Tomb Raider (2013) - PC Review

Tomb Raider is a fantastic reboot of an old classic and re-imagines the character and gameplay for a modern age.

I remember how much the original Tomb Raider franchise changed the gaming landscape for me while growing up. Who knew that this absurdly breasted, odd looking 3D model would become such a cultural icon? My most distinct memories involve the time my friend showed me the "Nude Raider" patch (which just looked like two raisins and a brown triangle) and spending 3 hours downloading the Tomb Raider 2 demo over my dial up modem (I sure did play the hell out of that training course). I have to admit that I've never finished an original Tomb Raider game. The controls were terrible and I could never figure out where to go next but with this reboot, I have found a truly enjoyable game that lived up to the promise set by the originals so many years ago.

Seriously. How did anyone masturbate to this?

Tomb Raider (2013) places you in the role of Lara Croft, an young archeology graduate, who is aboard the Endurance in search of the lost kingdom of Yamatai. The ship is hit with a violent storm and Lara and her crew end up stranded on the island. Lara must travel the island, searching for her missing crew and a way ofF the island while dealing with a psychotic cult oF previously stranded inhabitants.

The story is one of the highlights of Tomb Raider. The entire island is shrouded with mystery as you find clues in the ruins of  an ancient Japanese Kingdom as well as documents and items left by other marooned travelers. The whole thing definitely has a "Lost" feel to it in the beginning. You find a mix of dilapidated old tombs along side abandoned modern facilities all covered with strange symbols that keep you guessing if the strange occurrences on the island are from a scientific or supernatural origin.

da da da dummmmm

While the rest of her crew is largely forgettable, Lara stands out as the star of the show. The entire game is a transformation of her character. Starting from a frightened, naive young woman, to an empowered killing machine who emerges as a true leader and survivor. This process occurs from the challenges, personal loses and hardships she faces over the course of the story. And by hardships I mean, "incredible, excruciating pain and death". Lara is beaten and battered more than any other character I can remember from recent gaming history. You will stab yourself on spikes, be burned by fire and nearly raped by the end of the game. Failure during the games quick-time events often results in gruesome death animations such as Lara being impaled though the head by debris. We are talking "Passion of the Christ" levels of ass beating here.

You are constantly running from or on fire in this game

Along with the excellent character progression of Lara to push you forward is the gameplay. Tomb Raider can best be described as a mix between the dungeons and item collection of The Legend of Zelda and the shooting and traversal mechanics of Uncharted. The island is broken up in to a series of hubs with their own hidden collectables and tasks. Areas often have points that you will be unable to traverse without finding a specific item such as a climbing axe. As you progress through the game you are given the ability to fast travel to camps throughout the island to pick up any thing you have missed with your new found abilities. There is just so much to do on the island, from collecting lost items and hunting for food and salvage with each area providing it's own checklist of unique objectives.

There is also and experience and crafting system in place. Finding hidden treasures and salvage lets you upgrade your weapons and stats such as health or attack combos. The puzzles in the game are quite clever, usually involving price timing of jumps or manipulating the environment in some way to reach your goal. The combat is equally satisfying with a mix of cover based shooting and stealth kills. There is constantly a new challenge to encounter and you really feel Lara becoming more capable in her abilities as the game goes on.  

This is the end... Weird scenes inside a goldmine

BOTTOM LINE:

Tomb Raider is a highly enjoyable game with an excellent character and smooth and varied gameplay progression that will keep you playing all the way through it's lengthy campaign.

8.5/10

PROS:
Great character in Lara
Fun upgrade and item system

CONS:
Some of the extra tasks seem pointless and tacked on
Forgettable secondary characters

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - PS Vita Review (and my thoughts on the sequel)

NOTE:  You ABSOLUTELY MUST play 999 before playing Virtue's Last Reward. 

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is an amazing sequel to 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors which improves on everything that made the first game so amazing.

Zero Escape: VLR starts similarly to 999 with your character, Sigma, waking up in a room after being kidnapped by the mysterious antagonist Zero. This time though you are not alone as you share this room with a white haired girl named Phi. After solving the initial puzzle to escape the room you meet up with the other captors, which include a man in a robot armor, a circus ring master, a giant breasted Egyptian woman, and a character from the previous game, to name a few.

A computer AI in the form of a talking rabbit called Zero III informs you that you all are a part of "Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition". While this is similar to the first game with you teaming up and traveling across various rooms solving puzzles to eventually exit through the "9" door, it differs in one important aspect which is the point system.

Now the wristwatches worn by the participants have a point counter on them where points are gained or lost depending on a voting system placed between each round of rooms. Teams are initially joined up by complimenting watch digit colors. After the room is solved the teams are split up and sent to private rooms to vote "betray" or "ally". If both teams choose to ally, both are rewarded 2 points. Two votes of betrayal result in 0 points for both. If one votes to betray while the other allies, then the betrayer gets 3 points while the other has 2 points taken away. Getting 9 points allows you to leave while slipping below 0 results in the watch injecting poison into your bloodstream, killing you.

The first time this happened the character Phi explained to me that picking betray was the logical choice but I still had a hard time understanding. After figuring it out, here's my explanation of why betraying would be the best choice:

There is a game show from England called "Golden Balls" whose final round consists of basically the same dilemma. Split or Steal the money. Check out this awesome example:

Amazing. So this is how it works. Choosing to split the money can only result in less money or no money, whereas stealing can result in ALL the money or no money. So the smart choice would be to steal.

The presentation of the game has been upgraded from the original Nintendo DS game. Characters are now fully voiced with with memorable performances (although some tend to stray too far into cheesy territory) and there is an option to use both English and Japanese audio tracks. The voice actors deliver the lines with good expression suitable for each character and while I tend to skip over spoken dialogue in games after I have read the subtitle, I found myself letting the speech play out to hear the mannerisms come through. The characters are now rendered as 3D models but their range of motion is quite limited. This is not surprising considering the visual novel style of the game. Music is also suspenseful and never got tiring to listen to.

As for the puzzles in the game, they are your basic "room escape" scenarios with you tapping around to search for items and clues. One notable problem I had with the puzzles this time was the reliance on math.

I am absolutely horrendous at math. I can barely add two numbers in my head and I'm pretty sure it's some kind of learning disability. So while in the first game I was able to solve all the problems by simply thinking them through, in this sequel I had to resort to looking at a guide several times because I didn't want to spend 4 hours adding columns of numbers together.

What the fuck am I supposed to do here?

On a positive note, a huge improvement in the gameplay over 999 has to be the branching tree system. In the first game you had to play multiple times to achieve the "True" ending. This allowed you to skip over previously read dialogue by holding right on the D-Pad, but there were still several parts that you would have to continuously go over again. This time, VLR solves this problem by graphically representing the choices in a large branching tree.

So many paths to see

You are able to jump between nodes on the tree directly to points prior to major decisions. At first I thought this was simple a mechanic put in place for the sake of convenience, but without spoiling too much, this plays a much bigger role in the overall story of the game.

Another aspect of the game which has been improved is the story. Characters, while being taken to extreme levels of zaniness, do so to make them much more memorable than those in 999. Also, much more emphasis is put on the characters' back stories with many of the "bad" ending branches leading you to find out some kind of major revelation about a player's past.

The story of VLR is the biggest draw here. The first game dealt with interesting themes of communication and free will and likewise, VLR goes all out with topics such as identity, time travel, and loyalty. Not only are these topics interesting to experience they are integrated so well into the gameplay. Not a single idea is wasted, unlike the first game which occasionally had moments of "Here's a quirky fact. Now let's never speak of it again". Every new section of the game presented an interesting twist that kept me playing every single night for weeks until 5AM. I completed the game with a 25 Hour 46 Minute playtime to get a Platinum Trophy and loved every second of it. It's truly one of the most entertaining stories told in a game.

Bottom Line:
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is a game that must be experienced along with it's predecessor 999 by anyone who is a fan of great storytelling. While some of the puzzles can be frustrating, almost every other aspect of the game has been improved upon.

Pros:
Excellent story
Much better replay system

Cons:
Too many math based puzzles

9/10

My Thoughts On A Sequel

VLR ends on a spectacular cliff hanger. When the game was first announced the creator, Kotaro Uchikoshi, stated that this would be the the third part of a trilogy with 999 being the first. This seemed confusing at first, but once I completed the game it all made sense and I was hungry to play the middle chapter.

But then a few weeks ago via his Twitter Account, Uchikoshi announced that he was not able to secure funding for a third game. Fans of the first two games were understandably devastated and a Facebook Group called "Operation Bluebird" has been set up to show support for a sequel.

While I would love to see a sequel I'm not sure if this can happen. Although fans of the games are absolutely devoted to the cause there is just realistically not that many. Sales were small in the US and apparently even smaller in Japan (which it would seem, is the reason for the lack of funding).
From what sales data I could find it seems that the sequel barely sold over 15,000 copies over both platforms in Japan. This is nowhere near enough for a publisher to justify a new game.

While it's absolutely painful for me to admit it, I have to reserve myself and just accept that the story will never come to a close. But, for the sake of being positive, this is how I see the best case senario working out:

Many fans have suggested to Uchikoshi to look into crowd funding options like Indiegogo. If he were to do this I could see the possibility of the third game being made, but most likely not handhelds due to the high licensing fees. The best course would be to make a PC version, include ports of the first two games, and sell it on Steam for ~$30. I know I would pick it up.

The real question is will there be enough fans to support it? I can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

Calm Time - PC Review

(SPOILER WARNING! Download the game free HERE)

Calm Time is an indie horror title that creates an interesting atmosphere with it's lo-fi graphics but fails to actually scare or provide an interesting gameplay experience.

Calm Time starts off with you holding a dinner party in your isolated mansion for several guests. After making small talk you eventually end up in the kitchen where a female guest asks you to hand her the knife located on the counter. After grabbing it and approaching her, the only action you are able to take is to thrust the knife forward, stabbing and fatally wounding her which results in those in attendance to panic and scatter around the grounds of your mansion. It then becomes clear that you have invited them here for goal of murder and you set off searching the area for the different guests to evicerate.

 

Before you are able to proceed anywhere the game tells you through text that you must first head to the basement to cut the power to the house. Here you find a previous victim of yours dead and chained to a wall. Hitting the power switch results in the games first jump scare in which the ghost of the woman in the basement materializes in front of you. Stabbing this apparition results in a full screen static effect along with the appropriate sound.

Oops! Oh well, better kill everyone now.

Here is where the "game" portion of Calm Time begins and shows off the weakest aspect of the title. First your character moves at a maddeningly slow pace. Your victims are able to speedily run past you resulting in you slowly chasing after them as they move between the various rooms of the house. While there is a thrill of being placed in the shoes of a psycho killer, stalking your hiding victims, this lasts for about a second for as soon as the first one zips past you and you have to slowly turn around to chase after them again and again. Then the game spirals into tedium.

"Yes he killed her! With a KITCHEN KNIFE! That's the important thing!"

You kill all the guests in exactly the same manner with the ghost woman appearing every so often to stare and judge you silently. The game abruptly ends when you finally kill the last person and took only about 10 minutes to complete.While the basic concept is sound, most of this time is taken up with you slowly walking in empty spaces for painfully drawn out moments where nothing happens. I understand that this is an experimental indie title, and I appreciate what it can do with such limited graphics, I just didn't have "fun" while playing it.


Bottom Line: 

Calm Time manages to succeed in the few moments where you feel you are an insane murderer but ultimately the incredibly boring gameplay brings the whole experience down.

Pros:
Interesting premise
Good atmosphere for the limited graphics and sound
Makes you feel like a psycho killer (although only for a second)

Cons:
Not scary
EXTREMELY slow and tedious play mechanics

3/10

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - Nintendo DS Review

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel / adventure game that combines an interesting premise with solid puzzles that will keep you engaged for hours on end.

If you've never played a visual novel before you might have seen pictures of one on the internet. They usually have a big eyed, huge breasted anime girl with a large text box taking up the bottom half of the screen with her telling you about the depraved sexual acts you are about to perform. These games are made up of mostly text with small player decisions along the way that change the outcome of the story. The main focus being the plot and characters you interact with.

Like this but with much more item hunts and much less bukkake

999 is much like this but with point and click / "escape the room" scenarios in-between the dialogue. The story of 999 follows a group of nine characters that have been kidnapped and brought to an empty ship resembling the Titanic with the goal of solving puzzles to reach the final ninth door exit.

Each character is assigned a wrist band with a number from 1 to 9 and only certain combinations of numbers are allowed to enter certain doors. This is based on a digital root system where a numbers are added together until the last digit remains 3 + 5 + 8 = 16, 1 + 6 = 7. So a team equaling 7 can go through the appropriately marked door.

Behind these doors the player will find standard point and click adventure puzzles with the main goal of opening the exit. Items will be gathered and combined and are manipulated in 3D in the inventory screen to gather more information. The player will solve puzzles ranging from finding the correct key for a lock to math based number input devices. The puzzles are for the most part interesting with the common hurdles of point and click adventures present (pixel hunting, bizarre logic), but the real draw of the game is in the story.

While the characters themselves are mostly stereotypical (the huge strong man, the pigtailed lolita) the mystery around them and why they have been brought on this ship is always able to keep you interested. Without spoiling too much, the story involves such topics as Morphogenetic Fields (fields that connect all living things allowing transfer of information), Kurt Vonnegut and philosophical paradoxes like Locke's Socks.The story is surprisingly mature and is definitely not for younger audiences, not due to the graphic content (which there is) but the themes and ideas dealt with in the game.

The way the story is presented is also quite unique. Because of the requirements of entering the doors, it would be impossible to see everything on the first play-though. The player will ultimately fail during their first attempt to finish the game, usually resulting in death. But, after getting a "Game Over" screen you return to the beginning of the game to try a different path. With six possible endings in total (the final one being the "true" ending) players are allowed to try out different puzzle rooms and interact with different characters on each play-thorough. To speed up this process, text already read in previous games can be fast-forwarded though by holding right on the D-Pad.

While this is a better solution than having to sit through story parts you have already seen, it is still very slow considering the amount of text in this game. You'll be holding the right button for upwards of five minutes to skip dialogue and some rooms (especially the first one) will have to be played over and over again.

 

Despite this, finding out new aspects of the story and seeing parts unfold where you where previously absent is extremely entertaining. There is always some new twist or revelation and, this can't be stressed enough, without giving away anything, the entire multiple play-though mechanic is integrated amazingly with the gameplay and story.

BOTTOM LINE:

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is an excellent adventure game with well thought out puzzles and one of the best stories presented on the Nintendo DS that will keep you up for hours on end to see its conclusion.

8.5/10

Hotline Miami - PS Vita Review

Hotline Miami is an ultra-violent top-down shooter whose incredible style and play mechanics make it one of the must unique games ever made.

 

In Hotline Miami you play an unnamed protagonist who receives messages from a shadowy organization of masked men telling him to infiltrate buildings, killing everyone within. The game constantly has you questioning your characters motivation and sanity as the lines between fantasy and reality are always being blurred. Are the masked men real? Why do you always meet the same store clerk after every mission who gives your superfluous items such as free pizza or video rentals? Many of these questions are never fully answered and are left to the player for interpretation.

The story is presented with dialogue boxes from various characters whose cryptic messages drive the main character on. Character progression can be gleaned from visual cues such as the state of the protagonists apartment changing over the course of the game. The main character will usually start each mission with a phone call in his apartment telling him to pay certain people "visits" which results him going on a murderous rampage in several different, multi-leveled locations.

The game is played from a top-down perspective and involves the player going from room to room in a gang infested building killing everyone in sight before being allowed to progress to the next floor. The game is presented with a 2D pixel art style that while retro in feel, can display insane amounts of violence. Your character will stomp on heads, gouge out eyes and slash throats that will results in streams of pixilated blood and viscera. The entire game is heavily influenced by the 2011 film "Drive" (so much so that the developers thank director Nicolas Winding Refn in the credits). This influence can not only be seen in the violence and presentation but also the amazing 80s themed, dark sythn soundtrack, whose thumping baseline and high-pitched whines will get your thumbs moving and your eyes twitching.

 

The player is given a limited view of his surroundings and is able to see an overhead room layout of the immediate area around him. Guards patrol in an ordered fashion and it's up to you to decide the best course of action to take on a room. Death will come swiftly to both the player and enemies as most attacks result in one hit kills. A large arsenal of firearms such as shotguns and assault rifles are at your disposal although you will have to pick these items off of fallen enemies as you usually start the level unarmed.

Smart planning is important to survival and Hotline Miami lets you take on the carnage in whatever way you deem fit. Should you go into a room, grab the nearest guard as a human shield, throw a knife at an attack dog, kill the shield, grab his weapon and quickly blast the two other baddies in the next room before they have time to react? Or should you wait until an enemie's patrol route passes by a door, kick down said door stunning the guard, pick up a baseball bat and smash open the head of the next guard as to not alert anyone else with the sound of gunfire? The choice is up to you.

 

This flexibility is what makes Hotline Miami such a joy to play. The visceral impact of bullets and streaks of blood keep you pushing forward toward the next kill. While this feeling is very empowering, you will die, over and over again. Sometimes hundreds of times during a level. An enemy out of your view will shoot you unexpectedly or a dog will charge down a hallway and rip out your throat before you have time to react. Luckily pressing "X" immediately after dying will instantly restart you at the beginning of a level to try a new method of attack.

One of the biggest problems with the Vita port of the game has to be the controls. Hotline Miami was originally made for the PC with a keyboard and mouse setup for extreme precision. But on the Vita, the twin-stick/lock-on mechanic is just not fast enough to deal with multiple enemies coming at you when a single hit means your death. The way I would have to take on rooms was to rotate my character in the direction I wanted to be facing, then run in with guns blazing hoping the spotty auti-aim mechanic would take out the enemies in a general direction.

While this lead to many more deaths than on the PC version, the fact that it never got frustrating is a testament to the games addictive, fast-paced gameplay.

BOTTOM LINE:

Hotline Miami is a truly unique action game whose variety of killing mechanics along with an incredible sense of style make for one of the most intense action games on the console.

8/10

Gone Home - PC Review

While Gone Home's mechanics and story telling are nothing new, it is a fine example of how gameplay and plot can be melded together.

Gone Home is a first person adventure game where you play the role of Kaitlin, the eldest of two daughters, who is returning home from a yearlong trip abroad. You enter a new, unfamiliar house your family has moved into during your absence, and you slowly discover what has happened during the time you were gone.

The game is set in the mid-nineties and the house is full of items befitting the time such as VHS tapes with episodes of the "X-Files" on them, cassette tape decks, and Super Nintendo cartridges. You enter into the empty house during a thundertstorm and the unlit rooms set the tone perfectly.

Collecting and examining objects to progress is the entirety of the gameplay in Gone Home. Several doors will be initially locked, but finding maps and notes left around the house yields new passages to different rooms. You are able to pick up and manipulate items and several key items will produce a voiced diary entry from your younger sister Sam.

And this is the best part of Gone Home, the story. Without any previous knowledge of the people who live in this house, you are put right in the shoes of the main character. You discover an interesting story of your sister's first love which is both unaccepted by your parents and society. You find your fathers struggles to return to writing and your mother's attempts to keep the marriage together despite some possible infidelity.

 

Apart from the diary entries from Sam, this entire storyline is derived from objects found around the house. You mother's schedule with couple's activities crossed out and your fathers boxes of unsold books are all you need to build up these characters you will never see.

The story of Gone Home could never be told in any medium but a videogame. The feeling of being alone in a strangers home while riffling though their personal belongings brings on a uncomfortableness along with giddy voyeurism. The items are laid out perfectly for you to find in an order that serves the narrative.

 

The biggest knock against the game would have to be the length for the price. The entire game can be completed in 1-2 hours. I actually went back to play it again before writing this review and was able to finish it in 20 minutes. While there is nothing necessarily wrong about a short game, Gone Home's initial asking price of $20 is insane. While it can be found for sale on various sites, there is no way I could recommend this game for anything over $5.

 

BOTTOM LINE:

The developers at The Fullbright Company have created a great story in Gone Home that is sad and bittersweet dealing with themes of teenage rebellion and a collapsing family. It is a game that should be experienced by anyone interested in how story and gameplay can compliment each, but it's incredibly short length doesn't make it worth the reccomened price. Wait for a sale and then definetly get it.

7/10

Guacamelee! - PS Vita Review

Guacamelee! is an excellent 2D action platformer whose unique visual style and combat system make it an incredibly fun entry into the "Metroid-vania" catalog of games.

In Guacamelee! you play the role of Juan Aguacate, a simple farmer set with the task of rescuing El Presidente's daughter from the evil skeleton Carlos Calaca. To acomplish this task you become a luchador and gain the powers of Mexican Wresting.

The world of Guacamelee! is inspired by traditional Mexican art, folklore, and music. The environments and characters pop with bright neon colors and the Mariachi guitar music is lively and pushes your forward on your quest. While the characters models are relatively simply in design, they are fluidly animated and expressive in their performances.

The humor also shines in the game. Dialogue is funny and self referential with seveal nods to older games like Mario and Zelda. The characters are also quite memorable from a crotchety old shape-shifting goat man who explains your new powers as you collect them (one time giving you the "Congratulations! You've earned NOTHING!" line) to a fire breathing, tequila drinking gunslinger who would fight you if it were not for him wasting all his ammo shooting his pistols up into the air. The jokes and sight gags really are refreshing for a game in this genre which is usually filled with Gothic castles or abandoned space stations.

The base of Guacamelee!'s gameplay is combat brawling and dungeon exploration. Your character moves around in an open world consisting of several different environment types (desert, ice, castle) and then trekking into dungeons which are broken up into small, closed off arena battles, puzzle platforming rooms, and boss fights.

Like the world itself, the fighting in Guacamelee! takes it's cues from Mexican Wrestling. You have your basic punch/kick combos along with throws and suplexes. You are often faced with multiple enemies at a time which makes tossing foes into each other to stun them imperative toward survival.

Combat has a nice flow to it, allowing you to rack up large combos by mixing up different strikes and special moves. These special moves, which come in the form of attacks such as shoulder dashes and rising uppercuts, are gained by smashing orb holding Chozo Statues, which is a direct reference to the Metroid series.

 

Certain enemies will be shielded different colors indicating the special move needed to defeat them. This has you using all of the moves in your arsenal and gets to even more complicated levels in boss battles. The special moves also come into play when solving the game's many puzzles rooms. These rooms are a real treat to play and have you wishing there were more of them. You are often faced with what seems like a completely impassible set of platforms and walls between you and a chest but after several attempts and a clever use of the directional boosting abilities of your special moves, you'll end up feeling like a genus.

The character building aspect of Guacamelee! comes from item and gold collection. Collecting sets of hearts or skulls expand your maximum health and stamina respectivly. Defeating enemies will net you gold which increases with the execution of longer combo stings. This gold can then be traded for more item sets or stronger strikes and throws. The progress comes quickly and has you searching every part of a level for that next item.

While there is some backtracking in Guacamelee!, it is no where near the level of a game like Super Metroid. Usually after gaining a new ability in a dungeon a simple detour will allow you to collect everything in an area. This makes for very quick passage though the game without having to worry about traveling all the way back to a spot now that you have a special move that allows you to pass through a colored door. While there is a fast travel system in place using giant Olmec heads, I found myself not using them at all throughout my playtime (I used them once after completing the game to get an achievement).

BOTTOM LINE:

Guacamelee! is an amazing ride for any fans of Metroid-vania type games. While the playtime is short (5-8 hours) the game is constantly pushing you forward with it's fast and deep combat and awesome, hilarious presentation. A perfect fit for the Vita platform.


8/10