I like games… sometimes.
PS3
3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
May 12th
The very first moment I stuck 3D Dot Game Heroes into my PlayStation 3, I got a huge smile on my face. Here I was looking at a title screen that was so obviously cribbed from the 8-bit era, complete with period specific chip-tune style music, and couldn’t have been happier. The flood of memories coming from my childhood was certainly impressive as Silicon had nailed that aspect of their quirky throwback title. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: You play as the descendant of a legendary hero who has been tasked by the king to save your land (Dotnia) from impending doom.
To start off the game after an optional hard drive install, you’re given a choice to create your own hero or pick a pre-made one. The character creator isn’t just a “name, rank, serial number” creation tool, but you’re able to go pixel-by-pixel and draw out however you want your hero to look. You’ll be able to tweak a set of poses and the tools provided work quite well. If your creative juices aren’t flowing, there’s a plethora of heroes already made for you including a ninja, who is just a breathing tube sticking out of the ground, and my personal favorite, a dog. Yes, my great grandfather was still a human hero, and people still talked to me like I was a normal person, but I was a dog. Every time you load the game, you’ll get to pick a new hero if you’d like to switch it up. Not only that, but you can head on over to the official website and download creations of other players to use them in Dotnia. The only attributes that really effect how your character plays in-game are the sex and class of your character. Men get bonuses to strength while the ladies get a reduction in magic consumption. This is a combat heavy game, so you may want to grab a warrior dude.
When you finally set foot in Dotnia, you’ll be exploring the vast landscape in search of six orbs hidden away in as many temples, then make your final assault on the Tower of Darkness. All of your favorite elemental based temples make an appearance, as well as the final tower which in typical old school fashion has you completing bits and pieces of the previous temples, as well as re-fighting all of the bosses. This particular location is an exercise in frustration due to the fact that if you die you get sent back to the beginning of the tower and there are limited warp points to get you back to where you need to go. In fact, all of the dungeons have this old mechanic in place, and while doing certain things will help you return to where you died quicker, repetition is never all that fun. While mostly charming, the art style is such that many times enemies and items are obscured by the now 3D architecture and the overlaid HUD, often making you lose some precious health or completely miss something you’ll need to utilize. If you actually like that old school frustration, it’s here in spades.
The world is open enough that you can get around, but there’s a certain order in which you’ll need to progress through the temples as you will need specific gear to get places. You’ll eventually pick up most of the staples like a boomerang, bow and arrow, sprint shoes and hookshot, most of which are mapped to the circle button which you can cycle through quickly with R2 and L2. If you’ve got full health, your primary sword will be roughly half the screen and extra wide, allowing you to really screw up foes. On top of that, you can pay a blacksmith to increase your length and girth as well as give you the power to properly penetrate. The problem here is that once you take any damage, your sword shrinks and you feel severely underpowered, losing all its abilities. Throughout the game, you’ll be able to collect additional swords and shields, each which have different power and attributes. Most of these are optional so if you don’t think you need to get them then don’t bother, though they’ll certainly help you out.
Aside from the main quest, there’s plenty else to do which will usually result in some new item, sword, or extra cash. One particularly entertaining aspect is the inclusion of several mini-games. You’ll come across a time trial sprinting game, an breakout clone, and even a tower defense game complete with multiple upgradable towers. All of these are an entertaining way to pass the time, but would have been nice to access directly from a menu if you just want to kill some time. At least they’ve included a fast travel system which will let you warp to the main cities you’ve visited with an expendable item. There are also plenty of references to other games if you’re paying attention, clearly there with a wink and a nod to some of the more difficult titles of days past including From Software’s own Demon’s Souls (From Software published in Japan).
There’s certainly quite a bit to do if you want to explore the land of Dotnia (including a new game plus mode), but I found that after a half dozen hours the charm had passed and the dated adventuring mechanics had turned the title into a rather short-loved trip down memory lane. If you’re really into the old school then you may want to grab 3D Dot Game Heroes, but if you’ve never touched anything from days past, you should certainly steer clear. Its main draw is nostalgia, and even that fades quickly.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good
Serious nostalgia charm.
Cute retro inspired graphics.
Fairly lengthy single player with plenty of side quests and extras
The Bad
Sure, the 8-bit games this was cribbed from were somewhat broken, but this is more broken than those.
The smile you’ll have from its charm will fade quickly.
The Ugly
The Tower of Darkness.
Writer’s Notes
Playtime: 16h14m
Hero: Poochi
Charmed Until: Hour 7
Originally posted on Evil Avatar.
God of War III (PS3)
Apr 8th
The other night, my wife was watching Ghost Whisperer reruns. The story was a bit of a morality tale which concluded in the message that carrying around anger all the time is not a good way to lead your life. I kind of wish Kratos had watched this episode and took it to heart because he’s one angry, angry man. The consequences of his actions don’t matter, instead he’s just hellbent on killing every single thing in his path. If killing a god results in an undesirable outcome, what should you do? That’s right! KILL MORE GODS. Throughout the story of God of War 3, Kratos is single handedly responsible for destroying the world and he just doesn’t give a damn because he needs to murder his father. The story picks up right at the conclusion of God of War II where Kratos and a crew of Titans are climbing Mount Olympus to destroy the gods that reign on high. All the important events of the backstory are told through a brief stylized cutscene, so newcomers won’t be too lost.
If you’ve played any of the God of War games previously though, there’s really not much new here. Just about all the mechanics from the previous titles remain with some minor additions. You’ll eventually get four main weapons which you can switch through on the fly as well as some magic attacks to go with each. Biggest problem here is that three of the four primary weapons are just minor variants on your primary Blades of Exile. You’ll also be given a set of items to utilize through the game which will deplete a specific regenerating meter. The most useful of which is the Bow of Apollo which can be mixed up with your primary attacks in combat. Keeping the main gameplay mechanics isn’t a bad move though. Being an action heavy game, the combat is fast, visceral, and flows wonderfully just like it did in the first game. Games like Dante’s Inferno can try to mimic what was perfected in this series, but will always feel a step behind what you can accomplish with chained blades. The addition of an attack which switches to the next weapon really helps keep up the combo variety.
Despite being rated for Mature audiences, I get the feeling that the people who will find the most enjoyment out of GoW3 are minors. Not only is the story about how much Kratos hates his dad, but it’s full of scenes that are just in there to get a rise out of the player with no redeeming qualities at all. For example, at one point you come across a topless female (“heh heh, boobs”) who clearly knows who you are and doesn’t want your help. Against her will, you spring her from a cage in what appears to be a glimmer of humanity within Kratos. Soon after though, you prop her up against a weighted wheel to hold a door open. As you walk along and she moves off camera, you hear a blood curdling scream followed by sounds of nastiness as she is completely destroyed just so you can get through a door. It’s a cruel scene that is void of remorse and honestly made me feel dirty afterwards. Oh yeah, you get a Trophy for that too, congratulating you on decimating a helpless woman.
At least God of War III looks good all around, but where it really shines is in scale. You’ll be bringing the pain to bad guys, then all of the sudden the camera will zoom all the way back to show off what’s going on around you. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing though, because while you may not be able to see the skeletons attacking you as easily, they’re still there trying to skewer you. Most of the larger boss battles are often quicktime laden encounters that make full use of this scale, so instead of feeling like you’re the one doing the damage, it just feels like you’re pressing a button to move the action along. If you miss that button press, sometimes you’ll even die outright and get to do it again. I did appreciate the new quicktime button placement however. Instead of just flashing a button on the screen, they’ve placed the button on the side of the screen corresponding to where the face button is on the controller (X on the bottom, Triangle on the top, etc). This helps you focus on the central action more than which button needs to be hit.
There were some technical issues that frustrated my gameplay. Double jumping would not register properly, often resulting in untimely and multiple deaths; Save triggers were often delayed, requiring multiple instances of running away from them and back before they’d activate; and even opening chests would glitch out half way through the animation, forcing second and third tries. These almost seemed like low-battery charge symptoms, but they continued on full charge as well as being connected directly to the PS3. On Kratos’ second trip through Aphrodite’s chamber, a complete NPC model had gone missing, but she was still making comments while I railed Aphrodite, and still knocked over her girlfriend when the mini-game was complete.
After completion, you’ll unlock a fourth difficulty level as well as several challenges similar to previous God of War titles to help with the staying power. Throughout the journey as well, you’ll pick up artifacts that you may use on subsequent playthroughs. The strange design choice here though was that you can only use these modifiers on difficulty levels you’ve already beaten, making them seem less cool. I can see disabling the ability to earn trophies while activating them, but there’s little reason to play the same difficulty level another time through.
Perhaps I’m harping on the story a bit too much when it’s a straight up action game but considering that we’ve already done this twice before, I really feel there’s got to be something new to make it worth doing again and the mechanics certainly haven’t changed. With God of War Collection already available, it’s difficult for me to recommend God of War III as anything other than an extended tech demo. Combine Santa Monica’s checkbox approach to game design with a fairly callous and meaningless angst journey of a straight up unlikable main character, and you’ve got nothing worth writing home about except the scale.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good
It certainly is a pretty game with an incredible sense of scaling.
Combat system remains a hallmark for the character action genre.
The Bad
The weakly strewn together story is just a vehicle to tie boss battle to boss battle.
Not much new to see here, mostly the same game from years past.
Misogynistic behavior isn’t hilarious.
The Ugly
Whoever thought it was a good idea to add Guitar Hero to God of War should never make video games again.
Writers Notes
Playtime: 9h53m
Favorite Weapon: Neaman Cestus
Most Impressive Boss Fight: Cronos
Originally posted on Evil Avatar.
Flower (PS3)
Mar 10th
The PlayStation Network is quickly becoming one of my favorite things about owning a PS3. No, it’s not because you can play multiplayer titles for free across it, but instead there’s this little outlet called the PlayStation Store that is becoming chock full of games that are creative, entertaining, and buck the status quo by taking chances outside the typical spectrum. For some reason developers feel like they are able to take more risks with PSN titles than on Xbox Live Arcade, and we are better off for it.
Enter Flower. A title developed by ThatGameCompany that is not really much of a game but is a completely engaging experience from start to finish nevertheless. You play as the wind and it is your job to guide a single flower petal throughout five different levels exploring widely ranging landscapes while picking up a swirling train of additional multicolored petals.
Controlling the wind is simple enough. Pressing any button on the PS3 controller initiates your forward flowing breeze, while the SIXAXIS’s motion control is your steering wheel. There’s no arrow pointing you in the direction you’re to go, no heads up display or concrete objectives. Instead, the game encourages you to explore the lush scenery yourself, sometimes floating carefree and whimsically through the air, while other times avoiding potential hazards that could hinder your progress.
Speaking of the lush scenery though, this game is certainly a sight to behold. Showcasing an impressive 200,000 simulated blades of grass on the screen at a given time, there may not be anything that comes close to the visual fidelity of Flower on the PlayStation 3. It is gorgeous and all presented in 1080p. Vibrant colors literally explode from every corner.
When I first started Flower and entered the first level, I spent about 5 minutes just marveling at the beautiful landscape before me with the serene audio lulling me into a conscious trance. When in action, musical tones were provided by the landscape itself and the plethora of flowers that decorate it allowing a dynamic melodic experience that seemed perfectly fitting while swooping down low through the parting waves of grass or soaring high above the game’s majesty.
You can plow through Flower in about two and a half hours if you’d like, possibly less without bothering to really hit up much more than necessary but while some may feel this is a drawback… it is exactly as long as it needs to be. You can lengthen the experience by heading back in to try and unlock all the trophies, which you may just do while showcasing this visual feast to all the visitors to your abode. Flower is also perfectly acceptable as a screensaver.
Its easy to equate this title to poetry or enter it into the ‘games as art’ debate, but it does present a story complete with its own message that will play out over the different levels. It appears to take place within the dreams of different flowers that look out over an urban landscape all day; what you take away is completely up to you.
In general, I’m not a fan of poetry or motion controls but I am a huge fan of Flower. It is a game that any PS3 owner should try, putting a few hours in to get a simple yet beautiful experience. Who knows, you may even come away more enlightened. Without the PSN, this game would not be possible. I can only hope that future entries into this experimental space turn out so wonderfully.
Score: 5 out of 5
The Good
One of the best looking games available for any system
Exudes quality from every single blade of grass
As proficient aurally as it is visually
The Bad
Some may think its a bit heavy handed with its environmentalist message
The Ugly
Industrialism
Savage Moon (PS3)
Feb 17th
Its pretty clear by now that in the future, we’ll have used up all of Earth’s resources at some point and if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that space has a plethroa of awesome reserves that we can exploit for fun and profit. Of course, along with the limitless caches found in the outer reaches comes the biggest threat to humanity: ALIENS!
In Savage Moon, those aliens take the form of arachnid styled bugs called Insectocytes. These guys just don’t want you touching their stuff and will attack any mining operation that goes up. So, its up to you to build up a defense system that’ll fend off these foes from taking down your factories. How do you do that? By building towers to shoot them of course.
Savage Moon is a Tower Defense game through and through. You have to take your limited resources and plan the best way to defend your base from the rushing horde of squishy bugs by building up towers. Aside from placement, there are two things you’ll need to take into account though when building, and those are money and drop-pods. Basically, you can only build as many towers as your pod allotment, no matter how much cash you’ve got. This may seem like it’s a problem, but it only remains one in the earlier levels. Typically, you’ll run out of money before you run out of pods.
There’s not much here that TD fans haven’t seen before. You’ve got your basic machine guns, anti-air, mortar, lasers, and support towers, all upgradable up to 5 times. Upgrades are shown by the actual tower taking different forms, so you’ll need to memorize those to keep track of which ones have been upgraded how much. This can be a bit frustrating as the changes can be very minor so you end up being better off selecting the tower to see what level it’s at. One handy addition though are the ‘Command Skills’. Utilizing these will give your towers a boost in one of three categories: Damage, Defense, or Credits Gained. These are a great addition as I can’t tell how many times I’ve said “I wish they would do just a bit more damage!” or “I need some more cash.” Additionally, you can pick two at a time lowering the advantage of each, but giving your picks a hair of oomph.
To complicate matters, you’ll only be able to build your towers on certain surfaces. Place them on overlooking cliffs, and you’re pretty safe against most bugs. Place them on the flat plains however and they’ll be susceptible to attacks from the ground forces. In the later levels however, no tower is completely safe as certain larger foes will shoot projectiles to take down your defenses… and herein lies one big issue with the game.
Savage Moon does an OK job introducing you to how to play through the first three levels via a bunch of onscreen text (a narrator would have been nice), but then lets you fend for yourself figuring out what each tower does, which towers have been added to your arsenel, where they are in the build order, and what the different enemies can do as they’re coming at you. Once you figure all that out on your own, you’ll still need to determine how you’re going to lay your towers out. This truly leads to a lot of trial-and-error gameplay.
Maps are laid out in a multitude of different ways and while there’s isn’t a set path for the bugs to attack in, they usually head down the shortest, most unobstructed route. The ground based bugs will come out of cave type structures while winged beasts will fly in through beehive looking capsules. The game sports plenty of different maps for a $10 title (12 in all), but the environments are nothing spectacular.
When all’s said and done, Savage Moon does what it sets out to do. Provide a challenging tower defense game on alien terrain, allowing you to blow up tons of insects by various means. While I fear that it’s difficulty curve will throw off some TD novices, those willing to put in the time will certainly get their money’s worth. With 12 maps, trophy support, and a challenge mode that pits you against a never ending flood of creatures, there’s plenty to do in this downloadable title making it worthy of purchase for anyone looking to scratch the TD itch.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good
TD Vets will get quite a challenge
Great looking tower designs that upgrade beautifully
You certainly get your money’s worth with the content
The Bad
Maps are pretty bland and presentation is mediocre
Steep learning curve will put off many people
Could have used another round of tower balancing
The Ugly
Sometimes overly frustrating trial-and-error gameplay can sour your experience
Cuboid (PS3)
Feb 3rd
Have you ever wanted to play a game where the protagonist a rectangular shaped block? How about one where you can only move by walking a block around a level on each of its faces? If this sounds appealing to you, then Cuboid is the game for you. Wait, it doesn’t sound that great? So why the heck am I so addicted to this game?
Cuboid is a pure puzzle game where you do exactly what I just mentioned. The objective is to take your rectangle block, and walk him towards the goal without falling off the floating platform you are placed on. The goal is a 1×1 square, so you’ll have to position yourself in such a way that you are standing upright on it. When you do that, you’ll pass through the board and head to the next level. If this sounds a little familiar to you, its because there was a flash title called Bloxorz a while back that followed the same formula.
Adding complexity along the way are weak wooden planks which require your rectangle to be laid flat to traverse, two types of pressure switches, and teleportation devices that can even split your rectangle into two perfect cubes until they meet again and rejoin. These elements are all presented in the form of some quick tutorials and slowly enough that you get the hang of what you need to do before proceeding.
With the exception of a handful of ‘boss levels’ which actually limit the number of moves you can make, that’s the whole game right there in a nutshell. Each level allows you to achieve a different type of medal based on speed and move count so there is replayability there for you puzzle fiends that just need to achieve the best you can, but much like Portal… once you figure out how to get to that goal, you can probably do it again with relative ease.
Therein lies the rub, though. Cuboid causes you to wrap your head around something that should be so simple, yet becomes more and more difficult as the game progresses. Its a pure mental puzzle game through and through, not requiring fast reflexes or brutal accuracy.
I think what makes Cuboid so attractive and addicting is its simplicity. There’s really not much you have to learn or remember, and with the exception of being split apart via teleporting, you can control the entire game with just the d-pad. There isn’t any multiplayer and there are only two difficulty modes with a total of 66 puzzles, but none of this stuff detracts from the experience in the slightest. If I may be so bold, this is the type of puzzle game that’s almost on par with the likes of Portal. If you enjoy puzzle games, and have a PS3, do yourself a favor and shell out the $9.99 on PSN for Cuboid. Its a great game, a great buy, it has trophy support, and your head will explode at least twice (if you’re into that sort of thing).
Score: 4.5 out of 5
The Good:
Addicting, Addicting, Addicting.
Devilishly Simple
Will make your head a splode
The Bad:
Addicting, Addicting, Addicting
Light on the overall puzzle count
Presentation could use some more flair
The Ugly:
Broken Controllers
Magic Ball (PS3)
Feb 3rd
Its hard not to get a bit nostalgic when playing Magic Ball. The basic gameplay harkens back to Breakout for the Atari, then Arkanoid in the arcades (and on Nintendo). It is effectively the next iteration in that formula. You take control of a paddle at the bottom of the screen and bounce a ball at wall full of stuff to destroy. If you miss the ball on its way down with your paddle, you lose a life. Lose them all and its game over. The primary addition here though is that instead of just busting down an inanimate set of bricks, you lay siege to a three dimensional scene that moves, falls, and crumbles as you decimate it with your magic soccer ball.
Certain destructibles on each level will produce power ups, extra lives, and even death skulls to make things more entertaining than just bouncy, bouncy. There are temporary upgrades for your paddle in the form of machine gun, laser or cannon to help bust up the scenery with quickness. Additionally, you can grab environmental effecting items that produce a series of lightning strikes, wind gusts, earthquake or even a meteor storm. Grab that death skull though, and you’re out a life. In total there are 24 different items.
On the multiplayer side of things, you can tackle the game’s levels with a friend in co-op mode, or challenge someone to see who can break apart the level first.
Graphically, Magic Ball delivers some vibrant and colorful visuals in native 1080p. There’s plenty of chaos and taking down some of the taller structures is really quite a treat to see. The musical backing is downright garbage, but the rest of the sound effects are well done and varied.
The biggest issue I have with Magic Ball is that its really short. You can bust through all of the 48 levels in about three hours, less if you don’t lose that much. There are two environments to play in but it looks like there’s more on the way thanks to a ‘coming soon’ message, most likely part of some DLC. There’s a dozen trophies to earn to keep you coming back as well, but some unlockables would have helped too.
Additionally, its a very easy game and very forgiving. While you do indeed have a set number of lives, if you lose them all, you can just start the level you are on at the beginning. The only thing the lives alllow you to do is continue your path of destruction on a level. Your overall score does not get affected by loss of life or restarting a level.
I enjoyed what I played of Magic Ball but would have prefered a longer experience and more of a challenge. It really is a nice looking game and there’s nothing like hitting a few environmental power-ups in a row to really get the destruction rolling.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good:
Vibrant, attractive destructable environments
A nice evolution in the brick-breaking formula
Fun and action packed
The Bad:
Three hours and you’re done
Too easy and forgiving
Not enough visual variety in the two themes
The Ugly:
The Crazy Ball powerup
Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom (PS3)
Feb 3rd
Chances are that you’ve played Mahjong at some point, so the concept should be familiar to most. However, if you’re one of those that just doesn’t play puzzle games here’s a quick overview. Mahjong is a tile based puzzle game where you are given a set of tiles on a single board and tasked with clearing them off by matching two pieces together. Most tiles will only match with their twin, however there are two types of tiles that clear because they are both types of flowers or seasons. Its an effective and relaxing time waster.
Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom takes this game, gives you four variations (Ancient Tales, Motion, Classic Infinity and Multiplayer), and throws it on the PS3 as a PlayStation Network download. The base formula is tried and true, so the question remains as to how successful Creat Studios was in the transition from board game to console. The answer? Fairly successful but not overly so.
Ancient Tales is the game’s ‘story mode’ where you get to walk through five parables each with 9 boards to solve. After beating each, you get a paper-cutout cutscene with a new page of the story and a horrendously over-compressed sounding narrator.
Motion takes the serenity found in playing solitary Mahjong and turns it on its ear. Instead of having plenty of time to match up the tiles, you’ll get to race against a line of ‘extra’ tiles marching toward a fire breathing dragon. If they make it there, you lose a life. You’ve got 45 stages to clear to beat this mode.
Classic Infinity is what solo players have come accustomed to. 100 different layouts with your choice of background and tileset. Match them tiles up and try to clear the board.
Multiplayer is effecively a take on Motion mode without the dragon waiting to hinder your progress. You get a set of tiles that you need to clear before your opponent and have a marching line of tiles to assist you. Unfortunately, try as I might, there was never anyone around to play online against so expect to play this mode locally only.
The graphics are sharp in 1080p so you can clearly make out all the stamps found on the tiles and certainly get the job done, but in general there’s not much going on here. They tried to add a little flair when pieces are matched by throwing a particle effect at you, but in some cases this just gets in the way as you can’t see the tiles behind it very well. Similarly, the soundtrack is generic themed music that isn’t intrusive but isn’t spectacular either. Both are just utilitarian. Mahjong Tales does support custom soundtracks though, so once you’ve heard the loop a few hundred times you can pipe your own music in.
The most important thing though is how it plays. Mahjong Tales does not feel like it has been ‘consolized’ much and seems like it would be better played on a PC. To match tiles, you effectively control a mouse pointer with your analog stick. While it does have a snap-to type movement if you get close to a tile, it doesn’t feel that great. When speed comes into play with Motion mode, or you’re trying to increase your score by matching tiles quickly and consecutively, it can get a little frustrating to have such an imprecise control method. The more you use it, the better you get, but that doesn’t stop it from being clunky.
Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom is a decent entry into the casual PSN space. If you’re itching to play some Mahjong on your PS3, it will certainly fit the bill as there’s plenty of content for $9.99 (its got 16 trophies to earn too!), just don’t expect to be wowed in any way.
Score: 2.5 out of 5
The Good:
Plenty of Mahjong to go around
Motion mode throws a cool action twist to matching tiles
Its Mahjong
The Bad:
Controls are a bit frustrating
No one is playing online
Very vanilla visuals
The Ugly:
You could mute your TV and it wouldn’t take away from the experience