Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Kerberos Productions
System requirements: Windows Vista/XP, Core2Duo or better CPU, 512 MB graphics card with DirectX 10 support, DirectX 10 (February 2011 or newer), 2 GB RAM, Vista-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Fans of 4X games spent last summer waiting in anticipation for the release of Kerberos’s Sword of the Stars II. Given the excellence of the previous installment in the series and its expansions, expectations were high as trailers were released and the developers teased their fans with tidbits about the game. After wrestling with it for hours on end, it’s clear that SOTS II doesn’t live up to the hype. In fact, it doesn’t even live up to the basic promises to be expected of any game that had an original release price of $39.95.

SOTS II, in the tradition of the series, includes basic 4X gameplay. You still explore planets and systems, build your empire, negotiate and fight with other civilizations, and ultimately try to dominate the galaxy. Ship building, planetary development/colonization and maintaining trade are the norm for most civilizations. Like its predecessor, SOTS II gives each race its own unique method of faster-than-light travel, meaning that building a Hiver empire is, by definition, a very different experience than building a Liir empire.

The sequel also takes a page from the original and implements the randomized tech-tree that worked so well in the past. While most civilizations have potential access to most technologies, you can never be sure from game to game what exact technological possibilities exist. In addition to researching new things, players also conduct feasibility studies to determine what potentially profitable research paths are available. Even if you play the same species three times in a row, you might end up developing differently each time, thanks to how the tech-tree works out for you. It was a feature that worked so well in the original, Kerberos wisely kept it with only minor tweaks with some new research possibilities, such as the feasibility studies.

Planets and governments are now much more important than they were in the original game. The actions you take with regards to your empire’s domestic and foreign policy can impact the morale of your citizens on individual planets, but it also changes they way your government functions. There are several potential government types you can assume based on your actions, everything from anarchism to military juntas. Instead of forcing you to accept a certain play style for a specific race or scenario, you can adopt a natural evolution of domestic politics based on your choices in the game. Crushing minor races or making your space habitats friendlier to other species all impact your government type and the benefits it provides.

Before I go any further and begin pointing out the game’s many flaws, I must be honest and indicate that I specifically put off reviewing this game for a number of weeks because of the troubled release that SOTS II had last October. I normally wouldn’t do such a thing, but the release version of the game was so bad it was unplayable. There’s a reason why refunds were offered for those who purchased the game, even through Steam. As such, telling you that the game was in what appeared to be an early beta state two days after release wouldn’t have told you anything you didn’t already know. Now, months after release, the game has been patched several times, and it’s still plagued with problems. I don’t mean that you notice bugs if you play it for a few hours. There are so many problems that even as I write this, I’m not totally sure whether some issues are bugs or features. For example, when starting a new game, you select a map. The interface has buttons for increasing or decreasing the number of players, the number of starting planets, and the number of starting technologies. Currently, no map seems to support changing these values. Is that a bug or a poorly implemented feature? I can send Hiver ships on missions to plant a teleport gate in a new star system to enable colonization and exploration. But the fleet I send just builds the gate and then teleports home without doing anything else. I can’t find a way to force the fleet to stay in place and conduct other missions, which wastes valuable game turns and jump gate capacity because I have to resend the ships to the unexplored star system to conduct survey missions. Bug or feature? There is a button on the new game interface labeled “Scenarios,” just like the original game, but pressing it does nothing. Bug or missing feature? Even in terms of the game’s main menu, something is amiss. For the past four months there has been a greyed-out cinematics button on the interface. Bug or missing feature? Considering how important narrative is to this franchise, I’m surprised that nothing has been done to correct this issue one way or another.

These issues are just the tip of the iceberg. These kinds of problems have induced some players to complain that the original release of SOTS II was more or less a beta copy of the game. They are, in fact, wrong. I’ve done beta testing, and the inability of the opening menu to register mouse-clicks properly, as was the case during the first few patches, isn’t even beta-quality work. The only reason I’m not angry with Kerberos is that they have publicly apologized, and they did the right thing in offering refunds. We’ll probably never know what happened with the release of SOTS II, but it wasn’t worth the purchase price on release day and people who pre-ordered it were right to be angry. And as of now, it still isn’t worth buying because it still appears to have all kinds of problems. I’m very disappointed in Sword of the Stars II, and I can’t recommend that anyone pay the $39.95, even in its present condition. If you want a good 4X strategy game, go buy the original SOTS instead.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments

Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: InterWave Studios
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.6.7, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or better CPU, 2 GB memory, 6 GB hard-drive space, 128 MB DirectX 9-compatible graphics card with Shader 2.0b support, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device
Genre: FPS/RTS
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

My PC brethren, turn in your hymnals to #1337, and sing along with me: “Mods are good, mods are great, mods are things we appreciate.” Some of your favorite games started out as mods, and the others were undoubtedly influenced by them. Indie developer InterWave has been in the Source mod scene for a while now. Both Stargate: Last Stand and Insurgency (which is quite nice) are notches on their collective belts. Tossing the budget-o-meter up from “freebie” to “costs money,” they’ve cranked out the generic-titled Nuclear Dawn, which proclaims to offer a “full FPS and RTS experience within a single gameplay model, without crippling or diluting either side of the game.” Featuring six maps and 32-player matches, Nuclear Dawn isn’t just a funny pun on my mother-in-law’s name. It’s the best multiplayer FPS that you should be playing right now.

On the FPS side, Nuclear Dawn features four classes, each with different loadouts. Each class is marked by its own activated ability. The Exo can go into lockdown mode, turning into a living chaingun turret. This is countered by the Stealth, who can use (gasp!) stealth to run around and stab said Exos, who in turn are countered again by Soldiers and their stealth-detecting thermal goggles. Meanwhile, the Support class decides to stay out of it and tosses medkits, repairs buildings, or barbeques everyone. All classes are bolstered with the gradual unlocking of attachments. The unlocks simply add tactical versatility instead of greater power. If you’re a skilled player, you can top scoreboards regardless of rank.

Yet, this old formula gets really interesting when you have two commanders playing the game like an RTS against each other. Now you have to capture and hold resource nodes so your leader can build, using a deep tech-tree to unlock goodies or drop turrets on the field. Forward spawn points, fueled by a network of power relays, let the battle change momentum in ways that static control points never do, as you push forward to knock down the enemy’s command bunker.

The RTS/FPS crossbreed makes for some truly engaging team play. Even as a foot soldier, you’re engaged in the macro-level strategy. Defending critical power stations or sneaking behind lines to swipe a secondary resource node, you’re constantly aware how your actions affect the battle. Ideally, the players and commander work together to reach goals, each informing the other as situations arise. However, we all know that things never go quite like that, and mutinies are remarkably common. Pub games can be rough on commanders, but on a good server, the experience is unmatched.

Even though its built on the latest Left 4 Dead 2 build of Source, Valve’s venerable engine is certainly showing its age. If you want flashy graphics that use all eight cores of your rig, this isn’t your game. Nuclear doesn’t have much, but what it does have it uses very well. The maps are not only well constructed, but each also has its own feel. Pre-war ads flicker across urban walls, adding the right splashes of color. The floating HUD isn’t just functional, but pretty spiffy to boot.

There are many multiplayer shooters that compete for your time and your wallet, and InterWave has made sure to make more than just another copycat. While many of Nuclear Dawn‘s features, such as squads and unlocks, are borrowed from larger games, its soul is all-original. The RTS/FPS hybrid concept isn’t a gimmick, it’s a huge feature that makes the game stand out in a crowded field of look-a-likes. For $20, you get far more bang-per-buck out of it than most AAA games give you.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments

Publisher: Zachtronic Industries
Developer: Zachtronic Industries
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.5.8 (Leopard), 2.0 GHz CPU, graphics card with frame buffer support, 1 GB RAM, 300 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

SpaceChem doesn’t seem to have a lot going for it. It’s a simple-looking 2D game about programming machines to build molecules. Yet, under this unassuming surface lies a game of such seething excitement that it’ll have you shouting and yelling more than when you play an FPS. I myself spoke such dark utterances that Khorne himself shivered. How can a science-themed puzzle game go so right?

As the title correctly suggests, SpaceChem does indeed involve chemistry in space. As a Reactor Engineer for a leading chemical synthesizer, it’s your job to take base elements and construct them into usable ones. Your reactor has two mechanisms, lovingly called “waldos,” which you program by dropping clearly-labeled instructions into the reactor. The entire process is demonstrated through a series of tutorial missions that teach you the techniques, step by step.

When you think you’ve got the basics down, the game starts layering upon itself like an insane Escher Sonata. Suddenly you have to manage entire pipelines of factories, some with limited functionality. When you’ve got that down, then you get inputs that provide variable atoms, forcing you to add if-then statements into your machines. Then there’s the occasional timed boss battle, just to make sure you’re still breathing.

Like the enshrined Portal, SpaceChem does a wonderful job of slowly layering mechanics, leading you to complex solutions without explicitly giving away the answer. After completing a level, it shows you where you fit in the bell curve of players. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself replaying missions again and again, trying to find ever more efficient solutions each time.

The soundtrack in particular deserves special praise. There’s something about Evan Le Ny’s soaring orchestral music that adds an element of urgent danger. The fact that it provides something of an immersive atmosphere is nothing short of astonishing.

Space Chem hits that gooey sweet spot in the center of your analytical cortex and explodes into a thousand splinters. Every new puzzle looks more impossible then the last, yet finally clicks with such immense satisfaction your roommates might rat you out to the narcs. Once you’ve finished all 50 levels, gnawed at the expansion pack and its “quantum junction” addition, there’s also a sandbox mode that lets your creative beast free from corporate restraints. SpaceChem is more than just a Gainful Employment Simulator for out-of-work post-grads. It’s the best piece of brain candy for those of an analytical bent to come along in a long time.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, 256 MB graphics card, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 8.1-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

There was a time when some part of creator Dick Wolf’s ubiquitous Law and Order TV franchise was on the tube almost every day in the US. Some didn’t last long (Crime and Punishment, Trial by Jury, Law and Order: Los Angeles), while the parent show became one of the longest-running scripted shows in American TV history. These days, only Special Victims Unit remains, but now Wolf and NBC/Universal are pushing the franchise into new frontiers with the help of game developer Telltale.

Law and Order: Legacies is a series of seven episodes based on the original show, featuring characters from all of the major periods of its run (plus one character from SVU to give younger players someone to recognize). Several of the characters are so old that the actors who played them have since passed away (Steven Hill as prickly DA Adam Schiff, and most notably, Jerry Orbach, who played the now-beloved detective Lennie Briscow). In fact, Briscow is a major part of the game; one of his old cases forms a thread that connects all six of the game’s episodes. In the first three, the Law half of the show features detectives Rey Curtis, Mike Logan and Olivia Benson (from SVU), while the Order half includes attorneys Mike Cutter, Abbie Carmichael and Jack McCoy (if these names are unfamiliar, don’t fret; the beauty of the show is that the characters have next-to-no backstories, so you don’t really have to know who they are to understand what’s going on).

Just like the show, each episode of the game is played in two parts. In the first, you play the detectives as they examine evidence, conduct interviews and make an arrest. In the second, you become a DA and try the case in court. You select dialogue options from a pop-up menu. Occasionally you’re asked whether or not to believe the things the suspects are telling you, using information that has been previously introduced to back up your claims (a running transcript of the dialogue is available to refresh your memory). Choosing correctly earns you stars, which raise your rank as a detective or sway the jury your way as an attorney. Additionally, in the detective phase you complete hidden-object minigames to locate physical evidence, and in the court phase you can choose to plea bargain or take the case to the jury, depending upon how your case stands with them. You also get a primer in courtroom procedure; you must occasionally make objections, and you have to pick the correct objection (text boxes describe each of the available objections and when to use them). Stories include a cellphone hacking case that leads to murder, a cockfighting suspect killed by his own animal, and a serial killer targeting prostitutes.

Legacies tries its best to give you the full Law and Order experience. You get the narrator, the teaser that ends with a line of darkly ironic dialogue, the credit sequence (complete with Mike Post’s iconic theme music). You even get the trademark “thunk thunk” sound effect. But once the story actually begins, you need to pay attention. Every off-hand statement made by a suspect can become important as you try to catch them in lies, and the more of them you catch, the more likely it is that the perp will be shipped off to Rikers, never to be seen again. The characters are modeled fairly well in that fans of the show will recognize who they are, although the animators took a few pounds and a few inches in height from Benson, made Schiff quite a bit younger and Curtis a bit older than their actor counterparts. And the writers seem to have a love for Briscow, since his is by far the best dialogue in the game. Of the two sections, the court sequences are much more engaging. You’re given more to do and you have to apply yourself much more than you do when playing the cops. Decisions you make in court can significantly alter how the case is eventually resolved.

From an artistic standpoint, however, Legacies is a disappointment. The graphics are primitive and low-rez at best, mostly owing to the extreme age of the Telltale Tool, the developer’s decade-old graphics engine. None of the original actors appear on the voice tracks, which is troubling; it’s understandable in the case of Orbach and Hill, and you’re not likely to hear pricey talent such as Benjamin Bratt (Curtis) or Angie Harmon (Carmichael) in a videogame, but it would’ve been good to hear at least one familiar voice (other than the narrator, of course). The find-the-evidence minigames can be frustrating, since certain items are buried under other items and you get a limited number of guesses before your detective rating goes down. And the interrogation sections are straight out of LA Noire, but not nearly as high-tech; making mistakes means practically nothing when playing as the cops, but it can cost you a conviction in the courtroom.

I’ve been a fan of the Law and Order franchise ever since the first show debuted in 1990, and I have to admit I smiled profusely when the title card appeared and I heard “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups…”. And the first case on the docket had a twist that genuinely caught me napping. But the other two cases lack that extra creativity, leaving us with an occasionally tedious procedural that only piques our interest once we get off the streets and into court. Combine that with the ancient tech upon which the game is built and you get something that only the hardest of the TV hardcore (or budding trial attorneys) could really love. But there are four episodes left; maybe the best is yet to come.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Developer: Rocksteady
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.4 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon X2 4800 or better CPU, GeForce 8800GT/ATI 3850 HD or better graphics card, 2 GB RAM, 17 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Developers take their careers in their own hands when they set out to make a superhero game. If they want the legions of comic-book fanboys to give their game their seal of approval, it has to be almost perfect. All of the canonical i’s have to be dotted and the t’s have to be crossed, over and above the things that the rest of the gaming public want to see (good story, great graphics, etc). Rocksteady accomplished this with Batman: Arkham Asylum back in 2010. Now they’re trying to make lightning strike twice in the same place with the sprawling action/adventure Batman: Arkham City. In most ways, they’ve succeeded. In some others, not so much.

Since the conclusion of Asylum, Gotham City leadership decided to adopt the Escape From New York theory of criminal rehabilitation: they built a wall around a large section of the city and turned all of their criminals loose inside to fend for themselves, under the watchful eye of prison administrator Hugo Strange and his private security army. For some reason, billionaire playboy/industrialist Bruce Wayne has been arrested and sent to Arkham City. After a hearty welcome from his fellow inmates, Wayne finds his way to a waiting storage container, dons the iconic batsuit and begins his search for Strange, who can be heard periodically counting down to something called Protocol 10. But before the search can begin in earnest, Bats has to come to the aid of his old pal Catwoman, who’s suspended over a vat of acid by a group of thugs.

From this point, you have the run of the city. You can go anywhere, do practically anything (except escape to the outside world). You’ll run into some of your favorite DC villains, and even help some of them (Mr. Freeze is pining for his kidnapped wife, so you try to find her in exchange for his scientific expertise). Of course, no Batman game would be complete without his primary adversary, the Joker, and the Riddler has scattered 440 (!) glowing question marks throughout the city for you to collect. And from time to time, you leave Batty behind and guide Catwoman through a side story of her own.

Artistically, very few games can hold a batsignal to Arkham City. The art direction is stunningly beautiful and amazingly detailed, from the views atop the various structures to the unkempt squalor of the city streets. Combat is almost completely melee-based (Batman has an aversion to firearms), and the fight animations are the smoothest you’ll find in any game; I’ve never been good at hand-to-hand fighting, and even I managed to learn to use the dozens of unlockable combat abilities and takedown moves (not to mention those wonderful toys). The open-world concept is similar to the one found in inFamous. Side quests become available as you travel around the city. You can choose to ignore all of them and stick to the story quests, but you’d be missing some of the most interesting parts of the game. But if you do choose to speed through the main story, you can go back and do the side quests after you complete the final boss battle (and watch the 21 minutes of closing credits). Actually, there is a veritable mountain of content in this game, including the challenge modes that you unlock as you progress. Nick Arundel and Ron Fish’s soundtrack is sufficiently brassy and effective, with more than a few Danny Elfman influences present. And let’s not forget the outstanding voice work (once again) by Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker (somewhat underused this time but still entertaining), and “It’s that voice guy again” Nolan North as the Penguin. Also, fans of the TV show Castle might recognize the sultry tones of Stana Katic as Talia al Ghul.

Unfortunately, with all of this freedom to explore there are bound to be a few hiccups here and there. The most annoying of these is the constantly respawning enemies. Those of you who’ve played Far Cry 2 will recall wiping out all of the baddies at a remote crossroads, only to come back five minutes later and have to fight all of them again. So it is with Arkham City. You can choose not to fight (being able to reach a rooftop in seconds is a big advantage that you don’t have in Far Cry 2), but there are times when engaging multiple times is unavoidable. The Riddler trophies are much more difficult to grab in City than they are at the Asylum. Some of them are inaccessible unless you’re far enough into the game to unlock particular gadgets. But more troubling than how tough they are to acquire is that you are required to grab all 400 of the Batman-targeted trophies to complete one of the side quests (the other 40 trophies can only be picked up by Catwoman). The issue of collectables has been a touchy one with me. There are tons of them in the Uncharted games, but you don’t lose anything by not finding them. The blast shards in inFamous at least add strength to your character. But to close off one of the Arkham City side quests to those who don’t want to scour the city for green question marks strikes me as ill-advised. All this does is artificially lengthen the game, to the point where I got tired of swinging from building to building like Spider-Man, searching for a trophy that I can’t get because I don’t have the right gadget. Oh, and about that chalk outline on the ground where Bruce Wayne’s parents died. After all these years, you’d think it might’ve faded a bit by now…

In 2010, Rocksteady made a pie that everyone loved to eat from the first slice. So, they figured that it would be great to bake a bigger pie, so folks would eat that much more of it. And we gobbled it up just as they planned, and so we should. Batman: Arkham City is an unparalleled artistic achievement, with great melee combat, an interesting (though wandering) story and lots of gameplay options. But it really is possible to have too much of a good thing, which is why Arkham Asylum will always be the better game. Sometimes just a slice is better than the whole thing.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments

Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Reverie World Studios
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV or AMD CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB Vista), 1 GB hard-drive space, 256 MB GeForce 7600 graphics card or equivalent, DirectX 9.0-compatible sound card, Internet connection
Genre: RTS/MMO
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Review by Mindy Hartman

Those darn elves, orcs and humans are at it again: building cities, competing for resources and just plain refusing to get along. Dawn of Fantasy was released a little more than three months ago by developer Reverie World Studios as their first released game. Publisher 505 Games looks like they’re trying to branch out with this publication too, as their bread and butter seems to be cutesy animal games for the DS.

Dawn of Fantasy is a standard real-time strategy game that allows players to select their race (human, orc or elf), build up their nation in the realm of Mythador and try to conquer everything surrounding them. Once you select a race, you must choose two starting attributes from a fairly staggering list; your choices determine your starting bonuses and penalties on everything from camp setup price reduction to increased gathering or production abilities. Upon entering your world, a booming voice introduces you to the scenery and your primary task giver. At this point, the world is yours, and building and questing are up to you.

Gameplay is solo; you accept quests, gather resources (food, wood, gold and stone), and conquer nearby baddies such as trolls and goblins. Construction and gathering is done in real time. For example, building a barn really takes half an hour; an archery range takes two and a half hours. While the game has an MMO tag, the MMO aspects of conquering other players’ cities isn’t any different than conquering an AI city in solo play. There’s no aligning with other cities to meet bigger objectives, and conquering another player’s city doesn’t grant you access to the other city or wipe them off the map.

According to Reverie, Dawn of Fantasy has been in the works for 10 years. The game looks and sounds like it was programmed 10 years ago and then sat on a shelf until its recent release. The feel of the game is ancient, too. There appears to be some detail in the graphics, but you can’t zoom in or out enough to take in the big picture (up close or on a grand scale). Dawn suffers in looks, sound and general feel, and it’s been patched 30 times in the last three months. That’s a patch every three days!

As far as actual gameplay goes, there’s not much to rave about here either. There’s no tutorial or easy-to-access game manual to give you hints about what to do. If this is your first RTS, you’re going to be severely turned off from the genre because this game isn’t intuitive enough to get away with skipping a tutorial mode. And real-time building and gathering is a serious problem. Who wants to spend hours waiting for construction of new buildings or weapons? I know I don’t.

I tend to be a pretty positive person. I look for the silver lining in just about every situation. However, I just can’t seem to find anything shiny about Dawn of Fantasy. Nothing is ever going to make me want to wait through its patch and load times again.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac OS 10.6, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU (2.0 GHz for Mac), 2 GB RAM, 256 MB graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 8.1-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Written by: Michael Smith

For years, game designers have been trying to merge cinematic storytelling with interactive gameplay. Developer Telltale, known mostly for comic point-and-click adventures such as the Sam and Max and Wallace and Gromit series, goes darker and more adult with Jurassic Park, their harrowing and occasionally infuriating attempt to reach gaming immersion nirvana.

Jurassic Park takes place after the events of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster film. Isla Nublar, an island off the coast of Costa Rica, is mostly deserted, save for a few human workers and all of the dinosaurs created by eccentric InGen CEO John Hammond. A young mercenary and her weaselly employer sneak past the security fences in search of a canister containing dinosaur embryos, which they plan to sell when they return to the mainland. Meanwhile, the island’s chief veterinarian is showing off the island’s genetically engineered wonders to his rebellious teenage daughter. On their way to the boat to leave the island, they almost run over the mercenary, who’s been severely injured by a dino. During the next eight hours or so, it’s your task to guide these people safely through the jungles and tunnels of the abandoned theme park to the docks to an awaiting escape boat.

Remember the classic arcade quarter-swallower Dragon’s Lair, in which you had to respond with precisely timed joystick movements to continue from scene to scene? This is basically what you get with Jurassic Park. You don’t move any of the characters from place to place. Instead, you respond to icon prompts as each scene progresses. These prompts have you pressing your arrow or WASD keys, moving a dot to match a floating target with your mouse, and clicking on magnifying glass icons to examine items in the background. Unlike Telltale’s previous games, your characters can die in JP, and they frequently will (the designers even rub your face in it a bit by telling you how many times you’ve died in each scenario). You receive ratings (gold, silver or bronze) based on how many times it takes to complete each scene.

Telltale has once again built their new game using the Telltale Tool, an almost decade-old engine that’s really showing its age. However, the artists have managed to coax some very lovely graphics out of the old tech. The color palette is deeper and much more interesting than most of their other games, and the level of detail in the dinosaurs and the island itself is impressive. Also of note is the pace. There are times when there’s considerably too much exposition, but for the most part, you can’t afford to take your hand off of the keyboard and mouse, lest you miss an icon prompt and end up dinoburgers. In fact, there is some serious tension in the story in spots, sold fairly well by the voice actors.

But in an attempt to keep the story going and the player invested, Telltale has turned the mildly annoying Quick Time Event (QTE) into a source of uncontrolled frustration. There are many times when the prompts disappear much too fast, not giving you enough time to see them and react accordingly. The game makes it easier for you by decreasing the number of QTEs in a sequence after you fail enough times, and autosaves are frequent enough that you won’t be stuck at one place for very long, but there were many times when I felt lucky that my mouse is corded; a wireless one might’ve ended up buried in my monitor. Aside from the QTE problem, the story can get bogged down in extraneous conversations, even in the middle of puzzles. Telltale games are notorious for their tricky puzzles, but they’ve been all but jettisoned them from JP; there are only three of them (one in each of the last three episodes). None of them are particularly puzzling if you pay attention, but one of them is tough to solve without drawing yourself a diagram, so have pen and paper ready. Also worrying is the lack of manual saves, even on the main menu. If you leave the game and come back, you restart not at the nearest autosave, but at the beginning of the current scenario. But if you can’t stand to leave without getting gold ratings on all of the scenes, you can replay any of them from the menu.

It’s good to see Telltale start to branch out into more mature subject matter (they have a game based on the Walking Dead cable TV series in the works). But their tech is going to have to evolve past the trusty point-and-click interface that has served them so well in the past. There are some undeniably handsome visuals and some very involving storytelling in Jurassic Park, but the out-of-date engine and the game’s total reliance on QTEs make it hard to recommend for anyone except the most patient and level-headed of gamers. On the bright side, you get all four episodes (clocking in at about two hours each) for a reasonable price ($30); not a bad deal as long as you can keep your blood pressure in check.

Our Score:
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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments

Publisher: Nicolas Entertainment Group
Developer: Intoxicate Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Intel Core2Duo/AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better CPU, 256 MB graphics card with Shader 3.0 support, 2 GB RAM (Windows XP)/3 GB RAM (Vista/Win 7), DirectX 9.0c
Genre: Third-person shooter
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now
Written by: Michael Smith

It looks like we’re not gonna survive December 2012 no matter what we do. If the end of the Mayan calendar doesn’t get us on 12/21/2012, then the accidental detonation of a fusion bomb on the same date will surely put most of us toes-up, according to indie developer Intoxicate Studios’ debut shooter, Afterfall: InSanity. This post-apocalyptic mashup of several FPS classics has high ambitions, but falls just short of delivering on its promises.

The world went to hell on Day Zero. Fortunately, Poland’s leaders saw it coming a decade earlier and constructed a series of underground habitats to protect its citizens from the devastation. Twenty-three years after the end of days, psychiatrist Albert Tokaj and two soldiers are sent on a mission to the dark and dangerous lower levels of Shelter Glory to locate missing colonists who are feared to have contracted Confinement Syndrome, an extreme version of cabin fever, which turns its victims insane or worse. This journey leads Dr. Tokaj to make some shattering discoveries about the shelter and the world outside of it.

Afterfall: InSanity can be exasperating for those who’ve played lots of shooters. You can carry three weapons: a pistol, a rifle/shotgun and a melee weapon. But there’s a catch — you are forced to drop your melee weapon when you switch to either of your firearms; apparently there’s no place to store your trusty fireaxe, even though there’s a place for your sawed-off. You start out with a tranquilizer gun, but soon you discover that the shelter is a vast repository of pipes, electric cattle prods, improvised maces and other weapons of personal destruction. Ammo is available but not very plentiful, but once you get the hang of the melee combat system, you might not use the boomsticks very often; I didn’t need to fire very many projectile weapons until the last few chapters of the story. Controls are the standard WASD and mouse, although there is no jumping, taking cover or crouching. And items you can use or acquire are easy to find; a large tool tip appears on each one of them as you approach.

The game begins in the sterile corridors of the shelter; lots of white walls and nothing much of any interest to see. As Dr. Tokaj goes deeper into the bunker, the visuals get more menacing and much more atmospheric. But Intoxicate gets the most out of their Unreal Engine 3 license with the outdoor levels, in which the utter devastation of the decades-old nuclear catastrophe is effectively seen. Gameplay-wise, the pace is fast and unfettered by secrets to find or trophies to uncover, so you always know where you’re going and why you’re going there. Some of the enemies you find are smart enough to not come at you in a straight line, especially near the end, when you come up against the game’s version of the Serious Sam screaming suicide bombers. And the story contains a number of interesting twists and turns that make you want to keep going, just to see how it all turns out.

But like many games, it’s the little things that are Afterfall‘s undoing. It starts with the install itself: I found that the game won’t start unless you’ve installed it on the same hard drive that contains your operating system. This forced me to uninstall it from an external drive (my root drive didn’t have enough available space) and install on my second internal drive; if I didn’t have a dual-boot PC I would’ve never been able to play. There are quite a few really bad typos, even on the opening menus, although that could be the result of localization from the original Polish; text that appears on in-game monitors all displays in the native tongue, and the English voice acting is universally bad. The chapters set in the lower levels of the shelter have attributes obviously lifted from the Doom 3 playbook, including an old favorite — monster closets. As for your playable character, Dr. Tokaj is the psychiatrist equivalent of physicist Gordon Freeman. But even without Gordo’s handy hazard suit, Tokaj somehow manages to keep himself alive; he soaks up a huge amount of damage (at least when you play at normal difficulty), he curb stomps like a Gears of War Cog, and he bulks up from scrawny doc to muscle-bound space marine before the final act. In fact, villains are so in awe of the nasty shrink that they stand back and watch as he turns their comrades’ heads into face pizza. Story progression is perhaps the most linear I’ve seen in a long time; it’s like the developers are herding you through a six-hour cattle chute, with no backtracking and no distractions. You lose your weapons numerous times during the journey, for no apparent reason (thankfully, there are always plenty lying around to acquire). Your character’s PDA is not very useful. It contains information about the various characters and objects and a list of your objectives, but I only accessed it when I had to hack locked doors, and I didn’t use it at all in the last third of the campaign. And the boss battles are underwhelming to say the least.

The end-of-the-world scenario is my favorite plot, both in games and movies, so Afterfall: InSanity hits me right where I live. It gets more and more interesting to watch and play as the story progresses, the pace is brisk and there’s just enough meat on the game’s bones to keep you satisfied until the twisty ending. There are way too many little things wrong to rank it among the better indie shooters, but this is the first entry in a promised series, so hopefully Intoxicate will get the bugs hammered out in the sequel.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

Manufacturer: RedMere
Written by: Ethan Nixon

RedMere sent me two HDMI cables to review, and I was a little taken aback with the request, since I have never reviewed an HDMI cable before. The company RedMere makes the individual chips that lay inside most company’s thin HDMI cables, like Monster and Vizio. Naturally, they sent me an ultra-thin HDMI cable, one HDMI-to-HDMI and another Mini HDMI-to-HDMI.

I don’t have a room full of sophisticated home theater equipment, but I know two places that do: Best Buy and my friend’s house. First stop was Best Buy, since I used to work there. I walked right in to the Magnolia department, plugged the HDMI-to-HDMI ultra-thin cable from a Samsung BD6700 to a 55D8000. The picture quality was just as good as the sub-$300 cable they were using, but three times as thin, and twice as long. Next, I popped in Resident Evil: Afterlife, to test the 3D capabilities. I was actually surprised to see no trouble at all, and watched about 5-10 minutes of it.

Next stop was my buddy’s house. He owns a Panasonic 58VT25, in my opinion one of the best TVs you could buy last year. He also has a Denon AVR4810 receiver with some fantastic Definitive Technology speakers; overall about a $10k room. Regardless, I marched in with my two ultra-thin cables to test the quality on his TV and receiver. Once again, the HDMI-to-HDMI was just as good as the expensive cables he was using, but allowed me to route the cable through his furniture much easier than their stiff cables. He was a bit upset to see how much cleaner his setup could be with these cables.

I didn’t have anything that directly took a Mini HDMI cable, so I borrowed my friend’s Asus Transformer tablet. Fortunately he had a full 1080p movie loaded up to test, which was Sucker Punch. It was encoded in an MKV container, and played with Dice (paid app). Just like the full-sized HDMI cable, the Mini HDMI proved to be just as good. Unfortunately I didn’t have any 3D devices to test the cable with, but the specifications are the same as the full HDMI cable, and that one had no issues supporting 3D.

Honestly, I had low expectations for these cables, since they were so thin. Most HDMI cables are bulky, stiff, and quite awkward to work with. These ultra-thin cables make cable management a dream. Routing them through furniture, around equipment, and taping them to walls proved to be an easy task with the flexibility of the cables.

Overall, the cables were fantastic. I will never look at a full-sized HDMI cable again, because there is no gain. Sure, you may pay a little more for the ultra-thin ones, but it’s money well worth it, especially since the HDMI standard will be around for a while. The cables, being 1.4a, will support 3D and 4K playback for future scalability. I just wish there were ultra-thin cables like these for DVI, VGA, and Ethernet, so my computer setup can share the awesomeness of cable management!

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

Manufacturer: Raptor-Gaming
MSRP: 34.99

The Raptor-Gaming LK-1 is a gaming keyboard produced, appropriately enough, by Raptor-Gaming. Their slogan is “Ultimate game devices designed by gamers for gamers…sooner or later, we get u!” The unit advertises itself as a high-end gaming keyboard, designed to avoid signal loss from multiple simultaneous keystrokes and built with a water-resistant frame. This keyboard aims to make itself part of your gaming arsenal.

The keyboard utilizes standard WASD configuration and has no extra function keys (none of that annoying “control pointless Windows features from dedicated hotkeys” nonsense). It plugs into any USB port via a lengthy nylon cord. That’s right, the cord is not encased in cheap plastic, but in a kind of nylon fiber that moves easily and is resistant to animals chewing on it. It is long enough that you can sit across the living room from the desktop, and it bends so freely that you almost don’t notice it is there.

To test its claims of performance, I ran about 120 hours of Skyrim on this keyboard. I have no real complaints. It seems to never lose a keystroke, even when pressing half a dozen keys at one time. What I did not test was its claims regarding water resistance. I was unable to test this because I wasn’t entirely sure what water resistant means in this context. Can I spill a drink on it? Drip some condensation on it? Sneeze on it? Since my goal was not to completely destroy the unit they sent me, I didn’t go the distance. I figure that water resistant doesn’t mean “submerge in bathtub while playing Skyrim,” so in lieu of a fair test, I will just accept on its face that it is water resistant, and I will tell everyone that you should still avoid flinging your drinks around the computer desk in a fit of anger.

While it is not personally my favorite keyboard, it isn’t a bad one, either. The catch is the price. This keyboard is priced at $34.99 at Amazon. Depending on your budget and preferences, there are other keyboards with similar features for better prices available even from big box retailers, to say nothing of looking for nice deals online. So, if this price works for you based on your location and available deals, go for it. But expert bargain hunters and the truly hardcore gamers who want a billion extra features on their input devices should probably look elsewhere.

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© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

Publisher: Muzzy lane
Developer: Muzzy Lane
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7 (Also available on Mac), 3.0 GHz Pentium IV or greater, 256 MB graphics card, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Written by: Ian Davis

You’re something of a nerd. When asked what you read, you say “history.” What upset you about the movie Valkyrie wasn’t Tom Cruise, but the liberties taken with the actual facts. You regularly brag that were you Stalin (as you wiggle your thick mustache), you would have made a pre-war land-grab for Africa. Muzzy Lane Software understands you, unlike your so-called “friends”. “We know of your desires,” Muzzy whispers softly in your ear. “We know you yearn for more than just a wargame, but a mature, full-featured simulator of the mid-20th century.” Muzzy slips a disc from its coat and slyly passes it to you. It’s labeled Making History II: The War of the World. A shiver runs through your body. Can it be?

You’re wary. You’ve been told about this Making History II before and you’re concerned about bugs and performance. Muzzy knows and cares. Nurtured from its pupate state, the motherly developers have woven a cocoon of patches around it. Six months later, it emerges; evolved into something unlike its original state. It is now a pinnacle of grand strategy, rippling with all the promise and depth inherent in the genre.

As expected of the genre, Making History II lets the player control any political entity around WWII, from the USSR down to Bhutan. Four scenarios are available, each in different stages of the war. From there, you’ll trade, build, develop and battle. The permutations of verbs placed before you too numerous to list. A complex web of decisions stands before you and your goal, whether it’s conquest or survival, empire or hegemony.

It works well, but with a few caveats. The economic side is far more developed than the military; the battles themselves being largely uninvolved affairs. Yet, all military units are represented by the same models, regardless of size, forcing you to rely on info boxes and tooltips instead of a simple visual. The interface often relies on arcane symbols where text would be much clearer. You’ll quickly memorize their meanings, but it’s a bump that could have easily been avoided.

Making History II tries to be as approachable as any grand strategy game can be. With mechanics that are patterned after global geo-political phenomena and scenarios that are not always “winnable” by easily quantifiable methods, the barrier to entry is understandable. Here, the simplifications (a relative term) are good things to those just entering the genre. The tutorial (posted online, not in game) does a good job of leading you along and showing you the basic components with which you’ll try to construct an empire. You’ll need more help, but the active community is more than happy to help you with their guides and FAQs spattered all over their message board. However, you will fail, quickly and often. Soon, you’ll fail more gradually, and you’ll count this as success.

MHII will scowl at you and demand that you peruse PDF manuals and message boards for hours during gameplay. Yet, for every standard Man Power Unit (MPU) you allocate to “Project: MH2”, you’ll be rewarded with two units of satisfaction. It stands as a bridge between more deep but obtuse titles and the easier, shallower ones. It won’t placate those raised on a diet of Sisyphean XP bars, but to the scholars and plotters among you, Making History II will eagerly stoke your slow-burning fires into world-consuming flames of conquest. Or peaceful Hegemony, if you wish.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Naughty Dog
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Nathan Drake, the man with the strongest fingertips in gaming, returns to close out his debut trilogy in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Developer Naughty Dog has thrown in everything save the kitchen sink: foot chases, car chases, scenes on horseback, puzzle solving, fast-paced combat sequences and lots of personal moments, all framed with gorgeous graphics and another evocative music score. It does more interesting things in 10 to 15 hours than half a dozen lesser games combined, yet somehow it also manages to be somewhat less fulfilling than its predecessor.

After all of the tomb raiding and outdoor adventuring that has gone before in this series, it’s surprising that Deception begins with a bar fight. Drake and his crusty sidekick Sully meet a dark-suited villain named Talbot, who is prepared to pay big money to buy Drake’s ring, a keepsake that ties Drake to 16th-century English seaman Sir Francis Drake. Things go pear-shaped and a classic movie-style bar brawl breaks out, after which they meet the big bad of the story, Katherine Marlowe, who will stop at nothing to acquire Drake’s ring. From here the story trots the globe, from France to Syria, Yemen and the Arabian Desert as Drake and company search for the lost treasure city of Ubar, the “Atlantis of the Sands.”

Gameplay in Deception is pretty much the same as in the previous games. You move through the world as Drake, usually accompanied by at least one NPC companion, all but one of whom you’ve met before in the series if you’ve played the other installments (newbies, have no fear; you won’t be lost if this is your first trip through Drake’s universe). Combat controls are the same as before, with the exception of the grenade mechanics. Tossing back grenades thrown at you has been made simpler, and tossing one of your own is as easy as tapping the left trigger, while holding it down generates an arc of trajectory, similar to the one found in the Gears of War games. There are also many opportunities for hand-to-hand combat, which is a combination of button-mashing and short QT events. Unlike many recent shooters, it’s possible for you to take a wrong step and plummet to your death, so you have to be careful where you walk or jump. For trophy hounds and completionists, there are 100 hidden objects to find in the world. Some you blunder into by accident, others can be identified by a slight glint of light in the background. Multiplayer includes six competitive and three co-op modes featuring up to 11 maps and as many as 10 players, and requires the now-dreaded Online Pass (a one-time-use code found inside the DVD case) for access.

Deception is the biggest, most diverse game in the series. From crawling around the dark ruins of the London underground, to chasing (and being chased by) villains through crowded streets, to chasing an armed convoy through the desert on horseback, there’s something fun to do at almost every turn. The graphics and sound are amazing once again, including the little touches that many developers overlook, such as the slow change in contrast when you move from bright daylight to shade. Difficulty-wise, the game is no cakewalk. Your shooter skills are well-tested, even at Normal difficulty level, and there are one or two devilishly tough fight scenes that should have most players frequently reloading a quicksave. Weapons and ammo drops are plentiful, yet you still could find yourself frequently going mano-a-mano with enemies (Drake fights dirty this time; lots of boots to the groin). Unlike other games such as Two Worlds 2 and Red Dead Redemption, Deception gets horseback controls right; just push the stick forward to ride. Enemy AI is very smart; villains frequently attempt to flank you and can move around in groups as well as alone, and some of them are bullet sponges, requiring you to figure out the most effective weapon to use on the various bad guys. Deception is also one of the growing number of AAA games that present an effective, involving story to go with the bloodletting, featuring well-acted and animated cutscenes that are just the right length to keep the plot moving without dragging down the pace (a la Metal Gear Solid 4). Nolan North, Richard McGonigle, Claudia Black and Emily Rose once again provide excellent voice-overs; it’s so much easier to care about these characters when they are brought to life so well. And composer Greg Edmonson has delivered yet another score that perfectly supports the action on screen.

Deception has lots of great things going for it. So why am I not totally fulfilled? Well, it could be the strangeness of some of the combat; if you’re surrounded by enemies with guns while you’re melee fighting, the guys with the firearms miss you most of the time, even from point-blank range. It could be the occasional loss of camera control at crucial times; there are several instances when you have to run towards a fixed camera without knowing what’s ahead of you. It could be the length of some of the scenes, making it tough to remember what your ultimate goal is (after a particularly lengthy sequence, Sully sits down and says, “I’m losin’ the plot here.” He wasn’t the only one). It could be the multiplayer graphics glitch that respawned my character inside solid objects, making me a sitting duck, or the lack of multiplayer matchmaking, which constantly puts newbies into the same matches with much more experienced players. And it could definitely be the very disappointing final fight scene; unfortunate that so much action and adventure ends with such an unimaginative climax.

Naughty Dog has wrapped up the Uncharted trilogy in a nice box and bow, just in time for the holidays. The story has all of the off-the-wall antics of an Indiana Jones movie, with a group of characters who make the outlandishness of the plot easy to ignore. The visual presentation is spectacular, the pace is excellent (unless you take time out to go treasure hunting, which can add quite a bit of time to your playthrough if you’re not careful), and the music is good enough that you might want to buy the soundtrack. There are some annoying little problems; there’s no such thing as a perfect game, after all, and Uncharted 2 is a more satisfying total product for my money. But even with its faults, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is still a quality game that anyone with a PS3 should hope to see under the tree this Christmas.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: PETA
Developer: PETA
System requirements: A browser and a keyboard
Genre: Poorly-crafted satire?
Release date: Available now

In a world where seemingly nothing is sacred, PETA has created and launched a new browser-based game called Super Tanooki Skin 2D. In the game, everyone’s favorite plumber is depicted as a bloody, fur-wearing murderer floating away from a freshly-skinned tanuki. Players control the tiny, hairless animal as he chases Mario down to get his fur back.

Super Tanooki Skin 2D is brought to you by PETA’s latest campaign, “Mario Kills Tanooki.” PETA suggests that the fancy suits Mario wears to save the princess are made from animal furs, and therefore he supports killing animals. I always thought the suits were just that… Suits created that look like the animals they emulate. You can’t tell me he is skinning person-sized frogs so he can swim underwater. And where are all the massive turtles? But I digress. This is a review and I shall review the game.

Super Tanooki Skin 2D is a side-scrolling platformer with a very basic control scheme. Pressing the space bar causes the skinned tanuki to jump over obstacles as he chases down Mario. That’s it. The game’s visuals and some of the sound effects will take you back to the SNES days of Mario, but the game’s main theme is forgettable. After a minute or so of jumping, the tanuki catches up with Mario, curses at him, and then takes his skin back. I found the jump controls to be a little unresponsive, though it could be the cheeseburger grease dripping onto my keyboard as I played it. The game also appears to lag whenever you jump, which is unfortunate, because jumping is all you can do.

In conclusion, the game is a miss. There is no depth, no replayability, and it isn’t any fun. I get what PETA is trying to do here, but I think the execution was lazy. It did, however, manage to get me to talk about the game, so mission accomplished, I guess.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments

Gaming is in an awkward transitional phase of its existence. Console systems are quickly reaching the peak of what they are capable of, Nintendo is going for broke playing a game of catch-up to Sony and Microsoft, and dedicated PC gamers are feeling the sting of console-focused developers. Up for grabs is the area of smartphone and tablet-based gaming. As our Internet usage on mobile devices begins to rival our usage on desktops, it’s becoming clearer that gaming on tablets and smartphones should be taken seriously. But being serious sounds boring right now, so let’s have some fun and check out three light hearted apps instead.

Civiballs

Civiballs, by Clickgamer, is one of the very few iOS games that I have completed. It’s a compelling puzzler that combines physics and perfect timing to direct colored balls into corresponding urn-like cups. The game has a boatload of levels that are set in either Roman, Viking or Inca-themed worlds. Each civilization has its own peculiar obstacles that stand between you and your destination.

For me, the most enjoyable part of this game was each level’s “a-ha” moment. This is the moment when, after trying to successfully time my breaking of the balls’ chains, I finally realize the correct order and timing required. Watching balls roll around the screen may not sound like the most enjoyable way to spend 15 minutes, but when your score is dependant on how fast you can complete the goals and how many stars you can collect in the process, the game becomes a puzzler fanatic’s dream.

If find yourself itching for a puzzler app, at 99 cents, Civiballs is one of the best in the app store. Pick it up and see if, like me, you couldn’t resist playing it whenever possible.

© Matthew Booth for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: November 11, 2011

In the early days of the Xbox 360, new adopters found one game to rule them all. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released in the Spring of 2006 (a scant six-months after that console heralded this new generation of game systems), and it proved to be one of those bridge titles that united the hardcore RPG elite with the mainstream. Western RPGs have always held court in the console space but unlike the welcoming PC world, they remained a modest, niche success. Since Oblivion’s successful release, big, brawny role playing games have slashed their way to the tops of sales charts. Since then, Fable, Mass Effect and the Fallout series inspiring more and more players to drag dungeons, slay dragons and journey there and back again. With news that the next iteration of consoles is being prepped by the Big Three for debut over the next few years, Bethesda’s latest Elder Scrolls release, Skyrim, makes for a nice bit of symmetry – potentially a fitting swan song.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim opens 200 years after the events in Oblivion. At the outset, players choose there gender and select from the ten available races utilizing the expected robust character creation toolset. In the early moments, the game is on rails as Bethesda hammers down the dramatic stakes. Amidst a crippling civil war that has rocked the Skyrim region, a new, dire threat has emerged. After centuries of slumber, fearsome dragons have returned to the world. With factions warring for control of Skyrim in the wake of the King’s assassination, this new development upsets the geographical and political landscape. War is hard enough to wage without the omnipresent fear of fiery death from above. Into the rising tempest, your character plunges. Soon he (or she) may emerge as an important cog in the machinations, as in the grand Elder Scrolls tradition, the choice is up to the player to decide whether to follow their destiny or simply ignore the main plot and live the hard life of Skyrim.

Skyrim builds off of the narrative drive established in Oblivion. While the Elder Scrolls series has always been known for its open-endedness, allowing players to explore the world and play the game in whatever way they choose, it was Oblivion that took large steps in implementing a compelling core plot without disrupting the persistent world around it. Story quests could be picked up and chased down at any point while players were free to wander off the beaten path should they find some shiny new obsession to hunt down along the fringes. Or, if a player was content to simply pick flowers and make potions for a living, that livelihood (among so many other options) was available to pursue as well. Both Oblivion’s quest and story scripting proved that Bethesda could organically plant an overall plot, one that the player helps shape, without taking anything away the feeling of freedom that set this franchise apart from its more linear counterparts.

While Skyrim does not represent the revolutionary leap that Oblivion was over the meandering Morrowind, it certainly stands as a huge evolutionary step for the series. Everything that worked well in Oblivion is back in Skyrim, and Bethesda takes pains to craft a game that doesn’t simply echo past accomplishments. Jaws dropped when Oblivion capped its extended prologue with that eye-opening gaze at the whole, wide world that stretched beyond the player once you scurried through those claustrophobic sewers. It’s a move that the studio’s follow-up, Fallout 3, mimicked to similar success. Skyrim may open with another carefully choreographed introduction, but the studio refrains from going to that well once again, intent on ladling out just enough information about the political strife, the dire threat building and your hazy role in it all to push you forward before releasing the reins. In that, they continue to perfect their handle on world-building – realizing that as many players love to have a reason to fight there are others who just want to get lost in the world. Once the player has a handle on their character, they are free to go wherever they please while the main plot remains identifiable and within reach for those who want it.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 30 comments

Publisher: Intermediaware
Developer: Intermediaware
System Requirements: Minimum System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7 / 800 MHz processor / 256 MB RAM / DirectX 7.0 or later
Genre: Puzzle
Release Date: Available Now
Written by: Ian Davis

Let’s get this out of the way: Captain Backwater is pirate-y. It’s hard to communicate the fullness of this meaning. Backwater takes every pirate cliché in an awkward embrace, leaving you to sit by and pretend not to notice. If cheesy pirate sayings don’t float your boat, worry not; the theme can be surgically removed from the actual gameplay without harm. Once you carefully perform such an operation, you’ll find Captain Backwater a rather charming, straightforward puzzle game.

It starts with a simple objective: slide pieces around the board to make matching pairs. Pieces slide until they hit something, so planning out a course of action beforehand is necessary. It starts easy enough, but the mechanics advance quickly. Teleporters, paint, slide tiles, dancing monkeys and more quickly compound each other, resulting in 80 levels of rather challenging puzzles.

Captain Backwater features some very smooth aesthetics. Bright colors, satisfying sound, and rounded edges make it easy on the eyes. Soft music soothes away your worldly cares, until that bloody pirate decides to open his mouth again. There’s only so many random “AAARRRRS” a man can take.

Captain Backwater was originally designed as a DS game, and it feels like it. The flinging of pieces and the swiping moves to pick up gold coins both feel like they belong on a touch device. However fine it plays with a mouse, its home port really ought to have a touch screen of some sort.

Don’t let the casual appearance give you any ideas. After 15 levels of training, Backwater starts to hit its stride. Suddenly, everything seems less obvious, and for the first time, you’re really forced to think. The ramp-up is not gentle, and if you’re not prepared, it might throw you off all together.

Mechanically, everything works fine, but for a pirate game, Backwater doesn’t have much of a hook. You can flick pieces around and make the special effects activate, but besides hearing the animated face of a faux-pirate talk, there’s not much reason to. For puzzle games, there’s a fine line between tedious and interesting. While it’s too much to give Backwater the Black Mark, it’s not the most rewarding of voyages either.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

Manufacturer: TekNmotion
MSRP: $29.99
Written by: Ethan Nixon

Today, I have for review the TekNmotion Yapster Blaster headset. This headset has quite a powerful impact for the price and size. The universal headset supports both PC and XBOX 360. Inside the package you will find the headset, necessary adapters to connect to the XBOX, and a USB amplifier. The cables included with the Yapster Blaster are quite long, so get ready to scrunch them up.

From a design aspect, the headset is quite generic, sporting a grey and black color scheme. The TekNmotion logo is featured on both ear cups, as well as the top of the headband. On the inner headband, there are tiny Yapster Blaster logos. Being as the design is quite plain, the materials used are also quite generic, and even flimsy during most instances.

I loaded up my favorite game, Counter-Strike: Source to test out this headset. At first, I didn’t use the USB amplifier and noticed quite decent audio. The highs were a little tinny, but the mids and lows were respectable, especially for the price of the headset. The microphone was very clear, and there is very little static as well. It’s omni-directional, so it can pickup quite a bit of background noise.

In-game, I noticed very nice audio. Footsteps were clear, even when there were other sounds being echoed, and the bass response was low enough to keep the vibrations out of my head when getting pelted by grenades. I received clear directional audio from the Yapster Blaster, which is comparable to some of the higher end headsets on the market.

With the amplifier in use, I did notice a slight performance increase, but I was using on-board audio beforehand, so I can see that as a major factor for the increase in performance. With the added amplifier I noticed the same highs and mids, but with a slightly better bass response. For a headset this size, and for this price, the bass response is actually incredible.

All in all, the headset is not a bad headset. If you are getting into gaming and want a slight edge over some of your friends, I would try this headset to get your feet wet. If you are a hardcore gamer and want the best of the best, this is a pass. I find this headset to be acceptable for in-game audio quality, but the quality for music and movies is lackluster. Due to the subpar sound quality out-of-game and very cheap materials, I cannot recommend this to a serious gamer.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Nexon
Developer: Eyedentity Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Pentium 4 dual-core CPU, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 7600 or better graphics card, 4 GB hard-drive space, DirectX 9.0c or newer, broadband Internet connection
Genre: MMORPG
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

MMORPGs have become a major segment of the modern gaming landscape, but many of the most successful of them feature content that really isn’t meant for the younger gamer. Publisher Nexon brings PG-13 material to the genre with Dragon Nest, a fantasy/action MMO that tries to tone down the graphic violence while still making the game enticing to adult gamers.

The story is fairly complex, but you’ll most likely forget most of it as you move through the game. Fragments of a long-dead dragon are hidden in the world of Verathea. The fragments, called shards, offer great power to those who find them, but they can’t be recovered without a key. This key is in the form of a young, red-headed girl who is kidnapped by unknown villains intent upon claiming the power of the shards for themselves. You must rescue the girl before the villains can get their hands on the shards and resurrect the dragon.

Dragon Nest was first released in Asia in 2010 and has only recently arrived in North America. It’s a kid-friendly MMO featuring bloodless combat and cartoonish graphics that can run on almost any PC with a decent Internet connection. It’s also free to play, with in-game transactions available in the Dragon Vault, where you can purchase items such as costumes for your character, extra item storage, etc. You start by creating a character in one of four classes (Archer, Cleric, Sorceress or Warrior) and customizing his or her appearance. Select a server where your character will reside and off you go.

The game world is organized into villages, which are the hub areas where the quest-givers reside. NPCs are attractively drawn and broadly voiced, fitting into the general cartoonishness of the environment. Quests take you outside the villages into “dungeons,” which you can tackle alone or with up to three other players. Finding a party is easy: you can search existing parties for those who are exploring the dungeon you’re seeking, or you can form a group of your own. The party browser is simple to use, but the sort function doesn’t always return the results that you seek, which can be frustrating when you need to find players of similar levels to tackle the more difficult dungeons. Once you enter a dungeon, you must progress through several areas to reach the final battle. Most require you to kill all of the enemies you find, although some quests also have you looking for specific items or talking to NPCs. Experience points accrue as you move through the dungeon and are credited to you when you defeat the end boss, which forces you to play the entire dungeon even if you fulfill the quest requirements before you reach the last area (you can jump out of the dungeon at any time, but you have to bring up the game menu using the ESC key, and you lose durability in your weapons and your accrued XP). It’s an artificial method of stretching out gameplay that can become tedious and frustrating, since each dungeon’s layout is the same every time you play it; the only difference to be found is when you replay them at higher difficulty levels, when enemies become stronger and more numerous.

Dragon Nest has some good things going for it. The price is right, for starters. It downloaded and patched faster than any MMO I’ve ever played; I was playing less than 30 minutes after I started the client download. There’s a strong player base, with every hub world bustling with activity at almost any time of day. There are multiple fast-travel methods available to you without having to unlock them. Dungeons are designed so that you can’t fall off of cliffs or other dangerous areas during battle. Inventory management is simple; it’s easy to identify items that aren’t usable by your character’s class, so you can avoid picking them up after combat is over and clogging up your limited inventory space. The death penalty is less severe than in other MMOs: you get five respawns to use during combat, after which you’re sent back to the hub area with no loss of XP or currency, and the respawns are reset every 24 hours or so. And you don’t have to fight your way back to the beginning of the dungeon when you defeat the boss; one touch of a button transports you back to the hub. But there are also significant annoyances. Avoidance controls have a cool-down period, so you can’t roll out of the way of an enemy more than once every 10 seconds or so. The penalty involved with exiting a dungeon before defeating the boss is disturbing, especially if you complete the quest conditions early in the dungeon. Items can be obtained before you know what to do with them, making it possible for you to trade or discard things that you might need later (this wouldn’t be such an issue if more free storage was available). You can learn a skill before you’re allowed to use it; I unlocked a Level 16 attack skill when I was only Level 12. Inventory items can be enhanced by the local blacksmith, but you have to unequip them before you can have them enhanced. Quests are available from Commission Boards throughout the hub areas, but some of the quests have you completing tasks that you’ve already done. But the worst part of Dragon Nest is the constant repetition in the questing and the lack of variety in the dungeons. You can skip the side missions and concentrate on the story quests, but in doing so you limit the amount of XP you can earn and slow down your level progression. If you choose to do the side quests, you keep being sent back to the same dungeons over and over again, as many as five or six times each, making gameplay boring and unsatisfying.

I applaud Nexon for making the MMO genre more accessible for players of all ages. The graphics are bright and colorful, the characters are engaging and pleasant, the NPC dialogue is cleverly written and humorously voiced, and the combat mechanic is simple and easy to use. But there is a crushing lack of variety in the environments and the gameplay that threatens to make Dragon Nest tedious and uninteresting long before you reach the Level 32 cap. Hopefully there will be more material available during the life of the game, but as it is now, Dragon Nest might not hold a serious player’s interest for very long, especially considering how many options are available in the MMO space these days.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

Manufacturer: Cooler Master
MSRP: $49.99

After my wonderful experience with the NotePal LapAir, I was a bit surprised to have another Cooler Master product sent to me in the mail. I figured that with such a fine laptop cooler like the LapAir, they wouldn’t need another product. It turns out, however, that Cooler Master has a high-end cooler for serious laptop gamers. For gamers with money to spend, this is a laptop cooler with all the bells and whistles.

The Infinite Evo is suitable for use with 17” laptops. It cools using twin fans that push air under the bottom of the laptop almost silently. It includes a variable throttle to control the fan, although I don’t know why you would want to change the fan speed. The Infinite Evo includes three USB ports, allowing it to act as a hub for your laptop. Unlike other laptop coolers, the Infinite Evo does not come with a cushion underneath, as this unit is less about comfort and more about performance.

Since this item is marketed towards those looking for maximum performance, I tested its performance under similar conditions as I did the LapAir. I found that it did reduce the operating temperature of my laptop substantially; however, despite its sleek design, I found that it did not cool my laptop any better than cheaper models that Cooler Master already sells. While there might be more of a difference with a top of the line gaming laptop bought within the past six months, most machines will not benefit substantially from this cooler’s added power. I also tested it with other computers, and found that this unit did not cool Macs any better than the LapAir (Note: That is not necessarily a knock on Cooler Master, as Macs are really shaped differently. But Mac owners should take heed of this when looking for coolers.) To be clear, I’m not saying the Infinite Evo cools badly. I’m saying that its cooling is comparable to cheaper models. Given the higher price, what you are really paying for is a USB hub and a fan control on top of cooling. I’m not sure that the extra cost is worth the bells and whistles.

Ruining a laptop because of poor temperature regulation is a completely avoidable problem, and there are plenty of products that can help with it. For most gamers, you probably don’t need the more expensive Infinite Evo because you can get comparable cooling from other units. For those gamers who really push their laptops as hard as they can, and you know who you are, you might consider this unit if you have $49.99 to spend.

Our Score:

Our Recommendation:

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | No comment(s)

It’s been predicted by some that our mobile devices are killing the handheld gaming market. With games like Virtual City Playground and Steambirds: Survival in the iTunes app store, there are definitely good reasons to leave your handheld and home. While the vast majority of apps are nowhere near the caliber of the highest rated DS and PSP titles, gamers are beginning to see some of their most beloved titles (Katamari and Scribblenauts for example) ported over to their iOS devices. And with the ever improving processors in smartphones, the potential of apps is only increasing. Check out this week’s selection to see if you agree.

Virtual City Playground

I think one of the computers my parents bought while I was in highschool came preloaded with a version of Sim City, and it was that game that first got me hooked on building sims. Virtual City Playground, developed by G5 games, has some things in common with its Sim predecessors, but there are some key differences between it and the games I grew up with. One of the things that I noticed right away that had me enjoying Virtual City Playground is that after all your hard work planning your city and setting up production routines, they continue after the game is minimized. So while you’re sleeping (or returning to work after a long bathroom break), you’re still earning energy and credits.

Since I mentioned the production routines, I’ll explain those a little further. Where a lazy developer might have you just build a bakery to earn money, the team at G5 made things interesting by including quests that require you to build production and supply chains to sell goods in your city. Early in the game, you have to build a farm, mill, bakery and mall just to offer your citizens pies (then create trucks to transport goods between each building). Once this quest is completed, you’ll have your first continuous revenue stream to earn credits. To make things even more interesting, the more you build and produce, the more trash and waste your city produces. To keep the environment clean and your citizens happy you’ll have to build recycling and trash plants so your garbage trucks can remove trash from the city.

It’s games like Virtual City Playground that make me wish I had an iPad. While the game is pretty fantastic on my iPod Touch, at times the smaller screen real estate resulted in the wrong placement of buildings or accidentally accessing a menu, but these were minor annoyances. Virtual City Playground is a game worth investing some time in and I’m willing to bet that after you try out the free version, you’ll feel the same.

© Matthew Booth for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments