Probably one of the best villains ever, by the way.

The main character is a hunk of meat. He is dating a girl made of bandages named Bandage Girl. They are both hated by the evil Dr. Fetus, a fetus in a jar with a top hat and monocle who has stolen Bandage Girl and placed her at the end of some of the most difficult platforming stages this side of I Wanna Be The Guy.

Here’s where I get to brag just a little bit. Those unfamiliar with I Wanna Be The Guy, it is a free PC game made by a guy who felt like making a stupidly difficult platforming game where every single thing tries to kill you, including spikes, fruit, and the moon. And I somehow beat that game. Super Meat Boy is even harder than that, so much so that I’m not even 100% done with the game but I can safely say that I’m past the point where at least 90% of gamers would be forced to give up.

So yes, Super Meat Boy is difficult in the same way that vampires are pasty and toast is crisp. You will die thousands of times before reaching even the standard end of the game. At this moment, I have completed the first 4 chapters, Light and Dark Worlds, with an A+ on each stage, plus every Light World Stage in Chapters 5 and 6, Teh Internets, and found just over 50 bandages. My death counter is about to hit 4000, and even that feels generous to me. I’ve been forced to wrap part of my right thumb in bandages, lost feeling it its tip, strained my trigger finger, and felt sharp pains up that arm. Few other games have ever made me take a few days rest to physically recover.

This right here is an easy level. The harder ones are nightmares.

Normally I’d complain about the difficulty spiking at some point in the game to levels of unfairness, but that isn’t the case here. On the contrary, Super Meat Boy begins unfair and only seeks to find your breaking point via saws, salt, missile launchers, and all manner of hellish obstacles. Thankfully, while the game contains over 300 levels, each level can be completed in under 30 seconds with the longest level thus far asking me to complete it in under 70 seconds for an A+ score.

There will come a time where you’re expected to perform to such a high degree that single pixels could mean the difference between completing a level or getting munched up by some spinning instrument of death. And you will be angry. And it will be perfectly reasonable to scream obscenities and rage quit. But once you beat that level on the 50th try you’ll feel all the better with yourself.

While I expected myself to become bothered by every new addition the game tossed at me, I was actually always surprised with glee at how inventive the challenge becomes. Each chapter consists of some new main obstacle standing in your way, such as the homing missile launchers getting added at some point around the middle of the game, and as you go through the chapters and begin to hate this obstacle, you just keep reminding yourself, “I’ll see this thing less in the next chapter,” only to then have it replaced by something I can’t give a name to but could be summed up as “Satan’s screaming missile launcher of Hell.” In essence, the level design is to be praised rather than scoffed at, despite the difficulty. You’ll be a better gamer for having gone through it.

Shown: How you'll feel after beating a enough of the tougher levels.

This very second, Super Meat Boy is priced at a more than reasonable 1200 MS points, or $15 in the real world. Even just half of this game has been worth the $15, but where I am now? It’s worth a full-priced retail release. Snatch it up while the meat’s still rare and enjoy yourself raw. Unless you’re bad at platformers. In that instance, just say away from Super Meat Boy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to save Bandage Girl a few dozen more times before my thumb falls off.

Want more reviews? Check these out:

-More Like A Tall Tale: A Review Of Fable III

-Monkey’s Life-Changing Trip: A Review Of Enslaved: Odyssey To The West

-Call Of D-Oops, I Mean A Review Of Medal Of Honor

See that mechanical doggy of doom chasing you? You are totally going to have to fight that thing. And it will be epic.

The most griping detail about Enslaved is undoubtedly the story telling. Monkey (played by the unlimited brilliance that is Andy Serkis) is strong, independent, and highly antisocial. Trip, however, is… well pretty much everything that’s the opposite of Monkey. Both characters manage to escape a slave ship by their own specialized means. Trip knows she can’t trek the 300 miles to her home base by her self, so she wires a slave headband to Monkey’s head that will fry his brains if Trip dies, giving him no choice but to assist Trip in her journey back home.

Unlike other games where you fumble through the buttons every time a cutscene comes up to skip to the action, it is the subtle but touching development of this very odd paring as they cross a perilous futuristic wasteland littered with deadly war-induced mechs that truly engages the player’s desire to move forward. The plot only gets even more crazy when a third character, Pigsy, shows up half way through and becomes a whole new factor in their progress, for better or worse. This is very easily the best written, acted, directed, and motion captured cut scenes in a game since Uncharted 2 Among Thieves, and when your game is being compared to another game that won no short of 25 Game of the Year awards in 2009, that is definitely saying something.

This here is your entire ensemble. Just three solitary characters. And they’re all awesome. Okay, so Pigsy’s annoying as hell, but endearing nonetheless.

My second greatest love is the setting. Is it just me, or does every game set in a post apocalypse, or just plain warzone these days, feel comprised of the same old grimy dingy grey wastelands littered with the same metal scrap heaps we’ve seen over and over again?

Until now.

Ninja Theory has crafted quite possibly the most beautiful post apocalyptic future I’ve ever seen. While there are all sorts of reminiscence of old society and the America as we know it, foliage is growing everywhere as if nature is striving to retake the planet. It’s quite astounding.

You might think that given the story, the gameplay would revolve deeply on -GASP- escort missions. I’ll say right now the whole game is basically just one huge escort mission [story wise], but the way the gameplay is handled, it rarely feels that way. Yes, there will be regular “making-sure-Trip-doesn’t-get-killed” actions you must take, but in reality, Trip helps your progress far more than she hinders it, acting as your weapon and skill upgrader, and seeking out weaknesses and strategies for taking down mechs. The end result is gameplay that feels like a mixture of the platforming from Uncharted, the Combat from Heavenly Sword (except replace the sword with a staff that can also shoot plasma blasts), and the variety from Jak and Daxter. Seriously not kidding about the Jak and Daxter part. Play the game and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I especially like the parts where you get to ride Monkey’s “Cloud.” What? That’s what it’s called.

So, the game’s fun, the characters are fun, the setting’s fun, and even some of your mechanical baddies are pretty clever and fun, but just like I said in my Prince of Persia article a while back, nothing is ever perfect. There are a couple technical flaws in the way this game is put together. On one hand, I am very glad that Ninja Theory didn’t feel discouraged by making this game strictly linear, but then again, the setting was so gorgeous and I felt the game restricted exploration maybe too much, especially when there are collectables throughout the game. You’ll actually find yourself moving on and missing quite a bit. In addition, because of it’s linearity, there will often be times when you find yourself rolling around invisible walls trying to find where the next grab-able ledge is located. The jump controls are also case sensitive, as Monkey only jumps when he can actually reach. This means that difficulty is very non-existent, as platforming isn’t so much a challenge as it is a means to an end. (At least you don’t have to worry about falling off any cliffs.)

Add a wonky camera here and there and one small instance where the game lagged on me and it becomes relevant that this game could have used a little more polishing before it finished development.

In the end, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a fantastic adventure from start to finish, not to mention a brilliant retelling of the old Chinese novel, Journey to the West. I anticipate this one might take a while to catch on with the gaming public, but in the foreseeable future it will be seen as a hidden jewel that flew under the radar. Flawed as it may be, it is, I believe, another perfect example that video games can indeed be a work of art. Check it out on Xbox 360 or PS3 today.

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-Call of D- Oops, I Mean A Review of Medal of Honor

-A Miserable Pile of Secrets: A Review of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

-Just Stay Dead: A Review of Dead Rising 2

"So, uh, I've gotta go kill zombies for a while. You stay here and don't turn into a zombie or anything, okay?"

From everything I’ve seen of Dead Rising 2- screenshots, trailers, and gameplay footage- the graphics have gained a significant boost. Reviewers keep knocking the game for the graphics, saying they aren’t as good as they should be, but from what I’ve seen, the game looks infinitely better than its predecessor. I’m actually a big fan of the way the game looks, as if a slight color overlay was placed on the new graphics. I’m just seeing more colors in this title than I saw in the previous one. Things looks smooth and the game plays smooth for the most part. I’m not going to take a point off or anything for having slight showdowns when hundreds of zombies are on screen at the same time. Just being able to do that is enough to allow for some mild slowdowns.

The gameplay is essentially the same exact game previously seen. Chuck can pick up just about any and everything to deal zombie-death with, though in this installment the number of items have increased quite a lot and varied themselves even better than before. While Chuck doesn’t have the ability to take snapshots like Frank did (good), he does possess the much more useful skill of combining items to form super items, such as a boat paddle and a chainsaw, or boxing gloves and kitchen knives. These stronger items deal more damage and last longer, two aspects I’m happy with. It’ll become a somewhat obsession to collect new combo cards to see what you can combine together.

I think I have my favorite right off the bat.

However, the controls still suffer from the downfalls of the first Dead Rising. Like Frank, Chuck is perfectly capable of wasting zombies by the street-full, but as soon as a psychopath shows up you’ll be lamenting the loose controls in favor of something that works properly for the situation. Encounters with the psychopath characters are frequent and usually unexpected, meaning that you’ll need to be in the habit of saving every single chance you get since much of the time you’ll go into a psychopath fight unprepared with awful weapons and no health. The psychopaths are a needed evil in the game, I guess, but they just aren’t fun to deal with. Killing zombies is satisfying, but killing psychopaths is just an annoyance between the good parts of the game.

The 72-hour timer is back for no good reason, though this time hinging the plot on a relatively interesting concept. Chuck’s daughter has been bitten by a zombie and is infected. If she doesn’t get regular doses of Zombrex, she will change into a zombie and die or something. That’s your main worry in terms of time and as something to base a timer on, that’s not too bad. Why the arbitrary 72-hours, I’m not sure, but whatever. You’ll still be asked to fight psychopaths and save survivors, but their AI is slightly improved over last time, meaning escort missions aren’t the most awful thing in the world. They’re still pretty awful, but things could be worse. The story and specifically the dialogue are more or less forgettable, but when you’re talking zombies, there is no need for a story.

You can kill zombies by ramming into them while wearing a moose head. That's great.

As a single product, Dead Rising 2 is a pretty good deal. There are some multiplayer modes, the best of which being a co-op campaign mode that makes the game far more manageable, as well as some competitive modes that are a one-play-then-done sort of novelty. Everything comes down to your opinion of the first game. If you hated the timer, the escort missions, and the wonky controls, Dead Rising 2 is just more of the same. If you loved the first game, you’ll love this one even more. If you were on the fence about the first one or this one, just give it a pass. No need to encourage this sort of behavior. I mean, I for one could do without zombies for a while. Say like maybe, forever.

Want more game reviews: Check these out:

-How to Reach The Masses: A Halo: Reach Review

-Samuses Should Be Seen, Not Heard: A Review of Metroid: Other M

-Scott Pilgrim vs This Game Review: FIGHT!

Some of you have already played Scott Pilgrim’s arcade game on the PSN since it was released a few weeks ago. However, the XBLA didn’t get the game until this last Wednesday, and since I don’t own a PS3, I had to wait. As soon as I could on Wednesday afternoon, I went onto the XBLA and bought Scott Pilgrim’s game. Okay, first I had to buy $10’s worth of XBLA points, which is crap because I had roughly $4 in points and just needed $6 more, but you can’t buy $6’s worth of points, only $5 or $10. That’s also crap. Oh yeah, the game!

Ready, set, START!

The Scott Pilgrim movie had me sold the moment the Universal logo came on all pixilated with a chiptunes soundtrack. The Universal logo appears at the beginning of the game, though it’s just the normal logo and everything. That was…kind of disappointing. Okay, whatever, that’s not the game. Onto the game.

The game is good. I was extremely hesitant when I learned Ubisoft was the one handling the Scott Pilgrim game property, mostly because I’ve seen how Ubisoft has handled the TMNT property (spoiler: not very well). Thankfully, they got things right, for the most part. And I’m going to be using that qualifier a lot here: “For the most part.” Get used to it.

There was a lot Ubisoft could have got wrong. Thankfully, they didn't screw things up too badly.

So you have four choices of characters between Scott, Kim Pine, Steven Stills, and Ramona Flowers. I played through the game as Scott because it made the most sense to me. It’s nice to have the four options to choose from, but I honestly would have liked more. I kind of wanted to play as Wallace, or even Young Neil, and especially Knives, but I’m stuck with these four choices. That’s okay I guess, for the most part.

Alright, combat. Combat is good, for the most part, insomuch as you have some basic attacks and then level up to gain new abilities. Your four main buttons let you jump, block, light melee and strong melee, but you quickly gain the ability to do a heck of a lot more. The tough part about combat is that you really, really need the higher-up moves to survive later in the game, but you can only gain those by leveling up, i.e. grinding your character a bit. Granted, you’ll be retrying some levels due to dying so it’ll balance itself out, but be aware that there is some grinding involved to beat the game.

My big complaint with combat falls on the limitation of the 2-D sprites. They look awesome, no complaints there, but frequently, as with a lot of old-school beat-‘em-ups, you’ll be trying to hit someone with an attack and they’re just slightly above your character’s plain, so you don’t hit them, almost like they’re literally a flat, 2-D character that can move in 3-D. It’s not awful, but it’s something that frustrated me about older games and it’s still broken today.

Maybe the grind isn't so bad with friends, but I'll never know.

If you have to pick one game that Scott Pilgrim borrows from the most, besides the numerous references, it is River City Ransom for the NES, a super sweet beat-‘em-up that plays almost identical to Scott Pilgrim: The Game in terms of combat. However, that’s not a bad thing at all because I loved River City Ransom. The big thing it did was incorporate weapons for use by all characters. You can pick up trashcans, bats, snowballs, even downed enemies, and either beat your foes with it or hurl it across the screen. This would be great, except for the fact that my character hardly ever wants to pick up an item when I command him to. You have to be standing in just the right spot to grab the item, and then if an enemy hits you, probably from behind because that’s where they like to stand, then you drop the item and have to pick it up again. Even worse, I repeatedly injured myself throwing an item, only to have it bounce off the edge of the screen and smack me in the face. That’s annoying, even more so when you keep doing it by accident.

All things aside, the game is really fun, for the most part. Levels do a good job of varying things up, and enemies range pretty well between standard and specialized enemies. Everything remains pretty fun until the final level against Gideon. The first boss fight with him is pretty simple once you figure things out. Then comes the second boss fight, a fight that was absolutely terrible. My fun plummeted for a few reasons. The first is that the second fight required almost zero skill. Just keep rushing up and beating away until you get super-punched. Then, when you ARE super-punched, you get hurled across the screen. This wasn’t fun because I’d get punched, hurled, land, and instantly punched again before I could do anything. I wasn’t at risk of losing the match because I had leveled Scott up enough to withstand crap like that, but still, I hated that finale.

The funny thing is, if this had come out on the SNES it would be considered an honored classic today.

Now comes the worst part of the review: Things that broke for me. I’m talking literally, as in “Times while playing where the game glitched and broke.” Simple things happen all the time, such as an enemy getting knocked out but remaining in the background, untouchable and just standing there doing nothing, but then there were bigger problems. For one, I keep hearing the music pull an 8-bit skip similar to what the NES would do right before crashing. Moments when the music stretches a note for a second longer than it should freaks me out and sends me back to the days when at any moment the game could freeze up and have to be restarted.

However, the worst glitch happened in the last level of the game when fighting that second form of Gideon. Before even getting to the boss encounter, you have to run across a random floating pathway, then jump on some clouds to the final platform. This is fine, but I fell off the pathway. Normally, when that happens you’re just placed back on the pathway with a few health points reduced. For me, instead of falling off and being placed back on, I somehow fell through the top layer of the game, meaning I was running around in the background unable to do anything. I ran to the spawn point for Gideon, and he showed up, but he couldn’t touch me and I couldn’t touch him. I then ran past the edge of the screen to the literal edge of what the programmers had programmed, and found myself in a white void. I was forced to restart the level, super pissed and with little confidence in the game’s QA department.

My final gripe is that the multiplayer is local only. I really want to play multiplayer here, but that would require me to have enough friends with Xbox 360 controllers who care about Scott Pilgrim AND who like beat-‘em-ups, and that combo isn’t easy to come by. If the multiplayer supported Xbox Live players, too, similar to how the TMNT Arcade Game does, then everything would be roses. Oh well, the single player is still good, for the most part.

Scott, teach me your ways, and I shall in turn teach you why some of them are wrong.

I just don’t know what to think about Scott Pilgrim’s game. It’s a fun game, and the references to other games only makes things better. The game has tons of personality and is by all regards a fun game to play. I just wanted more, I guess. I can play through the TMNT Arcade Game over and over because it’s short and simple. Scott Pilgrim is a game I don’t really want to play through again right away because I know the amount of work it requires, but after the game is beat, there’s not much else to do except replay it. I know there are a Boss Rush mode and a Zombie Hoard thing, but I don’t know where those are since they’re not listed. All I’m really left to do is complete a few silly achievements should I choose (seriously, 10 points for getting through a level untouched and 20 for just buying everything at a store? Are you kidding me?).

For you, the choice of whether to buy the game rests on your love of Scott Pilgrim and beat-‘em-up games. The game does both of those really well, but as a whole, it’s somewhat lacking. Pick it up if you have the points to spare, otherwise, maybe wait until this goes on sale with a half-price deal or something. Scott Pilgrim barely wins video game.

Want more game reviews? Check these out:

-Why Are You Reading This? StarCraft II Wings of Liberty Review

-Outlaws to the End: A Review of Red Dead Redemption

-An Epic Gaming Session: A Review of God of War III

I don't even know who this guy is, but I know he looks cool.

As I said, you already know if you want this game or not. How can you tell? You either already have the game, or you don’t. That’s pretty much the decider for this one. There’s no one left on the fence here, waiting for a few more review scores to come in and determine their buying decision. Gamers have already made up their mind about StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

I really have no opinion of it. Oh don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for it. The graphics are awesome, the voice acting is excellent, the controls are perfect and the story is engaging. I just don’t have a computer that can play it. And that’s not to say StarCraft II is too hard on computers; I just have a really lame PC without a graphics card. I can’t even play World of Goo or the demo for Tales from Monkey Island, so StarCraft II doesn’t play for me.

If you need criticism, there’s only one I’ve heard and it regards the resolution to the story, or more appropriately, that there isn’t one. Wings of Liberty is only one of three games, and its campaign focuses solely on one of the three races. Don’t worry, you can still play as all three races online in multiplayer, but the single player experience is only a third of what you’ve probably been expecting. The story you do get is great, but you will want more and there’s virtually no chance you’ll get the next chapter any time soon. I’d be shocked if you see it before 2012.

This just looks nuts. But fun. But still nuts.

And look at that, I’m already done with the StarCraft II review. Do you see how pointless that was? Did you even stop playing the game to read this? Probably not, so I’m probably here all alone doing nothing right now. Well then, let’s talk about RTS games and why they’ll never be on a console, or more appropriately, let me rant for a second. If you’re still wondering why there hasn’t been a really, REALLY good RTS on the consoles, it’s all because no control scheme works better for the RTS genre than a mouse and keyboard. I’m not micromanaging dozens of troops all across the map with a freaking control stick. That’d just be stupid. Heck, I can hardly manage it on a PC. Just take your mouse right now and flail the cursor around the screen for a moment or two. You see that? That’s how fast you can move around in an RTS, plus you get exact controls. With a joystick you’re constantly fighting the battle between cursor speed and cursor control, and that’s a battle we may never win.

Okay, my little rant is over and so is my review. Come back on Wednesday and I’ll have a much longer, much more inflammatory article about Avatar, just because I can. Peace out y’all.

Yup, still looks like Pokemon.

My Pokeweek continues today after a bit of a day off yesterday, though the games still relate to the concept of completing everything in the game for simply no point. Nope, today we’re all about happy things because I’ve got a review for the remake of Pokemon Gold and Silver versions, called HeartGold and SoulSilver. Are they good? Well duh, they’re remakes of my favorite Game Boy games, of course they’re good.

More of the Same and No One Minds

If you haven’t played a Pokemon game at this point, you probably never will. You can move along now since you probably have better things to do at the moment. The concept of the games are simple: You Gotta Catch ‘Em All. The “all” in this case are Pokemon, literally Pocket Monsters that you keep in balls and send out to fight against each other. It’s classic turn-based RPG stuff here where after each battle you gain experience and level up your Pokemon until they evolve into bigger and better versions of themselves. HeartGold and SoulSilver don’t change that formula one iota.

The real question here is what has been added to the remake that wasn’t in the original. The mechanics from the newer versions have made a resurgence once again, so everything from Silver/Gold versions on is in the remakes. Also, there are alternate modes besides just battling, such as the Pokeathlon, which provide a nice break from the training that you’ll encounter in bundles.

Remember the Pocket Pikachus from a while ago? Sucker! Got you again!

Also, the big thing people are talking about in regards to the game is the Pokewalker, a device that allows you to transfer a Pokemon from your DS onto this pedometer and walk around with them, allowing you to collect experience points from what I understand. It’s nothing amazing but it’s a nifty little gizmo to dink with. As long as it comes with the game with no extra charge, I’m fine with it.

I’m actually interested in the ability to walk around with a Pokemon outside of battles, similar to the way Pikachu followed your character in Yellow version. It wasn’t since then that you were able to do this, so it’s nice to see that back. It doesn’t do a whole lot, but you couldn’t do it in Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, so good on ‘em for that.

Nothing new to see here folks, move along.

In terms of improvements, there aren’t a whole lot. The graphics are the same exact ones from the other fourth-generation titles, and the sound effects are still, STILL, the same ones from the original Blue and Red version games, something that’s pretty much unacceptable. Pokemon came out over 10 years ago and we still have to listen to the chiptone screeches of each character. No sir, that’s just lazy. I want better from this remake.

This is another one of those no-brainer decisions when it comes to purchasing or not. You know if you’re getting it and you know if you’re not. I’ll just go ahead and say that HeartGold and SoulSilver are exactly what you think they’ll be and leave it at that.

Sure, that's a motorcycle made out of summon goddesses. I can think of nothing weird about that.

I’m fighting with myself regarding the best way to handle this review. It’s probably best that I make a few things abundantly clear right away since anyone that thinks about it and runs the numbers will figure out my chief reservation: Final Fantasy XIII came out today and I have no money. There is no way that I could have written this review after playing the game since, first, the game is well over a literal day’s worth of playing, and secondly, I don’t get advanced copies of games to play in time for reviews to come out. All that said, I looked all over for reviews on the game and I figured the best thing to do would be to give my findings and impressions on the game having never played it but wanting to after playing a handful of older Final Fantasy games.

As If You Needed A Review

The story for this new game is completely beyond me. I don’t like reading every little detail about a game before I buy it, so all the trailer and cinemas and facts about the game’s story are better left to experience later. I do know that there are two worlds, Cocoon and Pulse, and they’re at war. Lightning, the game’s main protagonist, is vitally important to the world for a reason other than her just being the protagonist (I’m sure of at least that much). The consensus from reviewers out there is that the story is nothing mind shattering and it probably isn’t the best Final Fantasy story, but it is very good. The characters are well done save for one massive annoyance (seriously, every review has dinged the game for her alone) and it seems that if this is your usual sort of game, you’ll be pleased with the story.

"Ever have those days when you just feel and look dead inside? I have those all the time."

That being said, the game is ridiculously linear, especially for a Final Fantasy game. This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing. This is just a thing. I have no real opinion on the thought of the game holding my hand for at least the first 30 hours of the game until finally allowing me to change my party or develop my characters as I see fit. I can see the benefits and I can see the downside, but it obviously comes down to your preference in game styles. If the open world of Final Fantasy VII made that game for you, you’ll probably hate XIII.

Every review I read or see talks about the new combat system and as of now I still can’t wrap my mind around it. No, it’s a good system from what everyone’s saying; I just have no clue how it works until I have a controller in my hands and I’ve been lead about by the game to learn everything in careful detail. At least everything looks extremely cool, so I won’t even bore you with the battle system any more than to say it’s very intimidating from the outside looking in.

I have no clue what's happening here, but I want to try it out.

You’re looking at one of the most well crafted games graphically on either system right now. Square-Enix knows what they’re doing, which makes sense as FFXIII has been in development for…I lose count of years. It’s been a long time coming though, so of course it looks great. And it’s out on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, meaning most gamers can try it out. If you want the clear decision as to which system has the better version, PS3 wins, but it’s on the most minor of graphics so don’t lose sleep over the choice if you only have a 360. You’re still getting the same great game.

And that’s the final say: The game is great. But you already know whether you want to play it or not. Either you like Japanese RPGs or you don’t. You’ve known whether you were going to play FFXIII before they even announced it all those years ago. With all that in mind, I leave the final choice of a purchase up to you, but if you do want to play it, renting just isn’t an option.

Stare into the face of the Uncanny Valley.

I am not a fan of hype. Any time I hear too much on a title I start to dislike the game on principle alone, so Heavy Rain was big on my skeptical radar. I had been hearing all sorts of things about the PS3 exclusive regarding the detail of graphics and the amount of engrossing story, but all this did was make me hope the game would be terrible. Finally, Heavy Rain is out, so are my instincts correct? Is Heavy Rain a flop? Absolutely not.

Original Concept; Tough Sell

Heavy Rain is very much unlike any game you’ve played before unless you’ve played Indigo Prophecy. The style of game is something I can’t quite pin down as everything is based off Quicktime Events and dialogue trees. The plot revolves around the murders of the Origami Killer, a serial killer known for his trademark origami mementos left on the victims. You’ll play through the story as four different characters all related to the murders in some way, such as the dull FBI agent, the father whose son has gone missing, the mother who’s already lost her child, and the really developed detective character that I’d prefer was the only character I needed to control.

The FBI agent on the left is not who I'd prefer to play since he's, well, boring.

Where Heavy Rain sets itself apart from other games is the structure of the game itself. There are no Game Over screens or checkpoints to get to. You’ll go through the story doing the best you can to make the right decisions and what have you with each action you do having consequences at some point. If your character takes a particularly bad beating early on, they will look pretty damaged for the rest of the story. It’s even possible to have a character die. The game won’t end, but it could result in you not seeing the end if that particular character is crucial for resolution to the game’s plot.

I do like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” framework in Heavy Rain. The whole game takes maybe under 10 hours to complete once through, but you could play it again and see a completely different result, assuming you’ve changed your decisions slightly. For example, the game’s demo has a scene where the detective is pressing an individual for information about the Origami Killer. You are given the option to be nice and not really force a response, or you can push for the character’s story. It is quite possible to learn something new in each playthrough.

In this scene, the father loses his son in a crowded mall. To some people that's straight-up terrifying.

However, the controls frustrate me to no end. This is a game only since it uses a controller. You are constantly asked to perform some random button press that represents an action in the game. Some of these make sense, like a flick of the control stick to the left to dodge a punch, but then there are times that you have to flick the stick to reach in your pocket. I don’t care about that amount of detail in my motions. Every minute action is required. Even walking, a task that should be a simple as “push stick forward,” is complicated by the need to hold down a shoulder button and then steer your character. Heavy Rain is a game I much prefer to watch rather than play.

Should you purchase Heavy Rain? It depends. If you would like to replay the story over and over, then yes, certainly buy the game. For most of us, a rental weekend will suffice.

No seriously, you've seen this game before.

I called it. I’d only played the demo for Dante’s Inferno but that was all I needed to figure this one out entirely. Now that it’s been out for a week or so, let’s take a look at Dante’s Inferno as it plays as a game, though I could probably just tell you to go play God of War and get the desired effect. Whoops. Let’s start.

Creating New Games Must Be Hard

As I’ve already pointed out, Dante’s Inferno is absolutely a God of War rip-off. There’s no denying it, even if you want to. The games both have main characters seemingly tricked by dark forces and require you to battle your way through hordes of enemies with hack-and-slash controls and Quick Time Events, ultimately leading to a resolution that entails fighting a god or Satan or whatever.

So for this game, Dante, based off the classic Italian poet of the same name but not of the same anything else, must storm all nine circles of Hell to reclaim his love Beatrice, taken from him by Lucifer for some reason or another. It’s all supposed to be based off of Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy, but we know better, don’t we?

You deserve every ounce of punishment you receive, Dante.

The game does play smoothly enough to be played, and it has a heck of a lot to look at much of the time. The first third of the game throws some truly messed up enemies at you that relate to their respective levels, such as Gluttony or Lust. Problem is, after that these enemies begin showing up again and again in circles other than the ones they make sense in. Right there is where Visceral Games loses its credibility when they say, “We used the poem exactly for inspiration.” No, you got lazy.

What makes this all worse is that the final third of the game consistently throws you into battle after battle on a platform without any real innovation or anything new. You just fight enemy after enemy for the finale stages of the game. That’s not good game design; that’s once again a sign of laziness. And of course the ending leaves itself open for a sequel. Looks like this is going to be a whole franchise if it sells well enough. So let’s try not to let it sell well, okay?

I just can’t get past the game’s two defining characteristics: It’s resemblance to God of War, and it’s use of a classical poem as a backdrop. I realize making games can be tough, and thinking up an original concept is even tougher, but just taking two already successful things with nearly no relation and deciding, “Yes, this is what our next game shall be,” well that just doesn’t work for me.

Maybe you’ll really like Dante’s Inferno, though. It’s not a terrible game. It’s just a game that’s two elements have been done before and done a lot better. Either go play God of War or read The Divine Comedy. Rent this one if you absolutely can’t resist.

You ready for another trip to Rapture?

If you’ve read my Bioshock review, you already know that I like Bioshock. If you read my preview for Bioshock 2, then you know I’m pretty psyched for the sequel. Well, the sequel’s out now, so did it live up to my expectations? There is some good, some bad, and some blah, but let’s save that for another day. Oh heck, why not, let’s do it now. On to Rapture!

Something Old, Something New

As you may remember, the world of Bioshock takes place in the doomed underwater city of Rapture. You got to see a great deal of it in the first game, so you’d think the second game is just gonna ramp up the amount of new areas, right? Uh, there are some new places, but to be honest, the first game sort of has this one beat in terms of atmosphere. Why? Because the first one completely set up a new world. This one just continues on, so there isn’t as much mystery to everything. It’s still great, but the effect of the city has somewhat diminished in a repeat visit.

You get to play as the very first Big Daddy here with all that goes along with that, such as a drill, the ability to walk underwater (which is completely under-utilized), and the choice to either harvest Little Sisters for Adam like in the first game or adopt them as your own Little Sister for a while, a new concept. It’s a good idea, but babysitting the Little Sisters for a while can get somewhat repetitive and, well, dull. Plus, the thought of a drill weapon is great, but it isn’t nearly as fun as it sounded.

Maybe if you were as cute as this doll, I'd have less to complain about.

Regardless of these faults, there is a lot of good to the game. It starts out slow but the later half hits hard and sweet, a good combo. This is an FPS, but the focus isn’t so much on reactionary speed and reflexes so much as just experiencing the world. Even if it doesn’t seem as vivid as the first outing, Bioshock 2 is still fantastic in the story department.

There are a lot of new Plasmids to play with and thankfully a completely new hacking system that happily replaces the monotonous hacking minigame from the first. There are also boss battles with the Big Sister, though it isn’t set up as the seemingly random encounters the pre-game hype lead on. These are scripted story events, but that doesn’t matter: Big Sisters are a welcome addition to Rapture.

The multiplayer, however, can just be done away with. No reason to play it after a single glance or two as it’s just like any other multiplayer shooter except with Bioshock as the backdrop. Forgettable, so just forget it and make this a purchase based on the single-player experience.

And it really is a purchase to make. I’m still big on the mythos behind Rapture, so any new storyline has high standing in my court. Go play this one after you play the first, at least as a rental title. Few other games are hitting this perfectly in the story department, so don’t miss out.

If I had any amount of stamina, I'd totally want to play soccer.

Something about football games don’t exactly appeal to me. Maybe it’s the fact that year after year they tend not to focus so much on progressing the series in favor of just updating the roster. Little did I know that such is not the case with real football, by which I mean soccer, the world’s favorite sport. Turns out FIFA Soccer ’10 is awesome, assuming you like soccer that is. Want to know more? Let’s talk about it some more.

The FIFA brand is still similar to the Madden brand in so much as there are new FIFA games roughly once a year. Beyond that, FIFA sits apart as a franchise that goes way out of its way to do everything possible to increase the overall experience of the game. This year gets the addition of new controls that allow you to juggle the ball more in depth than before. You’re able to make your character dance around with the ball with such control that you become amazing, though this isn’t without some drawbacks. The main one is, it’s bloody difficult to juggle the ball correctly. I don’t know much about soccer, so controls like this just make for more homework for me.

The same goes for the maneuvers you can program into your team to execute whenever you see fit. I don’t know the finer points of soccer well enough to make these features work for me. But this game wasn’t built for me; it was built for the hardcore soccer fan, and if you happen to be one of those, FIFA Soccer ’10 has made sure to be as intuitive to your needs as it ever has been.

Lots To Enjoy For Soccer Fans

Even more for the fans is the staggering amount of teams to choose from. There are hundreds of teams to pick and play as or against in dozens of venues. You’ll have your work cut out for you if you intend to master the nuances of every team, but at least you’ll have something to do for a while.

If you hadn't noticed, the game also looks pretty darn good overall.

So what could make this better? Excellent online support, that’s what. Beyond just simply being able to upload your face onto a player, the online feature allows for great matchmaking against all sorts of players all over the world. You’d just better know what you’re doing as there is a sharp difference between players that have put in the time and effort to rawk this game and those that just rented it this weekend. You’ll want to have spent some serious time training your players before you attack the other powerhouses on the online circuit. At least you’ll always have something to do.

And that’s about it. FIFA Soccer ’10 is perfect for soccer fans, but anyone unimpressed with the sport probably won’t enjoy this one for obvious reasons. If you’ve never tried a soccer game and find yourself curious, FIFA Soccer ’10 is a good place to start. You might just find yourself hopelessly addicted like the rest of the world.

With that many colorful characters, how can this game go wrong? Answer: It doesn't.

Capcom has made a nice handful of games for their Capcom vs series over the past decade with Marvel vs Capcom 2 being one of their most beloved, generating an HD remake this past year. Japan saw the release of Tatsunoko vs Capcom last year as well, but the ability to release it anywhere outside of Japan was sketchy at best due to the problems with copyrights laws and who owns what from the Tatsunoko brand outside the land of the rising sun. We are fortunate that not only were these licensing issues sorted out with minimal lost of the original game, the US release has four new characters and all new art for each character ending. That’s good news.

The Real King of Fighters

What makes the Capcom vs games stand out among other fighting games, including Capcom’s own, is that they basically adhere to the same principles that make the Smash Bros game sell so dang well: Favorite characters fighting each other without any inherent story structure. Marvel vs Capcom had a huge collection of favorites from both sides of the equation, and Tatsunoko vs Capcom strikes yet another great balance between known characters and unknown characters to create a rather diverse roster to choose from. Ryu and Chun Li are there, as are Mega Man and Zero, but so are a handful of Tatsunoko’s best.

Oh right, you may still be unaware who Tatsunoko are. I’m still mostly unaware myself. Tatsunoko is one of Japan’s anime leaders and have been for quite a while, so the company has a heck of a lot of recognizable and loveable characters to choose from. You may not recognize any of them at first, but after playing a bit you’ll learn to love them.

If I had a dollar for every time I performed a slide kick to a guy in a bird costume...

That’s yet another benefit of the US version: it’s been rebalanced. Capcom took notice of how the game had been played and altered it just enough to fix anything that needed fixing, such as possible exploits for people to hit infinite combos. Balancing like that makes me happy, mostly because I find no fun when on the receiving end of an infinite combo. It’s even more important since an online feature has been added now, meaning you’ll thank Capcom when you aren’t getting your butt handed to you by some jerk that found a glitch or two to ruin the game with.

Tatsunoko vs Capcom is a smooth presentation. It’s a great fighter for the Wii and will do a lot of good to help people with Smash Bros addictions but no new outlets. Consider this your new option over Turtles Smash-Up.

Want more video game reviews? Check these out:

-Some Kind of Black Magic: A Review of Bayonetta

-The Blue Bomber Strikes Again: A Review of Mega Man 10

-Who Needs Heroes Anyway: A Review of No More Heroes 2