. The beauty lies in the fact that these
abilities are distributed between the two halves of Giana’s personality –
“cute” Giana is able to twirl, while “punk” Giana gets to dash. When executing one of these abilities,
Giana’s appearance will change to be in line with the dominant part of her
personality.
But the entire world changes with Giana’s personality, too. Cute Giana lives in a nightmarish world with
creepy tendrils, dead trees, demonic enemies, and a generally darker color
palette; punk Giana brings a much happier world with all the whimsical
setpieces you’d expect from a fantasy story.
Switching between the two personalities causes a transition
in the environment, not a sudden change – trees slump over as they die, wells
collapse, benches fold down into coffins, and owl enemies become demons. These animations, combined with the already
gorgeous visuals, make Twisted Dreams a real graphical treat, as it’s just cool to watch the complex landscape
evolve time and time again. To take it
even further, the music changes too, going from a more classical interpretation
of the themes in cute Giana’s world to guitar-laden rock styles on the punk
side. The audiovisual transitions are
incredibly smooth, and my only complaint is that there aren’t more melodies and
environments to experience.
Twisted Dreams doesn’t stop there. It integrates the different worlds into the
gameplay by opening or closing paths or changing the type of enemies you’ll
encounter as you switch from one personality to the other. It’s a really cool application of a simple
gameplay mechanic, and it absolutely hits its mark.
On top of everything else, the platforming is just fun. There’s a good balance of challenge (because
many of the stunts throughout the game require precision) and exploration and
discovery (there are hidden pathways and optional rooms for you to investigate
to unlock bonus materials and get better ratings), but it also allows you to
choose how much of a challenge you want.
“Adventure Mode,” while not easy, is pretty forgiving because there are checkpoints all over
the place. Completing stages in
Adventure Mode unlocks score and time attack modes where you can compete for
leaderboard glory. If you get a good
enough rating on boss stages, you’ll unlock levels for the “Hardcore” mode,
which completely eliminates checkpoints, requiring you to start a stage from
the beginning if you die. Finally,
completing every stage on Hardcore makes the “Über Hardcore” mode available –
if you die in Über Hardcore, you’ll be sent back to the beginning of the first stage, giving by far the greatest
challenge of them all.
Combined with the fun underlying gameplay, these additional
modes are quite enticing. These advanced
challenges for dedicated gamers dramatically inflate the game’s replay value.
What we end up with is a stunning game with solid
gameplay. The way the graphics and
sounds change in response to your actions gives Twisted Dreams a unique atmosphere,
and the game’s world is a lot of fun to explore. It’s a wonderfully challenging game, but it
consistently feels like your failures are due to your mistakes, not poor
design. It would’ve been nice to have
more diverse settings for the stages (or just more stages in general), but as
it stands, Twisted Dreams is an all-around fantastic game.
My Rating: 9/10 – awesome.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Game Review - Retro City Rampage (XBLA, 2013)
I’m always excited to catch references to the things I love
in movies or games. A well-placed and
executed reference can add depth to a story by adding multiple layers, it can
enhance the emotional content of a scene by drawing parallels, or it can just give
that tingly feeling of nostalgia when it reminds the audience of an old
favorite.
Retro
City
The opening scenes of Retro City Rampage are a rapid-fire
series of references, even going so far as to recreate bits from classic games. It sets the stage for a game that will beat
the life out of you with a nostalgia stick and continue to mutilate your corpse
in the same manner.
And then it does.
Sadly, that’s about all the game does well, as it ends up being a simple
vehicle for cramming an absurd number of pop culture references into a game, most
of which are painfully blatant.
Set in the 1980s, Retro City Rampage follows the
cleverly-named Player in his modest quest to make some cash working as an evil
henchman. Through a strange turn of
events, Player ends up stealing a time-traveling phone booth, which sends him to a
slightly different time. The time
machine is broken in the process, so he starts looking for the parts necessary
to complete the repairs.
It’s overall a weak story, but to be fair, Rampage follows
the Grand Theft Auto tradition in a lot of ways. In terms of narrative, that means that the
protagonist encounters a number of vaguely connected subplots that give
the writers an excuse to do cool stuff (Remember: in Rampage, “cool stuff”
means “references”). The most
disappointing part is actually that the number of references decreases
significantly as the game goes on, trading the game’s major strength for
various other gags.
The references themselves are shameless. They are absolutely everywhere (which is
honestly pretty impressive), but their conspicuous nature makes them very
hit-or-miss - if it’s a nod to something you particularly enjoy, you’ll
probably like the reference; otherwise, it feels kind of forced. I experienced a substantial laughing fit at
only one point, but the majority of the game is worth a little chuckle at best.
To make matters a bit worse, Rampage is really a game all
about nostalgia. Most of the references I
noticed are about 80s and 90s culture, so many will be lost on younger gamers. If you’re not interested in remembering and reliving classic 8-bit moments, you’ll likely find Rampage to be
incredibly boring.
The rest of the game is similarly niche. Structured like one of the early Grand Theft
Auto games, Rampage gives you free reign over an open but highly pixellated
world. Everything’s presented in 2D from
a top-down perspective, so the graphical package is pretty limited. The sound quality is also old school,
although they successfully channeled some of the better NES soundtracks. Given what they’re doing, the overall
audiovisual style is great, but it’s driven by nostalgia, which severely limits
the game’s scope.
Then there’s the gameplay.
It’s GTA all over, as your primary focus is running through the streets
causing as much havoc as possible. And
that’s just about it. You’ll hijack
vehicles and shoot anyone who gets in your way, but the mechanics behind
driving and fighting don’t leave much room for depth. All the random tasks
you’ll have to perform are all ultimately driving and fighting, so it
can get awfully repetitive.
Seeing that there’s not much depth to the gameplay, it’s not
surprising that it’s all pretty easy and short.
The main story can be completed within five hours, and the optional
challenge missions don’t provide any further value aside from some high score leaderboards. Basically, there’s very
little content and very little to bring you back after you’ve run through the
story once.
My Rating: 5/10 - ok.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Game Review - Terraria (XBLA, 2013)
My friends were never quite able to convince me to get
Terraria when it was released on the PC.
Despite what they may have told me, I couldn’t help but see it as a
2-dimensional, sprite-based Minecraft, and Minecraft never really excited
me. Although I see that sort of game as
a great outlet for creativity, I tend to prefer exploring worlds and
discovering their secrets over creating my own.
I had some spare MSP sitting in my account, so when Terraria
was released as a downloadable console title, I decided to give it a shot. Although there’s a pretty steep learning
curve at the start, what I found was one of the most addicting games of the
last few years.
On its surface, Terraria is pretty simple: old-school
graphics reminiscent of the late NES-early SNES days, a gameplay system built
on mining your way through a 2D landscape, and rather basic inventory and
combat features. After spending some
time getting used to the interface and exploring the procedurally-generated
world, the true depth and beauty of the game springs forth.
First off, the worlds Terraria generates are huge – even the “small” map that I
started was enormous. It takes several
minutes of straight running to travel from one end of the level to the other,
and the stages are nearly equally deep, with several layers of geological
stratification.
And it’s so much more than just a blank canvas. Different ecological zones (deserts, jungles,
deep dungeons, corrupted terrain, and even Hell, if you dig deep enough) dot
the landscape, and each brings new varieties of monsters to ruin your day. You may also run across rare mineral deposits
which, once mined, will open up big crafting trees with all kinds of weapons,
armor, and general tools to use. These
features make exploration fun and exciting, and you always have the prospect of
generating a new world and starting over.
Terraria also gives players a chance to impose their
creativity on the world, as the basic structure of everything can be altered to
fit your desires. You can build grand floating
cities to house the NPC merchants that will join you over time, or you can
strip mine the entire jungle looking for gemstones and precious ores. Providing some utility beyond mere creativity,
you can use these mechanics to create arenas for facing nasty bosses or to
surround yourself with stone, giving your character’s health a chance to
regenerate. It’s an open world that you
can modify to suit your desires and needs; it’s definitely an experience like
no other game I’ve ever played.
The game controls like a twin-stick shooter: the left stick
moves your character, while the right focuses his or her aim in a particular
direction. You can switch between two
types of targeting modes on the fly, allowing you to go from precise targeting
of a nearby block (useful for placing objects and carefully removing earth from
specific spaces) to indiscriminate “that way!” aiming (useful for digging
tunnels and firing projectiles) with a click of the right stick, almost
seamlessly melding the two uses for different levels of precision.
Similarly, the inventory system allows you to organize your
stuff with care while sitting in your house (or hut or castle or dungeon, if
those better suit your tastes), but then you can quickly flip between several
active items in the heat of the moment. At
particularly urgent times, it can be a bit sluggish, as you have to scroll
through active items instead of grabbing one directly, and there is no way to
pause the game (the world is always active in the background while navigating
any menus), but it works pretty well given those constraints.
Putting everything together, Terraria is a surprisingly
challenging game. Very few things come
easily, and even when you’re finally able to smelt enough metal to craft some
shiny new armor, there’s (almost) always another area or another boss that will
still smack you silly. It’s a rewarding
system that makes you feel like you’re always making strides towards defeating
the next big baddie, and it feels like a huge triumph when you’re finally able
to dispatch the monster that had easily brushed you aside when you first
encountered it.
Basically, Terraria feels like a customizable, resettable
MMORPG – it gives a big world to explore and modify, and each world is unique,
so there are always areas to explore.
You can freely move your characters between worlds, too, so you can raid
worlds and return home to reap the benefits.
The biggest problem with the XBLA version of Terraria is not
really a flaw with the game, but rather with the community. The game offers multiplayer modes (although
not local multiplayer, tsk tsk),
wherein you can join other players’ worlds or have others join yours. After spending a bit over 30 hours with “play
online” checked, I have never seen
another player join my world, and have I never seen someone else’s world
available on the world selection screen.
In a game with so much potential for multiplayer shenanigans (boss runs
through new worlds could be great fun with a small group, as an example), the
distinct lack of an online community is terribly disappointing.
It’s not the most stunning game, and it takes some time to
get used to the controls and interface, but Terraria is an incredible gaming
experience. In a league almost entirely
its own, every gamer ought to spend some time with this title.
My Rating: 9/10 – awesome.
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