Publisher: Snowbird Game Studios
Developer: Snowbird Game Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Pentium/AMD 2000+ or better CPU, 512 MB RAM, GeForce 7300/Radeon 9200 or better graphics card, DirectX-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Back in 2010, Eador: Genesis was quietly released to Russian-language audiences. Developed almost exclusively by one man, Alexander Bokulev, it was a mashup of various strategy games into one pot of dreams. It took the best of games such as Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic and became something that would punch you in the face but leave you begging for more. It didn’t get much attention for many years because of its odd interface and the lack of an English translation. But now, Bokulev is back with a team and a budget. Eador: Masters of the Broken World isn’t just a prettier face, it’s an all-around better game.

As the title suggests, the world of Eador is a shattered one. Shards of the planet spin about the cosmos as various immortals try to piece together as much of it for themselves as they can, yourself included. The campaign consists of you leaping from shard to shard as you take out all the local leaders and bring the shards under your dominance. You start by selecting a mortal hero to do your bidding. From there, you travel about with your army, battling monsters and clearing out territory. Floating land masses are relatively small, but there’s a lot packed in there. Even city tiles can have lists of encounters you can do. Once you clear out a territory, you have the option to build things on it and garrison troops. Once the opposing heroes are defeated, you add the shard to your collection, granting you bonuses for future invasion. This ends up grafting a fantastic long-term strategy layer onto the whole experience.

Whenever you move to an occupied tile or go into a dungeon, you hop into turn-based combat. You place your troops on the hex map and move about, casting spells, attacking, counter-attacking and defending. Combat is made of many simple rules layered on top of each other. Certain tiles (such as forests) boost ranged defense, others (such as hills) increase melee attack. Each side takes a turn as units expend energy to move and attack, while your hero unit casts game-changing spells. Units gain persistent upgrades, so it can behoove you to keep your peons alive. These encounters can be very difficult, even right outside your capital, so you have to dive into dungeons and grind for a bit to outfit your army. If an encounter ever seems too trivial (or impossible), then you can either auto-resolve a given turn or skip to the end.

The first couple of hours feel pretty typical. They echo a lot of past games, especially Heroes of Might and Magic. Once you get past that, you realize there’s a ridiculous amount of depth, most of it coming from how the campaign is structured. Each mission is about conquering various floating land masses and adding them to your empire. Each new shard opens up new tech and buildings that you can take into future missions. The tech tree is complicated and serpentine enough to make a seasoned Civ vet squirm. That’s when you realize that there’s a new layer of depth here. For example, you unlock new unit types, which can lead to interesting situations. A hero with holy powers might not play well with those undead troops you just unlocked. Even if it’s not the ideal combination of forces, at times it’s your best option.

Masters of the Broken World makes some definite improvements on the original Eador game. Most of them are in the interface department. Too many menus are circular wheels, but in general, the interface is much more usable. At least all the buttons and symbols have tooltips. While the game is almost as difficult as before, the inclusion of a real save system means you can undo your mistakes (assuming you keep multiple saves).

Eador: Masters of the Broken World is comprised of so many layers within layers that it simply begs for an Inception joke. It’s a game that rewards you the more you put into it; it’s a love letter to the entire genre. Despite some initial bugs, the game’s made good progress. A few quick patches have fixed some serious performance issues and have added missing features (such as multiplayer) into the mix. Casual fans of the genre might not have the patience it requires, but it wasn’t made for them. If you’re among the joyful gamers afflicted with “just one more turn” syndrome, then Eador will gladly play into all your desires and tantalize your tactical mind that much longer.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Paradox Development Studio
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV/AMD 3500+ or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8800/Radeon X1900 or better graphics card, 2 GB hard-drive space, DirectX-compatible sound device, DirectX 9, Victoria II (base game) and A House Divided expansion pack
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Victoria has always been a franchise I’ve loved, and it’s one that has always been built on complexity. When your game is built around an economy that tracks the purchases of every single person, business and government in the world, you’re not catering to those with poor attention spans. The catch, though, is that no matter how complex Victoria II gets, there’s always something more I want from the game. It’s been a year since the last Victoria II expansion was released, and Paradox has decided that there are enough people like me who want even more from Victoria II to justify another expansion. Heart of Darkness focuses on four main areas of gameplay: colonies, navies, armies and diplomacy. Any fan of the franchise, while happy with improvements to warfare, will no doubt be intrigued more by the possibilities offered by diplomacy and colonization. And I’m happy to report that, aside from a few warts, HoD delivers the goods.

Since colonization is tied to naval overhauls, we should first talk about ruling the waves. In prior versions of the game, capital ships were meant to be spammed. While the historical Royal Navy, the most powerful in the period, fielded 29 dreadnoughts in 1914, it was not uncommon for multiple Great Powers to deploy 200 or more at a time during the game. This is no longer possible, as navies have been completely rebalanced. Now, instead of making ships more expensive, the soft cap on shipbuilding comes from existing naval bases. Each country can build and upgrade a single base in each state, and these contribute to naval supply. A navy can have any combination of ships that doesn’t exceed the naval supply rating; if you go over the limit, then your entire military is hit with a supply throughput penalty that cuts the received supply of every unit. You might be purchasing all of the ammunition needs for your military, but being over the limit might mean only 70 percent or less is reaching your units. Added to this is a complete redesign of naval combat. Dreadnoughts and battleships cost horrendous amounts of naval supply, but they have enough firepower and firing range to kill just about anything. But cruisers and commerce raiders now have torpedoes they can use in combat; if even one gets through to a dreadnought or battleship, those big expensive ships are in trouble. Thus, balanced fleets with plenty of screens and capital ships are now required to win sea battles. And thanks to the limitations of the new system, you have to be the world’s most awesome naval power to even hope to employ 40 dreadnoughts, never mind 400, making naval combat reasonable and historical.

Colonization is affected by all these naval changes, so things just get better. To colonize, you must still meet technological requirements and be a Great Power or secondary power. But now, instead of just planting your national foci on the states you want to colonize, you have to invest colonial points. These are generated by your naval bases and actual ships in your navy. When you are in range of a place to colonize, you spend your points to begin the process. You can’t colonize more places than you have points, and you’re still restricted by the range of your naval bases. If no one opposes your colonization, then you gain a protectorate, which is a low-end colony. It generates a little tax income, gives you access to goods, and costs colonial points to maintain. You can upgrade to a colonial state, which costs even more colonial points, but makes the colony generate more revenue for you. If you can manage enough assimilation in your colony, you can still upgrade to a full state. This costs a substantial number of colonial points unless it’s on your own continent (Russia and the USA benefit the most from this). Also, conquering uncivilized countries further eats into your available colonial points because they count as colonies, just like areas you colonize outright. All of this means spamming colonies is no longer possible, because even the British don’t have infinite colonial points. If two countries try to colonize the same place, they must both keep investing colonial points until either one side stops investing points, someone voluntarily withdraws, or a crisis decides who gets the colony. This can cost a lot of colonial points, and leads to the other change in the system. Dominions can be created out of colonies; you get a semi-permanent ally, and you gain your colonial points back to invest somewhere else. Every place where colonies can be built can be turned into a dominion, so everyone can follow the British model if they so choose. Hard choices must be made when colonizing now, because a single colonial race can easily consume 10 to 20 times as many colonial points as just investing somewhere else where there is no competition. Just how badly do you want to colonize the heart of darkness?

The crisis system for HoD is my most anticipated feature. It’s also something that worried me. The AI isn’t really known for doing well with brinksmanship, which is more or less the entire point of having crises in the first place. I’m pleased to say that the system works rather well. There are about a dozen ways in which a crisis can occur, ranging from colonial competition to the ever-popular competing claims between minor powers in the Balkans. When a crisis develops, the minor powers ask Great Powers for help in resolving the issue. If a Great Power backs both sides, the crisis develops and all Great Powers on the relevant continent are asked if they want to participate. Declining results in loss of prestige. Participating takes it to the next stage. The Great Powers involved decide who to back in the crisis; in some cases, to get the cooperation of other powers, the leaders of the crisis might even offer diplomatic concessions to sweeten the deal. Russia might offer France Alsace-Lorraine if Prussia is involved on the other side of the crisis, or perhaps France will offer to humiliate Germany to entice Russia to her side. As the negotiations continue, the temperature of the crisis increases. Random events can increase the temperature further, as can a preemptive mobilization of reserves (the WWI effect). If a peaceful solution is not found to the crisis before it boils over, then a war breaks out. Otherwise, prestige is gained and lost by the participants. Note that once a crisis develops, the minor powers involved get no say in anything anymore. Greece might create a crisis about Macedonia and get the UK to back them, but after that, the UK gets to decide how to resolve the crisis and Greece must accept the outcome. The system also ignores currently existing alliances. Russia and Prussia might be allies, but if they take opposite sides in a crisis and a war breaks out, then the alliance is over and they’re now at war. This means there’s no such thing as late-game complacency anymore. You could have the best allies in the world, but if no one can agree on how to deal with Hungarian nationalists rising up in Austria, then half the world can be plunged into a war that no one expected. The good news is that the system allows for peaceful resolution to territorial disputes. Sure, you might lose some prestige for letting Greece gain Macedonia from the Ottomans, but do you really want to plunge Europe into a five-year war and kill thousands of people just because you don’t want to lose some prestige? It’s these kinds of tough choices that keep things fresh and fun.

Land combat has also been revamped. Now all different kinds of cavalry serve a purpose, so there are no more useless units. Also, reconnaissance and province fortresses have been reworked. Now armies have a recon percentage that dictates their effective occupation rate, along with siege effectiveness that reduces the effects of fortresses. Combined with changes to engineers so that they play a useful role in combat, and changes to guards and infantry that make guard spam pointless now, land warfare is much more interesting and rewards smart army construction. Uncivilized nations have also had a revamp to their militaries. The differences in the tactics technologies are now smaller, and uncivilized countries have access to basic cavalry, making them a bit harder to conquer by western powers.

By and large I was impressed by this expansion, but it suffers from two minor annoyances. The first is the colonial race between two powers. If you’re in a colonization race with another power, you have to continue to manually send expeditions to the state in question. There’s a cooldown timer involved, but the problem is that you might need to send 20 or more expeditions to win the race. So, every time the cooldown expires, you have to go into the province interface and manually send an expedition. During a war, this is mind-numbingly tedious and distracting, not to mention that you can lose the race just because you forget to do it. Instead, the game should have a check box that just keeps sending expeditions until you run out of colonial points or win the race to automate this process. The second problem relates to the AI and creating dominions. The good news is that the AI creates dominions to recoup the colonial points so it can colonize elsewhere. The bad news is that the AI does this in situations that don’t make any sense. Take the United Kingdom as an example. In 1836, Australia is not finished being colonized, but the AI on Day 2 of the game creates Australia as a dominion. This might be fine, except that it then continues to colonize the interior of Australia, creating a “donut” Australia with British colonies in the middle. Also, secondary powers cannot have spheres of influence, yet Portugal creates dominions out of its African colonies in the first year of the game. It loses the income from them and gains no benefit because there really isn’t anywhere else to colonize at that point. The AI really needs a rewrite in these cases to make better decisions, not because the map looks funny, but because these blatantly poor decisions hamper it in the long run.

These minor problems only somewhat detract from an enjoyable experience. In many ways, this expansion is the one I’ve been waiting to play. The congress system from the 19th century is now in place, navies are really important, and colonies aren’t just a spam issue. In fact, while I’ve enjoyed all iterations of this franchise, Heart of Darkness gives the game a truly 19th-century flavor that distinguishes it from other strategy games, doing a better job than even Pride of Nations. Victoria II will never be for all strategy gamers; its indirect mechanics and emphasis on economics and diplomacy make it a niche product. Yet, at the end of the day, I feel more like Otto von Bismark after playing a game of HoD than any other game on the market right now. If that’s not an indication of success, then I don’t know what is.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Irrational Games
System requirements: Windows Vista SP2/Win 7 SP1, 2.4 GHz Core2Duo/2.7 GHz Athlon X2 or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, 512 MB DirectX10-compatible graphics card (GeForce 8800 GT/Radeon HD 3870/Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics or better), DirectX-compatible sound device, 20 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RPG/Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

You find yourself in a rowboat headed towards a lighthouse in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine. You have a cigar box that contains a picture of a pretty, nicely dressed young woman, and a pistol. A chattering couple sporting British accents argues about who’s rowing and who isn’t. Once the boat reaches its destination, you pause in your seat to take in the scene. “He’s not moving,” one of your boatmen says. “He will…eventually,” is the reply. Substitute the boat ride and the pithy banter with a fiery plane crash and the scene becomes all too familiar for those who played developer Irrational’s 2007 masterpiece, BioShock. The parallels between the games don’t end here, as you will discover during your journey through Irrational’s new magnum opus, Bioshock Infinite.

You play private detective Booker DeWitt, a haunted former cavalry officer who participated in the massacre of 150 Indians at Wounded Knee in 1890. It’s 22 years later, and DeWitt has gotten himself in deep debt to an unknown creditor, who has offered him a get-out-of-debtors-prison-free card: Go to the floating city of Columbia, find the girl in the picture in his cigar box and return her to New York City. After reaching the aforementioned lighthouse, he’s treated to a Close Encounters of the Third Kind-style exchange of colored lights and musical tones, after which he’s shot into the air, chair and all, coming to rest in a religious shrine on Columbia. From here he begins his search for the mysterious young woman, who becomes more closely entwined in his fate than he could ever imagine.

For a game as expansive as Infinite, it’s good that the control scheme is very simple. Unlike the original BioShock, which forced you to switch from weapons to Plasmids, in Infinite you use weapons with the left mouse button and Vigors (the salt-powered version of Plasmids) with the right. Switch weapons with the mouse wheel, switch Vigors with a single button press (hold the button to reveal a rotary menu, from which you can equip two of the eight possible Vigors). Ammunition and cash are everywhere (at least at Normal difficulty), and vending machines are spread throughout the maps, so staying stocked is never a problem, provided you take the time to look around.

And look around you should. Infinite is one of the prettiest games you’ll ever play. Hummingbirds hover in mid-air in ornate gardens, filled with statues of The Founders (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin) and The Prophet, Zachary Hale Comstock, spiritual leader of the citizens of Columbia. The city itself is a collection of giant buildings, floating on the updraft generated by enormous fans, bobbing up and down like apples in a barrel. It took me almost four hours of gameplay to finally find the elusive Elizabeth (the woman in the picture) because I spent so much time looking around and appreciating the look of the place. Once you find and rescue Elizabeth, the action part of the game kicks into high gear. Elizabeth is probably the best female video-game character since Half Life 2‘s Alyx Vance. Liz is resourceful, smart, and excellent in a fight since she requires no hand-holding; she gets out of the way, can take care of herself, and even functions as a support character, finding you health and ammo when you need them the most. She also has the ability to open tears in space-time and bring objects through the tears to your reality. These can include cover structures, a floating high-caliber machine gun and several varieties of sentry guns. The ease in which you can combine your weapons and Vigors during fight sequences makes the combat in Infinite more fun than in most shooters. I usually find one or two weapons that I like and ignore the rest, but in this game I found myself trying out lots of different weapon and Vigor combinations tailored to the situation at hand. Also, there are little things that give Infinite a special touch, such as the excellent use of period music and, conversely, a barbershop quartet singing a Beach Boys song 50 years before it was actually written (if you miss it in the game proper, be sure to watch the closing credits).

So, why no Seal of Excellence? Because there were enough nagging problems to keep Infinite from achieving Avault greatness. One of my pet peeves with RPGs and shooters is the necessity of turning over every rock and twig to find powerups and collectibles, and it’s a major factor in this game. Especially worrisome is the idea that you can walk into someone’s home, steal all that they own and never be challenged for it (although there are certain points later in the story when stealing turns you into a target). Most of my 20-hour initial playthrough was spent searching trash cans, purses and safes (provided I had enough lockpicks to give to Elizabeth to break into them) for important items, not just the ones that help you get your 100-percent achievement or your platinum trophy. Of the three brands of vending machines, the one for the Vigors is the least useful, because almost all of the items it sells are much too expensive. As for health, I wondered why the game doesn’t stop you from eating all the food you can find when your health bar is full. You can’t use a medicine bag with a full bar, so why should you be allowed to waste apples and popcorn and such when you might need them later on? Then there’s the tone of the narrative, which gets decidedly dark and unsavory as you move along. Columbia’s residents gleefully practice all flavors of racism, and children can be seen smoking like chimneys. These might’ve been the norm in the early 20th century, but they’re very risky themes in the current climate. On a more practical note, Irrational has bowed to console pressure and has replaced the save-anywhere mechanic used in the original game with a checkpoint system that has far too few checkpoints. The game autosaves when you move to a new area, and you’re revived where you fall when you die (with a cash deduction), but if you quit you could find yourself having to replay large chunks of the game because of a lack of checkpoints. Combat is fairly easy until the final battle, which is ridiculously frustrating to win, even on Normal. And the battle leads immediately to a very long, interactive cutscene and a very trippy ending that deep thinkers will be debating for months. And almost every cash register in Columbia shows its last sale was for $4.53. Be sure to play 453 in your local lottery.

Bioshock Infinite is an amazing gaming experience that should definitely be part of every player’s wish list. It looks fantastic, the pace is fast (once you find Elizabeth), and it has much in common with the equally outstanding BioShock, all the way down to the layout of the interface. But it also has a dash of ugliness, a bad save-game system and some other unfortunate problems (not to mention a nasty bug that can erase your progress if the game crashes — take my advice and disable Steam Cloud saving). But even with these issues, Infinite remains one of the best games of 2013 thus far, and will no doubt be a frontrunner for Game of the Year.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 3 comments

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
System requirements: Windows XP SP 3/Vista/Win 7/Win 8, 1.8 GHz Core2Duo E6300/2.1 GHz Athlon 64 X2 4050+ or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, 512 MB GeForce 8600/Radeon HD 2600 XT or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c,10 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action-Adventure
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Let’s face it: Lara Croft isn’t an interesting character. Impossibly athletic, remarkably good-looking. There’s no problem she couldn’t overcome by climbing on walls and shooting endangered animals. She didn’t have a personality, she had breasts. She was part sex symbol, part wish fulfillment, and entirely plastic. Now that the franchise has creatively bankrupted itself for a second time, developer Crystal Dynamics has decided to go back and rework Lara from the ground up. Just as film director Christopher Nolan saved Batman from decades of one-dimensional edginess, Crystal Dynamics has breathed new life and humanity into a previously synthetic (and sexist) character. But to make this new Lara, first they had to put her through hell.

Tomb Raider isn’t just traumatic, it’s outright terrifying at times. After a violent shipwreck, Lara wakes to find herself bound and hanging from the ceiling of a creepy cave, complete with mounds of skulls and the remains of human sacrifices. After freeing herself (by setting herself on fire), she gets impaled on a nasty piece of rebar. The first half of Tomb Raider borders on survival horror. It uses log bridges and wolves where Resident Evil trundles out scary tentacle monsters, and because the very environment itself is the enemy, there’s no fighting against the “dark hoard,” which creates an existential horror. Crystal Dynamics didn’t hold back, and the game is filled with wincing, jaw-dropping moments. Squeamish people beware.

It’s pretty difficult to talk about an action-adventure game such as Tomb Raider without mentioning Uncharted, and yeah, they’re fairly similar games. You nimbly maneuver through the environment, climbing, leaping and crawling through the landscape. The levels really open up at times and are utterly filled with collectables and upgrades. The largest puzzles are optional chambers with rewards squirreled away behind ancient contraptions. If you want to spend your time and get 100-percent completion, you’ll really get your money’s worth. Combat is scattered throughout and fluid. Unlike Uncharted, it isn’t as constant and usually requires a good bit of stealth. Once enemies are nearby, Lara unslings her weapon and ducks into a crouch. If you stick to cover and take your time, you can take out a guard squad without much worry. But if you slip up, they’ll light flares and call in reinforcements.

The combat works great, largely because of the smooth cover system. Anytime you’re next to a chest-high wall or outcropping, Lara simply crouches behind it. No attaching, no manual button to press, nothing. It seems like a silly thing to harp on, but the simplicity of this one feature lets you plan your ambush assaults without frustration. This same principle applies to pretty much all the mechanics. If you get stuck, you can use Survival Mode to highlight every nearby element in the environment. Nothing’s more frustrating than trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces. The leaping and climbing feel better than ever, much improved upon the clunky feel that even the previous generation of Tomb Raider games had.

While the controversial E3 trailer definitely captures the horror, it misses the redeeming second act. Once she realizes what she can do, Lara stops reacting and starts acting. Instead of running away from the cultists, she dares them to try to kill her while she stalks them from the shadows. Now she’s risen up to the challenge and is ready to take on any ancient mythological power. Her confidence is genuine because we’ve viscerally seen/felt/played the truly horrifying obstacles.

It would be silly to call Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy the best Batman movies out there. As far as most people are concerned, they’re the only Batman movies. Similarly, Tomb Raider doesn’t just reboot the franchise, it wipes the previous games out of existence. With a powerful, thematic story and a strong female lead who rivals Mirror’s Edge’s Faith, Tomb Raider transcends its action-adventure genre. It’s too early to call Game of the Year, but if this doesn’t make it on some best-of lists, then there’d better be a darn good reason for it.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 6 comments

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Ninja Theory
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Win 8, 2.4 GHz Core2Duo/2.8 GHz Athlon X2 or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTS/Radeon HD3850 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, 9 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Censorship might seem so Nuremberg 1937, but don’t forget that we Americans have many systems in place to insure that every medium has its own classification ghettos. Sometimes, this results in the R-rated action movie, which is labeled as including “mature content” despite having no maturity whatsoever. Like cartoon cigarette mascots, it’s always been known that Schwarzenegger movies are made with the 14-year-old male demographic in mind. DMC Devil May Cry, like those action movies, revels in its violence and gore in a way that only an adolescent can. With a new reboot by a decidedly western developer, the series takes a more colorful approach with the juvenile demon-vs-the-system series. Even though it’s the kind of game that literally scrawls obscenities directed towards the player on the walls, it doesn’t play dirty. In fact, it just might be the best action game to come out in years.

DMC revolves around the iconic character Dante and his brother Virgil (get it?), who use their half-demon, half-angel ancestry to take down Mundus, the demon who secretly rules the world from within the bloated flesh of a CEO. That’s right, demons control the world, keeping the populous docile using capitalist satire. While the game’s plot might revolve around demons and monsters, its style consciously avoids the expected gothic tones and travels a more urban route. Psychic sidekick Kat doesn’t laboriously prepare spells, she uses an aerosol spray can and a template. Histories aren’t told on epic tapestries, they’re found in sprawling alleyway graffiti. Dante, like every adolescent male, is talented, gets all the girls, doesn’t struggle with acne, and fights the system. It would be sickening if it wasn’t told with such sheer panache.

With a setting this kickass, the gameplay had better follow suit. Developer Ninja Theory keeps the same precision hacking and slashing the series is known for, but adds their own twist. While you still have a huge list of combos and moves to pull off between your sword and pistols, you also have new angel and demon weapons to use. By holding down the left or the right triggers, Dante can access a whole new set of moves, many of them involving movement. For example, RT+X pulls an enemy towards you (or simply rips his shield away), while LT+X pushes you towards him instead. It’s a kind of swift action that doesn’t translate well in pictures. After you acquire the mental dexterity to pull them off, you can combo your way around like the badass demon slayer your mother always wanted you to be.

By the end of the game, you have a deep move set to pick from and scant seconds to choose the right string of combos to perform correctly. Yet, the game paces this complexity well enough that you never feel lost. DMC is like a piano teacher who shows you where to place your hands, then slaps you with a ruler whenever you miss a note. Not brutal, not unfair, but demanding nonetheless. It reaches the right balance point where your palms sweat and you start to feel a bit shaky, but you never rage at the game for cheating. Playing on Normal, DMC leads you through the steps of a brilliantly gory ballet. After that, it challenges you to try it again without the hand-holding through the successively higher difficulties.

The idea of Limbo being a separate, spiritual layer opens up DMC to some creative possibilities, and Ninja Theory takes full advantage of them. What starts out as a normal, boring warehouse suddenly explodes into a twisted, colorful dreamland. It’s part Inception, part They Live. A particularly standout level involves Dante entering a demonic prison tower hidden in a reflection. What follows is a ridiculously creative series of levels that takes place upside down, complete with rising rain. Immediately after this, Dante leaps into the digital world of a news bumper and battles a Tron-like demon. Another game might use one or two of these ideas for set-pieces, but DMC does stuff like this all the way through.

Most games revolve around adolescent power fantasies. As a grown man, I should hate Dante for being a stupid, cock-sure punk, but I can’t. I keep cringing, expecting a whiny moment to break out when Dante’s hormones catch up with him, but the moment never comes. He starts out badass and ends badass. You don’t need a character arc when you’re just that awesome. Meanwhile, the gameplay echoes every bit of that, demanding that you play to a level befitting a rebellious teen-demon, or it lops off large chunks of your health bar. It’s an imaginative game with well-built mechanics that will leave you with sweaty palms and wanting seconds. What more could you ask for?

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments

Publisher: Krystian Majewski
Developer: Krystian Majewski
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX Leopard, DirectX 5, 2.0 GHz dual-core CPU, 200 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Math classes occupy similar places in my life where dentist appointments are usually found. It’s not that I can’t do math (my weekends of Dungeons and Dragons prove that much), but when it comes to the classroom, all the joy leaves me. One day I stumbled upon Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, quite by accident. I barely even knew what it was about, only that it sounded interesting and had Escher pictures in it. Soon, enthralled by stories about pretty high-end mathematical theories, the nature of numbers, and formalized logic, I was enraged. Why hadn’t my teachers showed me how beautiful math truly was? I felt like I had been eating grape skins and wasn’t told about the fine wine next to it.

In a similar way, a small indie game programmed in Flash opened my eyes to the possible humanity that games can offer, but rarely try. Trauma wasn’t made in 2012. I didn’t even buy it in 2012. I got it as part of a Humble Bundle a year ago, and it’s been lingering in my Steam list ever since. Don’t be like me. Go play the full version right here online.

Trauma is a Myst-style adventure about a young woman who’s recovering from an auto accident. You explore her dreams through a series of photographs. The photos don’t fill the screen, which leads to a great sense that these small scraps of film are windows into this woman’s mind. To interact with the world, you draw gestures, which look like smears of light on a long-exposure photo. Each of the four dreams has a different gesture to learn. Once you know them, you can go back to any of the previous ones and find alternate endings.

The stunning part is how Trauma‘s design allows you to explore who this woman is through her dreams. While nothing is spelled out, she does narrate bits, as if she’s giving you a tour. From there you infer details about her life though the symbolism of her dreams. In one dream, you have to catch a ghost that leaves light trails behind. As you hunt it down, you realize that the ghost represents all the role models in her life, particularly her late parents. Capturing this ghost drives both you and the character, and once you finally grasp it, all your purpose is gone, and the dream fades. This is just one of many fantastic setups scattered throughout the game.

Too many “art games” seem to have minimal gameplay and inscrutable narratives. I found Dear Esther to be moving, but only in spite of its own discordant nature. Trauma strikes a great balance by being interpretive without being vague. It’s an intimate mirror of humanity, one that reflects our fears and insecurities, but without being judgmental. When we look into it, we’re startled to see parts of ourselves, but Trauma is a comforting whisper, saying “It’s ok, I’ve been there too.”

In the end, it only lasted for about an hour. I didn’t find all the alternate endings, but I tried. Yet, that hour was the richest gaming experience I’ve had in recent memory. It stuck in my mind like a splinter, and it’s given me a hunger to experience art genuine to human nature. Trauma is an experience that has made every other game I played this year look like the time-wasting fodder it is. Now that I’ve savored this sweet, intrinsic experience, it’s made the extrinsic reward of leveling up and gathering points in other games seem so hollow as to be repulsive. It’s a game so good that it’s ruined me for other games.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac Snow Leopard, 2 GB Pentium IV or better CPU, 3 GB RAM (4 GB for Mac), 512 MB graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: All five episodes available now

Many players complain about the stories in games, or the lack of them. These folks should be flocking to The Walking Dead, Telltale’s five-part odyssey through graphic novelist Robert Kirkman’s zombified universe. You’ll find more honest-to-god storytelling in a single episode of this series than in any three AAA releases. But is all of this narrative emphasis too much of a good thing?

Picking up at the end of Episode 1, escaped convict Lee Everett, his young companion Clementine and the rest of his group of plague survivors are holed up in a suburban motor inn. Their food is almost gone, making an already contentious situation much more dangerous. Circumstances force them to hit the road, where they pick up new traveling partners, lose a few to death and misunderstanding, and encounter people and situations that could only possibly be found at the end of the world.

The strength of the entire series lies both in the storytelling and how you react to it. Your decisions at pivotal points of the story can have a significant impact on how the rest of the plot plays out, making the series almost infinitely replayable. “Immersive” is one of those words that we game reviewers aren’t supposed to use, but there’s no way around using it to describe these games. But as the series progresses, it starts to get weighed down in exposition, almost to the level of Dear Esther, an indie game in which you do nothing but spend several hours wandering around an environment, triggering voice-over dialogue. This is especially true in Episodes 3 and 4, which lull you into a sense of complacency, then hit you with quick-time events and mouse-aiming combat out of the blue (don’t let your fingers stray far from the keyboard). The developers also couldn’t resist the temptation to throw in some tried-and-true adventure-game mechanics; at one point, Lee puts a blowtorch and a heavy acetylene tank in his back pocket. And there are some problems. You have to use the arrow keys to select dialogue choices instead of being able to click them with the pointer, and there are some audio issues later in the series (low volume, stuttering, etc). The final chapter is better focused than the previous two, but the ending is abrupt, leaving too many dangling threads (be sure to stay with the game after the closing credits of Episode 5 for a setup to Season 2).

The Walking Dead is unquestionably Telltale’s best episodic series thus far. The combination of an involving, sometimes heartwrenching story, comic-book-style graphics and the player’s ability to shape the narrative has spawned a new kind of adventure game. However, the focus of the series shifted too far towards plot exposition in the last three episodes. Hopefully Telltale will be able to refine their technique and make a better-balanced Season 2. Because I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

Our Recommendation (all five episodes):

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: Digital Tribe Games
Developer: Serious Brew
Genre: Action
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.5.8, 2.0 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c-compatible graphics card, 120 MB hard-drive space
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

As the father of an ever-growing/ever-distancing preteen, I know what it’s like to miss my kid; these days more than ever, actually. Yet my parental lamentations are meaningless compared to the dad you play in Cargo Commander. Whereas one or two days without father/child interaction is a seemingly infinite space of time for me, this dude is literally stuck in the middle of space. All alone. Constantly in peril. Giant containers full of aliens and co-worker corpses smashing into his ship, each one containing the prospect of coming one more step closer to seeing his family again. Or to his untimely death. You never know.

No, literally—you never know, because Cargo Commander is a rogue-like, meaning that every experience in this 2.5 D, pseudo cel-shaded actioner is randomly generated. The promise of big loot and family reunion might actually be hiding a gigantic yellow monster with many hitpoints, hell-bent on tossing you out the nearest airlock. Or it might contain the next bit of priceless cargo. That’s your job, though. You’re just a father trying to make a living in the depths of space, activating the giant magnet attached to your boxy-but-customizable spaceship to haul in abandoned cargo containers. When the containers arrive (or rather, smash violently into the side of your ship), you enter them and have a look about. What you find, where you travel to find it, and whether or not you make it back to your ship before a wormhole swallows it all up dictates whether or not you get to go home again. Your employer, Cargo Corp, has made you a promise, though: reach Level 12 and you get to take a holiday to see your family. Or was that Level 16? They keep on changing it.

I’ve been delighted by the premise, the visuals, and the experience of Cargo Commander ever since I first booted it up. Any game with something called a Fist Cannon scores at least one point right off the bat with me, let alone allowing me to upgrade said Fist Cannon, plus all of my other weapons, armor and ship with laser sights, control panels and all other manner of accoutrements. But be wary: this is a game in which you’ll die a lot in pursuit of that next, elusive level. I know I did, but it wasn’t without an immediate return to see what was around the next corner. Addicting? Yes, it is. I stopped playing to write this review, but I’ll be back at it again before I go to bed. That’s gotta mean something good, right?

Although, meaning might not be CC‘s strongest suit. There are twinges of casual here, which is by no means a bad thing. But just the idea of endless space, traveling throughout the cosmos (even naming and exploring your own galaxy) is so grand that when you’ve spent all your time upgrading, only to lose practically all of it at the end of each day, or get caught up in the ever-lengthening grind to the next level, the entertainment spends quickly, so to speak. You can only go through so many containers, searching for that one piece of cargo you need to obtain the next level, so many times before you become frustrated you’re not advancing faster. That and a horrible crash to desktop after a marathon session might’ve left me a little jaded.

Such charm, though. And quirk, too, which I love. There’s an eerie country tune playing on the ship’s PA system, and with a press of the F key your bearded conscript bursts into an on-demand stream of curses that would’ve made Richard Pryor blush. Is it necessary? No. Will it keep Cargo Commander from getting a console release? Yes, unless it’s removed. But does it punctuate why it’s good to be a PC gamer living on the rough side of the tracks? My goodness, yes. We PC gamers like to talk about how good it is to be one of us. We’re right, and Cargo Commander offers solid reasons as to why.

So should you spend the $10? Is the vacuum of space, crushing loneliness and the ever-present possibility of a horrible, albeit not completely permanent, death appealing to you? Yes, indeed. There’s not a whole lot to get over, aside from its shallowness, slightly floaty controls, and eventual disappointment when you’ve reached the end of its entertainment cycle. But worth the money? Without question.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Andrew Clark for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments

Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
System requrements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7, 2.3 GHz quad-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 512 MB GeForce GTX 560/Radeon HD 5850 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0-compatible sound device, 20 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

I’m rarely apprehensive about playing games. Usually the only thing I lose if one disappoints me is whatever I paid for it (and a few hours). I had seen the hype (and the dubstep) that promised me great things from Borderlands 2. But this time around, my fond memories of the original Borderlands were a stake. What if the sequel was a repackaging of the original with little more than a shinier veneer? Are a bazillion new guns and loot items going to increase the game’s fun factor? Would Claptrap still exhibit the ridiculous humor that was simultaneously annoying and entertaining? Once I dove into the world of Pandora again, would any of these questions even matter?

Set five years after the original game, BL2 has you returning to the planet Pandora. New dictator Handsome Jack has taken credit for discovering the Vault and is actively killing all who attempt to locate it. After an ambush, your Vault hunter awakens in a frozen wasteland to the robot voice of Claptrap as he scavenges the dead for anything valuable. While following Claptrap back to his hideout, you’re visited by the Guardian Angel and given a purpose: rescue the original Vault hunters and kill Handsome Jack.

The mechanics of BL2 should be immediately familiar if you’ve spent any amount of time in the original game. If you haven’t, then here’s the skinny. Borderlands is essentially three things: lots of guns, lots of killing, and lots of loot. The four classes of Vault hunter are Commando (tactical gunning), Assassin (sniping and stealth), Gunzerker (run and gun) and Siren (guns and energy weaponry). Your Vault hunter’s main defense is a regenerative shield that can be upgraded by finding improved shields throughout the world. On Pandora, however, the best defense is a good offense.

Guns are everywhere, and you’ll constantly find yourself checking the stats of new weapons against your currently equipped arsenal. Not all weapons are created equal, and the rarer ones (distinguished by color coding) usually yield the highest damage. Weapons are also identified by their manufacturer (Maliwan produces weapons with elemental damage that are more effective against biological enemies, for example). In addition to the guns you hold in your hands, each Vault hunter has their own perk tree that supplements their strengths. The Commando, for example, can deploy an auto-firing turret that can act as a distraction while you reposition your character in a less vulnerable firing spot. I recommend playing each class for a few hours to find your favorite weaponry and perk combination. I favor the Commando, as he’s somewhere between the Assassin and Gunzerker classes.

In describing the pros and cons of BL2, I run the risk of labeling something as a “con” when it might be a “pro” to another gamer. So I’ll just go ahead and mix it all together under the umbrella of “my first impressions” and let you decide. I honestly couldn’t come up with a verifiable con in my hours of gameplay. There were things that bugged me, but nothing as objectionable as a glitch, poor control mechanics or busted physics. Is BL2 an awesome game? Absolutely. Does it feel like you’re playing the original Borderlands? No doubt. But I’ve consulted the game review gods, and we’ve come to a unanimous decision: in this case, a sequel being alarmingly like the original gets a pass.

What captivated me in the original Borderlands is 100 percent present in Borderlands 2. Seeing the red “CRITICAL” text above a perfect headshot is just as rewarding as it was before. The weapons are familiar, but with enough variation and enhancements to make looting as enjoyable as it has ever been. Claptrap still annoys me, but I find myself wanting to hear what he has to say next. His humor is hit or miss, but it somehow makes this trash can-shaped robot as awkward as he is endearing (similar to Disney’s Wall-E). Somehow Gearbox has managed to create a sequel with the perfect balance of familiarity and novelty, while dodging the mistakes of many sequels that are so familiar they’re boring or so novel they’re destroyed by gimmicks. If you’re expecting something groundbreaking from Borderlands 2, don’t. If you want more Borderlands with some cool new additions and a new environment, you won’t regret paying full price for the sequel. The only possible con of Borderlands 2 is that it’s an enhanced version of the original. As it turns out, that’s exactly what I wanted it to be.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Matthew Booth for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Reflections
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 3.0 GHz Pentium D/2.2 GHz Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista/Win7), 256 MB graphics card with Shader Model 4.0 support, DirectX 9-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c, 10 GB hard drive space
Genre: Driving
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Driving games seem to fall into two camps: simulation and arcade. This division shows just how stagnant the genre has become. Just because a game’s based around cars, doesn’t mean that they have to all be so similar. Of all things, Driver: San Francisco comes along to stir the pot. After its first smash hit a decade ago, the franchise was dragged down by a series of poorly received sequels. Can developer Reflections revive both the property and the entire genre?

While hunting down the notorious kingpin Jerico, our hotshot cop protagonist Tanner lands himself in the ER. Shortly after, he’s back on the streets, seeking revenge. Not only does he recover quickly, but he also can possess other drivers at will, shifting from car to car. It’s pretty obvious that the entire game is just a hallucinatory dream Tanner’s having while he’s in critical condition. With the pesky fly of plausibility firmly crushed, Reflections can open the throttle.

In Driver SF, all you do is drive. That might seem obvious to you, but seems like a new idea to the franchise. First off, the handling is solid. It’s neither as floaty as the cars in GTA4, nor is it as tight and grippy as in Saints Row: The Third. All the cars have an appropriately weighty feel to them, and trying to fling them around corners takes a good bit of concentration. In addition, you get a boost move. Instead of a traditional nitro boost, you can slow down a bit and charge up for a boost, either to leap ahead or to ram an opponent.

And where else would you be driving but in San Francisco? The entire city is yours to rule, as you accomplish side quests and ultimately hunt down Jericho again. To use a crude analogy, it’s like a form of Burnout Paradise mixed with the mission progression of the first Assassin’s Creed. Only unlike Creed, the side missions are diverse and interesting. Also, you earn “willpower,” a celestial currency you can use to unlock and upgrade cars, making this one of the few times you can wish yourself into a new car.

There’s an undercurrent of joy that seems to run throughout Driver SF. You can feel it in the tongue-in-cheek story, the frictionless car physics, and the driving controls. Shifting between vehicles feels like a fun way to get around town, until you get creative with it. Why race fairly when you can grab a semi and hurl it into the path of your opponents? When all of this joy is blended together and poured into the open-world mold, it comes out in a cream-filled pastry that has a similar taste to Just Cause 2. It’s a happy place made out of American chrome and gasoline fumes.

I never thought that a driving game could be witty. I usually reserve that adjective for games with more plot and character interaction. Yet Driver San Francisco is filled with Quantum Leap-style exchanges, as Tanner jumps into the bodies of random drivers conversing with their passengers. Sometimes that means he’s a cop talking to his partner about retirement, other times he suddenly becomes a teen taking a driving test. It’s small details like these that make the game so gloriously fun. Driver SF isn’t just a great recovery for the franchise. It’s a fantastic game, period.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Paradox Development Studios
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 6.8, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV/AMD 3500+ CPU (2.0 GHz Core Duo for Mac), 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8800/Radeon X1900 graphics card (GeForce 320/Radeon HD 6750 for Mac), DirectX-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Crusader Kings II is easily one of my favorite strategy games so far this year, and part of its excellence involves its limited design. When it was released, you could only play Christian rulers because developer Paradox made it clear they didn’t want to make playable Islamic rulers who were just carbon copies of their medieval Christian counterparts. Paradox has made good on their promise to provide quality gameplay for Islam in the Middle Ages with the release of their expansion/DLC The Sword of Islam. It has completely different game mechanics for Islamic characters and provides a radically new gaming experience, one that even surprised me after reading pre-release press.

The biggest difference in gameplay for Islamic rulers is the new decadence mechanic. While Christian rulers need to just worry about the Church and need to mind their particular ruler, Muslims from powerful dynasties find that their entire dynasty can be viewed as decadent even if individual members are smart and capable rulers. Decadence increases when male citizens are sitting around at court with nothing to do, are not participating in wars, and are not meeting their religious obligations as good Muslims. At low values of decadence, troops are more loyal and vassals more satisfied, but if decadence gets too high, vassals become less loyal, troops become less willing to follow their leaders, and, at the extreme end, a mass uprising from the population can spontaneously occur as the people try to remove an entire dynasty they feel is a blight upon the land. This makes for very explosive politics when a dynasty has outlived its perceived usefulness, but dynasties that survive these problems can at least start fresh and try to avoid decadence from accruing again.

On the other hand, dynastic succession is also very different. All Islamic realms have what is called Turkish Succession, in which the strongest male heir succeeds his father, not necessarily the oldest. Thus, Muslims can often pick their preferred heirs before they die by making sure one son is much more powerful than the others. However, at the same time, having unlanded sons hanging around court means decadence increases, so rulers are encouraged to give some territory to all of their male children. This means upon the death of their father, the less-favored sons are far more likely to spark a succession crisis to dispute ownership of their father’s land, since they all have some of their own territory. However, the game also models relationships between male relatives differently for Islamic rulers than it does for Christian ones. Islamic leaders can freely imprison or execute their siblings, uncles and cousins without incurring the same tyranny penalty that a Christian ruler might receive. As a result, most successions tend to result in substantial familial infighting, with half the dynasty’s males ending up in prison or killed. And since Muslims can have polygamous marriages, there are often a lot of male children in the family waiting to squabble about everything. Christians in Crusader Kings II might be concerned about having enough heirs; Muslims end up worrying about having way too many.

The map has also been changed since the original game was released. Now, parts of Mali and Timbuktu are represented, making Africa way more interesting. There are also a whole host of new traits for both Christians and Muslims. The combat system has been changed substantially as well. There are now special traits for characters skilled in warfare that make them better at certain types of combat. What is perhaps most interesting is how the game plays with these changes. The new mechanics impact Islamic states even when a human is not playing them. As a result, Christians who go on Crusade should also keep track of the decadence of their opponents, as a very decadent enemy might be on the brink of collapse even if they own half the map. And now that Crusades and Jihads are wars called by the religious heads of various faiths, and are now fought over kingdom-sized tracts of land, the complicated political situation in foreign lands is something to which everyone should pay close attention.

I’m fairly impressed with the content in Sword of Islam. The decision to focus an entire DLC pack on Islamic rulers was a good choice, preventing a homogenization of game mechanics that would blindly apply to everyone and make the game too generic. There’s plenty of good content provided overall, and it really is a different experience to play a Muslim. However, there are some issues with the game’s design. Once you fully understand how decadence works, and once you figure out how to control your fertility so that you don’t end up with a horde of male heirs, it’s very easy to keep decadence to a minimum. You can’t imprison or execute your own children to exploit succession, but if you choose to marry multiple wives with low fertility, you’re far less likely to get bloody successions. Also, if you judiciously exercise imprisonment and execution against your own male relatives, you can prune your family tree until it’s entirely composed of only your immediate family. I felt the intention of the game design was to provide for far more volatile expansion and collapse of Islamic realms, but since decadence is easy to control, it’s actually easier to play a Muslim ruler than it should be.

Despite that, the DLC is a good value. At $9.99, it really is the kind of thing that makes expansion packs look good. I can’t imagine that anyone who enjoys Crusader Kings II would not enjoy The Sword of Islam. While I could take or leave the music and sprite-pack DLCs that have been released for the base game, this one is definitely worth the money.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments

Publisher: Remedy
Developer: Remedy
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2.0 GHz dual-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 10-compatible video card with 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, 8 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Alan Wake is one of those rare games that makes you want to show it off to non-gaming friends and family as a beaming example of the medium. Now, Remedy has released Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a $15 chunk of standalone DLC. It expands the combat, continues the story, and includes a new arcade mode. But is it worth the investment, or is it just more of the same?

American Nightmare‘s biggest draw is the resolution of the cliffhanger ending of the original game. Wake is now trapped inside the Twilight Zone-parody Night Springs, while his evil doppelganger, Mr. Scratch, takes his place in the real world. As darkness continues to pursue him, Wake has to use his Super Author powers to rewrite the world he’s in. Each of the three sizable levels focuses on open areas to explore. Then you do the time warp again, and everything becomes remarkably meta. In a lesser game, this might be considered recycling content, but when it’s written this well, it’s just good storytelling.

The new arcade mode shows off the improved combat. You try to survive until dawn while racking up points with a new multiplier system. This is where we separate the bestsellers from the bloggers. While it’s not too hard to survive the early levels, you have to really work the multipliers if you want to score enough to unlock more arenas. While combat is the same deadly flashlight tag as before, new types of enemies and a ton of new weapons keep things fresh.

Not only is collecting manuscript pages its own reward (and more of a challenge with the new open level design), but they also unlock new weapon crates in all game modes. Playing through story mode helps you in survival mode, and replaying the story on higher difficulties is far more enjoyable than before. The new enemies and weapons do a great job of keeping things fresh. Splitters multiply if you try to burn them with your light, while spiders can only be vanquished by your mighty flashlight. There’s even one enemy that turns into a flock of birds and jumps around. Toss in a few tweaks with recharge speed and max battery count, and you have a vastly improved Alan Wake experience.

Even if the story seems disconnected to the previous game’s events, it’s an effective epilogue. Sure, Alan’s new adventures in Night Springs are fun, but what really made me smile was hearing that the Old Gods of Asgard are having a reunion tour, and Berry Wheeler’s promoting them. It’s about learning how Alan’s wife, Alice, copes with his supposed death. This isn’t a thriller about rescuing Wake’s wife anymore. Instead, you wrestle with Mr. Scratch for Wake’s very identity. There’s a meaty sub-theme about the various women in Wake’s life, but that’s for a deeper analysis. It’s there, and it’s worthy of a longer article. Yet ambiguity still remains a strong card in Wake’s hand, as the lines between reality remain blurred through his nightmare.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is mechanically a better Alan Wake. The only thing holding it back is its brevity (six hours for me), but it’s highly enjoyable, especially if you loved the first game. Oh, and there’s a new song from Old Gods of Asgard (played by Poets of the Fall), which is pretty much worth the price of admission alone. Even better, there are backward-masked messages hidden in the song that hint details about Alan Wake 2.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Penny Arcade
Developer: Zeboyd Games
System requirements: Windows XP, 1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c-compatible graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, Windows Media Player, 200 MB hard-drive space
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

It’s another day at Strange Developments, Inc., and investigators/god-killers Tyco and Gabe await their next case. The phone suddenly rings. On the other end, a dark, brooding silence with hints of fear. This can only mean one thing: a phone call from someone inside a dark mime cult. Our dashing heroes dash off heroically to investigate. Thus starts the third chapter in the On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series, an utterly delightful JRPG spin on the venerable web comic Penny Arcade from retro-masters Zeboyd Games.

The first two installments of the series were developed by Hothead Games four years ago. While warmly received, they didn’t gather enough steam to complete the trilogy. Now, Zeboyd has stepped up to do what must be done. Following the previous game’s JRPG roots, RSPD3 is done up in the 16-bit pastiches Zeboyd does so very well. If you’ve played their previous games Breath of Death VII or Cthulhu Saves the World, then you’ve got an idea.

Of course, the Penny Arcade comic itself lacks any true narrative, and perhaps that’s why RSPD works so well. It takes characters you already know and fits them into archetypical roles in a genre story. It’s like a murder-mystery dinner party, only Cthulhu shows up (note to self: DO THIS). While this third chapter follows right after the previous two, you won’t feel like you’ve missed something if you just pick it up now.

While traditional RPGs are about managing resources between fights, here everything regenerates between combat, even items. While this might sound like a shocking heresy, it actually removes a lot of frustration and needless tedium. Fights now play out like grand strategic affairs as you try to desperately use every resource available to you to survive to the next fight. It’s interesting, it’s fast, and it’ll hold you in its grip even if you despise traditional RPG combat. The traditional three-character party consists of our two heroes and guest characters who file in and out as the story progresses. Meanwhile, you can attach a number of different class badges to Tyco and Gabe. These range from the Cardboard Tube Samurai to the Crabomancer, and while those might not seem like polar opposites, there’s also a wide range of creative classes in-between.

Jerry “Tyco” Holkins’ writing is in true form. That man could write a daily essay on his sock drawer and it would still be an engrossing piece of literature. This is the one JRPG in which you utterly devour all the text you find, not because you must trigger the next sequence, but because it’s just that delectable. The wit utterly drips from this game. Every item description, monster text, even the monsters themselves are hilarious. For example, there’s the Mime Pirates (“’talk like a mime-pirate day’ never caught on”). Meanwhile, Zeboyd faithfully recreates Mike “Gabe” Krahulik’s expressive artwork in sprite form, a feat as impressive as it is delightful. The very best of Penny Arcade has been distilled and sprinkled liberally across the entire game.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 isn’t just a witty concoction of JRPG tropes, but a uniquely inventive game that can stand on its own. This isn’t just for Penny Arcade fans, but those who enjoy strategy and wit of any kind. Not only is RSPD3 a fairly meaty game that clocks in at around 10 hours, but it’s also only $5 and available on PC, Mac and Xbox 360. Currently, Zeboyd is promising future content updates and a fourth (and final?) installment next year. If its anything like this game, it’s something to mark on the family calendar.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

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

Publisher: xii Games
Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, 512 MB RAM (1 GB for Vista/Win 7), 256 MB graphics card, 1GB hard-drive space
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Resonance is a puzzle/adventure game that revolves around a murder mystery, dangerous technology, and the memories and motivations of its four characters. When a scientist is murdered in his lab after making paranoid ramblings, it’s up to you to figure out who did it, why, and what’s in the secret vault. Utilizing some innovating game elements, Resonance is more interesting than its modest price tag implies.

Like most adventure games, Resonance involves a ton of puzzles that need solving, but unlike more tired releases in this genre, it shakes things up a little bit. Once you reach a certain point in the plot, you end up controlling four different characters, each with their own inventories, memories and abilities. The more difficult puzzles generally require you to coordinate between two or more of your characters; there are times where you’re required to jump around to different characters, using their inventories, memories and specialized abilities to accomplish all of your tasks.

But the innovation in Resonance isn’t in the four-character framework. I keep using the word “memories” because the game has a multi-format inventory system. Each character has a physical inventory, a short-term memory and a long-term memory. The physical inventory is just what you think it is: physical objects currently being held by that person. The long-term memory acts as a journal for that character. Important things that happen in the game are recorded here so you can review them later. The short-term memory is the most interesting part. It’s used to “record” items in the game world that cannot be physically removed from their locations. For example, when trying to shut off the water pouring from the pipes in front of the lab, you can put the shut-off valve in your short-term memory. Now that you “remember” it, you can carry that object with you and, thanks to the nice interface in the conversation system, drop it into conversation at any time. Instead of trying to open conversation trees or trying to spell/use the correct name for an object in conversation, you can just drop your memory into the conversation and see if the person you are talking to has anything useful to say about it. This makes interaction with other characters much more interesting (there are some nifty side discussions you can open up this way) and less frustrating. You can also drop long-term memories or physical objects into conversations, which is especially useful when two of your four characters are interacting. And since developer xii Games took the time to put in tons of things that can be remembered, this mechanic is not so much a gimmick as it is a vital factor in solving puzzles.

Resonance borrows heavily from old-school 1990s adventure games, but it’s a bit more adult in its plot development and characters. I don’t mean that it has sexual content; I mean the four protagonists are wrestling with issues that are less “hey, let’s go on an adventure!” and more “I’ve got some baggage from my past and this whole murder thing isn’t helping.” Some sequences are clearly the work of a writer who wants you to feel empathy towards the characters. There are moments when you navigate through a character’s nightmares, while others have you relive moments in the past when abuse and neglect occurred. And because the plot is mystery-driven, the game drops enough hints and red herrings throughout so that you begin to suspect treachery from even the characters you control. The 256-color graphics and low resolution can make the game look like another cheesy ’90s knockoff, but the writing demonstrates this isn’t just some throwaway adventure.

However, when I say 256-color graphics, I really mean it. If you’ve read my reviews, you know I don’t think this is a big deal. However, the game’s blocky graphics come through all the more clearly on a big monitor. While it’s not a strike in my book, those who love their graphics might want to look at videos and screenshots before making the decision to purchase. Aside from that, I wish there was an easier way to lasso all four characters to move them around the city. If you want to move more than one character at a time, you have to enter into a conversation with each character you want to take with you and tell them to walk with you. I would have really preferred a simpler approach involving the mouse.

But even these flaws are fairly minor. As far as I’m concerned, Resonance is the reason indie games exist. You don’t need a $10 million budget, a staff of a hundred and a selling price of $69.99 to have a good game. Sometimes a great experience can be had for $9.99. This is one of those times.

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© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments

Publisher: Smudged Cat Games
Developer: Smudged Cat Games
System requirements: Windows XP, 2.0 GHz dual-core CPU, 512 MB RAM, 128 MB graphics card with Shader Model 3.0 support, DirectX 10, 82 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Platformer
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

After spending dozens of hours raiding tombs, searching for hidden civilizations and saving the galaxy, every so often it’s good to go old-school and put in some time on an old-fashioned platformer. Thing is, sometimes the simpler a game is, the worse it is on your blood pressure. This can easily be said for The Adventures of Shuggy, which can be totally controlled using the fingers of one hand, yet can be frustrating enough to cause the utterance of rather colorful oaths.

You play as Shuggy, a very cute cartoon vampire who inherits a spooky castle filled with all manner of nasties. The castle contains 116 rooms that have to be cleared of all of their malevolent squatters before you can move in. You do this by various means, all of which involve the collecting of shiny gems.

Shuggy is a throwback to the days when you didn’t need to learn dozens of keyboard/mouse combinations to control your games. All you need are the WASD keys for movement, plus a jump button and one to trigger any special ability that might be in play. Specific keys can be reconfigured through the options menu (pro tip: when mapping the ability key, use one located far enough away from the movement cluster that you have to use your free hand. Unless, of course, you enjoy playing Finger Twister.). The 100+ rooms are spread out amongst five areas. Enter any room with an open door by standing in front of it and pressing the ability key. Once inside, you have to pick up all of the gems in the maze without touching an enemy, which results in instant death. Clearing a room unlocks others in your current hub area, and each hub has a room that houses a boss that has to be defeated.

Sounds simple and painless enough. But there’s a big catch: certain rooms require you to do more than run and jump to grab the goodies. You might have to rotate the room to gain access to parts of the maze. In some rooms a copy of your character generates after a set length of time and follows the same path you trod; you have to plan your route so that the copy helps you past obstructions. And in other areas you have to switch control from one Shuggy to another to complete a maze. These special rooms are liberally sprinkled all through the castle, and the layout of every room is different from the one before, which helps to generate that “just one more level” mentality that keeps you interested throughout your journey. Graphics are cartoonish and colorful, level design is very creative, and some of the background music tracks are fiendishly infectious, to the point where you might have trouble getting them out of your head after you finish playing.

Shuggy does have one or two curiosities. The controls can be tricky, especially when using the rope and winch to drop from a high platform and swing to an objective; it took me quite a bit of practice (and uncounted restarts) to finally grasp the concept. There are places where platforms are set so close together that you have to be very precise about where you are before you try to jump to them; not good when a wasp, a mosquito or a floating mine is headed your way. Sometimes enemies blend into the background, so you always have to be aware of your surroundings. The boss rooms unlock before you’ve cleared all of the others in a hub area, which means that you can defeat the boss before you’ve finished completing the hub (the game’s credits roll after you beat the last boss, but achievement whores will be pleased to hear that you can return to the game and clean up the rooms you haven’t yet visited). And the 36-room, two-player co-op mode is limited to local, same-keyboard play; doesn’t get much more old-school than that.

The Adventures of Shuggy could’ve been a tedious, 5 to 10-hour slog through endless platforms, but nothing could be further from the truth. The gameplay is addictive, with well designed levels that are very rarely recycled from area to area. It’s easy on the eyes and ears, but occasionally hard on the blood pressure; you’ll see what I mean when a dive-bombing mosquito tags you just before you reach that last gem — for the tenth time. Indie developer Smudged Cat has taken their 2011 XBLA game and spruced it up for the PC, with surprisingly engaging results. It could be the most enjoyable $10 you spend this summer.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: Chillingo
Developer: Cobra Mobile
System requirements: Windows/Mac OS, 95 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Tower defense
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

We can learn a lot about life from games. For example, the archetypical tower-defense game requires you to assume a passive role and defend against waves of invaders, yet you’re never allowed to offensively strike back, or even tactically retreat. Victory is impossible; only non-defeat can be achieved. Even then, we merely shift to a new battlefield, often not of our choosing. For all of the genre’s inherent meaning, it’s surprising that there are no bullying or racial minority-themed TDs. Yet, on the genre tree, we must first pass through the “WWII Belt” before reaching more fruitful branches. And yet, as iBomber Defense demonstrates, perhaps this isn’t the worst place to be.

iBomber Defense follows the TD recipe while adding its own flourishes. Enemies creep down preset paths while your towers pink away. This time, however, the enemies shoot back, slowly damaging your defenses and giving you a repair bill to manage. If you’re blindsided by a particular wave, then you can rewind to before the wave hit to save your future bacon.

After every mission, you’re awarded an upgrade point that you can use to unlock new towers or increase their possible upgrade levels, plus an additional point if you have a perfect game. Every three or so levels, you’re given an ambush challenge, in which you revisit a previous mission just as you left it, but bombers have torn a new path through it and ruined your carefully laid plans, forcing you to quickly adopt a new strategy.

iBomber might seem like a nice, simple TD, but don’t mistake it for an easy one. Of the three difficulty levels, don’t be surprised if you find yourself playing on the lowest, even if you’re a TD veteran. Playing on easy really does feel like normal for, say, Defense Grid. But once you get a good grip on the gameplay, you can go back and try it on the harder settings, which adds a lot of replayability. Between two campaigns and two bonus missions, you’ll find a staggering 24 different scenarios. There’s an incredible amount of game in iBomber Defense for its $5 price tag.

iBomber’s iOS heritage shows in a number of ways. First, it’s taken its parent’s naming scheme. Second, it looks like a flash game (but don’t hold that against it; this is the era of Indie Tolerance, after all). Third, it doesn’t know you have a keyboard with a hundred buttons. However, its click-and-drag scheme actually suits the game well. Even so, it would be nice to have keyboard shortcuts for the time controls. This is pretty obviously related to its touchscreen genes. A less obvious accusation is the lack of clear stats. iBomber learned too much from its Apple parents and decided that showing you things such as rate of fire, damage and HP simply confound instead of illuminate. But while it’s remarkably easy to intuit good strategy, the inability to quantify that strategy is an oversight.

But that’s just picking at the pudding. iBomber Defense has solid tower-based action with plenty of maps that require defending. If you want a set-path TD that runs well on even a low-end computer, its hard to beat. At its $5 price point with PC and Mac, it should be an instant buy for genre fans and a strong consideration for the curious.

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

Publisher: Beatshapers
Developer: Beatshapers
Genre: Arcade puzzle
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

PlayStation Vita, Sony’s fancy new handheld, released in early 2012 in North America with more than two dozen launch games. Many of them, such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Unit 13, were the type of game that require a considerable time investment in each play session. But most adults who play portable game systems only really use them in small chunks of time, such as on public transportation or while waiting for the end of the final spin cycle. Developer/publisher Beatshapers has helped to fill this void with Stardrone: Extreme, a fast-paced, sometimes-maddening arcade game that only takes a few minutes of your valuable time for each addictive level.

Stardrone: Extreme is the small-screen version of Stardrone, an indie game for the PS3 and the PC that was a finalist at the 2011 IndieCade Independent Video Games Festival. At the beginning of each of Extreme‘s 60 levels, a tiny space ship is launched into a colorful maze of stars, obstacles and floating enemies. Energy beacons are placed at various positions in the maze. Once the ship is launched, momentum keeps it moving constantly forward. Your job is to guide the ship through the mazes by tapping the beacons, which send out gravity beams that attach to the ship. These allow you to alter its trajectory. The beams detach when lift your finger from the touchscreen (or the rear touchpad).

Each level involves one of three general objectives. In Collect All Stars, you have to pilot the ship through the maze, lighting up all of the stars by flying into them. Destroy All Enemies isn’t as simple as it might sound. A meter at the top of the screen fills up as you collect stars. When the meter is full, your ship turns into the Stardrone equivalent of Pac-Man after he swallows the power pill. While the ship is powered up, it can kill almost any enemy with one touch and can breach obstacles that would take many impacts while the ship is in its normal state. But the energy meter slowly drains after the ship is powered up, so you have to continue to kill enemies or light up stars to keep the power flowing. The third game mode has you simply guiding the ship through the maze to the exit point. This is the toughest of the three modes, since powerup opportunities are few and one missed tap on a gravity beacon can mean failure.

The controls for Extreme can’t be simpler — the only control is your finger. You aim the cannon by touching the screen; lift your finger to fire. After that it’s just touching and releasing the beacons to point the ship in the right direction. There are times when using the front touchscreen puts your hand between your eyes and the ship, which can be fatal in the increasingly complex later levels, so learning how to play with the rear touchpad can be a game-saver. The graphics are very colorful, almost psychedelic, set against the flat black backdrop of space. And the music and sound effects remind me of old arcade games, effective and strangely memorable. Some of the enemies require more than one hit to destroy; it almost sounds like they’re laughing at you when you hit them the first time. Also, cross-platform play with the PS3 is supposedly coming through a PS3 patch.

Only a couple of things get in the way of Extreme success. Each level includes a minimap set in the bottom corner of the screen, “mini” being the important part of the description. It’s so small and translucent that it blends into the playfield, making it useless in many cases. If you fail a level (and you will, many dozens of times), you’re given the choice of skipping it and moving to the next, even after only failing one time, so you could theoretically reach the final level in only a few minutes. But most unnerving about Extreme is the frustration factor. The touchscreen controls are very precise. It can take a long time and many failures to finally become comfortable with them. And once you reach the final level (which you can’t skip), you have no stars to gather, which means no power-up mode. It will take the average player a long time and many deaths to learn the pattern of the maze (the minimap is little help) and the locations of all the elements that they have to either reach or avoid. It can take several hours to get through the first 59 levels, and perhaps just as long to get to the end of the 60th. Controller-hurlers will be in serious danger of ruining their $300 hardware. Several times I’ve managed to get my little ship within pixels of the goal, only to hit a jag-toothed wall and dying.

Stardrone: Extreme gives casual players a quasi-arcade game that has simple controls and can be comfortably played in small doses, while making good use of the PS Vita’s powerful hardware. And best of all, at $3.99 it’s probably the best value for your money of any game available for the device. An improved minimap (or perhaps putting one in the pause menu) would go a long way towards reducing the frustration that the game can generate, but it still gives you plenty of on-the-go entertainment that you can probably finance using the coins in your couch cushions.

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© 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 (Snow Leopard), 2.0 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, 3 GB RAM (4 GB for Mac), 512 MB graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead graphic-novel series has become a cottage industry since its original publication in 2003. The television series based on the comics has become one of the AMC cable network’s most popular shows, several board games have been released, action figures by Todd McFarlane are available. You can even get drinking glasses and beer steins emblazoned with Walking Dead graphics. And now, adventure-game publisher Telltale has added to zombie lore with the first of five video-game episodes, giving you the chance to guide a troubled hero through the opening days of the zombie apocalypse.

You play as Lee Everett, a history professor at a college in Georgia. Things aren’t going well for Lee, even before the dead begin to rise and feast on the living. We first see Lee in the back of a police car on the way to prison (we don’t yet know what he did to deserve a trip to the big house). An auto accident leaves Lee with an injured leg and on the run from a group of zombies. He takes refuge in a suburban house, where he meets Clementine, an 8-year-old girl who’s been hiding in her treehouse waiting for her parents to return from a trip to Savannah. After she helps him survive an attack by her zombified babysitter, Lee agrees to keep Clementine safe until she can be reunited with her family.

Telltale has added a bit of creativity to their standard control scheme for the Walking Dead. The interface is the usual point-and-click that you would find in most adventure games, but selecting an NPC or a usable item sometimes reveals a context menu (controlled by the mouse wheel) that gives you immediate options for what you can do (examine or talk, for example). Your inventory is totally controlled by these context menus, so you don’t have to leave the screen to select an item. Also, conversation threads now can have time limits attached, forcing you to go with your first instinct instead of spending time pondering the choices. But the biggest addition to the usual Telltale formula is that decisions you make can have an effect on how the story plays out all the way through the five episodes of the series. This offers almost unlimited replayability, something that almost all previous adventure games lack. You can play Lee as a misunderstood hero, then go back and start again as a cold-hearted criminal, with the story adjusting itself based on your choices. There are even several spots where you have to choose which of two NPC characters lives or dies.

Just as in the comics and the TV series, the Walking Dead game story is more about the living than the dead. You meet and join a group of survivors, each with their own personal agendas, and the writing lets you get to know all of them, which makes it that much harder to decide which of them becomes dinner for the brain-eaters. Cell-shaded graphics give the game an excellent comic-book feel, and the music score is perfectly understated, blending nicely with the action. And there’s a surprising amount of real action here; failing to complete a series of mouse-button presses can quickly turn you into zombie food. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Telltale game without puzzles. They’re few and far between in Episode 1, and they’re all fairly simple affairs; expect them to ramp up in number and difficulty as the series progresses.

Hardcore gamers who aren’t fans of the source material could find The Walking Dead tedious, since most of the game is spent introducing you to the characters and their stories. It’s also perhaps the shortest adventure Telltale has ever released, running no more than a couple of hours; some MMO clients take longer to download than that. Meanwhile, those who love the comics and the show might be disappointed to discover that only one of the series’ core characters appears in the game, although we do visit an iconic location from Season 2 of the TV series. But we become quickly and easily invested in the lives of the characters in the game; I didn’t find myself wondering what those other survivors were doing, since I was too busy trying to keep myself and my new friends alive (and my personal secrets to myself).

Ever since halfway through their Monkey Island series, Telltale has been on a bit of a losing streak, with Law and Order: Legacies and Jurassic Park generating less-than-stellar reviews and receipts. But ironic as it might seem, it’s possible that a series about the bloodthirsty undead might actually breathe some life back into the company’s fortunes. The Walking Dead combines an involving narrative style, a lead character who’s as likable as you want him to be, and a significant revamping of the typical Telltale adventure mechanic to create an entertaining first episode to what could be the developer’s best series.

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© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: 38 Studios
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the first adventure in the brand new world of Amalur, brought to us by 38 Studios, Big Huge Games and the mind of fantasy legend R.A. Salvatore. An action RPG with the Salvatore pedigree to live up to, KoA:R promises fast-paced, customizable gameplay and an epic story set in a colorful, high-fantasy world.

The world of Amalur is bound by fate and cycles. The Fae embody the immortal cycle of nature, while the mortal races have destinies laid out from birth to death written in the unchangeable Threads of Fate. For years the Faelands have been gripped by a war that the mortal races are fated to lose. A faction of Winter Fae has usurped the Winter Throne and is waging a holy crusade, the “Crystal War,” in the name of a new god to wipe the mortal races from the world. You take the role of an unknown victim of the war, brought back to life by a last ditch experiment to combat the immortal Fae. With no memories and no place in the Threads of Fate, you have the unprecedented ability to actively change the fate of the world around you. The Fateless One (that’s you) carries the hope of all mortals to prevent the inevitable.

Gameplay in KoA:R is that of a class-based action RPG with a little more flexibility than most. The idea of the Fateless One is brought into the combat system in the form of “destinies.” These are your character classes, unlocked based on how many skill points you’ve poured into each of the three combat disciplines: Might, Finesse and Sorcery. A small sum of money allows you to “unbind your destiny” and reset all your skill points, changing your play style at any time. Though character building is superficially simple, the combat is surprisingly fast paced and responsive.

With the hype surrounding it, KoA:R has taken heavy scrutiny since its debut. It’s more than lived up to its promises. The world is colorful and vivid; a pleasant contrast to the otherwise heavy plot. At first glance, the world around you offers little setting or context. Curiosity is rewarded, however, and a rich narrative lies waiting for those who take the time to talk to NPCs. Characters have unique insights and perspectives on the world around them, and scattered bits of history wait for you to find them and piece the whole story together yourself. These facts offer a much more immersive and engaging world than a narrator summarizing it all in a long-winded cinematic.

I want to give Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning five stars, but I can’t. There’s one glaring, overreaching flaw that cripples this otherwise amazing game and keeps it from being one of the best action RPGs I’ve ever played. Electronic Arts requires that you be connected to their servers to play it. No Internet? No game. I love KoA:R, but my PS3 does a number on my house bandwidth when I play a game with an active online feature. When something like this prevents me from playing the single-player game I purchased without being connected, it’s hard to justify paying for or playing it.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an incredible game. It offers a vivid world with a rich history, providing a great backdrop for an intuitive, customizable combat system. It’s terrible to see it brought down by something as stupid as cheap, invasive DRM. It was a tough decision to say that I still recommend buying this game.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Lieren Teeling for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System requirements: Windows XP (SP3)/Vista (SP1)/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Core2Duo or better CPU, 1 GB RAM (XP)/2 GB RAM (Vista/Win 7), 256 MB Nvidia 7900/ATI X1800 or better graphics card, 15 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RPG/Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

The word “epic” is passed around liberally in critical media, be it the movies or videogames. The unquestioned master of the epic film was director Cecil B. DeMille, whose films carried such massive scope and reach that only Cinemascope could hold them. In gaming, developer BioWare has crafted perhaps the first true epic story in the industry’s short history with the Mass Effect series. The 80 to 100-hour journey finally reaches its end in Mass Effect 3, in which one person truly shapes the future of billions.

Following the battle at the Collector base at the end of Mass Effect 2, Cmdr. Shepard has been relieved of his duties and brought to Earth. He’s been trying to convince galactic leaders that the Reapers, a devastating alien force bent on universal destruction, are on the way to cull the herd in the Milky Way galaxy, but none of them seem to want to believe him, in spite of past events that make an invasion seem imminent. His warnings prove correct when a Reaper force arrives on Earth and starts reducing the world’s cities to rubble. Leaving his friend Adm. Anderson to organize a resistance, Shepard reluctantly returns to his ship, the Normandy, and heads to Mars, where plans for a superweapon that could defeat the Reapers are said to have been found.

During the next few dozen hours of gameplay, you guide Shepard across the galaxy in search of alien races to join you in your quest to stop the Reapers. But it’s not as simple as dropping by and saying “pretty please?”. The various galactic powers have their own problems that have to be solved before they consider taking up your cause, so you travel from system to system, scratching their backs so that they would scratch yours. As you gain allies, a bar graph fills in from left to right, indicating your fleet’s readiness level and troop strength. You can move on to the end of the story at any time, but how well you might fare in the final battle is determined by your readiness level.

One of the great things about the Mass Effect series has been the small but significant improvements in the gameplay from the first game to the last. Combat has evolved from a simple, cover-based squad shooter to a more balanced combination of shooting and melee action. Resource-gathering, the bane of RPG players everywhere, has seen the biggest improvement. Instead of strip-mining every planet in the galaxy for raw materials (used to buy upgrades for weapons and the Normandy), now you scan each star system for anomalies, then only launch probes at planets where those anomalies are found — but scan too thoroughly and you can attract the attention of the Reapers, who can chase you back to hyperspace if you linger too long. The fruits of these explorations include fuel, alien artifacts, and lost military assets that help to grow your fleet. The acquisition of side quests has been changed, as well. Now all you have to do is eavesdrop on casual conversations to receive new quests; no exclamation points over the heads of NPCs, and your journal automatically updates to let you know what you need to find, where you can find it and to whom to deliver it when you’re done. And there’s one new (and slightly controversial) addition to the series: a multiplayer mode. This takes the form of a four-player co-op survival mode, played on various maps from the single-player game. Completing a dozen or so waves of enemies gains you XP to improve your MP character, as well as a bump in your battle-readiness percentage in the campaign, which helps determine which ending you get after the final battle. I’ve never been a fan of online multiplayer, but I found myself really enjoying it here. Waves are short but fast-paced, there’s plenty of ammo, and each wave is a little bit different from the one before. Fans of the series who’ve complained about the inclusion of MP should try it out; if a lone-wolf gamer such as I can get into it, then the haters might like it, too.

I feel sorry for the poor souls at BioWare who had to write the voluminous descriptive material for the game’s codex and the planets that you visit and scan; most players never bother to read it, since reading all of it would add another couple of hours to your playtime. But it’s this attention to detail that has helped make the series what it is. However, there are still a few blemishes that need to be mentioned. The battle scenes tend to be the same on every planet you visit: first wave is cannon-fodder, next waves are a bit more challenging, final wave is very tough (be prepared to die frequently); a little variation would’ve been welcome. Actually, there is one mission that’s considerably different from the others, but it takes far too long to finish and tries to fill in backstory that doesn’t really need filling in. The cover mechanic can sometimes be unreliable, exposing you to enemy fire longer than you might want. There’s a graphics glitch in the cockpit of the Normandy in which your Shepard can get stuck and not be able to move, requiring a reload. NPC crewmembers can be found in exactly the same places, doing exactly the same things, through the entire game; don’t these people have duties to perform? (And a minor gripe — only one crewmember ever salutes Shepard as he moves through the ship; aren’t these people in the military?) The galactic map indicates where any uncompleted quests can be found, but there’s no way to tell where the fuel depots are; this is important, since travel between star systems uses fuel. Moving a tiny little Normandy through the galactic map is the cheesiest thing in the entire series, and unfortunately it returns in ME3. I also had some serious sound glitches; some dialogue sounded muffled, as if the voice actors were standing too far away from the microphones. And then there’s the ending. I won’t go into the extreme drama that has been generated by the ending (that’s for another forum), but I found the ending to be completely appropriate. The fight scene leading to the final sequence is the most unrelentingly intense battle scene in the entire series. However, I did want to know what happened to my friends whom I didn’t select to go with me in the final fight. Also, BioWare has made it very inconvenient to go back and see the endings that you didn’t select in your original playthrough; the quick-save feature is disabled in the final sequence, and the last autosave is overwritten after the credits, so you have to sit through 15 minutes of exposition three times to see all of the endings.

Let’s take a look at the Mass Effect series as a whole. BioWare has crafted a story that Mr. DeMille himself would envy, a story in which the Butterfly Effect is definitely in play (a single decision that you made way back in the first game can have serious ramifications at the end of the series). You meet dozens of memorable characters for whom you feel actual emotions; few games get you so personally invested. The series is a landmark achievement in gaming, and Mass Effect 3 is a fine conclusion. It’s not the prettiest game, and it has more than it’s share of controversy attached to it, but it’s the ending to a gaming experience that should not be missed.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation:

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments