Resident Evil: Revelations is one of the first major titles for the 3DS this year. It represents the most modern-looking game available on the 3DS to date, with stunning graphics. At the same time, however, it is a return to the series’ roots, with a campaign that has more than a few elements from early Resident Evil games and emphasis on survival horror that has not been in some of the more recent titles of the series.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you boot up Revelations for the first time is the incredible graphics. This game is by far the prettiest game on the 3DS to date, and I frequently found myself just stopping to enjoy the view. Many of the graphical features remind of the current generation of home consoles: bloom effects, dynamic lighting, and specular effects on nearly every object. Revelations puts every other 3DS title’s visuals to shame, and sets the bar very high for the new year. The level of detail in the environments is stunning and really helps to build the atmosphere. The 3D effect is spot-on and only helps to add to the immersion.

The graphics in this game are amazing

From a gameplay perspective, the game puts a large focus on survival and resource conservation. While it is rare to actually run out of ammo completely, if you don’t hoard ammo you will frequently find yourself running dangerously low. Healing herbs are also in short supply, and if you take much damage you may have to go for some time through the game without a heal. There are some interesting swimming sections, where you’ll have to conserve your air while trying to dodge underwater enemies as you rush from one air pocket to another. It’s a truly terrifying experience, and one of the best parts of the game. Another welcome addition to the gameplay formula is the Genesis Scanner, which allows you to scan your surroundings. It can find extra ammo, weapon power ups, and at times helps you see enemies you otherwise could not. Putting so much emphasis on exploration is a good twist and helps break up the pace of the game.

The standard weapons will make an appearance in the game, including the handgun, shotgun, rifle, and SMG. You can only carry 3 weapons at a time, but you can swap with ones you’ve already collected at weapon caches you find throughout the game. In addition, you can pick up mod kits, which are usually well-hidden, to augment your weapons with greater firepower, better reload speed, higher critical hit rate, etc. Deciding how to use these power ups can be fun and you can make your weapons considerably more useful with them; definitely something to be on the lookout for as you roam the desolate halls.

The game takes place mostly on the Queen Zenobia, a derelict cruise ship that is of course filled with unspeakable horrors. The ship has more than a few similarities to Arklay Mansion, where the series started. The ship is full of small, dark, cramped corridors. Danger may be lurking around literally any corner, and there are plenty of jump scares to keep you on the edge of your seat. Even if you think you’ve already cleared an area, you still have to be careful, as every vent, pipe, door, or window is a potential entry point for an enemy. In addition to the derelict freighter, you will sometimes have flashback missions. These missions help to showcase the game’s backstory as well as provide an opportunity for the developers to show of some pretty amazing set pieces. The flashback missions do help to add a bit of variety to the gameplay, however they are mostly action-centered and often you’ll find yourself wanting to get back to the main plot.

Missions are like Achievements and add replay value

The story is typical of the Resident Evil franchise, meaning it’s over-the-top, campy, and all over the place. Each character is steeped in backstory, and if you’re not already familiar with the franchise, you may have trouble getting up to speed. Even by series standards, however, you may find the story of Revelations a bit ridiculous. Many of the characters are returning to the series, but some of them are new to the series, and you will probably find yourself hating them before long. The dialogue is generally comically bad. Through all of this, however, the game has a certain sort of charm that the games in the series often do. The game is divided into chapters and presented like episodes in a TV show, complete with a ‘Previously on Resident Evil: Revelations‘ segment at the beginning. It adds to the story, as well as helping you remember where you left off.

Control is purposefully difficult. Yes, your character moves like a tank, but that’s by design. If you are able to move through the environment effortlessly it takes away much of the scare factor in a game like Revelations. You have to stop moving to shoot, all while something behind you can be sneaking up. It’s frustrating, but it’s part of how the game keeps you scared. There is a caveat to the control scheme, however; if you’re a gamer who likes dual analog sticks, the Circle Pad accessory can be used with the game to completely change how it controls. While you’re still not entirely free to move, having the second stick makes looking around your environment considerably easier. It makes for an entirely different experience playing the game, and in the opinion of the author, a much better one.

AI is one of the game’s few sore spots. Throughout most of the game, you will have a partner. This was a completely unnecessary addition and is downright annoying at most times. Your partner won’t use up your resources, true, but they also won’t really do anything to help you. Their shots are completely ineffectual. The game is much scarier, and in general more fun, when your partner isn’t around; for instance, there is a sequence where Jill is separated from her partner and has to go through the ship, alone and unarmed. Without a weapon, you have to find more creative methods of dealing with enemies, which is terrifying and tons of fun. Makes you wonder if more of these sequences could have happened if not for the AI partners. The only time they are ever helpful is during boss fights when they tend to draw the attention of enemies and keep them off of you, and since they are invincible you don’t have to babysit them.

By the end of the game you will hate your partner

For those interested in co-op, the game has that, too. Not on the main campaign; that would have been a bad idea, and it’s good that Capcom decided not to do it. Instead, they have Raid Mode, which allows you to team up with a partner either locally or online to do speed runs through levels inspired by the campaign. This gameplay is much more action-oriented than the single player campaign. You compete for high score, while unlocking better weapons and powerups. The experience reminds a bit of Left 4 Dead’s co-op, in a good way. Raid Mode adds significant replay value to the game and helps to round out the package.

Revelations is not a handheld game. It is a full-on Resident Evil title that holds it’s own against the best in the series. The fact that you can take it with you is an added bonus, but even on a home console it would be a rewarding experience; it sets a new bar for the 3DS. The graphics are far beyond anything we’ve seen on the system to date, and the 3D effect makes it even more stunning. The gameplay is a good mix of the action that we’ve seen in more recent Resident Evil titles, while returning to the series’ roots of survival horror. It’s not perfect, but it’s darn close. If you own a 3DS, you need to buy this game. If you don’t own a 3DS, this game would be a great excuse to buy one.

The Rundown:

+ Amazing graphics
+ Solid survival/horror gameplay that goes back to the genre roots
+ Brings the Series Back to Its Roots
- AI allies are annoying

9 and 9.5 represent the pinnacle of the genre, a game that defines what that genre should be about. These scores are for games that you not only feel would be worth your purchase, but you would actually try to convince your friends to buy them as well.

Resident Evil: Revelations was developed and pulished by Capcom for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was released in North America on February 7, 2012 with an MSRP of $39.99. The copy used in this review was provided to RipTen by the publisher for the purposes of review.

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I was told that behind the name R. A. Salvatore lay a fierce following. When I read Reckoning’s synopsis, the only elements that rang bells were the names of the mythical races. I’m versed enough in fantasy lore to know the difference between a Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar, but beyond that? It’s all Gnomish to me.

That being said, my lack of familiarity with the work of Salvatore by no means hindered my ability to enjoy this game. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this brand new world filled with elves and goblins, but I rather enjoyed setting out on my adventure with a clean slate. Literally. You begin the game as a dead body. You burst up, jack-in-the-box style, out of a mound of rotting corpses, which is now the worst possible way to wake up, and begin your quests for answers. What’s going on with the Tuatha? Why are you Fateless? Why would anyone want to bring you back? Why won’t the Well of Souls stop moaning?

I thought draping a morgue sheet over a player character is a pretty clever way to segue into the customization menu. I was delightfully surprised when I discovered that tapping the right trigger switched my burly male model to a curvy female one. I proceeded to make the most beautiful Varani ever. Your options are actually rather diverse, providing you sliders for skin tones, hair, tattoos, and a few other categories. Oddly enough, my character ended up looking almost exactly like my first Revan in Knights of the Old Republic. It was a satisfying experience that left me feeling like this character I’d created was uniquely mine. I was prompted to chose a patron deity (or absence of one for a 10% experience gain perk.) After that, you’re on your own. There’s no specialization selection, as your “fateless” status equates to “classless.” Or more accurately, one who can change their class at will. You define yourself when you level up, which is a refreshing experience.

Players won’t be boxed into a class, but rather change their “fate” according to their play style. It’s a welcome addition that keeps gameplay fresh and dynamic. This is the “Destiny” system Curt Schilling described, a process of ever-shifting specialties that present themselves to you upon leveling up. Skill points are fed into familiar-looking trees, which then unlock specialties depending on the attributes you invest in: Might, Finesse, and Sorcery. This is a clever method of creating a sense of organic class evolution, until you realize that you’re not going to get to that Duelist fate until you balance your points across your trees better. There’s going to be some level of planning required if you have a specific combat style in mind, but players won’t be punished for allocating points wherever they feel like it. Those hybrid classes just might not appear until much later.

I decided to play a sword-y, leather-clad, dagger enthusiast with an accidental affinity for archery. This meant that not only could I stealth into combat and carry out a coup de grace, but I could immediately draw my broadsword afterward and lay waste to whatever boggarts were alerted to my murderous presence. You’ve got the option to block, dodge, or just plow through one attack with another– which doesn’t work. This is one of those games where you’re going to have to dodge or block, unless you want to sacrifice considerable hit points to the troll you’re fighting.

You get into combat pretty shortly after the mini-tutorials flash across the screen. You’ll notice immediately that everything you do, from running and jumping to hacking and slashing, is strikingly similar to the combat in Fable III. Even your character’s at-rest posture resembles this exaggerated style. Once you enter combat mode, the camera zooms out and locks, defining your battlefield. Players may use a mix of swordplay, daggers, and magic to engage opponents, much like in Fable, but it also adds to that mechanic. In addition to those three standard combat types, you’re offered stealth attacks, ranged, and a variety of learned abilities that will call on either your physical of magical prowess. Blast an opponent with fire bolt one second, then use your sword to rend the ground itself in a staggering attack. It does, however, lack that on-the-fly fluidity that Fable III accomplished in its transitions between ranged and melee abilities. Sure, it’s more realistic, and it’s not too difficult to switch from mashing square to triangle, but the controls are just a tad behind. Still, combat is diverse and, overall, fun.

Players need to commit to their style of play and change tactics responsibly. Players are not invincible, and they will be reminded of this quite often if they charge into battle with a blazing broadsword and scraps of leather armor. Watch as your health bar shrinks, mocking you for your mismatched equipment. The real fun manifests when you enter “Reckoning” mode, a state which builds up as you engage enemies. Activating this mode slows time and allows you to wail on your foes until you’re clear to finish them. The killing blow is determined by a QTE, and the final sequence of button mashing determines bonus experience gained from the encounter. Watching your glowy-eyed self rip the heads off trolls is sickeningly satisfying.

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EA Sports NFL Blitz is a 7-on-7, no penalty calling, football game that lives for exaggeration. A first down will cost you 30 yards, instead of the customary 10. You’ll be able to Mike Vick a touchdown pass half the field with a flick of your wrist, and stiff arm would-be tacklers like Minnesota Vikings beast of a back, Adrian “All-day” Peeeeeterson.

Classic code inputs let you do funky things like super-size the player heads so they’re more in line with their bank accounts, though I always found this feature more visually gratifying in NBA Jam where the players face was fully exposed. While the graphics have been updated, it would have been nice to see the occasional camera perspective shift for some variety in-game. I’m all about the spice of life. Animations are fluid looking, and player response time left me with no complaints. Nothing really stood out in terms of music or sound effects, but the announcer comments were often funny and easily one of the highlights in the game.

The controls are a bit on the simple side, and someone like myself, used to the decade or so of gameplay advancements with a title such as Madden, found it a bit of a repetitive drag after a few head-to-head contests. However, if EA’s goal was to create an easy to use, pick-up-and-play format, they definitely got the job done. Going with that assumption for a moment, the on-screen “this is how you play” pop ups that kick off every game, and continue to pop until you tell them otherwise, were mildly annoying, especially after you’ve been playing for a few hours.

You won’t be able to hit other players out of bounds anymore, but frankly that didn’t bother me one bit. The other hits you are able to perform in the game are so brutally punishing and without penalty that James Harrison would be proud to pull out his own wallet and cover the non-existent tab. Despite the heavy hits, the defense, much like the modern NFL in reality, still manages to feel more like an afterthought. I would have liked to see more innovation brought to the table on the defensive side of the ball. Why not give us a Troy Polamalu-esque line jump that sends you into the QBs grill before he has the chance to cradle the snap? A man can dream.

Unfortunately, while most of the unexplainable gravity defying feats are entertaining, some of the “did I really just see that happen” moments will frustrate you to no end, assuming you actually allow yourself to become emotionally vested in a game that features seven walking hotdogs in a 100-yard boss encounter. Of course I’m talking about quirky flukes such as forward passes that sometimes get called fumbles and receivers that decide to waltz out of bounds for no good reason. These carry over from previous generations and prove that not everything should remain true to the original.

The Gauntlet mode allows you to create your own dream team and pits you against one NFL team after another, with creative boss battles against teams made up of cowboys, clowns, etc, sprinkled throughout. It was a nice change of pace, but ultimately even that didn’t hold my attention for very long. Multiplayer was smooth, and this is where I was finally reminded of what makes games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz fun, in my opinion. I consider titles like this, “buddy games.” If you’ve got a friend that you enjoy trash talking with, this is a great alternative to a more complex Madden. It allows you to focus more of your energy on zingy one liners and less on the picking perfect play to call. If you’d rather play with your friend than against them, co-op will feed your need. In the end, though, playing Blitz online head-to-head with a friend quickly brought back memories of the arcade, and that alone was worth fifteen bucks.

EA Sports NFL Blitz is colorful, over the top, filled with unlockable goodies, and fun for the price point. Beyond that, I’d say that your decision to purchase this game should be based on what you’re looking to get out of it. If you grew up exchanging dollars for coins to play the original, and long for another shot at your sworn arcade nemesis, then give it a go, but if you’re looking for something that’s comparable to a modern day 7-on-7 version of Madden, you will be disappointed.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Enjoyable multiplayer experience
+ Zany unlockable content
+ Over the top comical animations
+ Entertaining and humorous announcers
- Dated arcade gameplay that feels as if time has passed it by
- Several familiar and frustrating quirks
- Short on gameplay customization features

7 and 7.5 represent a game that overall manages to be worth a playthrough, just not worth the full price at launch. These scores are for games that are relatively good or even really good, but generally worth waiting for a sale or picking up as a rental when possible.

NFL Blitz was Developed and EA Tiburon and Published by EA Sports for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.  The game was released in North America on January 4th, 2012 with an MSRP of $14.99.  The copy used in this review was provided to RipTen by the publisher and played both online and offline for approximately 10-12 hours.

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If you’ve been looking for a nice big air cooler for your CPU lately, you’ve probably seen this one around a bit. If not, chances are you’ve heard of it’s bigger brother, the NH-D14. Noctua made, arguably, the best air CPU cooler on the market with the NH-D14, and that leads me to ask, what was the need for the NH-C14 They’re both the same price, yet the NH-C14 is smaller. Surely that would make a significant hit to performance versus the NH-D14. Let’s see what it’s all about, shall we?

The Noctua NH-C14 is a C-Type top-flow cooler. This means the fans are pulling air from the top of the cooler. When installed in a case that is standing up, it will pull air from the side of the case, rather than the front or back. When installed in something like an HTPC case, it will pull air from the top of the case. The benefit is extra cooling for your RAM and any components on the motherboard that are around this area. There are some other bonuses from this that I will explain later on.

Noctua have included two of their NF-P14 fans for this cooler. These are very silent 14cm fans, and they can even go quieter with the supplied low noise and ultra-low noise adapters. One of these fans was provided with the NH-D14, along with a similar one that was only 12cm. So, there is a bit of a difference. Another contrasting factor is that the NH-C14 doesn’t have the extra heatsink part. Where the NH-D14 has 2, the NH-C14 has a single piece sandwiched between the two fans. If the NH-C14 had the extra one, it would be roughly the same size as the NH-D14, and because it’s a different design, not having that extra part means it is shorter and smaller.

This cooler can go even shorter, though. Since the fans are in a different orientation, when you remove the top fan, it the profile becomes even slimmer. It is very possible to put this in an even smaller HTPC case, or one of those slim and compact cases if you wanted to. You can also take off the bottom fan instead. This gives you more clearance, so if you have issues with tall heatsinks on your RAM modules, it won’t be a problem like it can be with the NH-D14. Of course, it’s better to have both on if you don’t have any issues with space.

As with all Noctua products, this cooler comes with a very nice assortment of accessories. As mentioned previously, it ships with the two NF-P14 fans that each have a set of low noise and ultra-low noise adapters each. I already find the fans, at stock speeds, to be very quite, but it was a noticeable change when going to the low noise adapters. As for the ultra-low noise adapters, I couldn’t hear a difference, they were dead silent, just like when I was using the low noise ones. The notoriously good NT-H1 thermal compound makes an appearance again. This is Noctua’s very own material that holds its own against other pastes, even when comparing it to the more popular Arctic Silver 5. I found no reason to use something different, so you’re good to go with that aspect of things. You also receive a Phillips screwdriver for installation (I actually used this when rebuilding my PC recently; it was the only tool I used), a case badge and, of course, an installation guide.

As some of you may know, Noctua’s SecuFirm 2 mounting system is a very good one, not only because you can use it on any current socket on the market, but also because Noctua provides great support. Any cooler of theirs from the last six years is eligible to receive, for free, an add-on for any new socket. This means that you can buy a cooler from them now and be happy to know that you can use it in a new system a few years down the track. This cooler, along with their others, will also probably last that long, if not longer.

With actual performance, the NH-C14 is really amazing. You don’t get the exact same performance as the monster NH-D14, but it’s only off by a few degrees. This is the same price as the NH-D14, so it only really makes sense to get the NH-C14 if you want the benefits I mentioned earlier. This did perform exceptionally, however. For me, at least, I didn’t see much of a difference between this and the NH-D14. I have since switched cases, but that wouldn’t have made much of a difference; perhaps only one or two degrees. I applaud Noctua on not crippling this model because of it’s size, and I can say that it is one of the best Air CPU Coolers on the market, just a bit lower than the NH-D14.

All in all, I would highly recommend this to anyone that has space confinements, whether that be with the case size, big RAM heatsinks or a desire to cool some of the components on the motherboard. What you get is a really amazing package with a ton of future support, and some very useful accessories inside. The overall quality is amazing, as always, and that makes the Noctua NH-C14 really shine.

Here’s the rundown:

+ Excellent performance

+ Very quiet

+ Great build quality

+ Incredible future support

+ Perfect size for smaller cases

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There are a few things I just can’t resist in this world. Chinese buffets, performance art involving two guys in colorful masks having a choreographed battle, radical girls who don’t shave their pits, and that strangely appealing smell of gasoline are a handful of them. One that might trump all those things combined, which I think would be an anarcha-feminist buffet in a lucha mask doused in gasolene, is quirky dōjin soft.

So I guess my perfect thing would be an anarcha-feminist buffet in a lucha mask doused in gasolene and developed by a small group of people independently in Japan. Don’t you judge me.

For those who don’t routinely stroll down the video game paths less traveled, dōjin soft is the rough Japanese equivalent of western indie games. Some dōjin soft will base their games on existing material or character designs, much like dōjinshi, but most are based on their own original ideas. Unlike western indie games where the focus has shifted to the realm of the console marketplaces, games in this category are overwhelming released on the PC. Very few end up over here in any easily accessible or translated form.

The odds are, if you’ve played any dōjin games before, you played something from the Touhou Project or one of the slightly experimental titles that show up on Steam from time to time, like Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale and Chantelise – A Tale of Two Sisters. Both of those games were translated and released in America by Carpe Fulgur, an indie localization company who deserve multiple rounds of applause both for taking the chance on these games and giving them absolutely fantastic translations. Conveniently enough, they also localized Fortune Summoners, which is what put this game on my radar.

Fortune Summoners is a 2D action-RPG platformer with puzzle elements and, obviously, a very thick anime influence. I have the suspicion that a lot of you are going to read that line and immediately go out and play this, but you should probably keep reading. Going back to the anime comparison, this is a magical girl show in side-scrolling form. It follows three classmates who attend a rural magic school through their various adventures and surprisingly well done character development. All of the characters have great interactions, and the story itself, while having little more than standard anime-like progression, hits some nice high points. I have to assume a lot of that is owed to Carpe Fulgur’s great localization.

It is also super cutesy. Cutesy enough that I can’t imagine how creepy the messageboard posts about this game are going to be if it gets popular. They will probably have more moe than the three stooges. There were definitely a couple parts where the budding friendship between the main characters made me raise an eyebrow and go “I hope this doesn’t turn into Blue Drop.”

There is one element of dōjin games that I haven’t mentioned yet- many of them aren’t particularly accessible to anyone outside of their target niche. This can be for various reasons. Sometimes the quality is just too low for the average western gamer, sometimes if they aren’t translated the language barrier is too much to get through, sometimes there are tentacle scenes. Erotic tentacle scenes. Fortune Summoner’s specific problem involves its learning curve and combat system.

This game is hard. Japan hard. There really isn’t a way around that. It isn’t like, say, AMY where the difficulty comes from poor decisions and shoddy programming, but the gameplay will certainly take most people an extended amount of time to get used to. If you fire up Fortune Summoners and play it as the side-scrolling hack-and-slash it looks like it should be, you are going to be more frustrated than a politician with morals. This is more of a tactical game, almost playing like an old school arcade beat-em-up at times. Timing is absolutely everything.

There are some things that just don’t help no matter what though. The controls are touchy, and every character seems to be running on ice. This makes platforming as well as dodging enemies- both crucially important to surviving- quite difficult. The enemies are certainly never going to cut you any slack either, as the game’s default difficulty is “easy” for a reason. They are just unrelenting. I found myself in plenty of “fuck this game” situations where the enemies would just pin me against a wall and slaughter me all because I mistimed one block. I don’t want to call it cheap, because it strikes me that the enemies are unforgiving on purpose, but that certainly doesn’t dull the seething rage over multiple party wipes.

The friendly AI in Fortune Summoners sort of shines though. You can tweak their performance and make them play exactly as you want, choosing what moves or spells they use and what situations they use their magic in. You’ll want to mess around with this, as you will definitely find yourself relying on the AI more often than you would usually. It certainly could have been deeper, but it was also way deeper than I expected it to be.

Since “Ghosts and Goblins frustratingly hard” is aimed directly at their target demographic, that really isn’t enough to take many points off Fortune Summoners arbitrary numerical score. Sadly, the game does find some ways to nickle and dime itself down. There are technical issues that might sprout up on you. I suffered through massive slowdown in menus and some fight scenes, which was linked to running multiple monitors and may or may not be a Windows 7 issue as well. Another issue is that the game can only be played in windowed, zoomed 1280 by 960 resolution, or full screen with stretching. With more and more people making the plunge into larger monitors, that ends up becoming a bit of an issue as well.

The quirks aren’t limited to tech either. The seemingly convenient “quick heal” button ends up being relatively useless as it has an inexplicable cool down timer. Enemies have infinite MP while you can’t even purchase MP restoring items in shops, you can only loot them. (Edit: I was wrong, as Tim in the comments helpfully pointed out, MP restoring items are available in certain shops as you progress. I must have given up on buying them too soon.) You have to sheath your sword in order to interact with anything at all, which might not sound so bad but trust me- it gets tedious. Some of the quests and how to trigger them are maddeningly vague, which will send you running around quite often. Seeing those same locations over and over again makes the game seem smaller and more repetitive than it actually is.

When you do the math, it really comes down to your personal preference. After I got the hang of the combat system, I had a fun time with this game despite its issues. It is a different take on the action RPG genre, and it features a nice, light little anime plot with some nicely done character development. A welcome departure from the bleak, gory, blood-filled, anime and games I am generally entertained by. I’d suggest most people check out the demo first before they commit one way or the other though.

At the very least it will give you something to cleanse your pallet with when you are done playing Katawa Shoujo.

Pervert.

Here’s the Rundown:

+ D’awwww look at all those adorable slimes.
+ Well programmed AI.
+ Solid plot and characters.
+ Unique combination of genres.

- Technical issues and gameplay quirks make things more difficult than they should be.
- Already really fucking difficult with some time needed for players to adjust to the combat, which might turn off some people. /coughcasualscough
- Almost comically vague quest hints leading to backtracking hurts the stories flow and makes things feel slightly tedious. Not to mention it being the definition of a slow starter.
- Could stand to stay at $15 permanently instead of rising up to a $20 full price- it is much easier to suggest this game at $10 or $15 than $20.

7 and 7.5 represent a game that overall manages to be worth a playthrough, just not worth your money. These scores are for games that are relatively good, but you would generally only consider them as a rental.

Fortune Summoners – Secret of the Elemental Stone was Developed by Lizsoft and Published in America by Carpe Fulgur. It was released in America on January 30th, 2012 and in Japan in 2008 or something. I couldn’t figure it out. Google is hard and I’m lazy sometimes. Hence why most of the screenshots up there are from the Japanese version- loading FRAPS is too much effort.  The game is available on Steam for $20 and will be available on Gamersgate soon as well.  The copy used in this review was purchased by the reviewer because he can’t ever get enough Japanese bullshit, and played to completion in roughly 20 hours. PS: Rin is my favorite in Katawa Shoujo <3

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Mutant Mudds is another 3DS eShop original title that seems to be getting a lot of attention.  I was fortunate enough to meet the game’s designer, Jools Watsham, and give the Mutant Mudds demo a shot at E3 last year.  The demo left me wanting more, but is the final product worth your time?

Mutant Mudds starts out with a meteor striking the earth and spreading tons of these evil Mutant Mudds over the area.  It’s then up to Max, the main character, to use his water gun to kill off the Mudds and clean up the area around his home.

Mutant Mudds is a sidescrolling platformer with an excellent retro style that brings me back to my youth.  From the get go, Max can shoot, duck, jump, and even hover for a short period of time using a water/bubble jet pack.

Each stage in Mutant Mudds contains 100 Diamonds, a hidden bonus stage, and a Water Sprite.  The main goal of each stage is to obtain the Water Sprite and, thus, complete the level. To 100% the game it will be necessary to get all the diamonds and to beat each bonus stage.

The diamonds serve as the upgrade system in Mutant Mudds.  From the stage select screen, Max can visit his Grannie’s Attic.  There are three upgrades that can be purchased using diamonds there, a stronger water pistol that shoots further, a jet pack upgrade that will allow Max to hover longer, and rocket upgrade that gives Max the ability to launch himself up to extreme heights.  Only one upgrade can be used at a time and these upgrades can be freely changed between levels at Grannie’s Attic if they have been purchased before.

The upgrades become necessary to reach many of the bonus stages.  These extra levels will be one of the coolest parts of Mutant Mudds to any longtime Nintendo fan since they graphically resemble classic GameBoy or Virtual Boy games.  I found the Virtual Boy look to be dead on with the 3D, and it brought me back to 1995 when I picked one up on launch day, minus the headaches of course.

Speaking of the 3D, Mutant Mudds has some great effects.  In the game, there are panels that Max can jump on to send him into the foreground or background.  The 3D is beautiful in Mutant Mudds, and it really shouldn’t be played with the feature off.  Some enemies will also pop out from the background, and the 3D is helpful in telling when it’s safe to procede.

While the gameplay is fun and addictive, I did have some problems with the design of Mutant Mudds.  For starters, the enemies in Mutant Mudds all seem to be very predictable and follow a set path.  Not one enemy will leave their preset move path or really vary their attack pattern.  It would have been nice to see some more aggressive enemies in the later levels of the game that might continue to assault Max, no matter where he runs, until they are eliminated.  I say this because it was often possible to stay out of range of enemy attacks and just wait for the opportune time to strike or proceed.  I guess I would have just preferred the game to force a little more action upon me.

Speaking of enemies, I also wished there were, at the very least, one boss fight.  Mutant Mudds doesn’t feature any, and it makes the ending seem, well, a little less rewarding.  I didn’t feel like I finished off any giant threat since all the enemies were easily washed away.

I also had a slight problem with the upgrade system.  As mentioned before, the game only allows the player to have one upgrade at a time.  While I understand this is to keep the player from gaining too much power, it also becomes annoying when trying to reach all the bonus stages.  I found myself often going back to previously completed levels, trying to find the bonus stage entrance that I couldn’t reach before (and couldn’t remember exactly what upgrade was needed to reach it).  Because I didn’t know what upgrade was necessary off the top of my head, I’d only have a 1/3 chance of bringing the right one with me.  This meant going back to some stages that I had finished many times, just because I picked the wrong upgrade.

The game does remedy this situation upon 100% completion for those wishing to go back to the awesome retro themed stages.  The reward for getting everything in Mutant Mudds is the ability to play as Max’s Grannie, and she has all the upgrades at once!  Very nice.

Mutant Mudds is a fun, although short, game with 40 levels (20 normal and 20 bonus) that can be completed in about 4-5 hours.  It also costs $8.99, which to me, seems slightly overpriced.  That may seem a bit nitpicky, but I know there are currently other great, longer lasting titles on the eShop for less money.

While I may seem negative about many things in the game, Mutant Mudds is still fun and addictive.  The 3D effects are fantastic, and the retro look and feel is something I really love!  The soundtrack also isn’t too bad, and it can be downloaded off the official Mutant Mudds website, which is something I wish more developers would allow.

At the time of this writing, Mutant Mudds is, without a doubt, one of the top three titles exclusively available on the 3DS eShop.  Those looking for an original platformer with throwbacks to previous Nintendo hardware, great 3D effects, a cool retro soundtrack, and a fair challenge shouldn’t hesitate on purchasing this game.  I just hope that someday there is a sequel that addresses some of the minor issues I had with this title.

Here’s the Rundown:

+ Great Retro Look
+ Cool 3D Effects
+ Fun and Addictive
+ Amazing Game Boy and Virtual Boy Themed Bonus Stages

- Somewhat Short
- Slightly Overpriced
- No Really Aggressive Enemies and No Boss Battles
- Remembering the Correct Upgrade Needed To Find Bonus Stages Is Annoying

8 and 8.5 represent a game that is a good experience overall. While there may be some issues that prevent it from being fantastic, these scores are for games that you feel would easily be worth a purchase.

Mutant Mudds was Developed and Published by Renegade Kid for the Nintendo 3DS eShop.  The game was released in North America on the eShop on January 26th, 2012 with an MSRP of $8.99.  The copy used in this review was purchased by the reviewer and played to completion.

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• Mutant Mudds Impressions (3DS eShop)
• Nintendo Download 1/26/2012
• Nintendo Download 2/9/2012
• Nintendo Download 2/2/2012
• RipTen Review: Tetris (3DS Game Boy Virtual Console)
• Nintendo Download 1/19/2012

Seventeen years after the events of SoulCalibur IV, the spiritual weapons that are Soul Edge and SoulCalibur arbitrarily decided they would start causing all sorts of nuisances because Namco’s not done making these games yet. Why have 17 years passed? Well, how else would SoulCalibur V feature many new characters, some of which are related to characters from the previous games? Magic? Yeah, but instead, 17 years DO pass, so let’s see if those years in-game meant anything in real life.

Yes and no. SoulCalibur V has everything fans of SoulCalibur have come to expect from the franchise and in spades, but one big change has occurred in the transition from IV to V: the story mode. Well, that, and no more Star Wars characters. There are some other new inclusions along with features removed, but we’ll get to those later; like maybe 800 words from now.

A huge piece of fighting games, for whatever reason, is to tell really bad narratives. I jest, I jest! Many a single player fighting game experience, for instance SoulCalibur IV, lets players choose whom they would like to play as through the story. The character is introduced in one fashion or another, with text being a very common and supremely lazy method, and that’s it. The player then goes through a series of events, fighting at different locales that bear some relevance to that character (as far as you know). There, they fight some people spouting very specific intro and victory lines, along with some people they don’t seem to care about and who are likely just in a bad mood. It’s easy to tell, because usually, if they know the other character they’ll say something like “You… killed my father! You’ll PAY for that!”, and if they don’t, they’ll say “Out of my way!” or “Do we really have to fight?” or “My what big eyes you have!”. Not really much of a narrative. Well, SoulCalibur V is taking a different route, with a set-in-stone storyline featuring Sophitia’s children Pyrrha and Patroklos and that’s it. To my knowledge, there are no alternate endings and no different characters to choose from; nothing of that sort.

Thanks to having a dedicated storyline, my initial cynicism and apathy (a brutal combination) towards the characters in this game slowly evaporated. There was drama, there was tension. I genuinely wanted to know what each character’s next move was. The tale of this SoulCalibur begins with young Patroklos, son of the Holy Warrior Sophitia, on a quest to find his kidnapped sister. She was abducted by the “malfested,” demons and staunch followers of Soul Edge, and Patroklos is determined to rescue her. That’s all good stuff!

However, while the little picture of Patroklos and Pyrrha’s adventures is interesting and even made me care for a bit (not too much since the story wasn’t nearly long enough), SoulCalibur V ultimately fails to capitalize on the setting it creates. There are several new characters in the game, and many of them are related to classic characters in some way. For instance, Yoshimitsu is Yoshimitsu the 2nd, but he’s nowhere to be found in the story. Several characters hailing from Asia, such as Leixia (daughter of Xianghua) get very little exposition, and even less background. Not sure why the whole game is setup on the idea of having progressed 17 years when many of its ties to SoulCalibur IV are hardly touched, but it’s disappointing. Indeed, Namco might as well have just gone with silly random fights and a big text document introduction, though the in-game cutscenes were appreciated.

Beyond the realm of the story, one very large piece of the game is missing: a proper introduction to the fighting engine. There wasn’t much of this in SoulCalibur IV either, but in V, a series of pop-up screens show up the first time you see something you’ve never seen before, such as combat, or the online section of the menu, etc. There are a lot of things about the game that are incredibly easy to miss, like how the critical gauge works, or how “Brave Edge” works or what it does, or the fact that parry is now gone and has been replaced with a modified guard impact. It’s a minor nuisance as these are things the player learns after a while anyways, but it’d be nice to be properly introduced to the game.

Other single player features include arcade mode, quick matches and this new bit called Legendary Souls mode where you face off against incredibly difficult CPU players. As far as I know, it’s just you losing to a certain character with a polearm until your head explodes, but surely there are other characters beyond him. So my advice is, if you like Kilik, play the Legendary Souls mode to see all of his combos acted out upon your face, butt, and other humorous bodily pain-receptive locations. Beyond that, I’m not sure why you’d submit yourself to such pain, but perhaps major enthusiasts and competent SoulCalibur players will want to test their mettle in this mode. In modes designed for sane people, the AI is pretty consistent and intelligent, however, like just about every AI for fighting games ever, it can be vulnerable to the old “infinite sweep” technique.

All that’s well and good, but how does it PLAY? How does it FEEL? It FEELS like SoulCalibur. For all the talk of being more accessible to new players, it’s certainly not varied much from its predecessors. There’s now a Critical Gauge, which behaves much like the super bar in any Street Fighter game, and each character has their own Critical Edge which does lots of damage and has a nifty animation with lots of sparkles and blade clanging sounds. This mechanic does absolutely nothing to help new players. Although, now they can mash something out and hope it lands, but it certainly doesn’t make the finer mechanics any easier to understand. At its core, SoulCalibur has not changed, and people who hated the gameplay in IV will hate it, and those who loved it will love it. If I have to nitpick, and I do, I’d say the game’s a bit faster and “in your face” now, but even that is only marginally so, though it is a welcome improvement.

SoulCalibur V is largely a game of zoning and poking, managing your character’s speed and reach versus your opponent’s and reacting to their strategy appropriately. There’s much to love here for core fighting game enthusiasts. Mixups are an incredibly large part of the metagame, pressuring slower characters, kiting characters with long reach, and landing powerful combos on those evasive characters. Something that never ceases to piss the hell out of me that SoulCalibur has always had though is ring-outs, which despite being a perfectly valid part of the strategy, will be a very large irritation for new players and even for experienced players during fights against advanced AI.

One piece of gameplay that’s been removed is the whole weapon/ability/perk system-majigger introduced in IV. Thank bananas that’s gone! What a useless piece of gameplay. If that’s what Namco meant by making the game more accessible they’re wrong, it’s just less convoluted, but fine, we can give them a tally mark in the win column if they really insist (and they do).

Speaking of Namco winning, the increditacularly awesomepressive character creation makes a triumphant return in SoulCalibur V and it’s got tons more of the aforementioned bells and whistles, literally. Amongst a veritable bevy of customization clothing is now equipment, allowing players to affix realistic things like bows or scrolls, or slightly silly things like horns and apples, to their character to add to the customization. Surely this will result in many different perverted characters, and I’m just fine with that, and so is Namco. The fact that people have the option to do more or less whatever they want is awesome. If it’s not a perverted character you want, then go ahead and make some sort of anime chick, or a flamboyant homosexual, or an angsty teenager, or even your mother (hopefully, the two aren’t the same).

To go along with the much-appreciated color changing, is the option to imprint clothing with a variety of patterns. This would be great if the options weren’t mostly atrocious. The voice pitch and tone modifiers are also very cool, though sometimes both male and female voices can get a bit T-Painish, which is unfortunate if that’s not the desired effect. There are also stickers, which can be placed, altered and moved on most any part of created characters, adding for even more variety. The customization is freaking winsauce, and should (and can) be poured over just about every facet of your experience with this game. It’s also probably fattening.

The final, and arguably most impressive, set of features in SoulCalibur V is nestled in the online section of the menu. This is where Namco’s fighting game development experience really shines, demonstrating their expertise relative to other fighting game developers. Players can choose from the typical Ranked and Player match styles, the difference being leaderboard recognition and average level of try-hardiness, as well as a nifty thing called the Global Colosseo, named thus likely to make Ezio feel at home in this strange world.

This piece of awesome is a giant lobby where people can find matches for training or look for people they’ve met online before (like their rivals). They can join random matches, or search for their own by scrolling over each person’s Player License and decide whether or not they think they’ll have any fun with that person. The game also allows people to chat, which… is probably a really bad idea, but it’ll be awesome until the trolling sets in. To top it off, there are tournaments people can join which presumably last a week. Winning likely comes with nifty things like in-game prizes or people caring about you a little more than they did at the beginning of the week.

In comparison to other fighting games, namely Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (because it pissed me off), the online and lobby features are freaking amazing. You can search for lobbies by some obvious criteria (region, lag, rank, etc.), and once inside, you can chat via voice or text. If you join while a match is going, you can observe the information of the players around you, make them your rivals, report them for being douchenozzles, or ignore them and be enigmatic and ominous. Once a game starts, it is viewable in full screen, but if you’re still enjoying your chatting or looking at player’s licenses, you can view the game in a smaller windowed mode.

Oh, and the graphics are awesome. I’m really not a stickler for graphics as long as the game doesn’t look like an unwashed donkey’s behind, but you probably do, and yeah they look great and they don’t get in the way of the gameplay. The music is also very high quality, though ultimately, the only song I ever want to listen to while battling is Ezio’s character theme. So yeah. Neo-anime 3D presentation wins.

SoulCalibur V is a quality fighting game. As someone who enjoys the genre, I did indeed enjoy this entry, despite the amount of game-fighting I had to do as a traditionally 2D fighting game enthusiast. It takes some getting used to for newbies and unfamiliars alike, but ultimately, the mechanics are solid for a 3D fighter, and the variety of play styles featured in the characters is rather robust. For people who enjoyed SoulCalibur IV but are on the fence about upgrading, rest assured, all the new characters are decidedly different from their older (and in some cases dead-er) contemporaries, boasting new combos to learn and skills to practice. Old characters returning to the franchise are largely similar if not congruent to their previous iterations, so if you loved Mitsurugi and don’t want him to change, no problem, because he didn’t. It’s unfortunate that the story failed to capitalize on its premise, but it’s not the worst thing ever and certainly can be called a story rather than a collection of people fighting each other for no reason. If you like fighting games, character customization, and awesome weapons and stabbing things with said weapons and don’t mind a short story and a bit of a steep learning curve, definitely add SoulCalibur V to your gaming library.

Here’s The Rundown:

- Combat  mechanics are solid
- Character play style is varied
- Customization is very robust and gives players many freedoms
- Online options are thoroughly thought through and implemented
- Swords 

- Story’s too short and too minimally focused
- Steep learning curve
- No tutorial

8 and 8.5 represent a game that is a good experience overall. While there may be some issues that prevent it from being fantastic, these scores are for games that you feel would easily be worth a purchase.  Read more about our scoring system in detail here.

SoulCalibur V was developed Project Soul and published by Namco Bandai Games and a Xbox 360 copy of this game was provided for the purposes of this review. The story mode was played to completion on normal in 3 hours and 8 hours were spent playing additional single player and multiplayer content.

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Playing Risk is, more often than not, a frustrating experience. You always seem to have the advantage in numbers. If your luck gives out, you’re always one dice roll away from losing a battle, probably because Lady Luck decided to be a cheating bitch at that specific moment and time.

The folks at Denki decided to leave the fighting aspect of Risk up to the player and not chance. What better way to test our skill than to make us play a game of Jumble with Scrabble tiles and a Risk board? Thus, Quarrel was born; a Frankenstein baby of classic strategy games, sprinkled with a hint of cuteness to make it marketable to all ages.

Quarrel features both single player and a multiplayer game types. The solo campaign has different modes that you can play through. In ‘Domination’, your player hops from island to island, pitting your cute little, semi-racist avatars (no, seriously, look at the tiki people) against the computer’s semi-racist avatars. ‘Showdown’ starts you off at rank ten with AI opponents to challenge in a ladder format until you’re ranked first.

How Quarrel works is that for every avatar battle piece you have on a piece of your land, the more letters you can use to form words from the eight tiles provided. Letters are assigned points based on ease of use, similar to Scrabble rules. Obviously, ‘X’ is going to be worth somewhere in the ballpark of 15 points, and ‘A’ is going to be worth only one. You can only have eight avatars at once on your land, thus you can only form a maximum of eight letter words. To ensure that you can definitely form a word, the eight letters that are provided to you each have at least one anagram.

To ensure fairness, you and your opponent get the same letters. Turns in multiplayer matches are timed, both during move planning and during the spelling to ensure that you don’t take forever. Whomever forms the word with the larger amount of points, wins. Quarrel uses Risk rules. If you win a battle as the aggressor, you clean out the other player’s land and it’s now yours. If you happen to be defending, the aggressor’s forced to run away with only one guy left, although he gets to keep his original piece of land.

Denki’s introduced a few new things to change up the gameplay. If you so choose to attack or defend against another player with the disadvantage of fewer avatars, and you happen to win, you’ll be able to take prisoners equal to the number you were short when attacking. There’s also a treasure/point system that’s unique to Quarrel. If you manage to fill up an entire bar of treasure/points by forming words, you’ll gain the ability to call backup whenever you’re in battle, so long as you don’t have the max number of eight avatars on a piece of land. Forming the full, eight-letter anagram automatically puts you up one backup. Backup comes in handy when you’re short handed in a match, since calling in an additional unit allows you to use an extra letter. Unfortunately, you can only use this feature once per turn, so you can’t stack the benefit in order to make up for your short handedness.

Quarrel has a surprisingly large amount of little quirks and content for such a simplistic game. Trailblazing, in which you defeat more than three different groups of avatars in succession with your one group allows you to gain more treasure/points after each victory. Also, Denki added a Gold, Silver, and Bronze standard as the bane to every perfectionist player that happens upon Quarrel. If you manage to complete the objectives that are set out for your campaign without any mistakes, such as losing a piece of your land, you’re given the Gold standard. Each time you mess up, you’re knocked down to a lower standard. Bronze standard is worth as much as it is during the Olympics. Sure, you’re good at your sport, but you’re not going to be remembered since nobody really gives two shits about the guy who didn’t get the gold. You essentially get a cute medal, a wreath, a pat on your back, and a lifetime of complexes for coming this close to getting the gold.

There’s also a challenge mode that’s implemented into Quarrel. Essentially, there’s four different types of goals to accomplish. However, there are three subtypes of each of these challenges if you find the original one a little too easy or stale.

As with all digitized word games, I tend to play them like a pre-teen boy who thinks he’s a lot cooler than he actually is. I put in “foul” words and see if the word filter catches them, giggling all the way. Words With Friends has a word filter that’s like the stern matronly nun of an all-girl’s Catholic school. It’ll beat you to death with a ruler until you stop trying to input different euphemisms for “penis.” Quarrel‘s got a bit of a strange word filter. Although it doesn’t outright let you throw in curse words, it’ll let a few things slip through. Also, rather than being a Neo-Nazi and hating on different languages, Quarrel allows and even encourages you to form words from other romance tongues. Most surprising to me, though, was that Quarrel allowed me to play the word ‘fem’, and then promptly defined it as (and I’m paraphrasing a bit, but not exaggerating) the equivalent of a homosexual male bottom. Despite this racy definition, it wouldn’t let my girlfriend use ‘sodomite’, which she had proudly formed as an eight-letter anagram and was disappointed to find that Quarrel rejected it. I don’t quite see how it’s any “worse” in context than “fem” is, as Quarrel defined it. Hell, Quarrel even had one of its AI spell a word that was defined as ‘wanting to urinate even though one has already urinated.’ Color me just a little bit confused about what Quarrel considers vulgar.

Quarrel is a fun little game that’s worth picking up. I just wish there were more players. Trying to find a multiplayer game is a little difficult, and usually requires five to seven minutes of staring at the unmoving screen. According to the leaderboards, there are only about three hundred people who are playing it. I’m sure the numbers have gone up since I started playing right around this game’s release on XBLA. When multiplayer isn’t available, single player is actually a viable alternative option. The AI’s wordsmithing prowess ranges from the vocabulary capacity of various household appliances to honored Proust scholars. The first few rounds of Quarrel tend to be easy, and your ego swells until it’s promptly deflated by an anal vocabulary-probing by the harder AIs. Definitely expect your vocabulary to improve after this game… and to start hating any derivative form of Bananagrams or Scrabble.

Here’s The Rundown:

- It’s cute. Little bit racist, but cute.
– It let’s me play some euphemisms for bad words. I’m immature.
– The smarter AI actually poses a real challenge
– My vocabulary is improving.

- The music tends to glitch out at times
– The word filter is really, really bizarre

8 and 8.5 represent a game that is a good experience overall. While there may be some issues that prevent it from being fantastic, these scores are for games that you feel would easily be worth a purchase. Read more about our scoring system in detail here.

Quarrel was developed by Denki and published by UTV Ignition. It was played not to completion for 5-6 hours. You can only play a word game so long before you want to kill things. A review copy was provided by the lovely folks at Triple Point.

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The Reviewer

(not) by

Edgar Allan Poe

To you the gamer pessimist, I ask you honor one request;
My credibility and past you might not know,
But I promise I write not in jest, heed my words about this mess.
Regarding AMY I attest, no matter your opinions on game journos
Trust the reviewers, this game blows

You might think we’re mostly wrong, every review same dance and song,
our arguments so rarely strong. It makes you skeptical of scores this low.
You start to think “it can’t be as bad as this, can’t trust them further than I can spit,
Besides Jim Sterling hated it. What the hell does that guy know?”
Look- trust the reviewers, this game blows.

For ten dollars it might tempt, but cheap doesn’t make its quality exempt
I hope your purchase I preempt, take that wallet and keep it closed
There is nothing worth your money here, a survival horror game without fear,
controls so bad you’ll shed a tear, the gameplay needs much NoDoz.
Trust the reviewers, this game blows.

It must be said- AMY isn’t lacking heart, but that is where compliments and I must part
This game marks a trainwreck as its start, an opening so apropos.
Like a child’s plate with spinach, I don’t think this game is finished.
At no point do glitches diminish, but your frustration will sure grow.
Trust the reviewers, this game blows.

Graphically it may seem decent, but not for gaming eras recent.
The animations are malfeasant, look at how she holds that phone!
AMY’s strength is its aesthetics, but they’re still as clear as Dianetics
Even with flawless cosmetics, it wouldn’t cover up what we know
Trust the reviewers, this game blows

Just playing AMY is energy sapping, three hours in and you’ll be napping
I’d rather listen to Randy Savage rapping. The more you play the more time slows.
You’d think your thumbs had the plague, with controls that feel like you have stones for legs,
No solace in a plot so god damn vague- AMY has far more cons than it has pros.
Trust the reviewers, this game blows.

In the loosest sense it is like Ico, except a direct comparison would be psycho,
the difference too far to be be seen by Tycho. For arguments sake lets juxtapose.
AMY’s puzzles are simplistic, each one solvable by methods heuristic.
Did I mention Amy’s autistic? Probably not, I’m bad at aping Poe.
Still- Trust the reviewers, this game blows.

AMY also suffers from awful combat, every attack is inaccurate and flat.
Lana has Johnny Bench fingers but needs his bat. Is that a crowbar or a pillow?
The game’s design flaws are massive, and more obvious when your character is active.
It’s an Occupier with a Gene Sharp book forcing you to be passive, a strategy I oppose.
Trust the reviewers- this game blows.

It isn’t so bad its good its just terrible, playing AMY as an experience is unbearable.
It’s so bad I had to rip off Poe for this parable. There are no highs in AMY, just lows.
I know we reviewers aren’t always right, and you may want to play AMY just for spite,
but playing this was a true bleak plight. It drove me crazy and it shows.
Seriously, just this once, trust the reviewers- this game blows.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ It doesn’t look terrible.

+ Flashback was an awesome game.

+ There are some decent ideas buried under all of the things that don’t work. A sequel would probably end up being okay if they hear the near universal criticism and adjust accordingly.

+ It is still way better than Rogue Warrior. 

- Just one enormous escort mission/fetch quest. Should have made it timed just to get the unholy trifecta. Even then, it could have worked if it wasn’t so technically broken. At least you could stuff Ashley in a trashcan.

- Checkpoints are as rare as unicorns and as reliable as vertically oriented economic systems. AMY embodies the idea of fake difficulty

- I couldn’t find rhymes for “generally terrible voice acting.”

- Ten dollars more than I would pay for an unfinished beta.

- It gives Shaq Fu a run for the money as Paul Cuisset’s most puzzling mistake.

1 (RIP) to 4 are varying degrees of a bad game. A 1 (RIP) being a game you would actually pay money to not play, and a 4 is something that just barely fails to be mediocre. Read more about our scoring system in detail here.

AMY was developed by VectorCel and published by Lexis Numérique. It was released on January 11th, 2012 on XBLA for 800 MSP and January 17th, 2012 on PSN for $10. I think that’s the same, I was never good at converting fake currency into real currency. Haha, I’m just kidding, all currency is fake! Death to capitalism! A copy of the game was actually purchased for the purpose of this review, seriously. I’m a starving artist and I bought this thing for you people. The game was played until chapter 5 and wasn’t completed because life is just too fucking short. And yes I know Ico doesn’t rhyme with psycho before you say anything, I’m banking on most of you not realizing that.

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There are two reasons why you are reading this article right now, either you’ve recently heard about mechanical keyboards and you’re intrigued by them, or you have no clue what they are, but you know the name sounds fancy.

Either way, let’s get to the point here. What is a mechanical keyboard? Well, a mechanical keyboard looks the same as your regular keyboard, but each key is activated by it’s own mechanical switch. How is this different from your regular or “gaming” keyboard? Those keyboards have a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with contact points on them. A rubber-domed sheet goes over the top of it with more contact points and your plastic keys push the two contact points together to register a keystroke. How would a mechanical keyboard make a difference for me? Well, you don’t have any tactile feedback, no audible click to tell you when the key has been registered, and you have to push down further. But why does any of this matter exactly? With some tactile feedback and the keys pushing back at you, you’re able to know when to pull back and it helps you type faster. With an audible click when a key is registered, your brain subconsciously knows when to carry on with the next key, which one of your other fingers would probably already be on. This means less mistakes and not having letters in the wrong place. It also helps you learn “touch typing” (not looking at the keys when typing). Lastly, when you don’t have to push down further, you’re able to type faster. These benefits are not only good for typists, but for gamers too.

In the last couple of years, mechanical keyboards have started making a big hit in the gaming crowd. I mainly put it down to the company, Cherry Corp, whose keyswitch line, Cherry MX, has become very popular among keyboard manufactures as of late. Mechanical keyboards are not a new thing though. This technology has been around since the 80′s, most notably in IBM’s Model M keyboard, when personal computers were still becoming a thing. The reason why these didn’t survive in the market is because the type of keyboard you’re probably using right now is a lot cheaper to produce. With a $5 keyboard compared to a $100 + (on average) mechanical keyboard using Cherry MX switches, it’s a no brainer for computer companies to go with the cheaper one. Especially when they can just add some lights, mark the price up far beyond its worth and sell it. That’s why mechanical keyboards aren’t so popular anymore, but the good news is that it’s a lot easier to get them now.

What I’m going to show you in this RoundUp is a couple of mechanical keyboards I’ve been sent for review. Sadly I wasn’t able to get a nice range of different keyboards to review, but I have recently played with some other mechanical keyboards with different switches. So I’ll be able to tell you about those ones too, but I didn’t have enough time with them to be able to write full reviews about them. I’ll also give you a bit of a guide on what type switch you should be looking for and also the brand of keyboard you might want to get for your needs.

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The original Game Boy version of Tetris was the very first portable game that I owned.  Opening that Game Boy up on Christmas morning in 1990 was one of the best moments of my childhood.  But that was a long ago.  Is this classic Game Boy version of Tetris still From Russia With Fun?

Once the game is booted up players will be treated to the classic music of my portable youth as well as the option for 1 or 2 Players.  Unfortunately right from the start a common Game Boy Virtual Console criticism arises.  There is no way to select a 2 Player game on this Tetris port because there is no way to classically link up the hardware.  For whatever reason Nintendo just quickly ports these Game Boy titles over and doesn’t even include some sort of new wireless way to enjoy the game’s Multiplayer mode with others that have downloaded the software.  It just seems a bit lazy.

Single player mode, however, retains all of its glory.  Before the game is started the player is given the option of either A-Type, or B-Type.  A-Type is Tetris as most know it, while B-Type allows the player to select a difficulty where random Tetris junk pieces are scattered around the play area at the start of the game.

Also from the main screen is the option to choose between four different music types.  A-Type (the classic GB Tetris theme), B-Type (my favorite), C-Type, or just Off.  This is a nice little option since hearing the same song every game may get annoying.

Then there is one more set of options to choose from.  Players can choose what level they will start at between 0 and 9 (starting speed of the falling Tetriminos, AKA Tetris pieces).  If game B-Type is selected then it is possible to also choose a difficulty 0-5 of how difficult the scatted Tetris junk pieces will be.

From then on out it’s Tetris as usual.  The seven different Tetriminos randomly fall and it’s up to the player to create lines in order to clear them as well as rack up a high score!  The more lines that are cleared after a single Tetriminos placement is placed increases the amount of points earned, but going for the ultimate Tetris (clearing 4 lines at once) is risky buy rewarding.  If a piece hits the top of the play area the game is over and the score can then be recorded to the game.

This version of Tetris is very simple but also has a rich history.  Nintendo securing the ability to release Tetris for the Game Boy is an epic story, which gives this version of Tetris a history unlike most (really go look it up!)  Additionally this exact game is what put Nintendo on the path to portable dominance in the gaming industry, a place that it has arguably been for the last 22 years!  If this game didn’t come out, and wasn’t packaged with the Game Boy, than Nintendo may have had to wait until Pokémon (if it even made it that far) before they gained a stronghold on the portable gaming market.

With that said, this is still a very simplistic, yet fun, version of Tetris.  It also has an arguably high price point of $3.99.  While that may not initially sound like much, if you look on the eShop it’s possible to buy Tetris Party Live (originally for DSiWare) for $4.99.  I don’t know how that game fares up to this classic Tetris title, but Tetris Party Live looks like it has more options and does feature an online mode and only for a dollar more.

Overall the classic Game Boy version of Tetris is still fun after all these years but may not be the best value as far as Tetris games on the eShop are concerned.  However it will fill the hearts of many players with nostalgia and it’s still one of the most influential versions of Tetris ever made making it a must play for those interested in the history of gaming.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Still From Russia With Fun!
+ Great for those interested in gaming history.
+ Lots of nostalgia for those that played it back on a Game Boy.

- Not many features.
- No two player mode.
- Other versions of Tetris on the eShop may be a greater value.

To keep up with my latest reviews and more Follow me on Twitter @KingNintendoFan or Like Me on Facebook.

Tetris was developed by Nintendo and Bullet-Proof Software and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Game Boy and rereleased on the 3DS eShop.  The game was released in North America on the eShop on December 22nd, 2011 with an MSRP of $3.99.  The copy used in this review was provided by the publisher.  The game was played by the reviewer for over 20 years.

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Since I’m unfamiliar with the origins of Nathan Jurevicius’s Scarygirl, my initial expectations of the game are decided by how I judge everything I associate with either “I don’t know” or a half-hearted shrug—by its title.  Still, with such an ambiguous name, I’m not sure what to expect.  Is this title meant to be taken literally so that this a horror game about a very “scary girl”? Does the title describe a dead girl that’s a frankensteined amalgamation of child, bone, and tentacle who, if I saw in the streets of reality,  I’d probably elicit a blood curling scream before dashing in the opposite direction that she came from, but thankfully is cute because of her animated existence?  Why, yes.  That’s precisely who Scarygirl is.

If my description of Scarygirl was enough to turn your head, expect to do that a few more times after reading over the game’s synopsis.  Apparently, Scarygirl was once an unwanted, abandoned child that was adopted by a hyper-intelligent octopus named Blister, who gave her, her given name and a place to live. Sounds dark?  Don’t worry about it. The world of Scarygirl is only twisted in that “Nightmare Before Christmas” way, where for a split second you realize that shit’s fucked… before forgetting about that entirely because of the insane amount of cute that’s being forced down your throat so you’d find it socially acceptable enough for your children to play the game.

I thought that Scarygirl’s eye-catching and unique synopsis would be held up by gameplay that would introduce a spark of something that was just as unique.  I wasn’t expecting much.  After all, the side-scrolling platform genre has been near beaten to death by the same basic gameplay elements.  There’s really only so much that you can tweak to the mechanics of a platforming game in order to make it unique. I guess I was both right and wrong.  While Scarygirl’s gameplay mechanics weren’t so novel that they’d blow my mind, but they were simply so polished that I couldn’t help but have fun with the game, despite the fact that basically the same old bag of platforming bits.

Scarygirl’s a mix of side-scrolling platforming with a few elements of hack ‘n slash sprinkled in. Her controls handle very tightly and smoothly, and the use of her tentacle for the grab and glide mechanisms make a nice addition to the game.  However, her combat mechanics aren’t quite as up to speed as her platform handling.  Scarygirl’s tentacle has been much improved over the original flash game in combat (which I tried out for research, I didn’t lie about not knowing anything about Scarygirl.)  Originally, it wasn’t much more than a useless attachment for her ineffectual spin attack.  Her combat tentacle now functions as a whip-like object and can mix up light and heavy attacks.  Light attacks are faster, whereas heavy attacks allow her to literally juggle her enemies in the air.  A purple ring will show around her enemies when they’ve been sufficiently knocked down enough as an indication that she can grab them.  From thereon, she can either choose to perform a special move on or toss away her unfortunate captive.  As Scarygirl continues to fight, she begins to build up her rage meter, which, when filled, can be used to trigger Scarygirl’s rage mode, where the entire screen melts into gray and Scarygirl becomes a gruesome enemy-chomping version of herself. Scary.

Along her merry, but creepy journey, Scarygirl can grab two types of pickup items.  Gems float around the levels that Scarygirl travels through, which I suppose works as the capital of her world’s economy.  Gems can be traded with specific sellers scattered through levels for new tentacle add-ons, which serve as power ups in Scarygirl and can provide such benefits as attack bonuses; new vinyls, which are just pretty collectibles you can view in the Scarygirl menu level for collector’s items whores; and new special moves.  The other collectible that Scarygirl can gather is fish, which I suppose she grew fond of as a result of her time with Blister the octopus.  The health system in Scarygirl functions the same as the one in the Legend ofZelda series.  A series of hearts represent the amount of life Scarygirl has left. Every time Scarygirl is harmed, she loses a quarter of a heart or more.  Every fish that she grabs up brings back a quarter of a heart.  And just like in The Legend of Zelda, where heart pieces can be collected in order to have more overall hearts, Scarygirl can do the same.

If you want to share your love of Scarygirl around with a friend, you can.  Scarygirl features a local co-op mode, where you can play as Scarygirl and your friend can play as the infinitely cooler Bunniguru, the bunny martial arts master. Although the basic combat and platforming moves are essentially the same, but Bunniguru handles significantly differently from Scarygirl.  He runs faster, higher, and glides for longer periods of time than Scarygirl, but he comes with the handicap of being unable to grab anything beyond ledges for platforming.  Although 2 player co-op is decently fun enough with Scarygirl, it contains some serious flaws that makes it an extremely frustrating experience for whoever is playing as Bunniguru.  Instead of allowing the in-game camera to pan out when Scarygirl and Bunniguru get far apart from each other, the camera stays squarely focused on Scarygirl.  Anytime Bunniguru wanders out of the frame, he’ll be teleported immediately back to wherever Scarygirl is, which is eye-ball-gougingly annoying, since the game seems to have it out for Bunniguru by teleporting him over spikes and never-ending abysses of certain death.  The game also makes it impossible for you to complete the game as Bunniguru as the game restarts at a checkpoint whenever Scarygirl’s health runs out, regardless of whether or not Bunniguru is completely fine.  There are also certain junctures within the game that require Scarygirl’s ability to grab items and enemies, which Bunniguru is incapable of doing. I guess here is where there’s a discrepancy between the ludonarrative, since it wouldn’t make sense in the story for Bunniguru to continue on Scarygirl’s mission without her.  From a technical standpoint, this mechanic almost breaks co-op mode and certainly makes it a very frustrating experience.

Scarygirl is an absolute triumph in aesthetics.  The visuals are absolutely gorgeous and the sound design complements that sick, twisted, and cute effect of the visuals.  In fact, I wouldn’t blink an eye if you were to tell me that Danny Elfman somehow contributed to the sound design of the game.  On the technical side, although Scarygirl is well-polished in its platforming aspects, it suffers from derivateness and a few mechanical flaws such as random difficulty spikes and a broken co-op mode that prevents it from being a great game across the board.

Here’s the Rundown:

+ Scarygirl is adorable, in that Tim Burton-y way
+ Polished, platformer fun
+ Bunniguru is a bamf
+ It’s pretty
- Drop-in local co-op is almost unplayable for player two
- Random difficulty spikes that may get under your skin
- Boss fights are few and far between

8 and 8.5 represent a game that is a good experience overall. While there may be some issues that prevent it from being fantastic, these scores are for games that you feel would easily be worth a purchase.

Scarygirl is developed by TikGames and published by Square Enix. It was released on XBLA on January 18, 2012. A copy of the game was graciously provided by Square Enix. Scarygirl was played to completion in about 8 hours.

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In my last review of a Noctua product, I was looking at their best CPU Cooler and probably the best Air CPU Cooler on today’s market, the Noctua NH-D14. Well, today I will be looking at Noctua’s low range cooler for use in HTPC-type setups, the NH-U9B SE2.

Aimed at the HTPC and mini tower cases, the U9B SE2 sports a super small form factor with 2x NF-B9 92mm fans and Noctua’s award-winning SecuFirm2 mounting system. Please be aware that this is definitely not a cooler you should be looking at for your full sized gaming rig. The U9B SE2 is designed to work with the small amount of air flow in an HTPC case. With the fans mounted to have both facing either side, rather than front and back, the fans are able to pull air from the vents typically found on either side of an HTPC case. This is typically not done with most coolers, but it is like this for the U9B SE2 for better performance in an HTPC case.

The bundled accessories are what you have come to expect from any Noctua product. The noise adapters for the fans are really top notch and provide a better way to under-volt the fans to make them slower. As with all Noctua coolers, the NH-U9B SE2 comes with Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal compound which holds it’s own against the popular Arctic Silver 5. So if you’re picking up this cooler, you won’t have to worry about getting any other thermal paste.

The U9B also uses Noctua’s SecuFirm2 mounting system. The special thing about this is that Noctua will provide you with any new parts, free of charge, for coolers 6 years old and under to be able to fit the latest sockets. This is something that will become very useful if you want to save money and stick with only one cooler for a few years. The SecuFirm2 system also makes the installation process very simple and easy. The only real problem I have is that for AMD installations, you need to have kept your stock backplate, which could only be a problem if this isn’t the first aftermarket CPU cooler being installed on your motherboard. It’s only a really small problem, but considering cheap coolers like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 + come with a universal backplate (fits both Intel and AMD), this just seems a little confusing to me. But enough about what it comes with, we must know how it performed.

Well, like I said earlier, this shouldn’t be confused with a cooler made for full sized gaming rigs. So don’t try and compare it to the big huge tower coolers like the Hyper 212 +, or any other similarly priced tower coolers. The U9B is meant for a different market, and boy does it excel in it. This cooler outperforms low-profile coolers such as the Freezer 7 from Arctic Silver and the Shuriken from Scythe, not only in temperatures, but in noise levels too. Remember also that Noctua supports their coolers for new sockets and they have an amazing premium quality to them, something not found with many (if any) other coolers on the market.

With the Hyper 212 + in mind, however, the U9B SE2 actually keeps up quite nicely with it for cooling purposes. Running on an AMD Phenom II overclocked an extra 1Ghz over stock speeds, the U9B SE2 was able to keep the CPU running at about 46°C when at max load for a couple of hours or so. This means I could go even further if I had a motherboard that would support higher clocks. This was in a full tower case, however, so being in a mini tower or HTPC case the results may vary. Nonetheless this is a great cooler under most circumstances.

Just to nail it in a little bit more, you probably don’t want this for your mid-tower or full tower systems. This is aimed at the smaller market, and that’s where it will shine the most. I would definitely suggest stretching your budget some more and getting something like the NH-D14 if you have a huge case to cater to it. Keeping all of this in mind, Noctua’s NH-U9B SE2 is a very good CPU cooler and it will serve you very well under certain conditions.

Here’s the rundown:

+ Perfect size for HTPCs and other smaller cases

+ Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal paste is fantastic

+ A great assortment of accessories included

+ Low noise levels

- May be a little pricey for some

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I’ve never had any experience with the Oddworld series before Stranger’s Wrath except for a scant few minutes with Abe’s Oddysee, so hardcore Oddworld fans, bear with me. I’m not privy to all of the names of the different species in Oddworld and why they’re unique, nor do I know the relation of Stranger’s Wrath to the other games in the series except that it seems that the developers didn’t attempt to force an “odd” wordplay out of the title, although from what I can tell, it’s only related to the other titles simply because it’s set in the Oddworld universe.

Since Stranger’s Wrath is an HD port, I thought it was probably a good idea to take a look at the source material. No, I didn’t go on an adventure scouring retailers and the Internet looking for the original Stranger’s Wrath for Xbox.

Yeah, I cheated.

I bought Stranger’s Wrath as a part of the Oddbox off of Steam, which packages Abe’s Oddysee, Munch’s Oddysee, Abe’s Exoddus, and Stranger’s Wrath into a ridiculously cheap bundle.

Comparing the PC version of Stranger’s Wrath, which has yet to get the HD treatment (although it’s in the works), to the PSN version, the changes are obvious. Just Add Water has gone above and beyond the call for this HD release, although to be fair, when I hear HD remaster I usually expect little more than the game to be blown up to HD resolution and have its shaders updated. Just Add Water really put in the work to do Stranger’s Wrath justice. The game’s graphics have been touched up by sharpened textures and more saturated, vibrant colors, enough to make me croon that the game looks jaw-droppingly gorgeous. That’s quite an impressive feat, considering that Stranger’s Wrath is done in the style of a spaghetti western and most of the environment you trek across is desert. And since the game’s graphics are stylized, it’s hard to believe that the game was released in 2005.

Stranger’s Wrath is about Stranger, a gruff, bad-ass Clint Eastwood-esque bounty hunter who tracks down Oddworld criminals in order to fund an expensive and frequently referred to but mysterious surgery he urgently needs to have. The plot doesn’t get more complicated than this, except a few hitches and a bit of a twist towards the end that makes the purpose of the surgery clear.

Clint Eastwood as seen in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The plot moves on between sections of the game that are broken up by missions. Every few missions or so, there’d be a cutscene that would move the action of the game forward, which causes the game to feel monotonous at points where the action lulls. The game also tends to have difficulty spikes and combined with the lulls, I almost put the games down at some points since there’s little motivation to move on without any of the plot driving the game forward and boss fights that are window-punchingly frustrating.

Besides a few plot hiccups, Stranger’s Wrath is solid. It’s gameplay mechanics feature a seamless blend between first person and third person, which is so well done that it makes Stranger’s Wrath shine. The game is primarily played in third person for the platforming and melee elements, although after the first half an hour, melee combat becomes less effective since all of your enemies wise up and start carrying guns. Then, the first person shooter elements start becoming more useful. Stranger uses a collection of small cute animals and bugs as ammo for his crossbow, each with different status effects ranging from electrocution to blunt force trauma, to bring down his enemies.

The reticule in first person is sluggish and reloading often takes four or five seconds longer than it should. Since Stranger’s Wrath isn’t a twitch shooter, this doesn’t pose much of a problem, except when you’re embroiled in boss fights involving multiple enemies. The game usually encounters the aforementioned difficulty spikes here, as Stranger doesn’t really have an effective way of dealing with multiple enemies at once except to uselessly flail at them in melee combat.

Just Add Water’s remaster of Stranger’s Wrath is probably one of the best on the PSN, and probably should stand as some sort of model for other companies who look to re-release their games. The game’s been given a nice fresh coat of paint that makes it look new and worth every penny.

Here’s the Rundown:

+ Stranger is Clint Eastwood in animated form

+ Switching between first and third person is almost seamless

+ The game’s atmosphere brings me back to my days when I was but a wee lass

- Fighting multiple enemies sucks

- Difficulty spikes makes me want to stick my tongue in a hot oven

- This isn’t on Xbox Live yet (stupid Microsoft size restrictions)

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath was originally developed by Oddworld Inhabitants and Just Add Water, and published by Just Add Water. Its HD remaster was released on PSN on December 27, 2011. A copy of the game was graciously provided by the publisher. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath was played lovingly to completion in about 12 hours.

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Trine 2 combines a beautiful, artistic and vibrant world with platforming, puzzles and action / RPG elements to create one of the most visually stunning and entertaining downloadable titles of 2011.  These puzzles aren’t solved alone however.  Having the ability to simultaneously switch between three distinct characters makes Trine 2 one brain-twisting experience.

Throughout the game you’ll be using each of your three characters abilities to solve countless puzzles: Amadeus who is a wizard which can conjure boxes and platforms and has the ability to levitate multiple objects; Zoya is a thief who wields a grappling hook and a bow, and Pontiusis a fearless (fat) knight with a sword and shield (and hammer)

As you venture through the game you’ll have the ability to level up each of the three characters further increasing their skills. While these do make puzzle solving easier, leveling up isn’t necessary if you’re looking for a real challenge. Trine 2 also offers many different ways to play. If you want to try solving each puzzle by using just Zoya for instance, you’re more than welcomed to do so.  If things get to tough however, you can always switch to another character to help complete the current section.

Aside from puzzle solving, Trine 2 also offers a bit of combat. It’s not the strongest aspect of the game as it’s rather basic. Most of the enemies die in a few simple hits and aren’t very challenging, But when trying to solve platforming puzzles at the same time, it certainly makes things a bit more difficult.

However the challenge is actually where I found issues with Trine 2.  As challenging as it can be sometimes, the checkpoint system used in the game completely ruins it. Instead of reloading to a checkpoint and having to re-complete what you’ve done, the game just “warps” you to the area. This can be done at any time by accessing the pause menu. So, you never really have the fear of dying because you’ll never lose any progress.  While the puzzles aren’t easy, this system almost makes the game too easy.

This tends to make mini-boss like enemies insanely easy as you can simply spam the checkpoint system and repeat the same attacks without the worry of the enemies health returning back to full. It’s not a deal breaking, but it’s certainly an easy way out for gamers who can’t overcome the challenge.

As I mentioned before, Trine 2 is a simply beautiful. The colors are perfect, bloom is used just right, the environments feel like-like.  Overall it’s just one of the most beautiful downloadable titles I’ve seen in a long time. Even though some of the environments can be repeated, you’ll never get bored of seeing the same beautiful scenery.

The animations on the other hand are rather dull and don’t offer much variety, but the simple fact that you’ll have multiple ways to tackle each puzzle makes up for it. I would often find myself in the middle of solving a puzzle, just to realize I could have done it a completely different way. This is what makes Trine 2 so excellent. On your second playthrough, you can challenge yourself by completing different puzzles in multiple ways to further increase the replay value.

If that’s not you’re type of thing, co-op is also offered. Up to three players can take on the entire single player campaign playing freely as any character their heart desires. Unfortunately, the downside to co-op is that nothing will be changed. If you’ve already beaten the game by yourself, you’ll be doing the exact same puzzles over, but with a friend instead.

This is rather disappointing as a separate co-op experience with its own unique puzzles would have made a great time with friends. I’d rather be able to only complete certain puzzles and levels with friends, that way going in I would have no idea what to expect. Maybe in Trine 3?  Or Trine… Trine?

Overall, Trine 2 is simply a fantastic experience that any gamer who is a fan of puzzle platforming games should at the very least, try out. You just simply can’t go wrong with a beautiful downloadable title such as this that offers so much and takes a different approach at puzzle solving.

Not only that, but if you have a friend to jump in from the get-go, you’ll have one hell of a weekend. Bottom line is, if you’re looking to get your brain twisted for the holidays, Trine 2 is the game you’re looking for. You won’t be disappointed.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Beautiful. Simply beautiful

+ Great physics and puzzle solving

+ Fantastic use of characters and abilites

+ Multiple ways to solve the same puzzles

+ Co-op

- Co-op, due to the lack of separate levels

- Some puzzles are overused a bit too much

- The current checkpoint system ruins much of the challenge

9 and 9.5 represent the pinnacle of the genre, a game that defines what that genre should be about. These scores are for games that you not only feel would be worth your purchase, but you would actually try to convince your friends to buy them as well.

Trine 2  was developed by Frozenbyte, and published by Atlus.  It will be released on XBLA and PSN on December 21st, 2011. A review copy was provided by Atlus for the purpose of this review. Trine 2 was played until completion taking around 6 hours to finish. It’s so pretty!  

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Tails, my friend, we have some catching up to do. In fact, you might even say we have to make up for lost “time”…

Longtime fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog series often recall the games from the Genesis era (or Mega Drive, if you’re outside North America) with a great fondness. However, one of the most highly-praised installments from that period is also one of the most seldom played: Sonic the Hedgehog CD, or just Sonic CD for short.

Sonic CD, helmed by the oft-uncredited creator of the character, Naoto Oshima (Yuji Naka being the Lead Programmer on the original title), was originally meant to be an enhanced version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which was being created by a separate team headed by Naka at the SEGA Technical Institute in the United States. Instead, Oshima wound up taking the project in another direction, creating an all-new game for the company’s ill-fated Genesis CD add-on which bore a couple of small, passing resemblances to its Western-developed sibling.

In all, Sonic CD could be considered to have been in the wrong place at the right time. Sonic the Hedgehog fever was running wild, but that same fever did not translate into sales for the SEGA CD platform, though many of those who played it considered the title not only one of the platform’s best titles, but one of the best Sonic games, period.

Following its 1993 release, the game would be ported to the Windows PC platform in 1996, gaining it a little more exposure. Years later, the PC version of the title would be added to the Sonic Gems Collection in 2005. The problem there is that unlike the preceding Sonic Mega Collection, Gems would only be released for the GameCube in North America, thus keeping it out of the hands of a fair number of PlayStation 2 and Xbox owners (though the latter would only receive the Mega Collection in any region).

But now, Sonic CD finally has a chance to hit it big with the masses; unlike previous releases, the version we are here to talk about today is being released far and wide for virtually every platform– PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE Arcade, Android, iOS, and at some point next year, even Windows Phone 7 and Steam. Ironically, it seems that just about the only platforms not getting it at all are those branded by Nintendo, making for an interesting bit of turnabout following Gems Collection.

(Well, there’s also the PlayStation Portable, but that should probably come as no surprise by this point.)

Unlike previous re-releases, the new Sonic the Hedgehog CD is no mere port; instead, independent developer and Sonic fan Christian “Taxman” Whitehead developed a new game engine called the “Retro Engine,” and presented a proof-of-concept wherein the game was reconstructed to SEGA. Upon seeing the game running on the iPhone, SEGA was apparently impressed enough to not only make the project official, but bring it to several other platforms as well, adding new tweaks and improvements along the way.

Sonic CD was well known for many things, including its time-traveling dynamic, CD-quality soundtrack, and anime cutscenes at the start and end of the game, to say nothing of the introduction of the characters of Metal Sonic and Amy Rose. Its legacy speaks for itself, and you can find numerous reviews all over the web with a little searching; of this, we have little doubt. Rather than delve into the quality of the game itself (beyond a brief summary), the focus of this review will be on what this particular version brings to the table.

Perhaps the first thing one might notice is how everything has been adapted so that it can run in widescreen. This includes not only the menus, but the gameplay itself, as well as the title screen and even the anime cutscenes by Toei Animation and Studio Junio.

In fact, those few who did own the SEGA CD may well remember that the cutscenes were displayed in a tiny window in the middle of the screen, and were a little grainy, as most videos were for the time. But no more; though the art style is simplistic, seeing those same scenes playing at full speed and taking up the entirety of your television screen is a sight to behold.

Similarly, the game presents you with three options for the in-game visuals. These include “Nostalgia,” “Smooth,” and “Sharp” settings, which seem to evoke different levels of quality, ranging from how the original looked on the SEGA CD to a look which seems to be a little more in keeping with what is expected from today’s displays.

Several companies, including SEGA, have looked to Backbone to create “high definition” versions of their 16-bit titles for these platforms, but these efforts have typically been met with disdain, with comments of how the original graphics look “smeared” being the norm. However, while we can’t quite put our finger on just what it is, the job performed on the graphics here feels far superior to Backbone’s attempts to update 16-bit visuals. And best of all, you can adjust the visual style at any time by simply pausing and accessing the settings.

The visuals are not the only thing which has been upgraded, as the audio provides almost everything a Sonic fan– a Sonic CD fan, especially– could want.

When the game was originally released, there were two soundtracks: one for the Japanese and PAL regions, and another composed for the North American release (which itself would find its way into later European ports). Fans have readily debated for ages over which version was preferable, from Masafumi Ogata’s title theme “You Can Do Anything” (aka “Toot Toot Sonic Warrior”) versus Spencer Nilsen’s “Sonic Boom” (which would go on to be featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl) to decidedly different approaches to stage music (the Japanese versions featuring three variations of a common theme per zone, whereas the NA version would use different themes altogether), and even the boss music.

Following the announcement of this release, SEGA stated that it would only feature the Japanese/PAL music due to some licensing issues. Hope was kept alive, however, by talk that the North American soundtrack might be offered as downloadable content, so as to offset the cost of reusing Nilsen’s music.

Now, we aren’t sure what happened, but it all worked out for the best as this version of Sonic CD comes with both soundtracks. That’s right– while the Japanese music is the default when you download the game, you can switch it over to the North American soundtrack from the menu at the title screen. Unfortunately, unlike the visuals, you can only make this switch from this menu. It’s only a minor gripe, as being able to switch soundtracks on the fly and compare them as you go through the game would have been a great feature, but we aren’t about to complain– not when we thought we might not get Nilsen’s tunes at all.

Now, we did say it brought “almost” everything a fan would want. The “almost” applies to the unfortunate omission of the Engrish lyrics from the Japanese theme song, “You Can Do Anything.” Given that was a large draw for fans of that soundtrack– and even a favorably silly part for those who prefer the other– it’s unfortunate that they were mysteriously left out.

As an aside, it should be noted that you are able to adjust the volume of the sound effects and music in relation to one-another, and you can do this at any time from the pause menu.

As beloved as the game was to many fans who played it, it wasn’t without some issues, and we don’t just mean the music. Sonic felt a little different in how he controlled as well compared to post-Sonic 1 games, and this is perhaps best represented by the Spin Dash. With Sonic CD being developed at the same time as Sonic 2, both wound up taking the same basic idea and putting their own– *ahem* –spin on it.

The Sonic 2 version, which has you press the jump button repeatedly while holding down, is perhaps the best known. Not only did it come first, but it would become the standard for many, many other games to follow. Sonic CD, however, only required one button press and Sonic would gradually build towards his (seemingly slower) top speed. Of the two, it was far less warmly received.

The Retro Engine version, however, takes both versions into account. Like the music, it must be selected before you start up your game, but players can now choose between both types of Spin Dash, with the more “classic” style set as the default. And as much as we love Sonic, there are those far more hardcore than we are, and word is that switching the Spin Dash style affects the controls in other ways as well, with whatever differences there are between the Sonic CD and Sonic 2 versions of gameplay present and accounted for. We didn’t notice a huge difference beyond the Spin Dash, but more hardcore fans might.

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Serious Sam 3 is a dumb game.  However, I mean that in the best possible way.

You see, one does not need a brain in order to play or enjoy Serious Sam 3.  One needs only the will to strafe, shoot, and strafe some more.  If you’re into multiplayer, even better.  If you’ve got friends, better still.  And if you’re into old school first person shooters, welcome to Nirvana (with bullets).

If you’re not familiar with Serious Sam, that’s ok.  There’s not much to know.  ”Serious” Sam Stone is a bad ass dude and he likes to shoot things.  End of story.  Sure there’s a “story” in Serious Sam 3; One that involves the end of the human race, the pyramids, science, and no less than four helicopters going down, but the cutscenes in which the story is presented are so bad that they’re actually kinda good.  Well, actually they’re just bad… like two steps below Dean Cain in “Militia” bad.  Google it.

However, as I’ve said before, if you’re playing a Serious Sam game for the story, then you’ve come to the wrong place.  Serious Sam is from another era.  An era when the stories in video games were like the stories in porno flicks.  They only really serve as a lead-in to the money shot, and well, you could say that Serious Sam 3 is one big money shot.  Prepare to spend hours upon hours blowing your load of bullets onto and into anything that moves in Bum Fuck Egypt (BFE), because Sam is on a mission… and he’s serious.

Serious Face

The single player campaign is much of what I described above.  Lots of terrible cutscenes and lots of shooting at bad things.  The gameplay starts off slowly and introduces you to the weapons and monsters at a pace that even your grandmother would enjoy.  However, by the fourth chapter, you’ll have no doubts this is definitely a Serious Sam game.  Dozens of enemies will be running at you at once, and you’ll wonder just how yer gonna kill em all, until you do, and feel quite satisfied.  By chapter 12?  The game is insane.  Hundreds of baddies on screen at once, blood flying everywhere, and forget about rockets, you’re firing cannonballs.  Fucking medieval.

If you’re familiar with Serious Sam, then the enemies will be familiar as well.  Gnaar, Kleer Skeletons, Beheaded Gunners, Beheaded Machine Gunners, Spiders, Scrapjacks, Harpies, Arachnoids, and lots of things with rocket launchers attached to them.  All of whom will do what they’ve always done – run at you.  The AI in Serious Sam 3 is nothing spectacular, but it does the job.  Don’t expect any RAGE-like enemy behavior folks, just expect shit to come at you and hope you’ve got enough bullets or rockets to take ‘em down.

The game also looks pretty damn good, but not great.  You can tell that Croteam spent their resources on what was important (mainly the guns and the monsters) because everything else, such as the environments, are rather bland.  However, the Serious Engine 3 does a commendable job of rendering so many things running on screen at once without killing your frame rate, that it’s hard to really knock ‘em for visuals.  Let’s just say that the game looks better than good enough.

This scene sums up the single player pretty well, save for the boss fights that take up the whole screen. I’ll let you discover that madness on your own:

The multiplayer is a whole other story.  You see, not only does Serious Sam 3 have your typical Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, One Shot One Kill, and Last Man Standing  multiplayer modes (which all feel very similar to Quake III if I had to compare them to anything) but there’s also 16 player co-op.  Yes, 16 players can play the campaign at once, or team up in survival modes.

You can play classic mode (which gives you three lives per player) Standard, which is the same as playing in single player (you just respawn), Coin-Op (which gives you three lives between your team) and then there’s survival.  Survival mode is exactly what it sounds like.  Waves and waves of enemies will come at you and you have to survive as long as you can.  If you try to play survivial by yourself, you will surely die within a minute.  Get four or more people in the game and you’ll be having fun in no time seeing how long you can last.  Between the single player and multiplayer modes, theres no shortage of content in Serious Sam 3, especially for $40.  It’s the total package for any PC FPS gamer.

However, the thing that impressed me most about Serious Sam 3 multiplayer was just how seamless everything was.  I had no matchmaking or connectivity issues via Steam, and I played through damn near the entire campaign with two of my buddies while other players just came and went.  Sometimes we had 14 people, sometimes we had 6 – no matter.  The game would adjust accordingly and there were never any issues.  We just kept ploughing through baddies until the sun came up.  It was marvelous.

What’s it like playing Serious Sam 3 co-op with eight people?  I’m glad you asked.  Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to show you this video I made:

You see, many PC gamers have that one shooter that they’ve been able to pick up, play, and just as easily put down at a moment’s notice for years.  For many people it’s the first three episodes of the original DooM, but for me that game has always been Rise of the Triad.  Apogee’s lost epic is a game that I’ve had installed on every PC I’ve ever owned and brought with me on a flash drive no mater where I went.  If I was ever lost on a desert island, at least I would have ROTT and be able to satisfy my digital FPS bloodlust.  Well, my aplogies to Tom Hall and the rest of the Developers of Incredible Power who made my favorite old school FPS of all time, but Serious Sam 3 is my new ROTT.  It’s so damn old school it hurts.  I now have it installed on every PC I own (thanks to Steam) and I can just as easily pick it up as I can put it down.  I can play it forever alone, I can play it with friends, I can even play it with complete strangers who once thought they were forever alone.  Serious Sam 3 is my new comfort food.  It’s a 10 piece bucket of extra crispy KFC with five boxes of potato wedges and three sides of mac and cheese.  I can have it anywhere, anytime, and it makes me feel gooooood.

Ahem…

Here’s the rundown:

+ Looks great on my high end PC

+ Runs great on my low end laptop

+ Great pacing in single player

+ Great fun in multiplayer

+ Only $40

+Sam’s Serious One Liners

+Old School

 - Old School

- Sam’s Serious One Liners

- Could Look Better

- Cutscenes and animations will make you laugh for the wrong reasons

- I don’t have 15 friends

9 and 9.5 represent the pinnacle of the genre, a game that defines what that genre should be about. These scores are for games that you not only feel would be worth your purchase, but you would actually try to convince your friends to buy them as well.

Serious Sam 3 BFE was developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital.  It was released on November 22nd, 2011 for $39.99 USD on PC only.  A copy of the game was provided bu the publisher for the purposes of review.  Dave has beaten the campaign both Solo and Co-op and played a crap ton of multiplayer.  He’s sunk about 20 hours into the game so far, which is probably longer than you’ve played anything this year except for Skyrim ya dirty hippie.

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We recently spoke at considerable length about Sonic the Hedgehog’s latest outing, the 20th anniversary celebrating Sonic Generations. As such, that makes covering the Nintendo 3DS version a little bit easier (and probably less wordy, but we’ll see).

Traditionally speaking, there are two ways to bring a console title to a portable platform: one is to essentially try to bring the exact same experience to the latter, lopping off any extraneous parts or limbs as necessary due to technological limitations. The other is to all but forget what has gone into the console version, and essentially build something new from the ground up which delivers the same basic idea, but in a form better suited to the less-powerful hardware.

Sonic Generations hits somewhere between the two ideals, though closer to the latter– at least where gameplay is concerned. The story is the same as the one seen in the console version, and much of the dialogue is replicated verbatim, though without the voice acting of the console version. There are little sound bytes as each character’s sequence of word balloons begins, but much of the dialogue falls comparatively flat without the voices to deliver them.

Hey, say what you want about Sonic and the rest, but Mike Pollock’s Eggman is an absolute joy to listen to. You can tell that he must be having a great time voicing the role, and it’s a shame not to have it here, especially when we’re certain the Nintendo 3DS could more than adequately handle it.

Way Better Than English

As we were saying, the story is mostly the same, only now, none of Sonic’s friends appear, save for Tails. Well, Shadow and Silver appear, too, if one were to include their appearances as bosses– but more on those later.

The cutscenes used to tell the story also lack the… well, everything of the console version. If there is one thing SEGA can do well with Sonic, it’s computer-animated cutscenes. But instead of those, or even stills from the console version, the Nintendo 3DS version basically has the characters standing and talking against static backgrounds which they don’t even look like they are able to interact with.

This is worsened when the scene in question involves more than just talking; it would be all but impossible to guess what the characters are doing if not for them telling you. And even then, near the end of the game, there is at least one event which happens that we’re still not entirely sure of what happened– that one does differ from the console version, and they don’t really bother to explain, though you still get the general idea of what went on.

Heck, you don’t even get a cool transformation sequence for Super Sonic (no, that’s not a spoiler… not if you’ve ever played through most any Sonic game before).

It’s disappointing because we’re pretty sure SEGA can do better than this. Shoot, get the guys at Archie to draw up some cut scenes next time.

Anyway, despite this disappointment– which may not even matter to you, and is easily skippable for those who don’t care why a blue hedgehog needs to run really, really fast through colorful stages– the game is actually pretty good. And, depending on your view of the frequently over-the-shoulder Modern Sonic style presented in the console version, this version could even surpass it.

The reason for that is because, for the most part, gameplay in the Nintendo 3DS version is entirely 2D, or at least 2.5D in some parts. Ironic, given the system, we know. But Classic Sonic plays as the Blue Blur did during the heyday of the SEGA Genesis, and Modern Sonic feels like a cross between the side-scrolling portions of Modern Sonic on the console, and the gameplay of Sonic Rush, minus the mid-air stunts.

That said, there are some 3D portions, but they are exceedingly rare. These are relegated to some rail-grinding, special “escape” sequences, such as where Sonic runs towards the player as a giant totem pole comes falling down behind him, and the Sonic the Hedgehog 2-styled (or more accurately, as we’ve more recently been told, Sonic Heroes-styled) special stages.

These special stages appear after both Sonics clear their respective portions of a zone, and there are seven in all (as there are seven Chaos Emeralds to obtain). If you want to see the end of the game, then you must complete them.

Fortunately, these special stages are not nearly as difficult as those seen in past Sonic titles. At first we thought they would be, as we believed the goal to be to collect as many colored orbs (in lieu of rings) as possible to get the Chaos Emerald. Instead, these actually fuel your boost meter, with which you must keep up with the Chaos Emerald in order to get it.

Special stages have always been the bane of this reviewer’s Sonic experiences, and he has never succeeded in gathering all seven within any game; one or two, at the most. But this time out, he was able to acquire all seven with ease, and had a blast doing it. And like other stages in the game, you can improve your score and rank by going back to them and doing even better.

As for the main portion of the game, things have been streamlined considerably. Rather than a large, interactive hub, you select your stages from a menu, while other features– challenges, unlockables, etc.– are separated into their own game modes.

The lineup of stages differs from the console version as well, though not in the way many had hoped. Being a handheld title, there were fans who had hoped that this version of Generations would take its stages from Sonic’s Game Gear, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable appearances. But, for the most part, that isn’t the case, and the majority of stages come from console titles.

Though both share unique versions of the Green Hill Zone, that is the only one they have in common. Sonic 2‘s Chemical Plant Zone is replaced by the Casino Night Zone, Sonic & Knuckles‘ Hidden Palace Zone is replaced by the Mushroom Hill Zone, and once again, Sonic 3 is left out entirely, unless you’re willing to count it and Sonic & Knuckles as one game.

Things continue with Sonic Adventure‘s Speed Highway being replaced by the Emerald Coast and Sonic Adventure 2‘s City Escape being replaced by Radical Highway. After that, though, things veer wildly away from the pattern established in the console version.

Gone are the remakes of levels from Sonic Heroes, 2006′s Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colors for the Wii; in their place are a humble two zones, with Water Temple representing Sonic Rush and Tropical Resort representing Sonic Colors for the Nintendo DS. It’s an interesting trade-off, to say the least, though it is unfortunate that the number of stages seems to have been dictated by the number of Chaos Emeralds.

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The series that invented the kart racing genre is finally on the 3DS.  Mario Kart 7 was one of the first 3DS titles announced for the platform and fans have finally been rewarded for their patience.

First off, many items from the classic Mario Kart games return, so fans can look forward to seeing Bananas, Triple Bananas, Green Shells, Red Shells, Triple Green Shells, Triple Red Shells, Spiny Shells, Bob-ombs, Mushrooms, Triple Mushrooms, Golden Mushrooms, Bullet Bills, Bloopers, Lightning, and Super Stars.

However, three new items make their series debut in Mario Kart 7: Fire Flowers, Super Leaves, and the Lucky Seven.  Fire Flowers allow the driver to lob several fire balls forward or backwards at other drivers.  Super Leaves give the driver’s kart a Tanooki tail and allows the driver to hit nearby foes and the Lucky Seven surrounds the driver’s kart with seven items that can be shot off one at a time.

As with other Mario Kart titles, many items can be used both offensively and defensively.  Determining how to best make use of the currently held item during a race will play a major role in determining your success.

Also returning to Mario Kart are coins, which are scattered throughout the tracks in Mario Kart 7.  Picking these coins up will give a slight speed boost (like a super small mushroom boost) and also increase the player’s top speed.  Only ten coins can be held at once and getting hit by an item will cause a few to be dropped around the driver.  Coins add a great gameplay mechanic to the action, as the increased speed really does add up and makes a big difference.

Coins also help unlock many new karts and kart pieces.  These pieces can then be used in another new feature in Mario Kart 7, Kart Customization.  The kart that the character will use is based on three categories: kart type, wheels, and glider (another new feature).  As the kart is being assembled, players can easily see how the chosen parts will affect the Speed, Acceleration, Weight, Handling, and Off-Road capabilities of the kart.  The player character also has some bearing on this as well, but there are plenty of options to unlock, ultimately giving players the ability to choose how they would like to drive.  The only problem with Kart Customization is that almost all of the Gliders give the same exact stats to the karts.

Mario Kart 7 adds both Gliders and underwater propellers to the mix.  While hitting certain big jumps on select courses, a glider will pop out on top of the player’s kart.  This will allow the player glide in the air for a while, which can help them cut corners of a course, collect coins in the air, etc.  Some of the jumps are in strategic places that turn into a short cut and others are required for that course.  It’s good fun.

The underwater propellers also function similarly.  Players can now drive underwater on certain courses!  No more just falling off the track if you go below, there are often splits in the track based on whether the player decided to travel by land or under the sea!  There are often pluses and minuses to both options, which adds even more strategy to the races.

Mario Kart fans can also look forward to the return of other gameplay mechanics in Mario Kart 7.  This includes Rocket Starts, Drifting, Mini-Turbos, Super Mini-Turbos, and the somewhat new Jump Boost.

Like many Mario Kart titles, pressing  the R button will make the player’s kart hop up.  If done while turning, this will initiate a drift.  Drift long enough and the wheels will spark blue, and if done for a really long time, red.  This will award the player with a Mini-Turbo boost (if blue) and a Super Mini-Turbo (if red).  These boosts will play a large part in the outcome of a race, so mastering this technique is crucial to success.  (Note: Those players worrying about the snaking technique that plagued Mario Kart DS don’t need to fear, snaking is dead.)

Jump Boosts are an evolution of the trick system found in Mario Kart Wii.  Whenever a player is about to hit a bump in the road or a ramp, they can tap R at the last second to jump higher off these inclines.  Upon landing, they player will gain a decent boost.

The single player Mario Kart 7 experience offers Grand Prix mode, Time Trials, Balloon Battle, and Coin Runners.

The Grand Prix is just like in the other Mario Kart games.  There’s 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and Mirror Mode.  Each cc increases in difficulty and kart speeds.  Upon picking a cc, it’s then possible to choose from (eventually) eight different Cups.  Each Cup consists of four races.  At the end of each race points, will be awarded to each player.  Trophies will be awarded at the end of each Cup and the goal is to get a Gold First Place Trophy in each cup on every difficulty level.

An additional goal of the Cups is the Star Ranking system.  If a player does well during a cup, they will be rewarded with one, two, or three stars.  Getting a Star Ranking in every Cup in the game will allow others to see them online.  So getting at least one star in every cup will display one star next to that player’s name online.  This adds a ton of replay value to the Grand Prix mode.  Those that have tackled this challenge in past Mario Kart games should know that it’s much easier to get three Stars now.  I know since I was able to three star ever Grand Prix in the game.  While it may be easier than in past Mario Kart games, it still provides quite a challenge.

The fist four Cups (16 total tracks) are all new tracks currently exclusive to Mario Kart 7.  The later four Cups (also 16 total tracks) are all from previous Mario Kart titles.  Many of these classic tracks have been changed slightly to take advantage of some of the new gameplay mechanics found in Mario Kart 7, such as gliders and underwater driving.

The new courses are fantastic.  At first, I didn’t like some of the new tracks, but upon becoming more familiar with them, I came to enjoy them all.  The old tracks represent some of the best experiences from classic Mario Kart titles.  There are some tracks here that I’m still not to fond of, but many of my favorites just happened to return.  Overall, the track selection is top notch and rivals the great track selection from Mario Kart DS.  Fans won’t be disappointed.

Time Trial is back and this is the mode for the most hardcore kart racers.  You can race on every track with one item, the Triple Mushroom.  Mario Kart 7 also saves ghost data, so a player can race against their own best time or against some preset ghosts.

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Rayman: Origins is an odd little number. It’s a serious – damn serious – throwback to what games used to be. It’s an “old school” platformer if there ever was one. But what if it’s something more? Xbox Live and PSN and the internets are littered with “retro” games, nostalgic little numbers that hark back to a day when gaming was pure and simple. They’re all games of varying quality and the good ones do offer some semblance of what games were like back then. But what if Rayman Origins was different? Ubisoft’s latest doesn’t simply offer a gaming experience that mimics the gaming from my childhood, it is the gaming from my childhood. The simplicity, the mechanics, the difficulty – oh god, the difficulty. There are things in that game that I haven’t experienced for many years. Rayman Origins isn’t a tribute, it isn’t an homage. It’s actually a decades old platformer that’s been designed for the current generation of consoles.

I’m talking about time travel.

We’ve all been so obsessed with renaming French Fries to Freedom Fries, we’ve completely ignored the technological prowess of the French. Hell, the Large Hadron Collider is right there in Geneva, just outside of France. Maybe it was even used to bring Rayman Origins into the futu – look, I’m not a scientist. I don’t know squat about traveling backwards through time to retrieve older games. But what I do know is that I’m glad. I’m glad Michel Ancel has the balls to defy the time-space continuum in an effort to introduce a new generation to what platform gaming is all about.

Thank god they updated the visuals. You can’t just release a game from the past and expect it to compete in the graphics department. Ubisoft Montpeller have created a mind-blowingly gorgeous game. I’m going to go out a limb here, which is dangerous on account of my obesity, but in the four or so years that I’ve owned an HDTV, I think Rayman Origins might be one of the most beautiful things it’s ever displayed. And yes, I’m counting all of the naked ladies that have graced that screen. Even that hot blonde chick from Spartacus. You know, the shitty one that’s with that Claudius scumbag? Rayman Origins is vibrant and it just “pops.” It’s a complete pleasure to look at.

One thing that Ancel and his team of time travelers didn’t put a lot of thought into is how challenging games were back then as opposed to now. With a few exceptions (Ninja Gaiden immediately springs to mind) developers no longer put a lot of effort into a game’s difficulty. If I recall correctly, someone at Nintendo even mentioned difficulty no longer being a big concern. However, Rayman Origins does indeed have a Wii port. If someone who’s used to Kirby and Wii Sports and Mario Party gives Rayman a whirl, they’re going to drop dead in front of their television.

But for many people, that challenge will be the biggest appeal of Rayman Origins. I’ve been known to throw a hissy fit or twelve while gaming and Rayman Origins made me hate videogames, cartoons, and my stepbrother. He just sits there, watching me fail. That being said, with great difficulty comes great satisfaction once a particularly challenging segment has been conquered. Completing Rayman Origins, The Land of the Livid Dead in particular, made me feel like a goddamn king.

By far the most difficult portions of Rayman are the levels where you’re forced to keep moving at a rapid pace. I’m not talking about the time trials, though those are far from easy, but the levels in which the screen is forcing you along or you’re chasing something. These are the levels where you’ll die a couple dozen times in the span of five minutes, rip a clump of your hair out, dive back into it, and hate yourself. But again, these are also the levels that make you swell with pride once you’ve shown them who’s boss.

And then there’s the co-op, which plays a lot like the New Super Mario Bros co-op, in that all of your friends will cause you to die and then you will hate them. I played a good portion with my stepbrother, who normally won’t give a game the time a day unless it has fast cars or killstreaks. We didn’t do very well, and I spent a lot of the time hating him for it, but I still managed to have a lot of fun. It’s very, very hard to not get some sense of enjoyment out of Rayman, be it for the visuals, the humor, or what have you.

Sadly, I’ve heard from multiple people that they just can’t justify spending full retail price on a 2D platformer. Shame on you, all of you. You should drop to your knees and scream “take my money,” and then thank Ubisoft when they do so. Rayman Origins is a gem. It’s an absolute blast to play, fulfilling in the best way possible, and boasts a ton of content.

I have my complaints, of course. It bugs me that backtracking for missed Electoons is near impossible, forcing you to replay the entire level. And the difficulty curve is really, really sharp. One moment Rayman will feel like the stuff dreams are made of, the next an absolute living nightmare. There was a moment where I was hellbent on taking my frustrations out on Rayman’s score, threatening a close friend (and big time Rayman fan) that I would dock one tenth of a point for each consecutive death. Obviously, logic prevailed. Once I saw Rayman through to its end, I was a better person for it.

But I could’ve done it if I wanted to, Matt. I’m in charge here, not you.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Amazing Visuals
+ Hilarious
+ Recaptures Fantastic Gameplay Once Thought Lost to the Tides of Time
+ Plenty of Content
+ Time Travel is Possible

- Sharp Upswing in Difficulty Will Catch Players Off Guard
– You’ll Spend a Lot of Time Replaying Levels
– My Stepbrother is Bad at Videogames

9 and 9.5 represent the pinnacle of the genre, a game that defines what that genre should be about. These scores are for games that you not only feel would be worth your purchase, but you would actually try to convince your friends to buy them as well.

Rayman Origins was developed by Ubisoft Montpeller and published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.  The game was released in North America on November 15th, 2011 with an MSRP of $59.99.  The copy used in this review was for Xbox 360 and was provided by the publisher.  The game was played to completion, no thanks to my stepbrother.

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