The campaign of Grey Goo is broken into three acts, detailing the trials of its three core species (if an all-consuming molecular super-sludge can be called a species). Each mini-campaign runs five missions and connects to an over-arching story. The setting crafted by Petroglyph is familiar—seeing three races brought together by circumstance in a far off sector of space—but refreshing in its execution.

Featured within are the alien Beta, the futuristic humans, and the eponymous Goo—a self-replicating race of molecular machines. Interestingly, the Beta are presented as the most relatable, appearing as an underdog species in the early days of interstellar travel. Meanwhile, humanity has progressed so far as to become somewhat alien, and the eponymous Grey Goo, the fruits of humanity’s labor, even more alien still.

The story is told through a series of briefings and cut-scene interludes, each beautifully rendered and featuring stellar voice acting. The presentation of premise inflames the imagination, and if there is one criticism to be leveled against Grey Goo in this regard, it is that its ideas triggered in me a wild appetite, and there simply wasn’t enough content available to sate it. The standard RTS presentation of the campaign isn’t set up to deliver that depth of information—in 1998, the background, histories and minutia I crave might have been found in an illustrated manual. In Grey Goo’s case, the game would have benefited from a codex or lore journal; a place to digest some of the heavy science-fiction that forms the building blocks of the world.

Learning to play an RTS effectively is a very different animal from other genres, and I recognize that my moderate ability in StarCraft shouldn’t translate to (and could even hamper) the ease of learning the playstyle required to excel at Grey Goo. Even with that in mind, I would describe the difficulty curve on some of the campaign missions as daunting. Part of the problem is with the way Goo educates the player—that is to say, perhaps less than it should. I sometimes gleaned abilities or strategies after several frustrating attempts to complete a level that, upon discovering, made me feel simultaneously like a drooling idiot and a strategic genius. The sense of vindication when I finally completed those missions was palpable, but I came away with mixed feelings: I was angry at having sunk so much time into a frustrating scenario, but with my enhanced understanding I couldn’t help but be excited to play again.

Everything a player needs to know about the races, tech trees, units and structures of Grey Goo is contained in the in-game encyclopedia, but the campaign itself provides little guidance on when various technology should be used, and how. For example, although a tool tip explained to me the function of a wall structure, I was knee deep in the penultimate mission of the Beta campaign before I realized how integral the wall was to an effective strategy with that species. Although one can certainly argue that the game gave me everything I needed to figure this out for myself, after spending so much time being obliterated for my ignorance, I came away feeling that a little reminder from an NPC would have drastically improved my experience.

Were Grey Goo any less than exceptional in the crafting of its three races, I might have abandoned it for these frustrations. Frankly, though, the core experience is simply too engaging to be ignored. Grey Goo scratches a particular itch with it’s focus on unique base building, and a de-emphasis on unit micro—when it’s not throwing a complete curve-ball in the form of the Goo.

The humans and Beta both present unique paradigms for building and expanding. The Beta power structures through hubs that can be deployed anywhere on the battlefield that the player possesses sight. This means it’s easy to expand to new locations, but somewhat challenging to remain efficient—and protected. The Beta build powerful wall structures that can be mounted by offensive units, a critical strategy considering the tendency of a Beta base to become sprinkled across the map, where there may or may not be friendly units to provide protection.

Meanwhile, human bases must be innervated by a single, connected powergrid. This creates complications for expansion, because zigzagging powerlines must be laid across long distances to access faraway resources, effectively providing a breadcrumb trail back to the core of a human fortress. However, humanity’s automated defensive turrets are a far quicker and less complicated answer to raids than the more powerful Beta walls—when a key area comes under attack, a few turrets can be dropped into place in the surrounding power line structure, and then forgotten. 

Finally, the Goo eschew basebuilding entirely, and instead present a fully mobile army. With no structures of any kind, Mothers—the sole production unit of the Goo—migrate between resource patches and collect the valuable Catalyst within. Increasing in size as they assimilate matter and energy (from both resources and enemies) the Mothers then split, with the new offspring becoming either specialized units or a new Mother. The premise of the self-replicating molecular machine that threatens to consume all life is wonderfully realized through this gameplay mechanic; the Goo doesn’t build, it consumes, it grows, and it multiplies.

The care and craft employed in distinguishing the three playstyles makes each a joy to discover and master. This alone is enough to recommend the title to RTS players looking for something refreshing. 

Still, it’s important to recognize that gameplay in such a title doesn’t exist in a void. The real test for Grey Goo is still ahead: waiting in the wings is the online community, who will test the mettle of the title by fine-tuning its machinery for maximum cruelty and efficiency. Grey Goo can’t compete with the likes of StarCraft on the featureset battleground; with only basic online modes available, it must sell itself to the community entirely on the grounds of its clever, unique design—and therein lies the challenge. If Grey Goo’s three races prove unbalanced once in the hands of the community—a community that sees all—then the legs of Grey Goo could be cut right out from under it.

It may be impossible to predict how the game will shake out once in the hands of players, but my hope is that proper post-release support will address any potential stumbling blocks in Grey Goo’s online infancy. Goo is a little rough around the edges, but there’s no denying the strength of the design within. In it’s current form, it is an exciting experiment, and I strongly recommend players take the opportunity to give it a chance.

Grey Goo

Developer
Petroglyph Games

Publisher
Grey Box

System
Steam PC

Modes
Single-Player, Multiplayer

Release Date
January 23, 2015

Price
$49.99

*A Review copy was provided by the publisher for this review

Replicated here is the usual model that sees three opposing species pitted against each other, each with a unique set of features designed to alter the gameplay paradigm of a particular race. 

When it comes to RTS my approach is somewhat religious. That is to say, I am possessed of a fanatical devotion to one particular entity (in this case, StarCraft) and denounce all others. Grey Goo was immediately familiar in a superficial sense, but quickly distinguished itself with a number of unique spins on the format–and, interestingly, a focus on macro gameplay. 

The three races featured are the alien Beta, the futuristic Humans, and finally the eponymous Grey Goo. The Beta and Humans are largely comparable, though they feature unique conventions for base building. The Beta can drop power hubs anywhere they possess sight, and then construct structures attached to those hubs–giving them the ability to expand quickly. 

Meanwhile, Humans are built around a similar power-based mechanic, except every structure on the field must be connected via power lines. These lines make expansion more difficult, but the humans are bolstered by the ability to create a variety of defensive structures that outstrip those of the Beta. Thusly, the Humans excel at turtling and protecting what they own.

After familiarizing myself with the Humans and Beta, I felt I had a reasonable grasp on the trappings of this title–and was completely unprepared for the curve ball thrown by the title race, the Grey Goo. The molecular machine species eschews traditional base building, in that they build absolutely no structures.

They play, quite impressively, exactly the way one might expect from the concept. Rather than constructing a series of buildings with unique functions, everything the Goo produces comes from the Mother Goo. This large blob of nano machines is free moving (and can even attack enemy units and structures by engulfing and consuming them) and increases its mass by sitting atop resource vents and absorbing the energy and matter contained within.

Upon reaching various mass tiers, the Mother Goo can undergo divisions, with the resulting smaller blobs then reformatting themselves into specialized units–such as a tank or scout. The Mother Goo can even create an additional Mother Goo to establish an expansion, or morph into a massive Purger unit, which breaks enemy bases and obliterates opposing units.

Since even a single Mother Goo can quickly establish a new resource flow and unit production line, the Goo enjoy formidable adaptability. Their extreme flexibility is countered by their relative vulnerability; unlike the other races, they have no defensive structures and their lack of a traditional base makes them easy to harass and push back when territory is contested.

Some other interesting mechanics notably spin the gameplay in a unique direction. Foremost among this is the inclusion of brush, which acts much like the jungle in Dota—units concealed within brush can fire at enemies outside of it, but enemies outside cannot fire into the brush without first gaining sight. This also applies to air units—meaning a ground unit must have vision inside the brush for bombers to root out enemy forces within.

Also of note is that air units for the humans and Beta carry limited armaments and must re-arm at hangars, adding an entirely new dimension to achieving air superiority. Air units (and the platforms they require) must be carefully guarded while vulnerable, but are formidable when fully armed. Additionally, several systems exist for removing the burden of micromanagement from the player—such as the ability to assign automated unit production to structures—and even resource management is handled largely by the game itself, which conveniently informs the player what their net resource gain (or loss) per second is at any given time.

Included in the preview build were the first three campaign missions, in which the Beta find themselves attacked by the mysterious humans—presumably over the resource called “catalyst” that fuels each faction. The missions themselves are fairly straightforward; there isn’t a lot happening beside basic objectives. While the production values surrounding the campaign are high (with some fantastic cutscenes and mission briefs) and the tease of the story is enough to garner interest, the early missions perhaps don’t do enough to quickly establish what makes the game unique. When the retail version drops, however, there should be plenty of room for the campaign to rectify this issue.

Grey Goo drops January 23rd and will feature a single-player campaign, multiplayer matchmaking and a versus-AI skirmish mode. Given the clever, intriguing design of the title, I am excited to see if Grey Goo reaches its full potential upon release.

Grey Goo

Developer
Petroglyph Games

Publisher
Petroglyph Games

System
Steam PC

Modes
Single-Player, Multiplayer

Release Date
January 23, 2015

Price
TBA

*Beta Access was provided by the publisher for this post

Bandai-Namco has a demo available via the Japanese PSN Store, and we’ve got some new video equipment to test out, so why not sit back, relax, hit play and watch me try to kill two birds with one stone in the most awkward way possible?

A game looking to amend that caveat is Brawlhalla, a fighting game similar to Smash Bros., but in lieu of Nintendo’s all-star cast of characters, it lines its roster with the greatest warrior archetypes in history, both real and fictional.

By now, we all know who would win in a fight between Mario and Link (and even who would win in a go-kart race betwixt the two), but if ever you were curious about whether a viking could hold his own against a cowgirl or an alien warlord, Brawlhalla is here to help answer that curiosity.

Brawlhalla is a vaguely Nordic paradise where not only vikings, but warriors from all lands, time periods, and planets gather to fight each other four at a time. The fighters are about as diverse as possible, and they’re all rather smoothly drawn and animated, although motion tweened to high heaven.

Instead of having their own sets of special attacks, fighters scramble for randomly dropped weapons that greatly increase their strength and range. There are swords, hammers, spears, guns, lances, and dual blades – each fighter is a specialist with two of the aforementioned weapons, and randomly obtains one of them when picking up the Excalibur-like weapon icon on-stage.

Each weapon feels considerably different, and has its own strategy to it, but I took issue with how any given weapon feels about the same in the hands of any fighter. Yes, each character has different attack, defense, and speed stats, and each weapon is reskinned to match the fighter’s aesthetic, but aside from that, there’s little difference between the hammer a viking swings around and the one a steampunk lady wields – aside from a unique neutral strong attack, every character has the same attacks and animations when using a particular weapon.

In a way, Brawlhalla commits to the Kid Icarus: Uprising mentality that the weapon is the fighter, and in that sense, each of the 11 currently available characters is actually a preset duo chosen from a pool of 6 “fighters” that can only tag in and out when standing atop a weapon icon. At least, that’s what it would be like if, as mentioned before, the new weapon wasn’t randomly one of the two in your fighter’s loadout. Every weapon icon looks the same, so if you were hoping for a particular weapon, good luck winning THAT coin flip.

Combat is held the same way it is in Smash; the more damaged the fighter, the further they will fly upon getting hit, until they eventually get sent off-screen, at which point they die. It’s a lot harder to tell how wounded a fighter is, though.

Instead of percentages, damage is indicated by a bar next to the player’s HUD icon that slowly turns from white to yellow to red. Also, these icons are much smaller and nestled in the upper right corner of the screen. They’re impossible to read in the heat of battle, and the devs know that, because they also make fighters flash their respective damage colors when hit – something I learned from a loading screen, because before then I hardly noticed it, and still had trouble seeing afterwards. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, I’ll check health when I’m dead.

Controls are also similar to Smash, although without all the frantic tapping of different directions – probably to accommodate players using their keyboards. There are a few other slight changes; any Smash veteran will take a good half an hour to get accustomed to the fact that dodging is done by holding a direction before pressing the dodge button and not vide-versa.

Re-education aside, the controls feel great, and the game supports a variety of controllers, allowing for local multiplayer, in addition to online multiplayer. Playing online, by the way, isn’t the most solid experience, but it works decently enough. To be fair, my computer is about 6 years old, so the occasional choppiness may have just been my computer trying to render the sharp 2D graphics. You’ll have to ask somebody with a machine from this decade how truly smooth the online multiplayer is, sorry.

Brawlhalla’s level design touts none of the traditional stage hazards of this genre – that is, unless you count the 45-degree walls lining some stages specifically designed to turn a powerful horizontal attack into a meteor smash.

While the stages are a bit underwhelming, they will surely be applauded by the “Fox only, no items, Final Destination” types out there – although they’ll likewise jeer the random draw of the weapons and inability to fight one on one (in the current version of the beta, only four player team and free-for-all matches are available, though that, much like some of the other things mentioned prior, may change later).

The one place where Brawlhalla severely departs from Smash Bros. is the unlockable bonuses. Brawlhalla has a generous helping of bonus content, but since it is (or rather, will be) a free to play game, every bit of it will cost you money.

Converting the item prices listed in elephant funbucks to actual cash, it seems that character reskins will run you anywhere between $4-10 each, with weapon skins costing $2-3 each. In fact, customizing a character in any other way beyond swapping palettes requires money. Much to the relief of all of us who reflexively cringe at the mention of such pricing models, however, all currently available DLC is purely cosmetic (although, a now-grayed out section of the store labeled “legends” suggests that some of the fighters must also be bought once the beta is over).

Brawlhalla doesn’t really take the Smash-style fighting genre in any bold new directions, but it does take it to new players, and unlike Nintendo or Sony’s crossover brawlers, it doesn’t count on you being familiar with the extensive history of a gaming company to recognize the characters – everybody knows what a pirate is.

If you’re interested in a fast-paced 4 player fighting game that’s easy to learn, but not much of a Nintendo fan and can’t be arsed to buy a 3DS or Wii U, let alone learn exactly what a Lucario is, sign up for the beta and try it out.

Brawlhalla

Developer
Blue Mammoth Games

Publisher
Blue Mammoth Games

System
Steam

Modes
Multiplayer

Release Date
April 30, 2014

Price
Free-to-play

*Beta Access was provided by the publisher for this post

Telltale’s Game of Thrones, however, is a pairing that transcends such considerations. For the uninitiated, the title brings the dangerous, nuanced world of HBO’s Game of Thrones television series to life through Telltale’s (virtually trademarked, at this point) style of the choice-driven episodic point-and-click adventure.

Fans of the series will note that I said “HBO’s Game of Thrones” and not “George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire”. No doubt basing the game on the former television series (as opposed to the latter book series) was a matter of legal license and financial practicality, but I can’t help but feel it is something of a missed opportunity. The significantly more embellished visual world of Martin’s novels would have made for a beautiful game, and a unique opportunity for longtime fans to glimpse the world as Martin intended—rather than the comparably grey verisimilitude of the television series.

This can hardly be counted as a fault though; instead the title crafts the world of the show in a faithful fashion, though the cartoonish, painterly style is not fully in line with the grim tone of the content. Graphically, the game is more stylish than The Walking Dead, but certainly not the equal of The Wolf Among Us—and a few frustrating visual quirks and glitches persist throughout, being somewhat distracting.

Let’s be frank, though: although I feel a finer level of polish for a title like this is in order, players of Telltale’s games don’t come to the table for visual fidelity—but rather the story-driven episodic experience. In that respect, the Game of Thrones license is a potential goldmine, but unfortunately much of the episode comes across as somewhat dull.

The episode begins during the events of the infamous Red Wedding, as depicted in the third season of the TV show. Note that I will be avoiding spoilers for the show, books, and indeed the game itself, so you may read without fear. The game series follows House Forrester, bannermen to House Stark, who must deal with the fallout of the events of the Red Wedding and the power shifts that ensue across Westeros as a result.

The player characters, primarily members of this house, are forced to protect their lands and the valuable Iron Wood that can be reaped from it. The setting is well chosen; at the crux of a point of upheaval, a largely unknown corner of the world is given the opportunity to flourish, allowing for a sense of discovery.

However, while the characters are well formed and fill clear roles, they are somewhat too familiar in that they are largely written as analogues to the popular Stark characters. Indeed, I found that a few too many tropes recurred from the early seasons of the show in the series of events to befall these characters—contributing to a sense of boredom in some of the games scenes.

Also familiar, though (and to the episode’s infinite credit) is the constant, overbearing sense of dread that threatens to crush the characters within at any given moment. The sense of danger that makes Martin’s universe a scarily real place is ever present, and informs the title’s best scenes and empowers it with its greatest potential.

Most masterfully, Telltale has provided the opportunity for fans to play the eponymous Game of Thrones, as alluded to by some of the series’ major characters, without the distraction of shoe-horned action mechanics as might be found in a lesser licensed title. This is perhaps the purest story-telling form an interactive adaptation of the property could aspire to, and that is the saving grace that redeems a sometimes plodding episode.

Encounters with antagonist characters are a sequence of moves and counter-moves, as one tries to speak just the right words, play just the right game at the right time; it’s about lands, titles, swords, but most of all it’s about appearances, and that definitive sense of tension is wonderfully recreated here.

Although I feel a measure of improvement is necessary for the series to reach its potential in future episodes, Iron from Ice lays a solid groundwork and succeeds in presenting an utterly unique opportunity for fans to live the Game of Thrones experience.

Game of Thrones: Episode One – Iron From Ice

Developer
Telltale Games

Publisher
Telltale Games

System
Steam (REVIEWED), PC/MAC Digital Download, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, iOS

Modes
Singleplayer

Release Date
December 2, 2014

Price
$4.99 per Episode / Season Pass $24.99 or less (varies by platform)

*A copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review

Sequel to Trendy’s 2010 original, DD2 mixes tower defense with action-RPG elements, comfortably merging melee combat with base-building. Games alternate between build phases and combat phases, where up to four heroes prepare for and battle escalating waves of enemy creatures.

Four unique heroes will be available during Early Access and each fills a typical role, such as tank or ranged DPS. Each hero has a primary and secondary melee attack for managing groups of enemies and supporting team structures. Additionally, a small set of active abilities are available for more targeted or circumstance-specific attacks.

The other side of the coin are defense structures, of which each hero can unlock four. Again, these structures fit naturally into the well-understood role-playing tropes; The Monk may build a support structure that heals player characters, while The Squire creates cannons that deal high damage to single targets.

Meanwhile, increasingly challenging maps provide predetermined spawn points and areas of defense, and create ample opportunity for clever defensive strategies. The heroes cooperate well together, and combat phases are fun, frantic, and potentially deeply challenging depending on the difficulty undertaken. Defeating enemies, completing maps and amassing currency will yield incrementally superior items to equip for each hero.

DD2 is rendered with a bright, illustrative art style that transcends its fairly simplistic graphics technology. Environments are beautifully designed and make even the hub spaces fun to explore. In its present state, some gaps exist in the interface design that make certain tasks unintuitive or difficult to adopt, while in other areas there are deficiencies in the communication between game and player. However, these are easily navigable if one is willing to take the time to experiment. The game mechanics are relatively simple, and the art design actually makes some concepts (such as item upgrades) easy to understand without hand-holding.

Notable, however, is the apparent absence of a friends list. Since finding a group may sometimes be difficult in an Early Access environment, the inability to easily friend players met through the game interface is unfortunate.

My experience playing the game was very positive, but whether one is willing to invest in an Early Access title must be a measured decision. It’s common to see extreme reactions online when an Early Access game does not live up to what is “promised” during the development of the title. However, anyone who’s ever worked in an environment that builds products or services understands: the product you set out to build is rarely the precise product you put to market. A lot can change along the way, and rarely are such changes undertaken for nefarious purposes.

If you are going to invest your money into an Early Access game, be it Dungeon Defenders II or any other, do so with that understanding. Much like a Kickstarter project, expecting ever minute detail to materialize as if in prophesy is not realistic.

Every such purchase is a gambit, and if you are not prepared to take the risk then do yourself a favor, and wait. However, for those interested in supporting the development of the product, Dungeon Defenders II is a comfortably low risk proposition. Trendy suggests the title will be in release for “at least a year,’ and the existing foundation provides fertile ground for improvement. Even in its current form, the title feels well established, and is characterized by solid design that suggests the team is likely to meet further goalposts between now and the time the game sees release.

Additionally, a certain level of confidence can be gleaned from the fact that Trendy has already successfully fielded such a title in the original Dungeon Defenders, and the pricing model for this particular venture is reasonable in the rewards it confers.

Dungeon Defenders II

Developer
Trendy Entertainment

Publisher
Trendy Entertainment

System
Steam (Early Access)

Modes
Singleplayer, Multiplayer

Release Date
December 5, 2014

*Early Access was provided by the publisher for this post

With titles like Vanquish, Bayonetta, and even the underrated Revengeance, they have routinely provided unique, well-crafted experiences, carried on the shoulders of robust and complex gameplay systems.

In theory, a technical brawler in the Avatar franchise developed by Platinum should have been an easy home run. Instead, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Legend of Korra is that there’s no good reason why it should be so frustrating.

Based on the cartoon of the same name, the game opens with a mysterious villain using the deadly art of unnecessary acupuncture to steal Korra’s elemental powers. As Korra, the player must reacquire these abilities at arbitrarily determined times while attempting to stop Mr. Mysterious from doing stuff.

What stuff? Well I won’t spoil it for you, but don’t worry, because it doesn’t even matter until the final mission–until then you’re just chasing people because they’re bad and I guess you’re supposed to.

Largely, the plot feels like the script from one thirty-minute episode of the series, stretched to five or six hours with most of the dialogue excised–and devoid of any of the wit, cleverness, and heart that has made the Avatar franchise successful. Indeed none of the characters that you enjoy from the show–save Korra herself–make appearances of any significance.

Cutscenes are animated in the style of the series, but since nothing of interest happens during any of these sequences they might as well have been produced in engine. For what it’s worth, that engine manages to render Korra fairly well, but is undercut by empty worlds, repetitive locations and a woefully thin assortment of palette-swapped enemies. This leaves the game visually barren, with the only exception being a reasonably enjoyable representation of Korra’s bending powers, and the unique martial arts styles associated with them.

Initally, as Korra’s powers are limited, the game alternates between painfully boring and frustratingly difficult. Against the sprinklings of rank and file enemies in the early levels, there’s little to do besides approach, tap “X” three times, and move on. This monotony is interrupted only when the game decides to confront Korra with trios of fully empowered benders, against whom Korra’s attacks are weak and counters are inexplicably non-functional.

This state of affairs endures for far too long; with too few combos and annoying enemies, the game quickly crosses the threshold where the fun I was not having at any given time overwhelmed the value of any potential fun I might have later. Most of the game is reminiscent of the infamous climb-out-of-hades puzzle from God of War: the one you only continue trying to complete for the promise of something enjoyable on the other side. Once I powered through these sections and managed to unlock or empower Korra’s abilities to a reasonable degree, the combat opened up somewhat and became potentially enjoyable–and, having none of that, the game promptly dropped me into an escalating sequence of scenarios apparently designed to artificially extend game length through insane difficulty.

Typically, this involved presenting me with enemy mobs composed specifically to prevent the combat powers from being effectual. Enemies have debilitating attacks that fire too quickly, and are compounded in situations where there are simply too many of these enemies and not enough tools to combat them. Sometimes even the environment is part of the problem, such as one combat sequence where Korra was dropped into a tiny arena with two enemies so massive that both could not be seen at the same time, making it impossible to respond to their attacks.

This callous, unthinking way in which the game design treats the player is so pervasive that even the smallest slight becomes infuriating. One brief moment of the game presents the classic “narrow path” trope where the player must avoid falling into an abyss.

All well and good–until you realize Korra has exactly one movement speed: sprint. This is the nature of the game; the odds are stacked continuously against the player, who simply does not have the tools to navigate the unfair scenarios.

As if the game wants to apologize for its own failings, occasionally a mob of low-level enemies will appear and formally request that Korra unleash her elemental fury upon them without any aggravating design hiccups or unfair challenges. In those moments, Legend of Korra can indeed be enjoyable–but it’s not so much finding a diamond in the rough as it is a lone raisin in the desert. There just isn’t any sustenance to it. Elemental combat should be the bread and butter of the game, but too much of the experience is dedicated to unlocking what is ultimately an inadequate reward.

A pair of mini-games are also provided–taking place both inside the story and as separate modes. First up is the pro-bending mode, where Korra must mash X ineffectually to knock enemies back across the game field, as seen on the show. Next, some missions take place as an infinite-runner style mini-game, where Korra rides her polar bear dog, Naga, and navigates obstacles by jumping, changing “lanes” and turning corners. Like many elements, these sequences seem present only to artificially inflate game length with frustrating, overly-long and repetitive gameplay.

The often-rushed timetables of licensed games not withstanding, I find it difficult to imagine any excuse for the quality of this game, with a studio like Platinum behind it. This is their wheelhouse; I know they could have made this game good, and I don’t understand why they didn’t. If you are a fan of either Platinum or the Avatar franchise, my recommendation is a strong avoid.

The Legend of Korra

Developer
Platinum Games

Publisher
Activision

System
Steam, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One (REVIEWED)

Modes
Singleplayer

Release Date
October 21, 2014 (Steam, PS3, PS4)
October 22, 2014 (Xbox 360, Xbox One)

*A copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review

Challenging players to get rich or die trying on Pandora offers plenty of familiar sites for seasoned vault hunters, while also extending a friendly invitation to those not familiar with the landscape – where homicidal villains torn from the aesthetic desperation of Mad Max clash with the corporate suits of Hyperion, a company so devoid of conscious that they make the Alien franchises’ Weyland-Yutani corporation look like a fluffy kitten in comparison.

After the heavier subject matter of previous Telltale releases, Tales from the Borderlands offers a chance to embrace the lunacy born of that mix of interests, and Zero Sum suggests that Telltale is all in for having plenty of fun within this chaotic world.

Zero Sum puts players in the shoes of two characters, dividing the play between both as they recount the story that brought them together – all while imprisoned by a mysterious figure. Players will begin as Rhys, a Hyperion employee looking to climb the corporate ladder, and switch over to Fiona, a con-artist trying to survive with her sister on Pandora.

Said play searches for a balance between a well established choice and consequence system seen in previous Telltale releases and quick time prompts that fuel the flow of action sequences. Character interactions will lead to a series of decisions that leave an impression on unfolding events and fellow characters, while action sequences may erupt as a result of decisions, but more often than not, find the means to continually interrupt the familiar dialogue driven formula.

The choices players will make don’t feel quite as severe as with previous Telltale releases, hardly as consistently gut wrenching as those played out in The Walking Dead. While there are a few key moments where a decision will obviously carry some significance, everyone around you is so crazed and deadly it doesn’t seem to matter all that much, at least not in this initial episode.

While this could change dramatically in further episodes, the choices here often find the means to open the door to moments of ludicrous eccentricity – choosing the weapons loadout for a robot to unleash on bandits isn’t heavy on the conscious, but it sure is a recipe for fun.

There are a couple of wonderful moments where either character is given license to embellish the story being told with choices on how they describe what happened next. And there’s a delightful back and forth in the way the initial setup unfolds, where both stories cross paths and sometimes step on one another – where you can witness decisions already made from a second point of view that also brings its own flourishes to events.

The writing here is consistently strong, finding a wealth of humour in the lunacy going on all around Pandora as Telltale finds the means to make us laugh here as much as they made us shed tears with other recent releases.

The “he said” / “she said” narrative feeds this humor, but moreover, the pacing of this story is a quick and snaking affair that raises the stakes to a finale that leaves you taking a breath, not from the exhaustion of choice, but from a ride that challenges you to simply hang on. This writing is aided by a well established voice cast, wherein my favorite treat was discovering Patrick Warburton’s familiar voice serving as the slimy executive that sets the chain of events into motion.

I don’t want to kick the ghost of Lucasarts simply because this is a Telltale release, but I was reminded of both the badassery of Full Throttle and the sharp wit found in so many of those essential early adventure titles.

Where action comes into play, button prompts can keep you off balance, not knowing if a narrative decision or a prompt might be coming, leaving you nervously hovering over all the buttons while waiting to leap into the required action. The time allowed for reaction feels more generous here though – I never missed a prompt during my first or second trip.

There’s an item and cash inventory that doesn’t really come into play here as well, with the game quite purposeful guiding you forward, so there are no head scratching puzzle moments that leave you trying to decide whether you can jam item X into socket Y. On a second playthough, I purposefully didn’t look at something that I knew would reveal a required item, and the game promptly found the means to have another character direct my attention toward it.

Everything is about the flow of events, of keeping the player in the moment and sweating over what’s coming next, though when playing as Rhys, players will be able to take advantage of his echo eye to scan various objects for more information during quieter moments, which insofar as this episode simply provides more space for humor in the descriptions.

Nailing down exactly what this comical action ride provides finds me reaching for some familiar words – that Telltale hasn’t reinvented the wheel that’s brought them this far, rather that they’ve continued to accomplish what they’ve become so well known for. At the heart of this release is a higher level of action wrapping around the weight of choice.

Telltale has embraced the madness of this world where events go sideways only to come right side up again in the blink of an eye, adapting the spirit of Borderlands with the same level of skill demonstrated with previous releases to create a promising start for a story that offers a fresh and genuine gateway to the material.

Tales from the Borderlands: Episode One – Zero Sum

Developer
Telltale Games

Publisher
Telltale Games

System
Steam (REVIEWED), PC/MAC Digital Download, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, iOS

Modes
Singleplayer

Release Date
November 26, 2014

Price
$4.99 per Episode / Season Pass $24.99 or less (varies by platform)

*A copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review

The appeal of this entry is largely the same as it has ever been: designed as a kaleidoscope of flashing lights, bright colours, and energizing music, it compels players to edge closer to the flow state, where the barrier between thinking and doing breaks down and they’re able to go further and faster to achieve the higher score.

In this respect, it is expertly tooled; even the menus are practically begging to simply get out of the way and release the player into the field. Upon failure, one need not even wait for the explosive burst of their dying ship to fade away before beginning the next round; Lucid Games clearly knows that every second spent not playing is going to pull the player further away from the state of mind needed to play the game at a high level.

Where traditionally the series was limited to seeking scores in a handful of unique modes, Dimensions distinguishes itself immediately through its addition of an “adventure” mode. This is something of a misnomer; “challenge” mode might have been more appropriate, as the offering consists of a series of trials with unique challenges and win conditions. This gametype is also where the eponymous “dimensions” make their appearance. These missions take place on a three dimensional plane, in sharp contrast to the flat field of previous entries. The shape in question may be a sphere, dish, cube or even a pill, and each presents unique challenges.

The effect is quite transformative: hidden enemies may lurk over the horizon of a shape, demanding extra caution from players who no longer have a complete picture of the battlefield. Weapon fire arcs over the surface of the shape, leading to some unpredictable shots. Indeed, some stages are even dynamic, with moving obstacles that can impede or even destroy the player ship. All this combines to require an exceptional level of awareness, and reflexes beyond even those demanded by previous titles in the series.

Beyond the addition of a third dimension, the imperative of Dimensions is to challenge each series convention in turn, breaking each rule, regardless of how immutable it may seem. This could mean interchangeable drone ships to accompany the player, power ups that appear on the playing field, swappable powers like deployable mines, enemy shapes that take multiple hits to destroy, and even boss encounters with large, durable boss-shapes that pursue the player and spew enemies.

These additions drastically ratchet up the level of variety on offer, in a refreshing and engaging way. The prospect of unlocking new stages with new shapes and challenges will serve to drive even those who are not score-obsessed to play onward.

This makes Dimensions a clear risk taker, however, with the potential to turn off longtime players with its array of new content. While the adventure stages provide a wealth of new high-score opportunities to excel at, the addition of upgradable loadouts is likely to affect the purity of the experience in the minds of some players. The uneven playing field it creates—where certain players may be playing with different powers, or powers that have been upgraded beyond the capability of others—is likely to diminish the value for some hardliners.

Fortunately, however, there is relief in the form of the classic modes.

Six gametypes are presented under the classic banner, replicating the experience of previous entries in the series and offering the pure score-grinding gameplay some are certain to demand. However, series fans would be just as well served by playing their copies of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, if the classic experience is all they seek. If not enticed by the decidedly game-changing new features of the adventure mode, players might best keep their fifteen dollars in their pockets.

Conversely, with fifty radically new missions, each featuring playing fields and other unique challenges, Dimensions provides several times over the content of its predecessors for those who have grown tired of the classic gametypes. Each mission features its own leaderboard, making for over fifty score-seeking opportunities, and the inclusion of the classic content makes this entry in the series effectively a compendium of Geometry Wars gameplay.

Consequently, if you’ve never played a Geometry Wars game, this is the edition to buy.

Finally, another helping of content is provided in the local co-operative mode, which presents its own series of “adventure”-style missions for up to four players—and the nature of the game makes it an ideal party option. Additionally, online multiplayer is available, however the online service was not available prior to release, and we were thus unable to review the feature. Should the online service significantly impact the game experience when it goes live, this review will be updated.

It is also worth noting that the game provides a new visual perspective on the series that is rather enthralling. Somewhat less retro than its predecessors, it sacrifices a modicum of classical arcade sensibility for something that feels closer to virtual reality—especially in the three-dimensional stages, where rippling planes and grids make blasting deadly shapes just that much more enjoyable.

With a fifteen dollar price tag, Dimensions is not cheap for a score-grinder—but with it outstripping previous entries in sheer content, while also providing legacy gametypes, it’s difficult not to recommend to series fans—and those looking to give Geometry Wars a try for the first time have no reason to buy any version but this one.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions

Developer
Lucid Games

Publisher
Sierra

System
Steam, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 (REVIEWED), Xbox One

Modes
Singleplayer, Multiplayer

Release Date
November 25, 2014 (Steam, PS3, PS4)
November 26, 2014 (Xbox 360, Xbox One)

Price
$14.99

*A copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review

Freedom Wars addresses this want by placing players in the role of an amnesiac in need of education regarding those points of play. And that, my dear sinners, is only the first of many crimes you’ll be punished for in this desperate new world.

Freedom Wars confronts players with a world of scarce resources, where city states, or Panopticons, are set at each other’s throats, fighting over the scraps needed to survive. Within this dark reality, players are criminals, guilty of the crime of existing and thereby draining those same precious resources.

For the crime of amnesia, you’ll find yourself immediately sentenced to a million years of imprisonment, left sitting in a cramped cell in some twisted anime interpretation of Orwell’s 1984. The years of your imprisonment hang over your head. Cameras watch your every move. You are constantly accompanied by an artificial construct called an Assistant, which monitors your every interaction. And a giant screen occupies one wall of your cell, where a great unblinking eye eventually yields to a cute teddy bear that scolds you for your crimes while encouraging you to quit being a drain on society and become a productive member of your Panopticon.

It’s a premise that shines with brilliance for the elements it brings to a familiar gaming experience and at the same time proves a bit chilling for its commentary on our potential future.

In order to reduce your prison sentence and climb the rungs of this strange social ladder, you’ll need to achieve objectives that bring resources to your Panopticon – to contribute to the greater good. This opens to a familiar formula of play, particularly for mobile players, where players deploy to small battlefield areas to fight waves of soldiers and other monstrosities, while claiming resources scattered across the field and dropped by defeated enemies. While story driven events continually attempt to shake up the formula, the battlefield play is largely rinse and repeat.

While the key objective may rotate between simply defeating enemies and fighting to reclaim kidnapped citizens that possess essential skills, the end result is reward points and a growing inventory of bizarre items that are important to the Panopticon, and as the game progresses, increasingly important to you.

Combat weapons range between a variety of guns and melee instruments, allowing players to swap between long range projectile fights and close-up encounters with sharper killing tools. While the ability exists to modify your loadout, it’s a good idea to always keep a melee weapon handy given the nature of most battles.

The most powerful weapon at your disposal, though, is an organic vine wrapped around the character’s arm – the Thorn. This allows players to shoot a vine outward to latch on to enemies or terrain, allowing them to scale to higher ground, pull enemies, or simply lunge toward them for a powerful strike. Both vines and melee weapons are crucial for fighting large monstrosities, which include bipedal weapons platforms and powerful abductors – creatures that kidnap citizens and hold them in a cocoon within their chest. Often, your chief goal will be to reclaim citizens and rush them to reclamation tubes by carrying them across the battlefield.

While these larger enemies are weakened by projectile strikes, the Thorn presents multiple opportunities of attack, including latching onto key points and attempting to drag the creatures down to temporarily immobilize them, or launching your character at those points to strike and attempt to sever limbs, allowing players a chance to pick up said limbs for more resources. Pulling down enemies and severing limbs requires repeated button taps.

The Thorn comes in different flavors selected through your loadout that provide different advantages – offensive, defensive, and healing. Thorns can be linked for more power or charged to provide different effects. The offensive binding thorn can be used to set traps for enemies or tie an abductor. The healing thorn can naturally restore health and provide a large thicket that will heal all nearby allies. And the defensive thorn can boost defense and provide a thicket that shields against projectile attacks.

At the completion of each mission, you’ll see a screen of all the resources and weapons you’ve gathered. It will be illegal to keep some of these depending on your code level, forcing you to donate them to the state in return for entitlement points and a sentence reduction. Climbing the social ladder requires you to meet goals for testing, which in turn requires a certain sentence level and claimed entitlements.

Initially, everything you do will be a crime. Laying down will be a crime. Speaking to other sinners will be a crime. Entitlement points allow you to buy the right to do these things. And as you claim rights, you’ll gain the ability to do more with the resources you find than simply donate them to the state. The focus will be on building facilities for the production and augmentation of weapons, medical supplies, and munitions. In addition to keeping players supplied, this allows entirely new weapons to be created, assuming you discover the resources required. Each of these actions will require a certain amount of time to pass for completion, and rescued citizens can be assigned to a facility in order to speed up this process.

Freedom Wars also centers heavily on customization. From the outset, players customize their gender and appearance, but begin the game in drab prison garb. Gaining entitlement points allows players to access many freedoms and options, and also the right to new clothing and items to personalize your character. There’s a delightfully strange pleasure in doing so, of being stripped so entirely of identity from the start but slowly claiming a certain level of individuality in this world. This sense of identity even extends to choosing a real world location as your Panopticon, with leaderboards showing rankings based on contributions made by players claiming allegiance to these locales. Toronto was sitting at number nine overall, the last I checked.

Missions are broken up by sections that take place within your Panopticon, where you can meet other sinners and citizens, gaining sinners as allies that you can bring along on missions. As the story begins to unfold regarding the mysteries of a higher society above you, a strange girl and the promise of healing the world, minor fetch questing and socialization become the chief distractions between battle grinds.

The familiar game of fighting and resource gathering also brings some typical camera issues however. With the ability to launch yourself onto enemies or around the screen while fighting large adversaries, there are many times where you’ll be fighting to keep your perspective focused on your target. Locking onto enemies or sections of larger foes makes using the vine easier in this regard, but far from perfect. It’s also far from game breaking, but provides a consistently nagging frustration that cuts into the ability to execute moves with the same speed and accuracy seen in cinema scenes.

Perhaps as a concession, larger enemies that tend to shake up the camera move slower, and allies are quick to aid with healing Thorns or supplies. But there’s certainly a degree of frustration trying to keep your perspective fixed while splitting your attention between large enemies and battlefield events – such as preventing enemies from claiming citizens with their own reclamation tubes.

Beyond providing a consistently creepy watch over you, your personal assistant provides a great deal of aid on the battlefield. Players can issue commands to keep it close for healing and tactical support, or order it to carry citizens to reclamation tubes. While your assistant and allies will sometimes require your assistance to revive them, finishing an objective can often skirt this concern, immediately removing foes and giving you a brief period to gather more resources and check on your party.

There’s plenty of incentive to grind through some control and camera frustrations, and while I can’t verify it yet, I suspect a PlayStation TV setup might alleviate some of this as well. While providing space for multiplayer versus and co-op battlefield sessions, the game also allots the space to determine whether you want to progress with others or on your lonesome.

The learning curve to combat can prove incredible sharp at times. Attempting to tackle an optional special ops mission with a large sentence reduction quickly taught me that I hadn’t learned to play quite so well on my own as the story missions had encouraged me to believe – enemies are increasingly aggressive and your health can slide away in the blink of an eye.

While plenty of games offer deep levels of customization, Freedom Wars finds the means to encourage a deeper investment in these features. Whether sitting in your prison cell, or walking around the Panopticon while your assistant continually reminds you that social interactions aren’t productive, the game creates a believable air of oppression that makes character interactions and personal customization feel more rewarding than other titles with similar mechanics.

Really feeling the restrictions of imprisonment in a world stripping me of identity gave me more incentive to explore every opportunity to express sparks of individuality and encouraged me to grind and contribute.

Personality also goes a long way, and the narrative play made here to encourage an investment in the deep but familiar customization options does pay off and allows Freedom Wars to become something of a bright spark on the Vita despite some hiccups – reinvigorating the familiar with fresh purpose. The controls work well enough to survive the war and revel in the presentation, but also left me feeling that I’ll never be quite as good at battling as I’d like to while splitting my focus between frantic moments of combat and resetting my camera view to gain a fresh lock on strike.

The flaws here feel familiar to other games in this vein, and while the atmosphere might lessen the wear of repetitious grinding, the level of play the controls reach for sometimes hit a wall on the Vita and create a daunting task trying to avoid large enemies while swiveling the camera to keep an eye on every element at play. However, frustration gives way to how much action the game allows players to take during battles and the battle options open to players, at times coming very close to creating gameplay that reaches for the style of combat seen in Attack on Titan – all while mobile to boot.

Although, my willingness to grind, participate, and contribute, could be a worrisome sign that the Panopticon’s system of indoctrination and behavioral rewards have worked too well on me.

Freedom Wars

Developer
SCE Japan Studio, Shift, Dimps

Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment

System
PlayStation Vita, PlayStation TV

Modes
Singleplayer, Multiplayer

Release Date
October 28, 2014

*A copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review