Top 10: Wii Games (with Thadeus Lorefield)

The Wii is nearly nearing the end of its life cycle as Nintendo's new Wii U console (still can't believe they decided to call it that) is coming to replace it with better graphics and maybe better controls. But me and Thadeus are still playing the old Wii and probably will for several years to come, especially since I only started playing it recently and therefore still haven't explored it fully. Despite being probably the weakest console of its generation and in no way do I prefer it to my trusty PC, I still think it has a lot of fun exclusive titles and the motion controls are a big reason I love it. This list is in no way any absolute list of the best games on the Wii but are our personal favourites. Feel free to mention other good games in your replies.

10.

Alyxx: Let's face it, the Wii isn't exactly known for good graphics. So naturally when it comes to shooters, the Wii isn't up to par with more powerful consoles like the 360, PS3 or the PC. But still, Conduit 2, like its predecessor Conduit, manages to push the Wii to its limits and is a pretty decent FPS. The reason I pick Conduit 2 over Conduit 1 is that it has slightly better controls and Duke Nukem voice actor Jon St Jon does a really good job voicing the game's protagonist and I definitely prefer him to the voice actor from Conduit 1. With smooth motion controls (it even supports the WiiMotion Plus accessory), Surround sound and support for EDTV/HDTV the game easily outclasses most FPS's on the Wii and being an exclusive title, should be a must-have for any Wii gamer who wants to see how far the system can be pushed.
Thadeus: i dont have anything to say about really, i played it and i didnt get that into it

9.

Thadeus: Resident Evil 4 is on this list because I personally enjoyed the game a lot, it blended the horror of earlier entries into the series with smooth controls and pretty good motion controls, and with the new game+ feature I've played through it several times to upgrade all my weapons and such.
Alyxx: Still need to play this as I haven't played it yet, but I've seen Thad play it and it seems way more accessible than the earlier Resident Evil games. While I enjoy them for their laughable voice "acting" (or lack thereof) and dark atmosphere, Resi 4 definitely seems to take it to a whole new level. It seems to achieve what Survivor attempted on PS1 with the GunCon controller, being a more action-oriented Resi game.

8.

Alyxx: There is one major reason I love Mario Kart Wii, and that is the multiplayer. I always enjoyed racing my friends locally but with this game you can do it online like in Mario Kart DS and really test your skills against people from all around the world. Aside from that, it's definitely a great Mario Kart title with a lot of great courses and even courses from other Mario Kart titles as far back as the SNES. A must-have title if you want a good racing game for the Wii.
Thadeus: pretty fun with friends, but kinda boring alone

7.

Thadeus: Metroid Prime Trilogy is on this list because I love the Prime games and they are made even better with the Wii's motion controls instead of the awkward singlestick FPS controls it had on the GameCube.
Alyxx: It's a shame Nintendo only released this as a collector's edition, it demands some high prices on eBay these days. This is really a great collection and any Metroid fan should get it just to own all 3 Metroid Prime games on one disc and all of them using the Wii's motion controls. It feels a great deal more fluid and smoother than the GameCube controls and I definitely agree that the controls are greatly improved on this version. Graphically it's not much of an update but Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 definitely pushed the GameCube very far in terms of graphics and it shows. These games are simply beautiful and have some of the best music in the franchise.

6.

Alyxx: No Nintendo console after the N64 is complete without a Smash Bros title and while both Smash Bros and Smash Bros Melee were solid games that were a great fun to play locally, Brawl takes it to a new level by adding online multiplayer and it's wonderful to be able to play with a friend who's somewhere else in the world and the series was practically begging for such an addition. Another addition I love is the Subspace Emissary mode, which is essentially adding a story to the game and it feels very satisfying to play it as it mixes in elements from the Mario games such as an overworld and actual levels and not just stages.
Thadeus: pretty much the same as mario kart just as a fighter instead of a racer

5.


Thadeus: I'm listing these as one entry because, to be honest, the games are pretty much the same just with different levels and powerups, but that's part of why I like them, good controls, good music and the gravity mechanics are fun to mess with.
Alyxx: Haven't played these yet and not sure I am interested to. I've kinda lost interest in the main Mario games since Mario Sunshine. No offense but the series kinda lost what made me interested in them. It just feels like they are making the same games over and over. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's not my thing anymore.

4.

Alyxx: Wow. It really took them a LONG fucking time but Sonic Team and Sega finally managed to make a decent Sonic game. Sonic Colours brings Sonic back to its roots with speed, platforming and lots of adrenaline. This is seriously THE Sonic game I always wanted to play and it does a splendid job at merging the old with the new. Sonic Generations on PC also continues the good trend, though I pretty much expect Sonic Team to fuck up again on the next game. Something this good can't last forever. After all these years of Sonic games ranging from meh to puke-worthy, it's such a shock to see a Sonic game that is actually good but it's here and it's on Nintendo Wii. Great graphics, great controls (prefer GameCube controller for this one though) and great music makes this a must-have Wii title if you, like me, think Sonic still is way cooler than Mario.
Thadeus: sonic colors is the first good sonic game in forever, which frankly is astounding

3.

Thadeus: Now now Zelda fans, I can see you raising your bitching sticks from here, please lower them slowly and hear me out. I really like this game, and I really like Skyward Sword as well, in fact they were pretty much tied for my place on this list, but I enjoy Twilight Princess SLIGHTLY more as it doesn't have cutscenes and dialog that challange Final Fantasy in length, and Twilight Princess doesn't have Fi.
Alyxx: While I've never been much of a Zelda fan and I haven't really played any of the games, I love that there are Zelda games that dare to be a bit dark and haunting. Majora's Mask did that very well and Twilight Princess seems to also be a more serious approach to the franchise. And yes, this game also has the benefit of not including Fi. If Navi was annoying as a fly, Fi is a mosquito in comparison.

2.

Alyxx: Virtual Console is technically a service and not a game but it was 90% the reason I wanted a Wii to begin with. As an avid retro gamer, it's so much more convenient to have all my favourite retro 16 and 8 bit games gathered on one console, without taking any physical space like game collections tend to do. Being able to play both Starfox 64 and Super Metroid on one console is one of the reasons the Wii is so great in my opinion as it is a totally legal way of playing your older games on a TV without resorting to emulators and stuff.
Thadeus: the virtual console is a good way to get old games legit without paying a fortune

1.

Thadeus: This game is one of my favorite games of all time, I love every aspect of this game, I love the graphical style, I love the music, I love the characters and I love the story, over all, I simply love this game.
Alyxx: Not my taste, but it definitely is unique. Heavily influenced by japanese culture (one of the main reasons it doesn't really appeal to me that much as it is a tad too ethnic for me to really get it), it's essentially an action/adventure game with very stylized graphics. Worth checking out if you're into those types of games.

PC Game Review: Daikatana

DAIKATANA
Platform: PC
Released: 2000
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer: Ion Storm
Publisher. Eidos Interactive
Buy on Steam

John Romero is a name often associated with greatness. While working at id Software, Romero was instrumental in the making of a trilogy of highly influential and groundbreaking first person shooters that are often cited as the great grandfathers of the genre itself, not only popularizing it but also defining it. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake are 3 games that pretty much every gamer on the planet has played at some point as they literally exist on pretty much every conceivable platform that can render 3d graphics. But after Quake had finished development, John felt fed up with the policy at id of making simple shooters. He wanted to make a different game, and so in 1997 after starting up his own new development studio Ion Storm, he set out to make what would essentially be John Romero's vision of the game he wanted to make. Despite this, the process of making the game would prove a nightmare for John and his staff, and would forever banish him from the genre, and the game became one of the biggest commercial failures in gaming history. What happened? What went wrong? And most importantly, is Daikatana itself to blame? Eager to find out, I managed to get a hold of the game (by means I won't discuss though I do plan to buy a big box copy of the game to own it legally). Needless to say, my expectations were probably a lot lower than people had back in 2000 after waiting so long for it and all the hype going on. Due to this and to my big surprise, I actually really enjoyed Daikatana. Find out why in my review, where I discuss what Daikatana really has to offer, and possibly the reason it became such a failure.

"Know any good jokes?"

[STORY]

The story in Daikatana isn't exactly much to brag about but it's written well enough to give the game some decent plot. It's 2455 AD in Japan. Hiro Miyamoto isn't much of a hero. If anything he's a simple swordsman who spends his time teaching the young kids to fight with a sword. One day he gets a knock on his door, and an old man tells him that everything he knows is wrong, and reality itself is not what it was destined to be. Kage Mishima, CEO of the massive Mishima corporation, who not only make hamburgers out of human flesh apparently, has been causing a virus to spread among the people, and is making money off a vaccine to rule over everyone. It gets even stranger, apparently Mishima also possesses a sword that grants its wielders powers beyond just slicing bread, it can also allow time travel. The old man tells Hiro that his daughter Mikiko has been going for this sword but was taken prisoner inside Mishima's fortress, and asks Hiro to save her and get the Daikatana as well so that he will stand a chance against the powerful Mishima. However before he can tell Hiro anything more he is killed by one of Mishima's henchmen, and Hiro's adventure begins. After rescuing the big and black Security Chief "Superfly" Johnson and the beautiful but deadly Mikiko Ebihara, the three of them set out on a journey across 4 different time periods to track down Mishima and set history straight.

Needless to say, the plot allows for diverse level designs and each "episode" of the game has its own feel. Overall this makes the game feel diverse and still feel somewhat cohesive. Episode 2 for instance takes place in ancient Greece and both the level designs and the weapons you use reflect that time period as all your weapons from episode 1 are removed and only the Daikatana is the weapon you carry through all time periods (minus the first one where you don't get it until after the first boss fight). Episode 3 takes you to Norway in the dark ages and you spend that episode fighting bubonic zombies (or buboids) and rats, and 3 Wizards and an insane king. It got a little bit into the fantasy genre at that point, but I found it enjoyable.

What I liked about the story was that your sidekick characters were very instrumental in it. Unlike games like Half-Life where the sidekicks were treated like disposable meatshields that you would easily just kill, in Daikatana they have strong personalities and you meet them during the game as people who have their own motivations for helping you. For instance, you don't meet your first sidekick until a few levels into the game and you have to actually save him from a torture room, giving him a reason to follow you as he owes you for saving his life. Mikiko is also saved in a similar manner and Daikatana does a really good job at making them feel important to you and the story. At some points in the game where I was separated from them, I truly missed them and felt like it wasn't the same without them. Not many games can achieve this, I feel, and it is one of the aspects about Daikatana I truly enjoy.

The end also has a few good twists which I won't spoil for you, but needless to say it took me a bit by surprise as you get a second surprise boss fight after you defeat the main villain. All in all, the story is nothing special but the writing is well done and the characters have very well defined yet very human personalities that I felt made them very real and believable.

"Someone's gonna pay for making me find these fucking keycards!"

[GAMEPLAY]

Daikatana was actually really groundbreaking in that it attempted something that hadn't been done so far when it came out. It attempted to be a co-op FPS. Today this is nothing new and games like L4D, Borderlands, Syndicate and even Portal 2 have popularized co-op in FPS's. But Daikatana probably PIONEERED this idea, way before anyone had even thought of making it an integral part of the gameplay, with the possible exception of Half-Life Decay but that wasn't exactly a standalone game. Sure co-op was POSSIBLE in games as early as Doom but what Daikatana did that we NOW consider a normal thing was to build the entire gaming experience around working with your sidekicks and managing their inventory and commanding them. In a lot of ways, Daikatana is actually more of a RPG than a simple FPS, evidenced by the fact you earn XP points by slaying your enemies and when you level up, you can input a point into several different slots that affect how strong your character is in various aspects. It feels a lot like a spiritual forefather to games like Borderlands in that sense, and it's MINDBLOWING that people didn't recognize just how far ahead of its time this game was back in 2000. Hell, if it had been released in 1998 or 1999 like it was intended to, it would have been even more groundbreaking. It took the idea from Half-Life of using sidekicks and basically mixed more RPG elements into it and made them more integrated in the game's story and plot and they feel just as important as you as a result.

That being said, the AI for the sidekicks could easily have been improved on. Your sidekicks WILL at times act totally lobotimized, getting stuck in doors or other parts of the level, though most of the time they act pretty much like a co-op partner would, being able to climb ladders and jump over obstacles and trace your steps. You will have to get fairly aquainted with your leader skills and using hotkeys to commanding your partners very often. Thankfully, once you learn how to work around the bugs, playing the single player is a breeze, and I got fairly quickly adjusted to how they would react in given situations and I managed to get through the game without them dying too much. It is very important to take care of them, giving them armor, health and good weapons and treat them as part of your team. This is how the game was intended to play and playing this like Quake or any other egocentric shooter is a really bad idea.

My theory is that this is one of the reasons the game failed. The hype surrounding the game and John Romero's status as a demigod that literally made everything he touched into gold, probably was more instrumental to the game's commercial failure than the buggy sidekick AI. People most likely expected another Quake, which Daikatana is anything but. If anything, I consider Daikatana a more worthy sequel to Quake than Quake 2 actually was, because while Quake 2 is a good game, it doesn't take as many risks and doesn't have nearly as much variety. The issue with the AI has easily been blown way out of proportions in other more critical reviews and I easily blame the sky high expectations people had towards the game for that. Another important thing to mention is that the game does have multiplayer co-op so IF the sidekick AI gets too annoying, just hook up with a friend and let him take the shoes of one of the sidekicks. It does make the game a ton more fun to play and I have a feeling that this is the way it was intended to be played.

As previously stated, each episode has its own theme. You are given new weapons for each episode and this keeps the game surprisingly interesting and fresh as the weapons are very well made and often make you feel really powerful. Hell, the Daikatana itself might be one of the most satisfying swords i've used in any game and I usually despise games that use swords. Though I didn't rely on it so much, it was fun to use and the more you use it, the stronger it gets, as it absorbs the energy of your slain foes. I might do a playthrough where I max it out and see how strong I can get it.

This winged/horned bitch soon is getting my katana up her arse. :P

[GRAPHICS]

Let me say this once and for all, the rumors that Daikatana is "uglier than Quake 2" are definitely false. While I agree that by 2000 standards the models look a bit low-poly and the fact they're not animated makes them look dated, the levels are insanely well made and the game has an intense atmosphere. It's simply gorgeous to look at and this game does more with the Quake 2 engine than Quake 2 ever did. With all the effects turned on you will see snowflakes that ARE actually snowflakes. They're not just boring white dots, they are shaped like actual snowflakes and it's this almost meticulate attention to detail that makes Daikatana one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had. The game definitely outclasses Quake 2 in the graphics department just by the shere variety in level design too. From the industrial future Japan, to the sunny ancient Greece and the snowy and cold Norway in the Dark Ages, and back again to 2030's San Francisco (you even get to escape from Alcatraz), the graphics are constantly pushing the engine to its limits and Daikatana does a really good job at being one of the most diverse games I've played. The monster designs are actually really good in my opinion and all have that Romero quality about them.


[SOUND]

Daikatana also doesn't lack in the sound department. The voice actors will sound familiar to anyone who has played Deus Ex as they've used the same ones for this game and it's very funny to hear them again with such new and different roles to play. They do a very decent job, although the fake Japanese accents definitely make them sound a bit cheesy, similar to why Deus Ex can be unintentionally funny at times. That being said, the guy who voices Superfly Johnson fits the character perfectly and he's easily one of the most lovable characters in the game.

The music is really good too, consisting of music that fits each time period. For the futuristic industrial environments you get rocking industrial music with heavy guitar riffs, and for the older ancient environments you get more symphonic pieces that are more ambient. Also worth mentioning, instead of using CD Audio like Quake 2 does, the songs are played as mp3's stored on the hard drive, so that they can be played without the need of having the game CD inserted, which I find a big relief since I hate having to insert the CD just to play the game. Cheers to the Ion Storm team for thinking ahead.

"The future, ancient Greece and now the dark ages? This game has pretty varied levels..."

[SUMMARY]

All in all, Daikatana is not a bad game. I blame high expectations and the hype for the commercial failure this game had. I truly feel like it is a misunderstood gem, a diamond in the rough. If you look past its flaws, of which there are not that many, it was a groundbreaking title that foresaw the future of gaming and the co-op games that we play today. It is truly a shame that this game has gotten such a bad reputation as it was truly undeserved. I strongly suggest you give the game a try. Because I would rather base my opinion on my own experience, rather than just blindly following the mass opinion or the opinions of critics. If anything is proof that John Romero is a genious who has the capability to see into the future and push the genre forwards and not just mindlessly rehashing old ideas like the id crew did with Quake 2, Daikatana is it.

Yes, it's not perfect. But it is unique, and I had a lot of fun with it.

I give this game 8 out of 10 Human Hamburgers.

Also, check out JonTron's review of the N64 version, which truly does suck a lot.

- Alyxx

PC Game Review: Wolfenstein 3D

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on July 9th 2012.

 

WOLFENSTEIN 3D
Platform: PC (DOS)
Released: 1992
Genre. First Person Shooter
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Apogee, GT Interactive, id Software
Buy on Steam

Celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year, Wolfenstein 3D often gets false praise for "inventing" the first person shooter genre. Though it did put in place some of the paradigms that still are used by today's FPS games (although with much better graphics), Wolfenstein 3D wasn't inventing the genre as much as it was merely popularizing it. You could argue that early University titles such as Maze War are really more suitable for that honour, or hell, even Wing Commander which was released a year or more before Wolfenstein 3D was released and had way superior graphics but required a monster of a computer at the time. The reason Wolfenstein 3D became popular was because it ran well on even low end computers, coupled with the fact the first episode could be spread legally for free, due to Apogee's shareware version. It was a combination that was a blast and together with id's previous and more kiddie-friendly game franchise Commander Keen, it really put the home computer not just on the same level as consoles, but brought it above consoles and beyond. Even Nintendo's SNES console had problems being up to the challenge of emulating the game as it was designed with PC's in mind. Wolfenstein 3D probably didn't sell any PC's though, but sell, it did. It's a success story with few equals in the business and has since become a classic, revered for its technical excellence as well as for the fact that it's just damn fun to play.

[STORY]
While Wolfenstein 3D is based on the DOS classic Castle Wolfenstein from the early 80's, it shares little in common with its grandfather and takes its own road, even inventing its own setting, story and protagonist. You play as the allied commando B.J. Blazkowicz, and your sole mission is to exterminate the Nazis, pretty much. You even get to take on Der Führer himself, though in a mechanical robot suit... It's as crazy as it sounds and deliciously pulp fiction, and it makes for a pretty good and suitable setting for a shooter. The story progresses after each mission as you get to read a bit more about what happens and it makes a nice written backdrop for the game's levels themselves.

[GRAPHICS]
For the time, Wolfenstein 3D was simply groundbreaking. While it didn't look as impressive as, let's say Wing Commander or Ultima Underworld, it was clearly a step forward in making first person shooter graphics available for the masses as it ran smoothly on even low end computers. The game uses a technique dubbed "raycasting" in which the camera sends out a "ray" and draws whatever wall or object it hits, based on map data stored in the files. It may sound like a primitive technique but it works surprisingly well and is very stable. On most computers you won't even notice it's happening. The technique requires no dedicated GPU and is very CPU friendly, making it perfect for the lower end computers of its time. Of course, this technique has limitations and all the levels are flat and feel very boxy, more similar to mazes than real life locations and it can feel claustrophobic at times. Of course, this is where a lot of Wolfenstein 3D's charm and style lies and gives it a very unique atmosphere and feeling that would never be replicated with a modern shooter.

The graphics also have a lot of subtle details, such as the fact you can see BJ's face and the more he's hurt, the worse he looks, something that seems lost on a lot of modern games. Some of the levels also have swastikas in them, but only visible on a map screen or one of the game tools, or if you are very good at thinking how the level would look like from above. While the sprites may be a bit low-res on PC, only 64x64, they were a higher resolution on the Macintosh, 3DO and Atari Jaguar ports, 128x128, in case you want to play more graphically superior versions. The SNES version suffers a bit graphically as the SNES was never designed to run games like Wolfenstein 3D, but it is regardless an impressive port that runs at a smooth framerate at least.

[SOUND]
The sound department is definitely one of the areas where Wolfenstein 3D shines and hasn't aged badly at all. Supporting digitized sound on SoundBlaster cards, something new for its time, you'll hear the crackling clear noise of your weapons, the dogs barking, the guards shouting and the doors creaking, all with a bit of reverb added to it, adding a much needed sense of realism. There's even a slight spatial system implemented so that sounds far away will be at a much lower volume than sounds near you, and sounds can carry through rooms, meaning guards in another room will hear you if you accidentally fire your gun, which is impressively realistic.

Aside from the digitized sounds you can also use the SoundBlaster or AdLib cards (or PC speaker if you don't have either) for additional sound effects, for pickups and other minor sounds. The MIDI music is also very good, composed by Bobby Prince who also composed the music for Commander Keen and Doom. One of the tunes even has a hidden message in morse code, which is quite clever. Although you'll need an AdLib card for that, on modern computers luckily all of this can be emulated with DOSBox so there is no need to worry about it unless you have an old computer from '91 to play it on.

[GAMEPLAY]
Unlike its predecessors Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, which were largely stealth-based games, Wolfenstein 3D takes a much more action-oriented approach and does away with almost any resemblance of stealth. Instead the focus seems to be on going in guns blazing and killing every guard you can find, a typical trait of the FPS genre. It is however possible to sneak up on guards and take them out with a silent knife attack, although this is as close as it gets to the original 80's Wolfenstein. The main objective in each level seems to find the exit, although you will face obstacles aside from enemies, being locked doors and eventually end bosses.

You start out with a knife and a pistol but can upgrade to a machinegun and eventually a chaingun. The positive aspect about the chaingun is that it obliterates any threat you may face (with the exception of end bosses which will take quite a bit of skill to take down even with the chaingun), and the negative being that it, to quote the Quake manual, "eats ammo like popcorn". You'll be wise to switch to either the pistol or machinegun if you're running low on ammo as these weapons conserve ammo more efficiently. The levels are riddled with secret rooms, often containing treasures you can collect for extra points. Getting enough points scores you an extra life. It seems id were quite big on arcade games as Wolfenstein 3D does have a very arcady feel to it, since it gives you lives. You can still quicksave and quickload whenever you want though so it seems largely obsolete.

You can use either a keyboard, mouse, joystick or gamepad for controls so you have a lot of options regarding how you want to play the game, although for maximum control I suggest using a mouse. There are no strafe keys however, which feels a bit awkward as you have to hold down a strafe key to strafe. What is interesting is that while the SNES version is technically inferior, they added more weapons in that version and even gave you the ability to use L and R to strafe so in some aspects, the SNES version is an improvement over the original PC version, at least in terms of controls and variety. The PC version does have more levels though and is way more expandable as id has released the source code so people can make their own modifications of the game and their own levels.

[SUMMARY]
Story: 8/10
Nothing big, this game doesn't have a whole lot of story, but what little there is is delightfully b-movie and exploitative. I can't give it a perfect score though since there isn't much to go on.
Graphics: 8/10
For 1992, this was an impressive game and it ran well on most computers for that time too. It's a solid engine that while showing its age, has aged fine. They do look a bit pixelated though and some of the ports featured much higher resolutions on the sprites.
Sound: 10/10
Absolutely perfect. The digitized sounds add a lot of atmosphere and realism to the game and the music is great!
Gameplay: 8/10
A true and tested formula that holds up today, though I still would've liked if the game had more stealth elements to it. At one point you could even drag bodies away which seems like it could be a cool concept. It gets a bit repetitive and boring after a while.

Overall score: 8/10
While Wolfenstein 3D in no way is as groundbreaking as people want it to be, and does get boring if you play it for extended periods as you can only blast through so many nazis before it gets old, it set the standard for FPS games to come, placing you in the shoes of a lone soldier facing an onslaught of enemies. It established the paradigms and trends that even modern shooters go by and has stood the test of time as it is still today very easy to pick up and play, though I suggest you also try out some of the many ports that have been made as they often improve on the core game.

- Alyxx

PC Game Review: Mass Effect

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on April 2nd 2012.

MASS EFFECT
Platform: PC
Released: 2008
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: EA
Buy on Steam

Sometimes you buy games on a whim, we all do, especially when they're on sale and you only pay like 5 bucks for them. Recently I got an account on Origin and, of course, I wanted to check out their game library. As it just happened, they had a sale on some action games and I saw this one called Mass Effect that only cost about 5 bucks, so I bought it along with Mass Effect 2, pretty much knowing nothing about the games to begin with. Now, in most cases when you buy bargain games, you end up with a game that is good but after playing through it once, you forget about it and move on...

... Mass Effect is NOT one of those games. Because Mass Effect might be the best five bucks I have ever spent. And the more I played it, the more I explored it, the more I simply got lost in it, the more it dawned upon me... that I might just be playing one of the best games ever made.

STORY

Set in the future, Mass Effect is a world in which humans have discovered ancient ruins on Mars that were left there by an extinct race of sentient spacefaring beings known as the Protheans. Using the technology from these ruins, we have basically discovered mass effect, the ability to manipulate space and time itself, allowing us to travel at faster than light speeds, mostly due thanks to a mysterious element only known as Element Zero. We discovered the mass relays, a network of transit devices allowing us instantaneous passage across thousands of lightyears. After travelling the stars, we discovered other alien races and began to establish ourselves in the galaxy.

In Mass Effect you play as Commander Shepard, and it is up to you to customize the character, choosing not only sex and appearance, but also your psychological profile and backstory, as well as your class, which affects what skills and weapons you are able to use. Your first mission is to investigate a Prothean beacon at a planet called Eden Prime. Soon you realize that there's someone else after this beacon, someone who wants to use it for his own reasons. What these reasons are, it is up to you to find out as you play the game and find clues to what is going on. You soon realize that you have the daunting task of saving the entire galaxy...

While not terribly original, borrowing heavily from classic sci-fi, especially Babylon 5, Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien and even The Matrix, the story is written quite well, and does a really good job at keeping you emotionally invested and engaged in the game, helped by the superb voice acting. It really feels like this game was meant to be a movie as the dialogue feels natural and the whole game feels like anything could happen, a feeling that few games really truly achieve.

GAMEPLAY

Mass Effect is really all about effect, literally. Everything you do and say has an impact on the game, and will have an impact in the sequel as well. As previously mentioned, how you customize your character also greatly affects how the game is played and what your relationship to the characters will be like. In short, every Mass Effect playthrough will be unique in some way. As you can imagine, the replay value here is through the roof.

It can mostly be described as a third person shooter that has a heavy amount of RPG elements. You spend a lot of missions just blasting enemies with your powers and guns while taking cover, as well as using the Mako, a big 6-wheeled tank to defeat enemies and explore planets. What sets Mass Effect apart from the usual shooter though is that it's more squad based. Every time you go on a mission, you bring 2 companions, and choosing the ones that balance out the strengths of biotics (basically the ability to create mass effect fields, an ability given to humans through Element Zero), tech (technological powers, as well as decryption and electronics) and pure combat. You have absolute control over your squadmates' powers as well as your own via a menu you can bring up during gameplay. In the PC version, they have added hotkeys though which you can map powers to, speeding up the process significantly.


In classic RPG fashion, you gain XP from defeating enemies and completing quests, and every time you or your squadmates level up, you gain points that you can use to upgrade the powers and skills of yourself and your friends. Though you start out with 4 basic weapon slots, there are also a ton of other different weapons and weapon modifications to discover and try out, the weapons available to you becoming more powerful as you gain levels. Interestingly, the game has no ammunition system, instead your weapons have a heat gauge that you need to watch in order to not overheat your weapons during combat, and what weapon and mods you have greatly affect how fast or slow your weapon overheats. Among the loot you may also find additional armors, tech and biotic enhancers and other goodies that give you an edge against the enemy. The only downside to this is that you'll spend a lot of time with resource management, and especially on high levels, mostly you'll just sell everything or turn it into omnigel, which you can use to avoid decryption, but this is not a big issue and for the most part, it feels like an integrated part of the game.

Though it's not all combat, a large portion of the game can be spent merely exploring, talking to people and a lot of times, situations can be resolved without the use of weapons at all, if you choose the right dialogue, giving the game a lot of variety. In Mass Effect, you literally have an entire galaxy to explore, with planets that contain quests and resources, completing the game can take a long time if you plan on discovering everything and completing every side quest there is. You may also spend some time developing a romance between one of your crewmembers, which adds a lot of charm and personality to the game.


GRAPHICS & SOUND

Honestly, Mass Effect might be one of the most impressive games I've played in terms of graphics. The skyboxes and backgrounds are filled to the brim with beautiful details, the models look very lifelike and the animation, especially on the faces, is just mindblowing. Most of the time, I felt like I was actually watching a movie while playing the game, which is a big compliment. There might be a few graphical glitches here and there, and some of the model textures might be a bit notably low-res, but nothing that really breaks the game or ruins the overall mood.

The sound design is pretty cool too, with excellent voice acting from both known and unknown actors, including Seth Green and Keith David. There's a lot of oomph in the weapon sounds, and everything just sounds like it should. The music is never intrusive and does a pretty good job at setting the mood for the game, as well as reflecting the battle between organics and synthetics with a score that mixes both orchestral and electronic elements in a very effective way. The end theme by Faunts sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it, and when I heard it, it was one of the few times where a game actually brought me to tears.

SUMMARY

Mass Effect is quite simply one of the best games ever made. If you haven't played it, you have truly missed out on a masterpiece. As I said, this might just be the best 5 bucks I've ever spent. The game looks great, sounds great, and most importantly plays great. I have never felt more emotionally invested in a game before this, not since The Longest Journey anyway. I strongly suggest you get this game and play it. You won't regret it.

I give the game a perfect score of 10 out of 10.

- Alyxx

Top 10: Overrated Games

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on January 6th 2012.
Link to original thread: http://www.accursedfarms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2626



These are games that I personally feel are overrated and overhyped. If you disagree with me, then please share your point of view in the comments.

1. Metroid

Yeah, I get it, Samus was a big deal, whatever. But aside from some revolutionary aspects, the game is bad. I mean, really bad. The level design is confusing as hell. I mean, you can only go through so many identical rooms before you go insane and you're lucky if you can navigate this game without using a map. Also, the game lags down to like 2 FPS whenever there are too many enemies on the screen, and it's so easy to die from just being hit by enemies. It's definitely a frustrating game at that. With all the games that have come out since, like Metroid II and Super Metroid and, well, fucking Metroid Prime, I don't think this game is worth playing anymore. Just play Zero Mission instead. It's much more enjoyable. And who the f*** thought it was a good idea to remove the save function when porting it to NES? You think people LIKE inputting those passwords? Nope.

2. Grand Theft Auto series

I've tried pretty much every GTA game there is and I still don't understand why people play these games. I'll admit Vice City was kind of fun with all the 80's style going for it, but really... why do we play GTA? Is it for the shitty music? The story? No, people play GTA to just fuck around with it. That's the sole reason people buy these games. It's so they can fuck around with cheat codes and mess with the game engine and just do whatever. It's fun for 10 minutes and then it gets old. Fast. Mindless violence is only entertaining for a while before it just bores the fuck out of you. GTA in my opinion is horribly overrated and the best example of why sandbox games are pretty much useless. I'd just start a mission, fail it over and over and just do random shit until I got bored and shut off the game. Sorry, but this is not my cup of tea.

3. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

I've tried to get into Oblivion twice now because everyone keeps telling me "oh this game is so great you gotta fucking play this game, bitch!!!" and I'm like "okay, just stfu!!!". So yeah, the first time, I didn't like it. It felt confusing, hard to play and just overall a bad experience. So I wanted to give it another go recently. Sure, I played a bit of it, got into the story a bit. I really wanted to like this game. But... I lost interest. I don't understand why people think this game is so good. It's littered with annoying bugs, the graphics are horrible (especially the character models which look like they were shat out of a blender) and the game is just confusing as hell. Sorry but this is not my cup of tea. Doesn't help that I've never liked fantasy settings either. I just associate them with bland boring games for the most part and this game didn't help me at all.
It's also for this reason I have ZERO interest in Skyrim. You can hype it and play it all you want, but it's not going to trick me. I'm sick of bland overhyped fantasy titles. Guess I took an arrow to the knee.

4. Halo: Combat Evolved

So yeah, Halo is kind of a big deal, the flagship title for XBox, Microsoft's big juggernaut, the one thing every console gamer is playing. So I decided to try the first game to see if it was worth all the hype. Well, it's a good FPS. Everything about it is good. But it just... didn't feel engaging. In fact, I just ended up being bored with it. It felt horribly bland and just not that interesting. So even if I love science fiction titles, this game is just overrated for me and I've lost all interest for future titles.


5. Team Fortress 2

It's not so much that I dislike the game, it's just the fact it's everywhere. This game is the source of so many fucking memes, so many avatars, and so much SHIT on the internet that I wanna STRANGLE the makers of it. I don't care for TF2, I don't care for squad based games in general. The game isn't that fun playing, never feels satisfying to me and I don't get why people love it so much. The visual style and voice work is okay I guess but nothing more. It doesn't feel like it has any good gameplay mechanics to draw me into it. It's not satisfying on the same level as MW3 imo. But yeah, that's just my taste, I don't care for it. And I would like to just forget about it but EVERYONE ARE FUCKING PLAYING IT AND CONSTANTLY REMINDING ME OF IT! So yeah, glad I got that out of my system.

6. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

I've already spoken about how much I hate this piece of shit in my review of it, but what baffles me the most is that nobody else seems to be speaking up about it. It got glorious reviews, and people who have played it thinks it's okay. It's an overrated and overhyped piece of SHIT that could've been so much more than it was. WHY? Just... WHY?!

7. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Yeah, I'll probably get some hate for putting "the best game of all time" on my list. But sorry, this isn't a good game to me. It feels bland, boring, and just... too weird. The entire Zelda franchise is just too weird for me. There's so many weird shitty characters and the whole game feels weird and just annoying to me. Other than that, I guess I can respect it for being the biggest game on the N64, but... yeah, it's definitely overrated imo. I mean, it's an okay game but "best of all time"? Really? You wanna go that far? I don't get it.

8. Amnesia: The Dark Descent

I guess this is a game I'll never understand the hype of. I played it for like an hour until I got so frustrated and angry with it that I shut it off before I literally threw the keyboard into my screen. I mean, talk about restricting you to play as a total pussy who goes insane whenever he doesn't have light. And good luck finding enough light... This game is a total mess imo and I don't get why people praise it so much. I guess it just works for some people, but not for me. It's overrated as hell to me.

9. Fallout 3

Fallout 3 isn't a bad game, it's just a very mediocre one. While it did fit as a sort of FPS/RPG hybrid, compared to Fallout 2, it's a disappointingly bland game. Definitely really overrated imo.

10. Super Mario 64

Yeah, sorry, I just don't have anything nice to say about this game. The controls feel very weird and it feels impossible to control Mario correctly due to the perspective. I often misjudge jumps and stuff and just end up getting frustrated. I dunno, something about 3d platformers in general just feel off to me, though Tomb Raider got it right, more right than SM64 in my opinion. What baffles me is that everyone seems to regard this as one of the best games ever, which is what I don't get. SMB3 and even SMW were much better titles imo.

PC Game Review: Syndicate

Originally posted on Accursed Farms Forums on February 25th 2012.

SYNDICATE
Platform: PC (Origin)
Released: 2012
Genre. First Person Shooter
Developer: Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: EA
Buy on Origin

Remaking games as first person shooters is far from any new trend. Hell, Wolfenstein 3D, the very grand-daddy of the genre, is actually a remake of the 80's top-down stealth PC game Castle Wolfenstein by MUSE Software, though Wolfenstein 3D has far eclipsed the durability of that game without a doubt. And while it's safe to say that the Syndicate reboot strays a bit far from its source material, an isometric strategy game, like Wolfenstein 3D it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[STORY]

Syndicate doesn't really have much of a story as much as it has a setting. Taking obvious inspiration from hardcore cyberpunk fiction, the game is set in the near future of 2069 in a world where megacorporations known as "syndicates" rule a globalized world and every living person is implanted with a chip that basically replaces all digitial devices, like cellphones, mp3 players and entertainment. The plot starts out rather razor thin as you're literally thrown into the shoes of Miles Kilo, a DART 6 chip-enhanced agent for the EuroCorp syndicate. However, as you progress through the game, the plot does thicken and has its twists, but at its roots, Syndicate is pretty much an oldschool FPS where you mow down enemies, fight a boss, and then repeat the cycle. If you expect a deep intriguing story with lots of character development, you should probably look elsewhere, however it does at times give us a bit of a warning that we might be turning into machines ourselves as we merge with technology, which has always been a cyberpunk dilemma.

[GAMEPLAY]

The single player campaign is pretty much what you'd expect from a modern shooter. You're limited to carrying only two guns, your health regenerates, quicktime events are often thrown in for mandatory mashing of the action key, you can aim down your sights, and do melee attacks, often resulting in execution of your enemy if you're lucky to get close enough. However the guns are very fun to use, and there's enough of them to keep you playing through the whole thing. There's an assault rifle that can shoot through thin covers, taking enemies by surprise, the Gauss gun can lock onto enemy targets and fire bullets in a trajectory, the minigun will turn you into a non-stop killing machine, the sniper rifle feels rewarding to shoot and all in all, there's a wide variety of guns here.

However, what really sets Syndicate apart from other shooters is the way your character can use his DART 6 chip to remotely hack into not only electronic devices such as elevators, computers and turrets, but also into people's brains. Using "applications" you have installed, you can force your enemies to become suicide bombers, make their weapon backfire, or make them turn on their own and eventually kill themselves. It's a very dark gimmick that feels gleefully rewarding and these applications recharge the more enemies you kill and the faster you kill them, so the game expects you to use them tactically and at given moments. Unlike other modern shooters which at times feel like they're treating you like a moron, Syndicate never really forces you to use these applications at any time, leaving it up to you to judge when it's appropriate, so if you fuck up, it's generally your own fault.

The chip also gives you an overlay, similar to thermal vision, which slows down time and reveals your enemies for you, and also enhances your weapon damage, making it easier to get kills, very similar to the adrenaline burst in Mass Effect 2. Unlike the apps however, it recharges on its own. At certain points in the game you are given an opportunity to rip out someone's implanted chip from their brain and use it to upgrade your own systems, giving the game some minor RPG feeling as you need to choose which upgrades to get, similar to Deus Ex.

The only bad thing about the single player is that it's short, way too short. I completed it in about 2 days, playing a total of 5-6 hours, though near the end it definitely got very challenging, and it might be worth playing through twice, though not much due to how linear it is.

The co-op mode is actually its own experience in of itself, and the co-op levels are allegedly based on levels from the original game. In the multiplayer, you can either join a syndicate or create your own, making it easier to keep in touch with friends and gives the multiplayer a corporate feel that is very in touch with the game's cyberpunk tone. You can customize your loadout as well and you can have several different ones for any mission, customizing not only which guns you want to use, but also which apps you want to have installed during the mission. The missions feel a lot like a L4D mission where you have to work as a team in order to survive the enemies and complete the mission objectives. Like the single player, you use your hacking skills to defeat enemies and complete objectives, and also to heal your squad mates. It's a fun mode that will definitely outlast the single player experience.

On PC, the game is pretty much forcing you to use an XBOX gamepad and I feel that there's a lack of support for those who prefer using only a keyboard and mouse, and sometimes you HAVE to use the gamepad to just perform simple menu actions, and the menus lack any customization of the gamepad buttons. While this doesn't really ruin the game in any way, it's confusing.

[GRAPHICS]

Syndicate is a very beautiful game at times, using a lot of visual effects to enhance the experience, and there's a lot of glow involved, giving it a very neon-like look that fits the tone of it. There's also a lot of use of various glitch filters to make it look more realistic and low-tech which I kinda like, and it does feel very gritty at times, especially in the downtown areas. Overall the game has a wonderful computerized techno style that feels really futuristic, and it does look attractive.

However I spotted a lot of rather pixelated textures, visual glitches would happen in certain places, like an elevator where parts of it would jump around, and the menus lack any options to customize the graphics and improve them, you're basically just given some minor sliders for antialiasing and bitdepth which doesn't fix some of the blurry textures. It's obvious this game was not meant for powerful PC's, or consoles, as it runs smoothly even with all the current settings maxed, and it's a shame that multiplatform titles suffer from this. If you have an average PC you'll probably be able to run it just fine, and this is definitely not a "showoff" title like Crysis or Battlefield 3.

[SOUND]

Syndicate has a very cool sound about it, there's a lot of techy effects thrown in during hacks and scans, wonderfully electronic dubstep music will cut in during a bossfight, and Rosario Dawson really plays her character well. Overall, it's obvious a lot of attention was given to the game's sound department, and the music is always mixed a bit lower than the in-game sounds so it never overdubs it. The end theme, remixed by Skrillex, is very headbang-worthy and it's awesome to hear some real dubstep being used in a game where it actually fits, as the music sounds very futuristic like the game itself.

[SUMMARY]

There aren't really any reasons you should get this on PC, aside from being able to play using your keyboard and mouse, and using Origin to lock the game to your account in case the CD gets scratched. In my opinion, it's a shame that not much care was given to give PC gamers the superior version of the game like they should have, and it really does feel like a console game on PC. Despite that, Syndicate is a great and solid FPS with awesome design, and the multiplayer will hopefully hit on with its great and fun co-op missions that pay homage to the origins of the game.

[SCORES]

STORY: 6/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 8/10
SOUND: 9/10

Overall Score: 7.5/10

PC Game Review: Hard Reset

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on January 5th 2012.

HARD RESET
Platform: PC (Steam)
Released: 2012
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer/Publisher: Flying Wild Hog
Buy Extended Edition on Steam

Nowadays for indie developers, the number one rule seems to be resounding: Don't make a first person shooter. However, the guys at Flying Wild Hog have blissfully ignored this rule and crafted a game in a genre usually reserved for AAA developers. Hard Reset doesn't attempt to compete with any big titles like Call of Duty, and even lacks multiplayer. What it does attempt however is giving you a good single player experience. Does it succeed in offering you value for your digital cash, or is this just a waste of time? Read on to find out.

[STORY]

Hard Reset isn't much of a story driven game, but the basic premise is that you're some kind of war veteran, dragged into a conspiracy in a world where humanity has become almost extinct and machines have taken over most of the Earth. What little there is of story is told via comic-book style narratives between levels and mostly serve as glorified loading screens. For better or for worse, this comic book style narration greatly contrasts with the realistic in-game visuals, similar to games like Max Payne and Mirror's Edge, though for an indie game, at least it's done with some style and half-decent voice acting. The cutscenes feel like they have little to no impact on the actual game though and feel extremely forgetable after a while. They are however, thankfully, skipable. If you want a story-driven FPS, you'll definitely have to look elsewhere.

[GAMEPLAY]

While Hard Reset literally came out last year, in terms of gameplay, it feels delightfully oldschool. The controls are dead simple and the game has more in common with 90's shooters like Quake or Doom than it has with Modern Warfare or Halo. Gone are buttons for crouching, melee and even flashlights. What you get is a very stripped down raw first person shooter where the controls are basically moving, aiming and shooting. It even does away with regenerating health, limiting you to finding health and ammunition on the battlefield left by either enemies or scattered about the levels. It certainly attempts hard to be an oldschool shooter and in many aspects succeed in that.

However, the game does feature some unique aspects. For instance, instead of giving you an arsenal of weapons, you have two basic firearms. CLN is the projectile based weapon while NRG fires off electricity. At first, this seems to be very limited, however, you soon realize that the game does, like many modern shooters, have some RPG elements to it. You get experience points for killing enemies, and by using the environment to defeat your opposition, be it by blasting away at explosive barrels and cars or turning electronic terminals into lethal tesla coils, you earn more experience than you would by simply blasting away at the enemies themselves. Scattered about on the levels are also XP packages you can pick up, and unlike many modern shooters, Hard Reset does a very good job at rewarding exploration as a lot of these XP packages, especially larger ones, are often hidden secrets. On harder difficulties, finding these secrets are essential to gaining an upper hand against your enemies. While Hard Reset does feel linear at times, it offers a lot of exploration and replay value for obsessive compulsive players. The fact the developers have hardcoded a lot of achievements into the game also helps in adding replay value. Progression through the levels usually doesn't involve too much of a puzzle, and if you feel lost, the hint mode will easily show you what to do next.

When you have accumulated enough XP points, you achieve an upgrade point, and this is where the game's RPG elements come into play. Your two main weapons can be upgraded with several mods that grant you additional weapon functions, such as a shotgun, RPG, energy mortar or even a homing smartgun. How you choose to upgrade your weapons affects how you approach the game and adds to the replay value as once the game is finished, you'll want to start over just to find more upgrades. You can also upgrade your suit to become harder to kill.

Enemy AI isn't terribly advanced and, for the most part, the enemies are stronger in numbers than individually, and the enemies do tend to end up becoming very predictable as most of them have some kind of gimmicky attack. Small enemies will attempt to cut you with blades, walking robotic bombs explode upon impact, gorilla-like robots charge you like a raging bull and will pummel you until you're nothing but a pool of blood, and other enemies have similar patterns. What makes the game stand out a bit however are the boss fights, each one feeling memorable and satisfying, though for the most part they are pretty simple as all you have to do is fire at the weak spots. Not all the machines are evil however and sometimes you'll come across a friendly robot or two, adding a lot of charm and life to the game.

Once you've finished the single player campaign on any difficulty, you can either start over again in EX mode where you get to keep your upgrades from your previous playthrough, or try to get a high score in Survival mode where you'll fight waves of enemies, getting the chance to upgrade in between waves. Both of these modes add replay value to the game, but don't expect any multiplayer options. Hopefully, the team will be working on a sequel some time soon, and hopefully will add some new gameplay elements.

[GRAPHICS]

Hard Reset is, by all means, a gorgeous game. While it's certainly no Crysis, for an indie game, it looks stunning. If you're a fan of cyberpunk movies like Blade Runner or The Matrix, you will adore the design of Hard Reset as it borrows heavily from both, especially Blade Runner. Unlike modern shooters like Call of Duty or Gears of War, it has a lot of glowing neon colours to feast your eyes on and the perpetual night only adds to the tense cyberpunk atmosphere of the game.

As mentioned before, the comic book style narration does take you out of the realistic in-game environment and on a bigger budget, the game would probably have used better cutscenes. However, for an indie game, this is very impressive and definitely looks just as good, if not better, than any modern day shooter. Texture popin is virtually non existant and the game runs at a constant smooth framerate even on 1080p resolution. Hard Reset is definitely a game I'll be replaying just to get lost in the beauty of the world created in the game. If you want a game that puts you into Blade Runner, this is it.

[SOUND]

The sound design of Hard Reset is about as stylish as the visuals. The background music really adds to the cybernetic atmosphere, featuring heavy loads of distorted electronic sounds and deep synthesizer basslines. The music also changes to a more rocked up soundtrack during combat and changes to a more atmospheric sombre mood during exploration.

Weapons have satisfying sounds to them and overall the world around you is filled to the brim with electronic sounds, everything from the robotic advertising terminals to the robotic enemies you fight. It's a game best played with headphones if you want to get the best out of it.

The only thing lacking a bit is the voice acting during the cutscenes. It's cheesy, but not particurarily entertaining and largely forgetable, not helped by a lazy script.

[SUMMARY]

Hard Reset is a fun little FPS that, while completely incapable of competing with the juggernauts of the industry, does have its quirks that makes it a decent single player experience. If you want a break from modern shooters and want a truly oldschool cyberpunk shooter that brings the genre back to its basics, and looks really good, then Hard Reset is for you. If you want a story-driven FPS with a multiplayer portion however, you're better off leaving it alone.

STORY: 4/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
SOUND: 9/10

OVERALL: 8/10

- Alyxx

PC Game Review: Dreamfall - The Longest Journey

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on December 16th 2011.

DREAMFALL: THE LONGEST JOURNEY
Platform: PC
Released: 2006
Genre: Adventure
Developer/Publisher. Funcom
Buy on Steam


I'm not much of a hateful person, and in general, there aren't really any games I truly hate. Mostly if I don't like a game, it's just because it's not to my taste and instead of ranting on it, I simply don't play it (the Elder Scrolls games being a prime example of this). However, there is an exception, and I think it's about time I introduced you to it.

I grew up playing adventure games. Everything from Grim Fandango to Monkey Island, I played it and I loved it. One adventure game that will always hold a special place in my heart is The Longest Journey from Norwegian developer FunCom. It's an epic game that felt a tad bit overwhelming when I first played it, but had moments that touched me so deeply and left such a permanent effect on me as a person, that I simply have to say it's one of the single best PC games of all time for me. It had above decent voice acting too, even the Norwegian version featured a lot of high level actors in Norway and I think that it still holds up today, even if it might seem a bit dated to some.

So long story short, when I heard there was a sequel coming, and saw the trailer for it, I was hyped. And I mean really hyped. I had all sorts of enormous expectations for it, but I think even without those expectations I would still have been as disappointed as I was. I mean, even the title is disappointing. I mean, "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey"? Come on, how hard could it be to just call it "The Longest Journey 2: Dreamfall"? That would at least have made sense. Now I have the feeling people will be confused as to which game is the first. Talk about messing up the chronology...

So without further ado, here is my review of one of the most overrated, overhyped and underwhelming games of the decade, Dreamfall.

[GAMEPLAY]

Oh boy, where do I begin... The gameplay in Dreamfall is an absolute mess. First off, the first thing you'll notice is that the mouse look is horizontally inverted by default. Whose fucking decision was it to do this? Did they think people PREFER turning the mouse left to look right? How stupid are these guys?! I think it's because Dreamfall is essentially a console port (bad sign right there), and in the console version they inverted the look to suit people who use joysticks. I have no idea why they thought this would translate well into PC format, so the first thing I did was basically enter the menu and invert (yes, invert) the horizontal mouselook.

If you can get past THAT atrocity, you have PLENTY of more things to worry about. PLENTY! Because the interface is a cluttered mess that could make anyone cry out in frustration. For some reason, instead of making it an oldschool point-and-click type of game, like Telltale have done so brilliantly with their adventure games lately, or like, well, THE LONGEST JOURNEY, they opted to make a sort of third person ordeal like in Grim Fandango, except here you still have to click on things so it's far less intuitive and really cumbersome. It took me a while to get used to it, but eventually I managed to get past the initial parts of the game.

Another thing that really separates Dreamfall from its predecessor is that they tried to sort of make it more of an action title, and so they have included a combat system that I have NO idea how to work. You basically just tap the buttons, but it doesn't really do any difference, and just pray you beat your opponent. Thankfully the combat system is not used that often and only in few parts of the game as most of the time you'll run around talking to characters, gathering items and all that classic stuff.

You also have some limited dialogue choices, basically just affecting how you approach another character. It doesn't really make any difference in the end and just adds a lot of fake replay value.

Some parts of the game incorporate some form of stealth, like not stepping onto any noisy objects and such, which is a bit interesting but mostly just detracts from the experience and makes it all very jarring.

[STORY]

Now, here's the main problem with Dreamfall. If you think the gameplay is a mess, just look at the story. I mean, it has more continuity errors and plotholes than you can imagine. If you play this game back-to-back with The Longest Journey, you're going to go insane. And this is where I'll bring in some spoilers so either skip this following part or play The Longest Journey (which you should anyway).

The first thing you'll notice is that the characters are nothing like they were in the first game. Often this is blamed on some disaster that happened prior to the game's events but after the first game, though this still doesn't explain the incosistencies with the characters. While Zoe's part plays fine, it gets pretty jarring when she arrives in Newport later on in the game. One of the clues she finds in the hotel is a photograph of April with her friends. Technically, this photograph shouldn't exist there since in the first game, April can take it with her and if she did, it wouldn't be there. There are also other incosistencies when you interview Emma and Charlie. For one, Emma claims that she always belived April while Charlie was the skeptic. This is totally backwards from the first game where Emma was always skeptical of April and Charlie was the one who believed her. Also, why is Charlie running the Café now? In the first game he clearly states he wanted to be a dancer and worked in the bar just as a part time job. He gives NO reason why he's still around, not to mention he really looks nothing like he did in the first game.



And in Arkadia, the Banda that were clearly friendly in the first game, are here merely thrown at you as enemies to defeat. They are given no personality, no dialogue, and you are forced to fight them, unlike in the first game where you befriend them and learn that they are in fact quite peaceful. How they changed so much is never explained here either. And what the hell happened to April? She is written as a whiny emo bitch who does nothing but sound emo, having lost her powers and all that. I expected April to be the heroine this time as well, and instead she's treated like a secondary character with little to no emotion outside of just being emo.

A big bummer for me was also how the story also overexplained certain aspects from the first game, especially related to April. It is clearly hinted at, in the first game, that April is a dragonborn and has dragon blood. However, this is completely thrown away in this game where the white dragon explains to April that she is not really a dragon and that the "sister" term is only affectionate and never meant anything. I mean, they couldn't just leave this like a mystery? It was one of my main disappointments as I had really hoped they would give April a really epic role here, and instead they have just ruined her completely...

There's a lot of side characters here, some from the first game make a return, though all of them are horribly forgetable and most of them have little to no impact on the story. I almost wish you could play as Brian Westhouse some more and experienced his adventures with "Manny Chavez", that way it could've been an interesting prequel.

So that's probably the main problem with Dreamfall. There's a lot of stuff that's just unexplained, while other things are just unnecessarily overexplained, characters have unexpectedly changed, and the entire story seems to be written like it's only losely tied to the first game.

[GRAPHICS]

Okay, so with all of these negative aspects about Dreamfall there has to be something good about it, right? Well yes, Dreamfall is a stunningly beautiful game for the time, and it's probably no coincidence that the limited edition comes with an artbook showcasing how much work went into the artwork of the game. Everything is beautifully realized in 3D and the feeling of wandering through areas from TLJ in this fashion is almost creepy, and they have stayed incredibly faithful to the original design of the first game.

Some moments in the game look terribly cheesy and are obviously lifted from other media. Most notably Faith, who looks suspiciously like the girl from F.E.A.R., who in turn look suspiciously like the girl from Ring, the infamous Japanese horror flick. I really feel that these moments feel out of place and definitely not in style with the game and they're not creepy or offsetting, just cheesy and stupid.

My big issues with the graphics however, basically relate to the glossy look they attempted to give everything, making it look like a half-assed WoW clone at times, and the character animations look horrible and without any character at all. At times this game is just plain ugly to look at while other times it's breathtaking. Nothing much else to say about it, but it dated very fast, especially the scenes with Faith.

[SOUND]

The voice acting couldn't be much more of a polar opposite from TLJ. While in TLJ you had very good voice acting, the characters in Dreamfall, and I mean all of them, sound like they're just reading a script. They're not acting per se, they have little to no emotion or understanding of what they are saying. It's like I said, they're just reading a script. What's even worse is that they have given the characters new voice actors who do a TERRIBLE job compared to the original voice actors and I can't begin to describe what a disappointment it was. This game is PAINFUL to play because of how unengaged the voice actors sound and most of the time I just want to make them shut up. Yes, TLJ was very heavy on dialogue, but the good voice acting made you WANT to listen to it, it made you WANT to dig into the story of it. Dreamfall is the polar opposite and you'll find yourself skipping conversations JUST so you won't have to listen to the horribly cheesy dialogue.

The music is okay, it's a lot more forgetable than in the first game. The game heavily uses music by the Norwegian pop group Magnet, which is okay but nothing special, and makes the game feel dated even nowadays. Whereas the first game had a lot of interesting techno jazz pieces you could listen to from the cafés jukebox, this is completely scrapped in Dreamfall, even if it would be a nice nod and connection to the first game, and you're left with a ton of forgetable orchestral score and pop music.

Overall, the sound is as half-assed as the story and gameplay.

[SUMMARY]



Dreamfall is the prime example of a bad sequel. It fucks up the continuity with the first game, both in gameplay and story, suffering heavily from trying to appeal to console gamers more than the PC adventure game crowd, which I feel it should've been made for in the first place since these are the ones who loved the first game. I don't understand how they could fuck up a sequel this much but they obviously did. The graphics are okay and at times breathtaking but this doesn't change a cheesy story, a lackluster soundtrack, horrible emotionless voice acting and what is essentially a huge pile of rotten disgusting filthy CRAP covered in a sugary coating of nice graphics. It's an overrated and overhyped piece of shit that I wish I never played in the first place and while FunCom has stated they are working on another game, I really hope they scrap it. They have fucked up the TLJ franchise forever now and there's no turning back. They had so many opportunities to make a really memorable sequel, or prequel, to one of the best adventure games ever, but they wasted all of them, which is such a shame as the game really deserved a worthy sequel. Instead we got this piece of shit thrown at us as a big middle finger to everyone who loves adventure games...

I suggest you play The Longest Journey and just pretend it has no sequel. It's probably much better that way as it never really needed a sequel to begin with...

I give it 2 out of 10 Wonkers.

- Alyxx

Sega Mega Drive Review: Sonic the Hedgehog

Originally posted at Accursed Farms Forums on November 27th 2011.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Platform: Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
Released: 1991
Genre: Platformer
Developer/Publisher: Sega
Buy on Steam

One of the fundamental problems with the Mega Drive when it first came out was that despite being a much more powerful system than Nintendo's NES, it didn't have any definitive title. Sure, you could argue that Alex Kidd was a good Sega mascot, but he didn't have the same mainstream appearance as Mario. When the Mega Drive first came out, there was no killer app or proper flagship title for the console and Sega pretty much had no choice but to market it as a console for mostly arcade conversions and celebrity-related games such as "Michael Jackson's Moonwalker". The closest thing they had was their decent conversion of Altered Beast which came packed with the console in the early days.

However, in 1991, one year after the release of the Mega Drive in Europe, a blue hedgehog would come along to forever cement the Mega Drive's status in mainstream gaming as a cool console and would distance it properly from Nintendo's Mario titles. Sure, Mario's games were fun and great games, but what they lacked was the attitude that Sonic would bring to the table. Adding some much needed "Blast Processing" to the Mega Drive, Sonic would forever be known as the fastest thing alive, showcasing the console's true power.

[GAMEPLAY]

At first glance, Sonic may appear to be just like any other platformer, very similar to Super Mario. However, once you start playing you begin to notice some really big differences. For one thing, Sonic has more of a focus on speed and the levels are almost designed like semi race tracks, complete with loops and jumps. With the proper skill, you can retain a really high speed throughout most of the levels, although some of the Sonic 1 levels focus more on traditional platforming. This was one of the main features that helped Sonic become a cooler and edgier alternative to Mario, which was often reflected in the ads of the time.

Of course no platformer would be complete without powerups, and Sonic has a few to collect. The power rings scattered about on each level are pretty much your health and gathering them is crucial to completing the game as when you have none of them you die from simply touching an enemy or a hazard. The game does give you a fair chance to recollect some of your rings if you lose them upon touching an enemy or hazard though, so most of the time I didn't find the game too difficult. If you explore the levels you will surely be rewarded with several powerups as well, in the form of breakable computer monitors. The one displaying a ring grants you 10 free powerrings, the one displaying a shield will place a protective forcefield around Sonic which goes away when he gets hit, and the one displaying a picture of Sonic grants you another free try if you should happen to die. There is also a powerup displaying Sonic's shoe, which gives Sonic a temporary turbo boost. If this game was released today, I can just imagine Sonic would down a Red Bull and do the same thing.

The levels are pretty much divided into 3 stages of what the game calls zones, each zone featuring its own theme sort of, and the design ranges from resembling race tracks to more oldschool platforming levels where patience and proper timing is more rewarded than just blazing through the level at top speed. In fact, I spent most of my time just exploring the levels to get as many power rings and powerups as possible, because if you get over 100 rings, not only are you rewarded with a 1up, you also get to play a bonus stage. These bonus stages are a bit tricky to play but pretty much just act as challenges to obtain chaos emeralds. Collecting all of the emeralds grants you a special ending, which I haven't unlocked btw so respect to anyone who has the skills to. Boss fights with Dr. Robotnik occurs at the end of each zone, and are usually not that difficult to complete. The final boss fight however took me quite a few tries to finish, mostly due to the fact you have no power rings during the fight, which pretty much means you'll die if any hazard touches you.

Overall, Sonic still has great, simple and tight controls, and it's a game you can pretty much just pick up and play any time. Though the control pad has 3 buttons, the game pretty much expects you to be able to move and jump, so it's dead simple and anyone from ages 3-99 should be able to enjoy this game for its simplicity. There is no way to save the game, though there is a level selection screen you can bring forth by pressing Up, Down, Left, Right then A+Start, which helped me a lot during the playthrough as I didn't have to pause the console or anything to continue from where I left off. Later games would incorporate save features thankfully.

[GRAPHICS]

Sonic the Hedgehog, of course being on the 16bit Mega Drive, is a very colourful game, and makes great use of the console's vast colour palette. Somehow they manage to get every single colour into every level without making it seem unnatural and the graphics all have a coherent style too that pretty much is put into every aspect of the level and character design. Especially Sonic seems to be modeled to look as aerodynamic as possible, keeping with his attitude and speed. The 6 different zones in the game all have their own theme and feel going, and you'll rarely see enemies from one area in the next, with a few exceptions. The contrast between Green Hill Zone's vast green and brown overworld tones contrast greatly with the deep caverns of Marble Zone and the great underwater sections of Labyrinth Zone. The final section, Scrap Brain Zone is probably my favourite due to its industrial roboticized nature, as this level is where Robotnik has the biggest influence. It's a game that is very easy on the eyes and I could easily play through it in one sitting. In my opinion, Sonic the Hedgehog looks as good today as it did back in 1991.

[SOUND]

Sonic the Hedgehog definitely features some of the best sound available on the Mega Drive. The music is catchy without being annoying and has a lot of great hooks and melodies that surely will have you coming back just to hear them. Just the Green Hill Zone music that pretty much comes up on the first level itself is legendary among gamers for a reason. Both the arcade-ish sound effects and great musical score of the game showcase the console's excellent sound chip, which believe it or not was capable of some limited sampling for its time, similar to the SNES. The sound is in glorious stereo even, which you can enjoy if you own an original model 1 Mega Drive or play one of the re-releases of the game on modern systems.

Here are some standout tunes from the game. Please note that on my European Mega Drive version of the game, these tunes play about 20% slower than the original versions due to the PAL standard.


[SUMMARY]

Sonic the Hedgehog is a true 16bit classic that surely will live on for decades upon decades to come. It is also one of the most available games on the system, and not only can you find it very cheap on ebay, even complete in box, it is also released on a pletora of other systems, including PC, Wii, PS3 and XBox 360, so there really isn't much of an excuse to not play this gem. In some aspects I even prefer it to Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World due to its simplicity and great design, and not to mention the great music, but I love both of them equally.

I give it a PERFECT score: 10 out of 10 power rings!



- Alyxx