Stretch

Stretch Reviews - Dante's Inferno

2012-02-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.bagofgames.com/2012/02/stretch-reviews-dantes-inferno/

Dark Souls Thoughts

2012-02-12T04:55:00.001-08:00

It would take a dragon a couple bites to get through that Hydra flesh...

EDIT (15-02-2011)
-
Okay. I have just now finished Dark Souls. The whole 'difficulty' thing got pretty old for the last several hours and got increasingly annoying and surprisingly boring. There were times when I really didn't want to play it. Dark Souls is a fantastic journey, but nothing else. The logistical locations, creature designs and especially the music create an incredibly magical experience. The story and characters are played up as if they're supposed to be important but it's so vague and lazy about it that it's very hard to care outside of the challenge of each fight and location. I can't resist saying that I'm rather disappointed. Dark Souls could have been the best game I have ever played. Period. But due to the vague and pretentious story it all feels depressingly hollow. It would have worked so much better if it hadn't even tried to have a story for you in the first place. Just drop me into the dangerous world and leave me to it's mystery. Make me care about my safety in this universe, not the universe itself.

Overall, it's hard to say something good about Dark Souls without something negative propping out somewhere. Magical. Dark. Intuitive. Depressing. Annoying. Boring. Clever. Mystical. That's Dark Souls.

38 Favourite Video Game Quotes

2012-02-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

I've been planning on doing this for a while.

It's really no surprise that my favourite quotes are from robots in Star Wars games.

If you have any that you like let me know. I'm genuinely interested.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Review

2012-01-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

As many people who pretend not to know me are aware of; I am a huge Star Wars fan. I know that Boba Fett is a Mandalorian, I know that there were four IG-88 droids and I know what planet General Grievous is from. It’s Kalee by the way. So I was actually surprisingly enthusiastic after getting through a pretty lackluster text crawl and seeing Darth Vader’s ship fly to Kamino. The music and some rare set pieces were actually rather enjoyable for me, if just nostalgically.

So we find out that Starkiller was cloned and is now some kind of apprentice for Darth Vader, or something, whatever. We learn practically nothing about any character which makes the story feel unmotivated and vacuous, which is worse because the story is that without even adding anything else to the equation. It takes the information from the first The Force Unleashed and carries it here so if you didn’t know exactly what happened you’ll be more lost than a Jawa on Hoth.

The whole clone aspect is brought up, mentioned a few times but never expanded in any way. You’re told that it’s impossible to clone Jedi but we see Vader use a bunch of duplicated Starkillers, childishly categorized into blue force users and brown lightsaber users. And that’s never addressed. Characters including Proxy and Boba Fett show up but they barely do anything. Proxy is just a connection to the surprisingly superior first game and Fett simply kidnaps Juno Eclipse, who is apparently the love interest and primary objective for no clear reason, and never shows up again. And when Starkiller travels to Dagobah, for the hell of it, he has a shockingly short chat with Yoda that may as well have been one of them saying “sup”. The story is so hasty and lackluster, filled with meaningless boss fights, enemy introductions and drawn out situations. I can barely comprehend what even happened and why. Starkiller himself has miniscule amounts of character that crumble away near the climax when he starts constantly shouting “Where is she!?”. After the third time I expected him to punch The Joker in the face.

Why didn't it fire that many before?!

The combat is just as crude and lifeless as the story. Now, it may be a surprise to hear this from something who is pretending to be a Video Game Critic, but, I have a slight fondness for quick time events. I think they have the potential to seamlessly mesh the gameplay in with a cut scene therefore creating a cinematic and fully interactive experience. We’re not there yet and The Force Unleashed II is evidence of that. The QTE could have been quite effective if large enemies didn’t show up so often, turning many fights into obnoxious chores. And when you slash and shock stupid bipedal robots with flamethrowers you begin their cinematic execution and the last button you have to push is completely random. It makes sense having ‘circle’ be force push and ‘triangle’ use lightning, but no matter what button you hit Starkiller just spits out another little force push and then flips around a bit, which the game acts out for me. It would have been so awesome if these events gave you the ability to choose what moves you did to take something down, using the cinematic moment for added focus on single enemies and stylish moves instead of zapping and hitting things like a steroidal BioShock. For example; you fight a large target and engage its QTE, but now you can choose whether to damage it with a lightsaber strike, make it stumble with force push or stun it with lightning. All of these choices have distinct effects on the enemy and even things around it. If I just have to push ‘square’ for Starkiller to begin a destructive display of Jedi acrobatics then what’s the point of me doing anything or the oppurtunity even being there?

I was told that dismemberment was present here but it happens so little it may as well never exist. I threw several storm troopers into a giant fan only for them to boringly bounce off and your lightsaber just cuts people slightly which makes slicing an AT-TE in half make even less sense. This series does not have a tendency of being child friendly. Realistic dismemberment would have been monumentally effective, for an effectively visceral experience and especially for sales.

...and Tie......Defender....

The camera is always placed too far away from the action. I felt like a kid who was smacking his toys together so I mostly just swung my lightsaber around and sporadically zapped storm troopers until a door opened, because doors only open until everyone is dead in a room, common fact. Also, stop inventing enemies just for specific games! It’s exactly how I feel about Star Wars Lego that makes up ships like a Tie Defender. Here’s an idea; use enemies and vehicles that are familiar and comfortable in the Star Wars universe and make Starkiller less powerful. Making every enemy and situation large and explosive doesn’t work because there’s no contrast to anything else around it. Larger enemies do mildly mix a situation up, but because they appear in virtually every fight you’re in, they are the situation. And now they can kick you when you’re close, so they at least pose a threat, an annoying and completely harmless threat. Besides that they either ineffectively blast you with lasers or fire missles that you can counter back with such an easily timed deflection that it took me a while to master it because I assumed that “deflect missles back just as they are about to hit you” meant less than 20 feet in front of me. There were even these large droids with General Grievous faces which would have been very interesting if it was more than just pretentious aesthetic to make the developers seem deep. Overall, the combat jarringly jumps from being a rather successful display of Starkiller’s raw power to systematically quick time event-ing large droids to death.

She survives by the way.....yay.........

Worst of all is the excruciatingly tedious fight with Darth Vader himself. There is absolutely no strategy except zapping him for a millisecond and then flailing your lightsabers in his general direction. He effortlessly blocks everything else and is such a stupidly repetitive ‘challenge’ that fighting him as an end boss is just depressing, especially for such an iconic character. He has the mentality of a Nintendo 64 boss, continuously throwing things at you despite the fact that you’ve thrown them back at him 20 times, running away and letting his goons take care of you, taking ridiculous amounts of damage and jumping to a platform only for you to jump after him. It’s only afterwards when he has Juno hostage and orders you to obey his commands when things actually start to get drastically more interesting. But all that potential is instantly ripped away when Juno takes a swing at Vader and he just throws her out a window which makes his surprisingly stirring speech, which could have made the game go for another 14 hours and possibly be good, completely pointless.

And that’s what this game is; pointless. Its story is horrendously tacky and short, going to three locations; two planets and one ship. The combat, while sometimes mildly fun, is basic, bland and never becomes anything other than ‘Starkiller bombastically thrashes his lightsabers around and spits out lightning and blue wind’. It’s just depressing because The Force Unleashed series had such an opportunity of being amazing. Especially since it actually acts outside the canon of Star Wars and treats its characters with relative respect. I loved it when Boba Fett, Vader and even Proxy showed up but they just didn’t do enough. Like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic; The Force Unleashed II didn’t have to be Star Wars to be good. With more effort in story, combat and pretty much everything else it could have been a really endearing series of games. Instead it’s another grotesque attachment on the hideous mutant that is the Star Wars franchise. I chose the Lightside ending by the way. I’m a nice guy.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Review

2012-01-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

I celebrated Australia Day by playing about seven hours of Uncharted 3 on my brother’s Shiny Black Monolith (PS3). The fact that I was able to finish the whole game in one day with a short ‘2 Minute Noodle Break’ should give you an idea of what I thought of Drake’s Deception.

Firstly; No. No no no no. You cannot have your character fall out of a plane, land in the middle of the desert, walk for dozens of hours without food or water, hallucinate and then fight off a battalion of soldiers while rolling, shooting and climbing his way around. No. Stupid.

Secondly; Uncharted 3 wants to be a movie. It’s like Naughty Dog intended to make the series a trilogy of movies but resorted to an interactive medium to strike at a growing market. It’s flooded with cut scenes which I always have an instant stigma against since it’s the non-game part of a game. Yet, the gameplay still effectively fades in from a cinematic or flawlessly slides its way into the action. This creates a distinct flow that continues throughout most of the journey. Unfortunately, because these moments occur so frequently, it’s hard to tell whether you can even control Drake or not. I couldn’t control Drake when he shot someone, yet I didn’t do anything while he was falling out of a plane, causing me to plummet to my sandy death. If you put down the controller to watch the cinematics you’ll have to lunge for it when the interactive elements jumps back to the spotlight.

The climbing, shooting and puzzle-ing aspect is here again but it doesn’t pace itself quite like Uncharted 2. All the sections are spaced relatively well to each other but there’s too much of everything, so it goes for too long and clogs up the experience. This may be because I played it all in one day, but I started and finished Uncharted 2 about 2.5 times in a week and it never got tiresome. I do more than just play games by the way.

I’ve never been that instinctive with puzzles in games and fortunately those moments are deceptively scarce here. My favourite, or least despised, involved standing in a specific spot to hold a map up to correctly align it with objects in the room. That is simple and dynamic, with a clear goal and way of achieving it. When I know what needs to be done but can’t finish it because the tools are so obscure or fidgety it crushes the momentum and any enthusiasm I had. Every single puzzle section puts such a halt on everything and you’d think the ancient civilization would just have their massive door made with a key lock instead of huge gears, levers, pillars and conveniently climbable objects.

There’s essentially no innovation here. You could say “Don’t fix what’s not broken”, but I can say “I could play Uncharted 2 and get the exact same experience, except better.” Drake still finds himself in sporadically varying environments which does make the experience as a whole more intriguing and vibrant, but the sheer size of everything can get very obnoxious. Although the graphics are absolutely unbelievable, the buildings, ships and everything else that’s randomly broken is mostly seen as something that can be climbed to get out of. The camera does pull back to give you very awe-inspiring shots but you’ll always be looking for some overly convenient thing to grab onto so not only is that difficult because you can barely see yourself but it’s seen as a truncated puzzle and not just a pretty location. What makes the too few chase scenes incredibly enjoyable is that you’re instinctively using clearly placed objects to guide you to someone running along the same path. It’s timed, which adds tension, and the objects that are placed like ramps are more useful in that situation than Drake climbing up something where his arm tells you if you can do it.

Fighting was arguably my least favourite part. Enemies throw grenades like ‘hot potatoes’ and Nathan Drake controls like a horse, so taking cover and fighting multiple targets is stiff, clunky and sometimes incredibly annoying. The guns also have aiming that's a little too realistic for my taste. When you finally blow up a truck or even kill a single enemy it’s satisfying, mainly because it’s one less annoying part of the situation. Brawls with single targets are realistic and intuitive for the first couple hours of the game. After that point you’ll realize how Drake constantly uses the same set of moves and counters, so fighting become a tedious pattern you’ll have to adamantly endure until the enemy goes down after an arbitrary amount of kicks in the jewels. I was playing on easy yet some people can take ridiculous amounts of damage, even when you shoot them in the face. Drake himself can take obscene rounds punishment while automatically healing his bullet wounds like a snarky Wolverine. It feels like BioShock, in that ammo is scarce, certain enemies are hard to take down and when you shoot someone they show no feedback and red paint spurts out of them like you shot a bleeding pimple. This, sometimes, can make for very tense conditions because it forces you to resort to guns and tactics you wouldn’t comfortably use. Other times it’s infuriating but the autosaves are common enough to not shatter enjoyment, kinda.

The characters are charismatic in a pretty superfluous way. They can shine in particular moments, mostly at the start and end, but they usually just vomit out adventurous quips and exposition that I barely listen to. It’s surprising what particular characters set up and never expand on. One of the first people you meet is shown to be claustrophobic. You see him get anxious in tight areas which makes him feel wonderfully human, but then he vanishes before the half way point and is barely mentioned again. We also play Nathan Drake as a child and see how he met his friend and pseudo-mentor Sulley, but nothing really comes of it, we just see how they met, with bombastically climactic results. We also learn that Nathan Drake isn’t Drake’s real name, but it’s brought up out of nowhere as if we’re supposed to just ride that sentence to some meaningful conclusion that the game never gives us. There are even some ‘trippy’ moments when Drake gets drugged and these actually clash with the ‘real’ moments in an entertaining way, if just to see something different. But nothing even comes of that, he either runs through a Middle Eastern market for what feels like seven minutes or the game (spoilers) makes you think a character is dead until it just goes “Nope, it was ALLLLLLL a dream”.

My favourite moment from the whole game is when you control Nathan walking in the desert. It’s just that; Nathan walking in the desert. The length of the moment and the fact that it’s essentially right on the front cover makes it clear the developers were proud of it. They should be. I’m glad they put in such a serene segment since every other time you’re falling, shooting, doing a puzzle or jumping off things just before they dramatically break apart. I really felt for Drake in this situation, especially when he finds a well for a second time and realizes he’s been going in circles. When he finally finds a city I almost started crying, ‘manly crying’…you know? When your eyes get moist but nothing drips out…I probably could have worded that better…anyway.

If you liked the other Uncharted games then you’ll like this, because it’s stayed exactly the same. The situations are still grossly ludicrous but still enjoyable. The mechanics of climbing huge structures is user friendly and simple, while the controls can make combat unintentionally difficult. I would actually recommend playing it on VERY EASY. Guns and ammo are sparse enough to make virtually every combat scenario effective/annoying and it’s not like the game being hard makes a chapter taking place in a boat graveyard more redundant.

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes Review

2012-01-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

It’s 3:12:07am in the morning. After 26 hours, 54 minutes and 32 seconds in 3 days I have now finished

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes.

I wasn’t expecting much from this Steam bought game. I didn’t see it as anything but a cheap spin off from the Might and Magic series, specifically Heroes V. However, the second the main menu faded in and started to play the main theme from Heroes V, I was stunned and my jaw literally dropped. I stared at the screen for about nine seconds, just listening to the music. From that point and throughout most of my play through, three words kept circling through my head:

“I am home.”

I was seeing characters I essentially grew up with, Markal, Godric, Fiona, Cyrus. The Might and Magic series is a universe that I am falling in love with the more I experience it.

The innovative combat is what pulled me back to Clash of Heroes. It follows me in my thoughts. When I close my eyes I see the stacks, the rows, the chains, the colours, the charging units. When I’m looking at my desktop I have to remind myself that I can adjust the icons wherever I want. I don’t have to move the lower folders away before grabbing the one above, or delete Microsoft Word so that it will connect three folders together to form a SUPER FOLDER, or something. I guess that’s what I get for playing over seven hours of this addictive adventure a day.

The combat is the only interactive element, excluding walking to nodes on a beautifully artistic path. These battle situations play out like a bombastic and tactical puzzle game, like Bejeweled or upside down Tetris. The idea of making stacks and combining creatures together is a concept that took me a while to get used to, until I reminded myself that it’s essentially the core concept of all Heroes of Might and Magic games. Combat involves tactically moving units of varying colours and tiers into rows and columns to perform certain actions. I’m not too happy about the childish looking creatures, some of which almost look like babies, but the relative diversity of many units keeps every battle satisfying and engaging. Yet, every creature is treated more like lifeless weapons than actual people which gives Clash of Heroes an unintentionally depressing sense of severity and it doesn’t help when an idle Bone Dragon, Pit Fiend or Griffin can get destroyed by virtually anything in one hit. The combat is intuitive and very rewarding, but nothing in any battle feels alive. In preparation for the updated combat mechanics of Might and Magic: Heroes VI, the units are separated into Core, Elite and Champion creatures.

Core units are building blocks, forming walls…somehow, buffing higher tier units and even forming their own stacks to dish out small amounts of damage.
Elite units have specific abilities that echo the theme of the faction that controls them. Elite and Champion creatures can be permanently destroyed in battle which adds a tense level of strategy and risk to every battle they’re in.
Champion’s require four core units to be placed behind them to attack. They can obliterate you in one hit if you don’t create walls and even move idle units to block they’re line of earth shattering destruction.

Aside from the juvenile design for every single creature, I did have one major problem that could have been easily fixed. There are a shockingly few amount of creatures that attack in any physical way. Bears, imps, zombies and golems run at the enemy and strike them physically which makes the combat feel more tangible, but it’s odd that many creatures execute their attacks from a distance with stupidly obnoxious displays. The battles don’t feel visceral enough when a giant four armed cat launches its swords at you rather than ferociously slashing your defenses apart.

There are some tedious situations that force you into a battle that the story doesn’t even call for. Easily, the most frustrating moment of my experience involved fighting my way through guards that were summoned by the main villain. The fact that the game resorted to something so needlessly lazy is tiresome and depressing, but that’s not the worst part. The second set of guards you face are three titans. Overall, 5-10% of battles you face are constructed in a way to force you to hit a certain target in a certain way, like; gates, buttons and even vomit. Attempting to meticulously take out the three linked, charging and powerful targets caused me some much un-wanted annoyance.

The titans are so powerful that they can stampede right through you if you haven’t made excruciatingly precise maneuvers with mandatory creatures that you’re not told are mandatory. Your units are randomly slotted into position at the start of every battle which can result in this particular fight being literally impossible to win. Moments like that can completely obliterate my fondness of a game, like Prototype’s overpowered end boss. Actually, Clash of Heroes does have a tricky boss but I was lucky enough to defeat it on my first go, and the music and mechanics of that particular fight were so magnificent that I enjoyed it more than I ever thought. Battles are definitely overused here, including a situation where you have to fight in an arena to get an audience with a king. That’s such a conspicuous way of shoving the player into contrived fights, and there a several battles that could have been more effective if the story created a more potent scenario. You face Guards so often that the story starts to feel less important yet the most appealing battles are when the main heroes are facing each other because both characters have a stake in the result.

It took me quite a while to finally appreciate the fact that the playable characters are essentially children. I saw it as a clear marketing strategy to appeal more friendly to kids. The heroes are surprisingly relatable and well characterized, for a Nintendo DS and Steam game. They often fall into generic fantasy speak, with lines that could have been said by virtually every single living thing you meet in the game, but many characters have arcs, motives, goals, tragedies and obstacles. The two most engaging are Fiona and Aidan.

Fiona falls into the land of Heresh, the dead homeland of the Necropolis faction (My personal favourite in Heroes III and V). Alone, scared and…wait for it…….dead, she floats her way through the cursed landscape which eventually leads her to losing the one hope of becoming alive again and vowing to slice off the head of whoever is responsible. A reaction like that is actually rather jarring but it’s refreshing to have some emotional feedback in a gaming character where they could have very easily been bland and lifeless, pardon the pun….because she’s dead…

Aidan ends up in Sheogh, the demon underworld. It is quickly established that Aidan is very hot-tempered and brooding, like the fact he has red hair. After realizing that he has control over Inferno creatures, which is surprisingly never explained in any way, he violently challenges and slaughters all who stand before him. He also has, arguably, the most interesting moment in the entire game when the powerful artifact known as The Blade of Binding fuses with his own arm. With this one effective moment; Aidan himself is now the objective the villains are after and every other hero is now connected with the story. With friends, family and personal desires binding the characters together; they arrive at the climax in a completely natural and believable way.

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes is one of the most addictive games I have ever played. It is absolutely perfect for a child, or child at heart, on a long plane flight. Work and food were the only things that drew me away from this gem. It certainly does have its faults, but I am exceedingly impressed at this addictive and magical adventure. I recommend it to anyone.

This...

2011-12-21T20:51:00.001-08:00

Cody and Matt Discuss KOTOR

2011-12-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Me and Matt talk about:

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Star Wars The Old Republic

Be sure to stay for the start and end of the video for our fan-dub of classic KOTOR moments.

Special thanks to Matt for joining me in this, editing this all together and recording his own game footage. You can see his YouTube channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/yarealpoof

If you are interested in Star Wars in any way then I highly recommend his channel.

Stretch Reviews - Assassin's Creed

2011-12-09T04:34:00.001-08:00

FINALLY! After what feels like half a year (not that far off) I give you some actual CONTENT!

I've been fiddling around with some stuff on iMovie and I only NOW have figured out how to put a games cover fully on screen (thanks Seth). So that's why the cover only has the title because no matter how user friendly iMovie is, it does have some flaws to it. Please let me know what you prefer; holding the game up in my hand, or having it placed into the editing? I decided to do that here to make it look more professional and to show games that I don't have.

So let me know what you think here. I wanted to make my videos very consistent from the very start......yeah...that didn't happen.

Anyway, my next review is written and sorry for not giving you much recently.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 thoughts

2011-12-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Teeny tiny spoilers.

Let me know what you think of filming in my usual filming room. I may always film vlogs in there, but maybe not. YOU DECIDE!

Skyrim Thoughts

2011-11-21T06:25:00.000-08:00

Spoilers...obviously.

I missed a few things like how 'speech' and 'lock-picking' skills are useless. I'm still playing Skyrim so let that show that I am really starting to love this game. I can't stress enough how large and full this game is. Virtually every cave, tower, ruin etc. has, on some level, a story to tell. Also keep in mind that I've only been using bows and destruction magic, so as far as combat goes, that's all I know of.

Heroes 6?

2011-11-04T04:23:00.000-07:00

Where's my review!?

Anyone who can say what my desktop picture is will win a PRIZE!.....maybe......If I can think of something.

Batman: Arkham City thoughts

2011-10-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

I may never play it again.

Reviewers Roundtable Podcast - #3

2011-10-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/RoundtableReviews

Roundtable Reviews - Limbo

2011-10-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

This style of video is SO much easier for me since I don't have to get screenshots and I can review virtually anything with a front cover. I may stick with it.

'Splosion Man Review

2011-10-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

This game is sick in every sense of the word. When I began playing the supposed lively and energetic game 'Splosion Man I was expecting a fast paced thrill ride. What I got was a poorly designed, lack luster annoyance that made me frustrated and even disgusted.

Who, why, what?

The 'Splosion Man character has apparently escaped from his containment centre and is running amuck in a science…place. Now I’m not asking for a huge back-story but I would like some context. The game begins with him bursting out of his room and everyone responds in surprise, so how was he even able to do that now? As I ‘sploded’ my way through huge and relatively complex levels I was constantly curious as to why this place is even set out like this. You’d think it would simply be a futuristic science facility but instead they have these gargantuan rooms with randomly placed platforms, pits, lasers, missiles and other objects that launch Splosion Man to ridiculously precise locations. The items and devices you interact with jarringly change from trying to kill you to helping you move around. At first I thought it was a testing room for Splosion Man himself, but that can’t be right because many situations require you to slam, burn, pulverize, electrocute and crush the scientists blocking your way. The scientists are either stupid or suicidal.

Killing people is fun.......

There’s a major issue I have with 'Splosion Man. It attempts to have this goofy and lighthearted aura about it but the things you do are unbelievably mean spirited. I was thinking it would be a very clean platforming experience that would be fun for the whole family, but this may be one of the most violent games I have ever played. You read correctly; “'SPLOSION MAN IS ONE OF THE MOST VIOLENT GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED.” Your character is a fast moving, fast talking maniac who murders dozens of scientists with glee and enthusiastic lunacy. The puzzles you advance through

include situations where you cause living, breathing people to die in horribly violent ways. I was particularly unnerved by the final boss where you’re essentially torturing a scared, helpless creature. It doesn’t matter how crazy or humorous you make the playable character, that won’t make me forget the time that I used a scientist as a human shield to block lasers that sliced off pieces of his body allowing me to get to the next meaningless puzzle. Also when scientists die their bodies vanish and are replaced with several pieces of meat, which makes the game even more disturbing. It’s like suffocating someone by submerging their face into a cake. It’s goofy, but the person is still dying.

...boom

The puzzles themselves start off fairly well, giving you approachable situations with a challenging yet fun learning curve. However, as each stage gets more complex they only get more infuriating. For one thing; some of the rooms, especially boss battles, are so huge that you can barely see your character scampering around the bottom of the screen like an insect. There are moments in the puzzles where the camera pulls out too far and your glowing character doesn’t stand out enough. It halts the flow of the game when you have to stop for a few seconds just to make sure where you are which, in most cases, causes you to either fall off the edge of a platform or get crushed by a piece of the puzzle that automatically activates when you enter the area. Splosion Man is trying to be a quick and hyperactive game but because many of the puzzles invite you to die so often and you have to get your bearings in every part you’re in, you’ll be constantly stopping and starting just to prepare yourself for a particular jump you have to make. Unlike Limbo, the checkpoints in 'Splosion Man are too far apart so if you die in or before a particularly hard spot you’ll have to furiously trudge or effortlessly move your way through puzzles leading up to it. This was especially infuriating during one moment where I had to deflect spinning spiky balls back at the robot that shot them. Every time I shot one back I fell to a lower platform where I had to carefully navigate my way back so I could deflect another ball. One false move and I would fall, die and have to restart the whole thing all over again. Rarely is Splosion Man genuinely fun. Most of the time it’s either frustrating or boring.

Getting higher and higher is very fun and should
have been done more often.

The controls are simple but for a game called Splosion Man it really lacks any ferocity or might. The only way you can move, aside from frantically running left and right, is to explode onto the sides of walls and nearby objects that launch yourself around the area. It’s fairly fun jumping up to a green canister that will propel you an arbitrary distance ranging from 10 metres to 500 metres, but because the direction and velocity of your launch is determined by the game it quickly becomes a boring display in which you push a button to see yourself uncontrollably go somewhere else. They use these propelling objects to great effect, placing them in strategic locations allowing you to shoot yourself across large open areas and up narrow pits. Although, it’s a shame that they had to constantly resort to using these items to help your character move around. You’re playing as a frenzied lunatic of pure destruction yet your explosion ability is so bland and unexciting that you’ll always want a propelling item right next to you to get you around faster. Sometimes, out of boredom, I made myself ‘splode’ over and over but all the character does is just burst up about 5 feet in the air with as force and might as a firework you see from a very far distance. You should have been this immense power that destroyed and terrorized everything around him but instead you’re just using the scientists’ stupidly convenient equipment to get around which makes your character seem pretty worthless.

It burns it's hands, eats them and then you blow it up from the
inside as it cries out in pain.....FAMILY FUN!

The puzzles, especially near the end, are controller crushingly frustrating. As I mentioned before, earlier puzzles are simple enough to work with the explosion mechanic but later stages become so massive and complex that dying once may force you to never play the game ever again. I came close to doing that. When you’re not simply shot to your next area of a puzzle, each platform requires such a precise and well timed explosion jump that there are moments when you would think you have to go somewhere else to complete some other random objective before returning. The camera also pulls out and pans too slowly as you move so you’ll constantly have to either pause or attempt to get yourself back to the starting point before you get crushed or shot. I downright despised the boss battles. Almost all of them move and attack in crude, repetitive and sometimes unpredictable ways and because you always respond with an explosion or by jumping out of the way, the challenges are consistently boring and/or impossibly difficult.

Dying was the best way of getting through quickly.

The explosions serve as your life source which is an interesting concept but not used to its full potential. You can only explode three times before having to recharge by getting to a flat surface, not sure how that makes sense. If you finish a third explosion, lasers, missiles and stupid robots can kill you instantly. Because most of these obstacles appear and attack faster than you can react to them you can either keep on the ground or get thrown around, so like everything else, it’s either boring or annoying. Sometimes even dodging attacks doesn’t do anything because spikes, acid and other unexplained stuff are almost always located around the turrets and robots’ areas so when you get hit, it doesn’t matter if you survive because you’ll just fall into these contraptions and die instantly. This wouldn’t be that much of a problem if the explosions you did made you go higher or if you could move swifter and less ‘floaty’. There were moments when I pushed the ‘right trigger’ which caused 'Splosion Man to explode and die. If I died enough I was given the opportunity to skip to the next stage. After a while I always skipped.

'Splosion Man may be the game that pisses me off the most. I have rarely been so frustrated at a game since level 3-3 in Lost Planet 2. Any fun that I ever had with 'Splosion Man was utterly destroyed and replaced with repetitive and annoying gameplay. With a poorly handled and unexplained premise, badly designed and overly complex puzzles, a lackluster character and horribly violent events, Splosion Man is something I will gladly leave in the dust.

The Eternal Epilogue - 2 -

2011-10-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

BLEEPS, dreams, sex with chickens....and other stuff.

The Eternal Epilogue - 1 -

2011-10-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

Burping, milking yourself, 3D fireworks...and other stuff.

We have decided the name 'The Eternal Epilogue'. It's pretentious and awesome.

Feel free to ask me and Alex some questions and we'll be happy to answer them on a later podcast installation.

Let us know what you think.

Recorded: 05/10/2011

Limbo Review

2011-09-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been very disappointed with recent videogames using an excess of music, cut-scenes and an unnecessary focus on making a good story and not a good game. Rarely do I ever play or even hear about a game that doesn’t heavily indulge in these mostly superfluous ideas. But then Limbo came along and gave me a breath of air, if that air was ice cold and it was raining.

One of the most atmospheric moments in any game I've
ever played. Seriously.

You awaken as a small boy who delicately stands and walks his way through an amazingly diverse set of situations. It’s very clear from the first millisecond that Limbo intends to create an experience of loneliness, isolation, oppression and even brutality, using the most simplistic art style and music you could ever think of. This minimalist effort works perfectly for placing you right into the setting. There’s no score or even much ambient music to separate you from the raw and visceral environment. Although you don’t necessarily feel like you’re the young boy himself, you still feel connected to him from an observer’s standpoint which heightens the feeling of isolation even more. A lack of dialogue and cinematics is an obvious yet incredibly effective choice that instantly conveys the emotion and atmosphere that each area of the world is dripping with. As you singlehandedly push a boat into murky water, jump across giant electrified sign letters, flip a switch that turns the world upside down and even simply walk somewhere in pitch blackness, you always feel small in a large and dangerous world.

This is pretty silly.

Limbo is focused solely on a physical experience. The only two obstacles in your way are dying and getting stuck in puzzles and the latter doesn’t become a problem at all until the last several areas when the atmosphere unfortunately dies down and Limbo becomes a mildly interesting plat-former. It’s still workable, but just not as eerie. The gameplay doesn’t repeat itself too often, and the new situations are almost instantly understandable because of the position of objects, subtle lighting and even gestures. There was a moment when I walked up to a large mosquito-like creature which quickly flew away from me and located itself around a broken, raised ladder. As it returned back to its original location I noticed that if I got closer to the animal it would raise its head as if listening to the sounds around it. I then understood that I had to approach it slowly and silently, allowing me to grab onto it and be flown up to the ladder. I then broke its leg off and it quivered away in pain. What did you expect?

Who designs a factory like this?!

Although it’s a beautifully atmospheric and effective videogame, Limbo is definitely not perfect. I became excruciatingly annoyed at later puzzles involving gravity switches, one of which took me about 30 minutes to do before using a walkthrough and finding out that I needed to get one measly box all the way off to the side of the area where I would never have looked. It also greatly suffers as the levels advance from a serene and moody forest into a bulky, huge and rather cartoonish factory. The sense of dread and isolation worked perfectly in the forest because you had come across vastly different scenarios. In the factory it’s just a series of lifeless block puzzles, buttons, gears and switches that attempt and obnoxiously fail at feeling oppressive and powerful. The fact they even included such a boring location in this game is disappointing and the transition from the forest to the factory area is too jarring to feel like you’re making any progress.

I couldn't find a picture of the ending so here's the boy
about to get crushed by a big rock...

Speaking of jarring; the ending. Now Limbo as a whole has virtually no context as to why you are actually doing anything. You wake up, go places and interact with things in the hopes of achieving other things. From an introductory stand point this works well as you are freshly interacting with the harsh environments but Limbo tries to shove this sappy and needlessly fragile ending involving a girl that keeps showing up around your trek. Granted, seeing the girl’s appearances in the distance, as in five meters away from you, was eye opening and beautiful every time but then we’re given this pathetically anti-climactic ending where the boy just slowly walks up to her and nothing happens. All we needed was one last step. I’m not asking for a huge finale but just one last action; a hug, a wave or anything. I actually was hoping the boy would kill her. That would have been a shockingly awesome twist because of how we thought of the boy up to this point. Demoralized and broken yet still retaining hope.

...why?

The boy himself interacts with the environments perfectly. Almost every jump you do feels like it’s just barely short enough to reach but never shorter than that. Even though the young character gives off the sense of weakness, mainly due to the fact that he wears shorts, the journey as a whole and the trials you overcome give him a surprising quality of strength, virtue, courage and even cold-heartedness, like when he’s running away from a giant spider creature that appears to have slaughtered an entire village of children. The music and tone of the game at that point seems to be making you more afraid of getting killed by the spider and less shocked by the fact that it just killed a bunch of people. Many of the puzzles suffer from being obnoxiously convenient for you to progress. Objects are placed so strategically that they diminish the idea of a harsh and broken environment. There’s even a situation when you get stuck to the floor and the spider, instead of simply stabbing you like every single other encounter you’ve had with it, wraps you up with web allowing you to wriggle out and escape seconds afterwards. It's still an effectively unnerving scene, but it's so inconsistent that you can tell that the developers just wanted to do something scary. It worked. Although the controls can get pretty finicky and cause more deaths than you intended, the checkpoints are placed perfectly so that you never get annoyed from dying and you can quickly learn how to deal with the obstacles you face.

Limbo is a downright fantastic videogame that accomplished everything it set out to achieve. It’s beautiful in practically every way. Apart from small nit-picky flaws like the disappointing locations in later areas, the rushed and useless ending and some vague, confusing puzzles, Limbo may as well be a perfect game. With excellent sound and visuals combined with very raw and visceral gameplay it is one of the most atmospheric experiences I’ve ever had.

Reviewers Roundtable - Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

2011-09-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

(IMPROVISED)

This thing

2011-09-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Made by Allison Jeffreys.

Roundtable Reviews - Podcast #1

2011-08-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Reviewers Roundtable - THX 1138

2011-08-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

It's like Star Wars...but crap...

Stretch Reviews - Dead Space

2011-08-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's finally here. Excluding Heroes of Might and Magic I and II, this is the first game I got specifically to review.

I was planning of having a shot where I get pulled out of the room with a rope...I forgot to do that.

The Evil Dead and The Fly

2011-08-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Evil Dead Thoughts

The Fly Thoughts

DEAD SPACE IS COMING SOON!