Sonic Generations -- All-In-One.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. A really good Mario game, and a great Zelda game, now a great Sonic game? What year is it anyway? I've fully completed Sonic Generations for the Xbox 360. Sonic Generations was developed by Sonic Team and published by SEGA. Sonic Generations ultimately sets out to bridge the divide that exists between fans of classic Sonic and those that are fans of modern Sonic. You'll play as the classic short, potbellied, black eyed, voiceless Sonic from the Genesis games through nine stages of 2D based gameplay. You'll also play as the modern lanky, lean, green eyed, fully voiced Sonic from the Dreamcast era and beyond through 3D interpretations of the same nine stages. The stages are broken up into three eras. The Genesis era features stages from Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Sonic & Knuckles. The Dreamcast era features stages from Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Heroes. The Modern era features stages from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colors. Both the 2D and 3D stages look phenomenal. The game is just pretty. Everything is bright and colorful and lush with detail and it's all in crisp and clean HD. The sound design is even better. Every classic Sonic sound is there sounding amazing and clear. The soundtrack is arguably one of the best soundtracks in a long time. The game features fifty tracks to unlock from original versions of classic tunes to new arrangements and remixes. Once you've completed a stage you're able to select any track you've unlocked for replays. If you've always had the insane desire to race through Green Hill Zone to Super Sonic Racing from Sonic R the game allows for it. On the 2D side Sonic controls damn near close to perfect. On the 3D side Sonic is by far the most stable and responsive he's ever been. The level designs for both the 2D and 3D sides are great. It's really cool seeing 3D takes on Chemical Plant Zone and Sky Sactuary Zone for example. It's just as cool seeing 2D takes of 3D levels like Rooftop Run and City Escape. The game also offers up ninety challenges to complete. I found myself impressed with how creative these were. They really altered some of the stages to create a lot of these challenges. It's clear a lot of effort was put into the challenges. I essentially went in to Sonic Generations for the 2D classic side of things but I came away as equally impressed with the 3D half of the game. Sonic Generations is a high quality product from top to bottom and I had a whole lot of fun with the game. I'm giving Sonic Generations a 9.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword -- All-In-One.

I have fully completed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii. By fully completed I mean that I completed all the side quests, collected all the crystals, and found all the hearts on my way to completing the game. The game was developed by Nintendo EAD (Entertainment Analysis and Development, for those who may have wondered) and published by Nintendo. Much like Majora's Mask before it requiring the Expansion Pak and its 4MB of memory for the Nintendo 64 to be able to play it, Skyward sword requires Wii Motion Plus and its enhanced motion control to play. The game has been built from the controls up. The gameplay has been designed entirely around the controls. The Wii Motion Plus allows for 1 to 1 tracking of motion. Meaning wherever you move the Wii Remote Plus, the on screen image of Link moves his sword. Right down to the tilt of the blade's edge. Whether the edge is facing the ground or the horizon can be controlled. You'd think with this much degree of control that the sword play would be rather complex. It's really not. You essentially have forehand and backhand slashes for the horizontal and diagonal strikes. You also have the top to bottom and bottom to top vertical slashes as well as a stabbing thrust. Your shield is essentially turned on with the shake of the nunchuck. And you can perform a shield thrust with a further shake of the nunchuck. You also have Link's trademark spin slash for lawn care and some combat use. The enemies play into these controls. The humanoid ones especially tend to defend themselves so you'll need to pay attention to how they're blocking. If they're blocking for a vertical strike a horizontal strike will normally be able to land. The more advanced encounters will require you to shield bash their attacks which will stun them for a second allowing you to get in a sword combo. All of the game's tools also use motion control and for the most part the motion controls are a success. They will still fail from time to time. And especially in the tool usage, the controls will become misaligned. Nintendo has that covered this time around. You merely need to point the Wii Motion Plus at the center of the screen and hit down on the D-pad to realign the controls. It's a built in hot fix. Something Nintendo really isn't going to advertise as it really says, hey we know our motion control crap doesn't really function a hundred percent of the time. Graphically the aesthetic of Skyward Sword is a mix between Twilight Princess' supposedly more mature style and the cartoon look of Wind Waker which results in a decidedly watercolor look. I like the graphic style. It's a shame that the graphics will depend heavily on how your high definition television deals with standard definition input. Mine doesn't especially like working with the Wii so all of the seams are clearly visible for me. None of this would be there on a standard definition television and the game would look great. The sound design of Skyward Sword fairs much better. The game uses more than a few fully orchestrated tracks and the sound quality is great. The main themes are especially well done. It does take a while to get used to the classic treasure get fanfare being done with real instruments. At first it sounds a little weird. I felt the need for voice acting this time around. I think it would have helped with the emotional impact of the story they were going for. Skyward Sword is the first game in the time line, such as it is. You're getting a lot of origin story with this one. There aren't any great surprises and everything fits rather well. I liked it a lot for what it is. Although I will say I was a little surprised at how heavily Nintendo borrowed from Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue. I'm being polite with the use of borrow. There are a couple of things I really liked about Skyward Sword. One of those is in how thorough the developers were in pulling aspects from every other game in the series into Skyward Sword. There are shades of every single game in the series baring the CD-I titles in Skyward Sword. It results in twinges of nostalgia whenever one of these nods are recognized and that plays into the feeling of playing through a great Zelda adventure. Some of them are as blatant as 'It's a secret to everybody' and some are more obscure as the shape of certain headgear having the similar design as Midna's headgear from Twilight Princess. Another aspect I liked is the game feels full. The original Zelda, and A Link to the Past essentially had a secret on every screen. The games felt packed with content in that regard. The 3D Zelda games have lost that feeling. It's back with Skyward Sword. While not quite as true as a secret on every screen, Skyward Sword is as close to that as you can probably get in a 3D title. The game doesn't feel empty or small. Even when it doesn't really have a true overworld anymore. The dungeons and puzzles are great. The dungeons are large and varied with interesting new concepts and packed with puzzles. The game's bosses are also a treat. A lot of them break free from typical Zelda concepts and they make use of the tools and Wii Motion Plus in interesting ways. I really enjoyed my sixty-five hours with the game. Like a most great games, I didn't want it to end. I'm giving The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword a 9.5. Now bring on the Zelda games for the 3DS and the Wii U.

Saints Row: The Third -- All-In-One.

I've earned the full thousand points on Saints Row: The Third. The game was developed by Volition, Inc., and was published by THQ. Saints Row: The Third was my most wanted game this year. It's the one that I knew was going to be a sure thing and deliver all the fun of Saints Row 2 and more. Saints Row: The Third turned out to be my most disappointing game of 2011. Is that to say it's just an awful game? No, it's not an awful game. This entry isn't late even though I finished the game a week ago. I needed to think about if I was actually giving the game a fair shake or not in the terms of was I judging the game for what it is or was I judging the game on what it wasn't compared to Saints Row 2 and if that's even fair. I decided it was fair as it's how I honestly reacted to the game. I've noticed all around the Internet people have been commenting and saying things like Saints Row 3 is the most fun they've had all year but that line has almost always been qualified by saying the game is their first experience with the series. If I had not played Saints Row and Saints Row 2 would I most likely have been blown away by Saints Row: The Third? I think it's safe to say yes. But I did play Saints Row and Saints Row 2 and I know that something is off when it comes to Saints Row: The Third. Saints Row 2 was grounded by some more serious content within its story. Saints Row: The Third isn't grounded by anything. It feels that Volition noticed how the wilder aspects of Saints Row 2 were received and decided that's what fans want. And that's all you get in Saints Row: The Third. The wild and wacky, with no grounding. So it's just wild and wacky for the sake of being wild and wacky. The result actually makes the game feel dumbed down and sort of hollow. Another more tangible aspect of why I get the overall feeling of disappointment is because the game feels rushed content wise. The city design, the gaps in story missions, the activities, everything just feels slapped together. It feels unpolished, unfinished. The new clothing system feels less than from Saints Row 2 as well. You no longer have the options of wearing clothes open or closed where applicable. It may sound like a minor quibble but when you spend enough time saying I wish I could do this or that, and you used to be able to do it in the previous game, it comes across more glaring. It's not all bad news though. The game controls great and it looks much better than the previous titles and it does provide you with fifty plus hours of co-op fueled mayhem. I just can't help but feel that this is less than and overall a disappointment. I've giving Saints Row: The Third a 7.5.

Super Mario 3D Land - All-In-One.

I'm getting used to being late with these updates. I've completed Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo and was published by Nintendo. Super Mario 3D Land is the first game for Nintendo's 3DS that really makes use of the 3D capabilities of the system beyond some graphic fluff. The title was clearly designed from the ground up around the 3D aspect. It's the first title I've felt compelled to play with the 3D mode turned on for the entirety of the game. Super Mario 3D Land is something of an oddball. It takes from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 to create it's own thing. It takes Super Mario Bros. 3's tightly focused levels and mixes them with Super Mario 64's smaller open world design. The resulting blend works surprisingly well. The game's camera is a large part of the success. It maintains perfect position at all times. They had to change a few things up as far as control is concerned. The long missing run button returns. And because of the 3D nature of things, pressing down to enter a pipe wouldn't work, so you'll use the shoulder buttons for that. The game first appears to be on the easy side, and once you've completed the game for the first time, a second more difficult playthrough becomes available. This second quest really extends the game for those who will feel the need to collect all the star coins and get the flag for every last stage. Graphically the game looks like your typical mainline Nintendo production. Everything is bright and colorful and clean and safe. They're not really pushing any graphic boundaries here. Musically it's much the same as the graphics. The music does a great job and feels entirely well produced and highly professional. But again it also feels rather Nintendo safe. I would like to seem them take a risk once in a while. Super Mario 3D Land is the purest Mario title produced since the advent of 3D gameplay. There's no fluff or filler, and the 3D is more than a gimmick for this one. And that's a good thing. I really liked my time with the game. It gives me some hope that future of the system might be more substantial than gimmicky. I'm giving Super Mario 3D Land an 8.5.

Battlefield 3 -- All-In-One.

Here I am again with another late entry. This time it's for Battlefield 3, produced by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. I played the Xbox 360 version. Battlefield 3 is a team based multiplayer first person shooter that aims to deliver the chaos of war. The Battlefield series has always excelled at delivering said chaos. Problem is, the battlefield itself has changed in this post Call of Duty world, and DICE and EA have positioned themselves and the game to take on the behemoth. The resulting single player campaign and co-op missions are less than special. They share the same faults as their Call of Duty counterparts. They're filled with that Tom Clancy peppery military banter and minutia and that oh my god go go go sense of action. And just like Call of Duty it's awful and is the very definition of hollow. It's a good thing you don't play these games for the single player aspects. Battlefield 3 delivers on the multiplayer side offering up numerous modes of play. Conquest remains the same as it was in Battlefield 1942 and is one of the best online modes ever created and it's still the heart and soul of Battlefield. They're also offering up Rush, Squad Rush, Team Deathmatch, and Squad Deathmatch for those looking for a change of pace. Battlefield 3 runs on the Frostbite 2 engine and offers up a mostly impressive destructible environment. You'll get stuck on a bit of rubble from what used to be a building too often for my tastes and it always seems to happen when you're being fired upon. The buildings come apart in amazing detail, but the physics of the character movement can't seem to cope as well as they need to. Battlefield 3 is a great looking game. It's graphically impressive. The music is minimally used to great effect and the sounds of battle are crisp and clean and boom through the speakers. The series tradition of planes and helicopters controlling like alien contraptions continues. Outside of the air vehicles the game controls beautifully. The unlock system is greatly successful in keeping you playing as you're never far away from the next new gun or gadget. The flaws in Battlefield are inherent to the genre whenever playing with the public. Especially in playing Conquest. Having to depend on teamwork from the public means you're going to be behind the eight ball a lot of the time. The great thing about Battlefield though is sometimes all it takes is one squad that knows what they're doing to turn the tide. In the eighty some hours I spent getting the thousand achievement points in Battlefield 3 I would say fifty of those were spent having fun, and thirty of those were spent being frustrated. Battlefield comes with a clear cost, and for me the good still outweighs the bad. I'm giving Battlefield 3 an 8.

Batman: Arkham City -- All In One.

I've completed Batman: Arkham City for the Xbox 360. Batman: Arkham City was developed by Rocksteady Games and was published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game is the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum and successfully adds a bit of sandbox to the mix. The game is essentially the same with some added freedom and sidequests as you roam the streets of Arkham City, a walled off section of Gotham that has been turned into a prison ala Escape From New York. Arkham City is surprisingly small for a sandbox title and that works toward keeping things moving. It only takes a minute or so to get from one end of the city to the opposite end. The coolest thing about the game is how the Riddler's Challenges are integrated into Arkham City itself. They're everywhere and you just come upon them in the city. They're great puzzles that you'll have to figure out and some will stump you for quite a while. Once you've figured out all the base types however you'll just have to pull off the harder ones of the same types. There are a decent number of base puzzle types. The game offers up all the complex gadgets and combat moves of the original and adds upon them. I'm still not a fan of the combat. I know it's much beloved and most likely for the visual splendor of it all. It's truly impressive to watch with its amazing number of canned responses. But canned they are nonetheless. It's still too much Simon Says autopilot feeling for me. I am still a fan of all the gadgets in that half of the combat though. Graphically the game looks great. It has a nice art style that blends a lot of elements from various Batman sources and becomes its own thing. The game features top-notch voice acting all around. Musically the game reuses much of Arkham City's solid score. The story should appease Batman fans. The characterizations are especially strong. I was glad to see specific Batman: Arkham Asylum villains getting their chance to shine in Arkham City as they were criminally underused in the original. Batman: Arkham City is what every video game sequel is supposed to be, bigger and better, and it offers up more of what made the original a good game. I'm giving Batman: Arkham City an 8.5.

Dark Souls -- All-In-One.

I have completed what I intend to be the first of three eventual completions of the Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls. I want that thousand gamerscore for this one but that would be insanity in the midst of the busy season. So I'll have to wait for the summer to truly complete the game. Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls and was developed by the great From Software and published by Namco-Bandai Games. Dark Souls, like Demon's Souls and the King's Field series before it, is an updated action RPG that acts as a love letter to the hardcore dungeon crawlers of yesteryear. The Souls series has a reputation for being extremely hard. I do not subscribe to that opinion. The game is challenging but that's the entire point. From Software is using this punishing style to bolster the eventual rush of satisfaction when you finally do conquer your current situation. Dark Souls offers the greatest sense of satisfaction I've ever felt in my three and half decades as an avid gamer. From Software has created a series of games that feature an almost overwhelmingly intoxicating atmosphere. Dark Souls features a hauntingly beautiful world in ruin filled to the brim with interesting characters and a wide variety of enemies who are more than capable of killing you. Dark Souls is the kind of game where the lowest enemies in the game can kill your end game character if you're not paying attention. The enemy AI is smarter than most and is both aggressive and tricky. I do have to say something about the enemy designs as they're some of the most original interpretations of classic creatures and visually impressive enemies you'll likely to encounter. Dark Souls continues Demon's Souls absolutely innovative online structure allowing for you to see phantoms of other players in their worlds. You can read hints or lies left by other players or leave your own. You can be invaded or invade the worlds of other players. It's easily one of the coolest online formats ever devised. The only real flaws are on the technical side as there a couple of areas where the frame rate just dies. I spent roughly a hundred and eighteen hours in Dark Souls. I came away extremely impressed. If there are games that define a console generation, I'd have to say the Souls series may just be that for me with the current generation. Dark Souls is currently the frontrunner for my Game of the Year 2011. Good thing there are actually serious potential contenders this year that have yet to be released. I'm giving Dark Souls a 9.5. A wonderfully rewarding gaming experience. Truly gaming at its best.

Resident Evil 4 -- Again.

This is my third time I've bought and played through Resident Evil 4. I played the original release in January of 2005 on the GameCube. I then played through the game on the Wii in June of 2007. I've just completed the Games on Demand version of Resident Evil 4 on the Xbox 360 which released last week. Why? Well, it's a classic game. Right? Plus it's been brought up to high definition standards and has been given a full thousand achievement points. The game actually looks really good for what amounts to a six year old game especially compared to the Wii version. The gameplay is still classic and provides thrilling third person action. I do have to say that it took me a while to adjust to the outdated control method. The aiming initially felt tougher and far more twitchy than I had remembered it. In all the versions of the game I've always had the same complaint. It's the randomness inherent in the game's design. The randomness of whether a headshot is a headshot or not. How much damage a shot seemingly does. The randomness of which creatures will reveal themselves to have parasites and the random nature of what items you'll receive from drops. Sometimes it all works against you and can feel as if the game is just being mean and unfair. Overall Resident Evil 4 is still a classic title and the game is packed with content. Especially if you're a completionist. The main game is there of course, as are The Mercenaries, Assignment Ada, and Separate Ways bonus games. You'll get a lot of bang for your twenty bucks. I'm giving Resident Evil 4 HD on the Xbox 360 an 8.

Oh So Lazy, Oh So Late -- General Update.

Like the title says, this is oh so late and I've been oh so lazy. Since the last update I've completed three titles and broken the 100,000 gamerscore barrier. I played Ninja Blade, developed by From Software. I played LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean developed by Traveler's Tales, and I've played Dead Island developed by Techland. So here are the very brief opinions of each title.

Ninja Blade is an over the top action game wherein a biological menace is invading Tokyo and you're just the ninja to deal with it. The game relies heavily on quick time events to progress through the action. How else are you going to kill a skyscraper sized menace by flipping through the air and throwing the motorcycle you're currently riding down into the mouth and timing a thrown blade into the engine causing the fatal explosion? You can see how over the top Ninja Blade is, and that's just level two. Ninja Blade is an all around average title and doesn't really try to be anything else. It knows what it is and doesn't have delusions of grandeur. It wants to be a decently fun little game, and that's pretty much what it is.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is merely the LEGO gameplay at its most polished and refined to date. Traveler's Tales has been rather smart, and lucky in the licenses they've managed to pair up with. Pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect fit for that classic LEGO gameplay. If you've played any of the LEGO titles then you know exactly what LEGO Pirates is. It's still a tad glitchy, but for the most part, it performs better than what's come before it.

Dead Island is a cool concept to be sure. Open world online co-op zombie apocalypse action with all the RPG trimmings. Techland has taken a decent first step in a concept that might have been a tad too ambitious for them. I guess that's a more polite way of saying that there is still a lot of fun to be had in what amounts to a title that's glitchy as can be and full of bizarre design choices. As far as glitchy goes I've never seen a game eat itself before as it crashes. Nothing quite compares to seeing the frame rate go to hell like you can't even imagine and the screen begin to blur before fading to gray while the sounds of the enemy attacking intensifies before the game finally locks up. The whole process taking ten plus seconds. And to have it happen to everyone in the game every time, not just one person is just an extra special treat. Also the game has a few functions like being able to warp to a key quest giver because people are waiting and everyone needs to be there to advance. That's a smart feature, if it worked. It does for some people, some times, with not so much as a clue as to why its being so fickle as to who it will or will not decide to work for. As far as design decisions, it's always fascinating to see quests that lock you out of other quests being accessible before you have any notion of such a possibility. It isn't all bad though. As I stated, the concept is great. The combat is visceral. The story is ludicrous and nonsensical to the point of being humorous in co-op because of having people there to laugh at it with. Like a great bad movie, and no, that wasn't intentional by the developers.

I'm giving the games the following scores:

Ninja Blade -- 7.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean -- 8.
Dead Island -- 7.

Next up? I'm currently revisiting Resident Evil 4, this time in high definition via the Xbox 360.

Alpha Protocol -- All-In-One.

I've completed Alpha Protocol for the Xbox 360. Alpha Protocol was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by SEGA. Alpha Protocol met with less than stellar reviews when it launched in May of last year. It also comes from Obsidian who are known for developing sequels to the games of other companies. In fact, Alpha Protocol is their first original effort not connected to something else. Obsidian are also sort of known for a buggy end product. Alpha Protocol is an RPG with an espionage theme. The game sets out to replicate a spy thriller and actually does a pretty good job at doing just that. If I were to compare Alpha Protocol to another game it would have to be Mass Effect. One of the biggest complaints you'll hear about the Mass Effect series is that BioWare have forgotten their RPG roots and Mass Effect is really just an action game with Choose Your Own Adventure character and story development. You'll go through the game until you're provided with a choice of A or B and that's the limit of Mass Effect's depth. The same complaints can't be applied to Alpha Protocol. In both the action and story or character development every little thing you do counts in ways you can both see and not see. Everything has a potential repercussion and everything hinges on your choices. And it's not just at the predetermined spots for the major choices. It's not as obvious as that. It's constant. No matter how insignificant the conversation may seem. And the changes can be extreme. To the of degree of not seeing entire levels or characters. The number of variables that can factor into the ending is rather impressive. The character progression side of the game is just as impressive. You'll be given a certain number of points to spend on leveling up. You can spend them in numerous categories that really can alter how you'll play the game on the action side of things. From specific weapon specializations to stealth and hand to hand and gadgets and more. You really can play it your way. Play the game like Rambo with assault rifles or shotguns, or like a ninja and take down enemies in silence, or use every gadget under the sun to outsmart enemies, or any combination thereof. I really liked the flexibility in the action half of the game and the depth of possibilities on the story and character side of the game. So what's the problem? Why was the game treated so harshly by critics? The game isn't going to win any awards for graphics. They're competent and a tad less than they should be for what amounts to a mid generation release. The game also continues Obsidian's track record for buggy games. I never encountered anything that was truly game breaking but it is annoying to lose progress and have to reload. And you will have to reload. Alpha Protocol was well worth the $20 entry fee. I'm giving the game a 7.

Forza Motorsport 3 -- All-In-One.

I've been beyond lazy with timely updates. I've recently completed Forza Motorsport 3. The game was developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. I used to be a big racing game fan once upon a time. Back when the best racing games were all SEGA arcade racers. The key word there being arcade. Back in the original PlayStation era they released Gran Turismo and racing games started to shift from arcade to simulation. I purchased Gran Turismo back then and was nearly bored to death by its simulation based gameplay. I haven't really bought any dedicated racing games outside of Mario Kart and Crazy Taxi since then. Cut to this summer and Riddel was wanting an online game we could play. She was playing Forza Motorsport 3 at the time and I was transitioning between games so the timing was good. I went out and purchased Forza Motorsport 3. Little did I know a huge chunk of my summer backlog time would be taken by a racing simulator. That speaks volumes to me how good a game Forza Motorsport 3 actually is. It makes a genre I haven't liked in ages fun again. First off, the game is great looking. The cars are modeled with the utmost attention to detail. The same thing can be said for the tracks themselves. Everything is handled with an exacting level of detail. The game is also just loaded with content. A single player campaign featuring two-hundred multi race events. A full online mode. Beyond the hundreds of hours of racing in the game, you can spend hundreds more tuning cars, browsing player shops and the online auction house, as well as designing decals to decorate your cars. The game has a wealth of options that allow you alter just about every single aspect of the game. They truly allow you to tailor the game to your liking. You can make the game as arcade or as simulation based as you prefer. I personally can't think of anything you don't have control over. Forza Motorsport 3 is the best racing game I've played in a long time and I'm giving it a 9.5. My one complaint is that the game almost has too much content. You can lose yourself in this game. It will take a Herculean effort to earn the final achievement in this one.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet -- All-In-One.

Here I am late again. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is the third title in this year's Summer of Arcade promotion. It's a metroidvania style action game that was developed by Fuelcell Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is an almost perfect game in my opinion. I truly enjoyed it. It has a simply gorgeous art style. It might be the best looking Xbox Live game I've played. You're playing as an alien in his ship trying to prevent a malicious shadow life form from corrupting an entire planet. The alien's ship has an arm that enables you to use weapons and tools. It's classic metroidvania in that you'll explore the world and you'll find your path blocked until you can acquire and use the weapons and tools that enable you to continue. The game's art style and graphics are second to none. The music is minimalist and works great with exploring an unknown planet. The controls are great with simple twin stick controls and radial menus. The game features some strong puzzles and some impressive boss battles. The only sort of flaw in the game is it's a bit short. Around five hours or so to one-hundred percent completion. And that's arguably not much of a flaw considering it's a downloadable title. I'm giving Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet a 9.5. You might balk at the $15 entry fee, but when this game goes on sale down the line on Xbox Live Marketplace, it'll be a steal.

Ms. 'Splosion Man -- All-In-One.

This one is a little late. I've completed Ms. 'Splosion Man, developed by Twisted Pixel and published by Microsoft Game Studios. I've completed both the single player and co-op campaigns. 'Splosion Man was one of my favorite games for 2009, so it's a little surprising that I didn't like the generally improved Ms. 'Splosion Man as much. I say generally improved as it is the typical case of a sequel. Everything is bigger and tougher and better looking. The game is also more complex as they've added new mechanics into the mix. From gameplay that switches from the foreground to the background to taking a saddled bomb for a ride there is just more to contend with the second time around. The co-op frustration of de-synched gameplay returns. The game is great when it works, but all too often you're finding yourself having to adjust to altered timing because both players aren't in perfect synch. It drains the fun right out of the game. I'm giving Ms. 'Splosion Man a 7.5.

Bastion -- All-In-One.

I've completed Bastion for Xbox Live Arcade earning the full two hundred points. Bastion is the first release in the 2011 version of Summer of Arcade. Bastion was developed by Supergiant Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Bastion is an action RPG with a gimmick. Yes, I'm using the word gimmick here as it didn't really work for me. The game has a narrator going throughout the entire game. An overly slick voice is commenting on everything you do and provides the story as you go. The voice is very mismatched to the in-game character it's supposed to be which also works against it. I found the narration to be mildly annoying. Especially where it tries to be smart and provide you with a little fourth wall breaking goose. They never really worked for me and I found myself saying I wasn't thinking that. I believe I probably would have had more tolerance for the narration had the story been more than it was. I wasn't impressed with the story. It didn't give me any sort of epiphany that it seemingly so wants to do. The biggest complaint I have against the story is that it just comes off as trying way too hard. The gameplay is solid and fun but not exactly deep. They do offer up eleven weapons to use so you can come up with a pair that let you play the game the way you want to play it. You're able to level up the weapons adding new power and abilities. The game also features passive skills tied to your levels to mix and match as well as numerous sidequests. Graphically the game is gorgeous. Hand drawn art abounds. It all animates rather well. But it does lead to some collision detection issues and being hung up on edges here and there. Musically the game is a mixed bag. The soundtrack is rather good. There are two songs in the game however and again I came away with the impression of the game just trying too hard. Especially with the ending song. Bastion is an all around solid game, but ultimately nothing special. I'm giving Bastion a 7.

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon - All-In-One.

I've been playing Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon for the Xbox 360. The game is the fourth title in the series and the second game released in North America. It's my first entry into the series. This entry in the series was developed for the first time in America by Vicious Cycle Software and published by D3 Publishers. The first three titles were developed in Japan by Sandlot. The original games were developed under the Simple 2000 series, which makes them $20 budget releases. The third was released on the Xbox 360 as Earth Defense Force 2017, again as a budget priced title. Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon retains the budget price aesthetic but essentially provides a full-fledged game including online co-op for three players through the campaign and six-player online co-op through survival mode. Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is a third-person shooter versus thousands upon thousands of bugs. Through the game's fifteen levels you'll constantly find yourself swarmed by bugs and it's even more intense with three players in co-op. The game offers four distinct classes that truly play different from each other. The game also offers over three-hundred weapons that truly offer a rather impressive variety of unique graphic displays. Far more impressive than Borderlands, that's for sure. Graphically the game is solid. While clearly budget based the graphics are clean and the bugs animate well. The game's sound effects work well. The bugs pop with a satisfying sound and the weapon sound effects also prove satisfying. What's probably most surprising is the story and it's decidedly humorous take on things. The game is truly funny. The game is aware of itself as a video game and constantly mocks itself. The true ending, which can only be seen on the hardest difficulty level, especially mocks video game endings. The game isn't flawless though. I would say that the grind is a bit on the extreme side. Leveling your characters and killing set numbers of bugs for achievements takes way too long. Other than that though, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon proves to be great solid fun and I'm giving the game an 8. We're essentially taking a break from the game and expect to return to it to finish said grind and earn those achievements. It might take a a year of playing on and off. Yeah, the grind is like that...

Trenched -- All-In-One.

I have completed the Xbox Live Arcade title Trenched. The game was developed by Double Fine and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game is a hybrid of tower defense and third-person shooter with a small dose of action RPG leveling. I liked this game more than I was expecting to as I'm not the biggest fan of the tower defense genre. Two factors come into play here as to the why of my enjoyment. The fact that the game leans closer to a third-person shooter and that the game offers four-player online co-op. The game works well in co-op and is easily the preferred way to play. It's a really solid fun little game. I'm giving Trenched an 8.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D -- All-In-One.

I have completed The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D with a time of thirty-seven hours and twenty-one minutes. The game was developed by Grezzo and published by Nintendo. The original The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in November of 1998 for the Nintendo 64 and it went on to become the highest rated video game of all time. Was it worth playing it again all these years later? Easily, yes. The game is still a true classic and is as fun and rewarding as it ever was. Is it worth buying again? The 3DS version features updated graphics and a much improved frame rate as well as improved control. The 3D effect when looking around at each new area or cutscene is definately cool. The only real flaw here again is in the system itself and not the software with the limited window for the 3D stability. I spent the majority of the game playing in 2D. Which is unfortunately shaping up to be the norm for the system. I would definitely say that it's worth purchasing for a second time. I'm giving it a score of 9.5.

Shadows of the Damned -- All-In-One.

I have finished Shadows of the Damned after three playthroughs and roughly twenty-one hours. Shadows of the Damned was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Electronic Arts. Shadows of the Damned is a collaboration between Goichi Suda, Shinji Mikami, and Akira Yamaoka. Suda is the man behind Michigan, Killer 7, No More Heroes 1 and 2, and others. Mikami is the man behind Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, God Hand, Vanquish, and others. Yamaoka is best known as the composer for the Silent Hill series. So you have Suda's brand of insanity, Mikami's pedigree of action titles, and Yamaoka's brilliant horror soundtrack skills. Sounds like you have all the ingredients for greatness in place so Shadows of the Damned has to be a great experience, right? Well, not so fast. Shadows of the Damned is an all around average title. The story is surprisingly straightforward and coherent from Suda. The game has a couple of great one-liners here and there but it also seems to be trying hard so when things fall flat they really fall flat. Your mileage will vary of course based on your appreciation of juvenile humor. I don't think any of the game's characters are up to Suda's usual standard. Mikami's gameplay comes off as Resident Evil 4 lite in spite of having a few technical improvements like being able to move while aiming. The game shares a lot of concepts and enemy behavior with Resident Evil 4. The gameplay doesn't feel as polished as most of Mikami's previous titles. The game also suffers from extreme linearity. The bosses however are all of the epic variety. They're all interesting and fun. Yamaoka's score sounds a bit too much like later era Silent Hill to me but otherwise is an interesting score befitting a Suda title. There are some issues about difficulty achievements not stacking requiring three full playthroughs of the game for the 1,000. Which wouldn't be so bad if you could skip dialog and cutscenes. Especially the third time through the rather restrictive early tutorial stages. I liked Shadows of the Damned, it's just that with such a lineup of talent it's that you're sort of expecting much more than you're getting. What you are getting with Shadows of the Damned is a competent little game. I'm giving Shadows of the Damned a 7.

General Update - Nintendo 3DS Edition.

My 3DS is finally seeing a little action. A little less than two weeks ago Nintendo finally got around to activating the other half of the online aspects for the 3DS. We can now browse the Internet and spend money in Nintendo's eShop. Yay? I guess if you don't have one of the other seventeen ways of accessing the Internet on you being able to do so with your 3DS would be cool. The eShop is potentially important of course. You'll be able to access all the DSiWare and 3DSWare as well as the Virtual Console and 3D Classics titles. They have a bit of free 3DSWare up there in the form of Pokédex 3D. It allows you to keep track of your Pokémon from the Black and White titles. It tracks all the data one could possibly want to know about Pokémon and allows you to view each Pokémon in full 3D. It allows for you to trade Pokémon entries for the Pokédex. If I were eleven years old and gave a rat's ass about Pokémon Black or White then this might be the coolest freebie in existence. They also have for a limited time 3D Classics Excitebike for free. The 3D Classics line are NES titles that have been reworked to have 3D functionality. I was genuinely surprised by how 3D Classics Excitebike works in practice. I was expecting the background and the motorbikes to stand out from each other. And that's what happens. Those bikes really pop off that background in 3D. What surprised me is in doing that Nintendo has actually increased the viewing angle. In the original Excitebike, or with the 3D turned off, the view is three-quarters top-down from the side of the track. You can see the track and the bikes and the grandstand as background. When you turn on the 3D you'll literally see the view stretch further into the background where you'll now see the grandstand has a cover and there is a horizon and sky in the background. It's quite like watching a movie in pan & scan and then switching to letterbox on the fly only the increased view is vertically instead of horizontially. It's actually quite a cool effect and one that was wholly unexpected. The Virtual Console section has already proven itself worthwhile for me. I didn't jump in with the GameBoy until the GameBoy Advance. Having played the Game Gear, Lynx, and the Turbo Express back in the day I just couldn't ever bring myself to get a GameBoy. It seemed already outdated. I knew I was missing a handful of great titles but still never pulled the trigger. So twenty-three years later I'm finally getting my chance to experience those few good to great GameBoy titles. As well as the ones that have some sort of historical merit or place. In the two updates the eShop has had I've grabbed two GameBoy titles and one GameBoy Color. Super Mario Land from 1988, Donkey Kong from 1994, and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX from 1998. I've played through Super Mario Land for the first time and I've replayed Link's Awakening DX. It really feels as though that Nintendo through a bit of both hardware limitation and GameBoy brand identification wanted a distinct feel for its GameBoy software. This to me can best be discribed as Bizarro World. It looks like Mario, but something's just a tad off. It looks like Zelda but again something's just a bit bizarre. Donkey Kong on the other hand is just one of the coolest concepts and presentations I've seen. You play through the original four levels of the Donkey Kong arcade game and instead of repeating the cycle Donkey Kong grabs Pauline and exits the side of the screen and Mario pursues them into a whole new world of puzzle based action platforming. Being able to grab some missing classics for my collection is a real boon in my opinion. Especially once they start offering up some GameGear games like Shinobi. And eventually the retail software will come. It's just going to take its usual sweet time. Hell, we're getting Luigi's Mansion 2, that's a surprise and a half. It feels good to, you know, actually use the system. And of course this entry is on the eve of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. Arguably the first real game for the system...

Hunted: The Demon's Forge -- All-In-One.

I've completed Hunted: The Demon's Forge for the Xbox 360 earning the full thousand points. Hunted: The Demon's Forge was developed by InXile Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is an online co-op enabled hack and slash action game. Think Gears of War with swords and spells. It should be noted that I played the game fully in co-op and I have no bearing on how the single-player experience rates. I imagine it's much like the Resident Evil 5 experience where the game is clearly designed with co-op as the primary mode and single-player as the secondary mode. Hunted: The Demon's Forge will clearly not set the world on fire. It's not a triple A title. However it is an entirely solid and decently fun game. The graphics get the job done. The story is standard fantasy and wholly irrelevant. The controls are workhorse and won't get in the way. The music is much like the graphics is just there. The score won't offend you. But you're not likely to find yourself humming any tracks. The gameplay has a few technical hiccups like snapping into cover from mid run when you don't mean to do so and some dodgy hit detection with projectiles like arrows sometimes clearly going right through enemies without registering hits. The game does feature some decent voice work and the two primary characters are really well done. They have great banter between them. On the whole pretty much everything about Hunted: The Demon's Forge is squarely average. The game is fun though. I'd recommend it to people when it hits clearance prices, especially if they have a co-op partner to play it with. I'm giving Hunted: The Demon's Forge a 7.

L.A. Noire -- All-In-One.

L. A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. L. A. Noire puts you in the shoes of W. W. II veteran Cole Phelps as he rises through the ranks from beat cop to detective in 1947 Los Angeles. L. A. Noire was one of my most anticipated games of the year and in the end might make my most disappointing game of the year. Is it a terrible game? Not really as some of the aspects of the game are really well done. What's good about it? The graphics for one as the game just looks great. The character models and the world itself are wonderfully detailed. The facial animation is a true step above. They used numerous high definition cameras to capture the faces of the actors while they were giving their performances. They went through so much trouble because the majority of the gameplay hinges on reading the faces of characters as you interview and interrogate them. They wanted to employ subtleties that had been previously unavailable in facial animation in video games and for the most part they've succeeded. It's probably unfair of me to say that they spent so much time on facial tech that they neglected other aspects of the game but it does feel that way. Almost every other aspect of the game feels average. The handling of the cars is competent at best but the NPC vehicle AI is annoying and that really comes into play as you have to do a lot of driving in the game. The gunplay and cover mechanic are both rather clunky. Getting into cover is fine but moving around corners or getting out of cover just doesn't work very well. The well realized world is massive but it's also extremely empty. They've tried to fill out the world with random crimes, and both cars and film reels to collect. The bulk of the game is of course working the cases and it's there that the game performs best. But unfortunately here too the game is flawed. The cases are fun. You'll be dispatched to a crime scene. You'll investigate the scene gathering evidence and you'll interview witnesses and the like. The facial animation really comes into play when you're interviewing witnesses and suspects. You'll ask them questions and after their responses you're able to choose between truth, doubt, and lie. Essentially truth means you believe them, doubt means you think they're lying but can't prove it, and lie provides you with the opportunity to prove they're lying with gathered evidence or statements. Once you see how the facial animation and interview systems work the story becomes mostly irrelevant. It really is like rock, paper, scissors. Are they having any facial reaction beyond looking you straight in the eye? Then they're lying. Now, can you prove it? If so, pick lie. If no, pick doubt. You'll be able to get through the cases flawlessly as long as you're thorough in collecting clues so you can call them on their lies. The game has an issue between overarching story and the cases. It's like they had to hammer the square pegs of the cases into the round holes of the overarching story for a couple of cases. And that really hurts the game in the homicide desk. It would have helped a lot if they had just left the Black Dahlia alone. The overarching story is actually pretty good and it's too bad they've seemingly forced the cases to deal with it. It has a lot of smart connections to the era. The problem comes in being so tied to the story. You can't go off the rails in the slightest. Another issue is the repetition. There is too much repetition in the cases and in the random crimes. L. A Noire is a flawed but fun first step in spite of itself. Team Bondi has the potential to turn this into a great series if they address the issues present in L. A. Noire. A little freedom in the cases. More to do in the large and detailed world. More variety in the cases. The player needs to not feel like they're on such a short leash to the story's needs. I'm giving L. A. Noire a 7.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation -- All-In-One.

It took me sixty-five hours to run through Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation for the Nintendo DS. The game was developed by ArtePiazza. Square-Enix published Dragon Quest IV and V for the Nintendo DS and based on their performances it looked like we weren't going to actually get Dragon Quest VI but thankfully Nintendo stepped up as publisher. Dragon Quest V and VI were once among the holy grail titles that seemed destined to remain in Japan forever. But with the release of Dragon Quest VI in North America we've finally gotten the complete published mainline series. Was it worth the sixteen year wait? Yes. Is it the best Dragon Quest title ever made? No. Dragon Quest VI shares the same graphic style employed by the previous two remakes for the Nintendo DS. What that means is the game is graphically clean and well detailed and features some good battle animations. The game employs the series' lightning fast battle engine and returns to and updates the class system first used in Dragon Quest III. As with most Dragon Quest systems this means you can do as much or as little of it as you'd want. You don't need to focus a tremendous amount of effort to leveling up your character's job. The system is also as forgiving as possible as you retain all your learned skills and experience throughout every job. It's made even easier by a universal equipment system so you don't have to equip each character every time you change a job. The music is classic Sugiyama Dragon Quest score. You know it, you love it. Unless you're one of those who hate it. This score won't change your opinion either way. Surprisingly I found the story to be this entry's weakest element. It's a complex tale, and it remains a tad too confusing for too long. It's a case of wondering what the hell is going on for most of the game. It also suffers from Dragon Quest's VII's flaw in that past a certain point in the game it's rarely clear where to go or what to do next and it's compounded by the fact that there are dual worlds with shared locations to explore. And the game's hint system isn't as helpful as it should be. The characters are the typical Dragon Quest variety, colorful and interesting. The series party chat really shines here. Getting party commentary on every single NPC statement in the game is truly impressive. If you're a fan of the series then this entry is a must and it's been a treat to finally get the missing piece to the puzzle all these years later. I wouldn't suggest you use Dragon Quest VI as an entry point into the series however. I'm giving Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation a 7.5.

Mortal Kombat -- All-In-One.

After the daunting task of completing Yakuza 4 to 100% completion I was in that post large game state of being spent so I really didn't play anything for a few days. I messed around with Pilot Wings Resort on the 3DS. The game was more a tech demo than a full fledged game. It showed off the 3D effects well enough. They work great when the system is in the sweet spot. But the game also showed off how incredibly small that sweet spot actually is. After that I didn't play anything for a few days still sort of feeling numb off Yakuza 4. That led me to check out demos and I stumbled upon Mortal Kombat on the PSN. I was there for the original Mortal Kombat in the arcades and the ensuing fervor regarding its console release. I picked up the Genesis version of course. I was there for Mortal Kombat 2, this time getting the SNES version. I even bought Mortal Kombat 2 on the 32X. Mortal Kombat 3 hit the arcades and the love affair soon ended. I rented Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Saturn and never considered the series again. So it was sort of for a laugh that I downloaded the Mortal Kombat demo. To my great surprise I found a game that essentially took all the elements of Mortal Kombat 1-3 and blended them together seamlessly in a game that plays very much like Mortal Kombat 2. I ended up buying Mortal Kombat for the Xbox 360. This Mortal Kombat is the ninth game in the series proper. The game was developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Much like Street Fighter 4 before it, Mortal Kombat essentially is a reboot of the series and features 3D characters locked on a 2D plane. By returning to its roots the game has sparked larger interest than another standard entry probably would have enjoyed. Graphically the game looks good featuring large and detailed characters. The graphically updated versions of the classic stages feature more animation. The fatalities return to their comically gory origins. The gameplay remains frenetic. The game is loaded with great options. The story itself is presented more as movie you play through than the standard fighting game story which tend to have a general reason for the characters to be there and a what if ending scenario should each character win. The story will hopefully be a revolution in fighting games as most games should adopt this style. The arcade mode is there if you just want to fight through a string of opponents culminating in the bosses without the story. This mode even includes the what if ending scenarios. The game also features a challenge mode that features three hundred tasks that need to be completed. The tasks come in a wide variety from the challenging to the silly. The first half of the challenge mode is a cleverly disguised training mode. Near the end you'll find some true challenges. The game also features the standard online modes. One that's rather decent is entitled King of the Hill. You're able to have eight players in a room. Six players will be watching the fight and the winner will defend against the first person in line and the loser goes to the end of the line. The avatars of the people watching the fight are in the foreground and they're able to comment on the action by way of avatar animations. They're also able to award the winner respect points on a scale of zero to ten. Mortal Kombat comes off as an earnest reboot of the series. You can tell they really put forth a real effort here. It's graphically pleasing, but not actually impressive. It's clean and solid without a wow factor. The sounds of combat are classic Mortal Kombat. In all honesty the music is just there, low in the background. The controls work well enough on the standard Xbox 360 controller and I'd imagine they'd be very responsive with a stick. The game does have some faults though. The design choice of having the bosses being randomly invincible during attacks is a cheap. I don't care if the supposed reasoning is that the original Mortal Kombat bosses were cheap and these needed to retain that feeling. It's cheap regardless of the reasoning. Other than that though the game is a solid and fun time. I'm not suddenly in love with the series again. This game will satiate my Mortal Kombat needs for the next decade or so. I'm giving Mortal Kombat an 8.

Yakuza 4 -- All-In-One.

It's been a while hasn't it? I haven't been slacking. I just stepped into a black hole named Yakuza 4. Magus threw down the gauntlet with Yakuza 3 by earning the platinum trophy. So I had to earn that as well. This time around I started Yakuza 4 day-one and decided to take things one step further and threw my own gauntlet down. Not only was I going to get the platinum trophy for Yakuza 4, but I was going to get 100% percent completion. Which means the bastard was going to have to get 100% completion. Earning 100% completion in Yakuza 4 took me 166 hours. Earning the platinum trophy beyond that added three or four hours to complete the Ultimate Skill mode, which is a set of thirty-five challenges similar to the Crazy Box in Crazy Taxi. And another ten hours playing through the game two more times while skipping all dialog and cutscenes so I could unlock Ex Hard mode and complete it. That's roughly 180 hours. Wow. I'm glad to say that Yakuza 4 is a vast improvement over Yakuza 3. The story is far more focused and personal. It doesn't spiral out to some ludicrous CIA conspiracy the way Yakuza 3 does. The motives of the antagonists are also much better this time around. When Yakuza 4 was first announced and it was revealed that there would be four playable characters I was rather turned off. Having fully played the game now, I can say that this approach was great. It breathed new life into a series that really sort of needed it. I just didn't know how much it needed it until I played Yakuza 4. Yakuza 4 was fresh and interesting. I also like how heavily it tied back in to the original game. Graphically the game has never looked better. The world is extremely busy visually. There is always something to look at. The facial animation in the cutscenes are among the best in the industry. You're getting some great subtleties. The Japanese voice cast is phenomenal. Having the game be in Japanese with English subtitles really adds a sense of place that is so needed for a game like this. Musically the game is more varied than it has been in the past. You still have Hidenori Shoji's great techno rock score fused with a collaboration of numerous composers. They've added a blues-jazzy sound like you'd hear in the Lethal Weapon films. It works very well and helps in making Yakuza 4 feel as fresh as it does. The game's combat is still the most brutal fighting experience you're going to get in video games. But now you have four distinctly different styles further adding to the freshness of Yakuza 4. I enjoyed all four fighting styles. There is one area where Yakuza 4 still fails. And that's how it's still one of the worst game structures in existence. I'm talking about having redundant confirmations and strange loading breaks and other antiquated structural designs. It still feels like the framework is from a few generations ago. Say you wanted to pick up a locker key off the ground. Instead of just walking over to it and hitting X and picking it up you get something like the following. You walk over to the flashing light on the ground. You get 'hmm, what's this?', you hit X and get 'you found a locker key' and are prompted with 'do you want to pick up the locker key?'. You hit X again, and you'll get the animation of your character picking it up. Then you'll get 'you picked up the locker key' to which you must hit X a third time to make the message leave the screen. You had to hit X three times instead of just once as it should be. Yakuza 4 is rife with such old Japanese design. The further the series goes on the more glaring it becomes. They really need to rework the entire system and streamline it up to modern standards. Hopefully Yakuza: Of the End will be the final game so stuck in the past. Hopefully Yakuza 5 is brought up to modern design levels. The actual in-game content is awesome. It's just built on ancient and outdated Japanese design philosophy. I truly enjoyed Yakuza 4 and I'm giving the game a 9. I sort of hope Yakuza: Of the End doesn't come out until next year though. I've put in nearly 300 hundred hours between Yakuza 3 and 4 in the last couple of months. I need a Yakuza break. Next up for me will be something considerably less heavy. I really need something smaller. A little more bite sized.

Torchlight -- All-In-One.

I've completed Torchlight earning the full two hundred points in fifteen hours. Torchlight was developed by Runic Games for the PC and was released in 2009. It became an Internet darling and I forgot it even existed. The game was ported and became part of Microsoft's House Party promotion where I became aware of it once again. I ended up playing the Xbox Live Arcade version which was released just over a week ago. Torchlight is a Diablo clone. But it's not just a Diablo clone, it's a Diablo Clone from Travis Baldree, Peter Hu, and Max and Erich Schaefer. Travis Baldree made Fate as well as Mythos. Two popular Diablo clones, and the Schaefers were responsible for Diablo and Diablo II. You essentially couldn't have a better pedigree when going to make a Diablo style game. The game is a single player dungeon crawl wherein you'll slay thousands of monsters for loot. You can choose from three classes, Destroyer, Alchemist, and Vanquisher. Destroyer is your warrior or tank. Alchemist is your magic user. Vanquisher is your ranged attacker. I played through the game as a Vanquisher. The gameplay follows a specific formula. Get a quest, go to the dungeon and kill shit and grab the loot. Return to town to turn in quests, get new ones, stock up, and go back into the dungeon. Rinse and repeat. Every five floors or so of the game's thirty five floor dungeon you'll face off against a boss. The game looks great. It has a very lighthearted cartoonish style that is appealing. The controls are perfectly responsive and simple. Musically the game is just there. Nothing memorable about the music, but nothing offensive about it either. The voice work is toward the low end of the scale. The story is sparse and almost nonexistent. But that tends to be a good thing in these sorts of games. The dungeon is randomly generated moving forward. It saves previous floors should you have to return to them for some reason. The floors are large and well varied in theme and help keep things interesting. You're not slogging through the same looking floors for the entirety of the dungeon. Something that is extremely important in this kind of game is the loot. Torchlight keeps the loot flowing. You're constantly getting new loot to check and the game offers up various ways of altering it both with and without risk. Loot whores should be more than satisfied. The game has a couple of flaws in my opinion. The interface is a tad clunky to deal with originally but you do get used to it. I also really wish that the game was online. Adding just another player online would move Torchlight from a solid game pretty far towards being a great game. I'm giving Torchlight a 7.5. If the sequel hits Xbox Live Arcade and features online, I'm definitely there day one. If not, I'll wait for a sale...

General Update.

It's been a good while since the last update. I ended the last update saying I was going to play an old classic and then I was going to do something probably a bit stupid. I did just that. The classic was Faxanadu, which hit the Virtual Console on Magus' birthday as I was looking around for his gift. Perfect timing I'd say. So I sent him a copy and then said why the hell not and got one for myself as I hadn't played it in forever. Not since a friend rented the NES original all those years ago. Faxanadu is still kick you in the balls hard and still just as fun. It's a weird little action RPG from the awesome Falcom via Hudson. Magus seemed to enjoy having it kick his ass. As for the doing of something stupid, that was replaying Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to round up all the missing achievements. It took me roughly one-hundred and fifty hours and three and a partial playthroughs of Mass Effect and one playthrough of Mass Effect 2. The original Mass Effect having some of the worst achievements ever conceived led to the three and a half playthroughs. In doing this I was able to create a renegade character to import into Mass Effect 2 that enabled me to earn that final missing Mass Effect 2 achievement of completing the game on insanity. Mass Effect turned out to be the most time consuming as I needed to earn most of the weapon achievements and all of the complete the game with each squad member achievements. I played through the game from scratch in hardcore to unlock insanity. I earned two squad member achievements and all the weapon and tech achievements associated with the class. This was the difficult playthrough as I had to climb the hill here. I then started a game by importing that character for insanity, taking two other squad members along for those achievements. Doing this allowed me to start fully leveled and essentially at the top of the hill for my insanity run. Which was surprisingly easy. The rest of the time was spent completing the game in casual difficulty to unlock the final two squad member achievements. The half a game was a result of creating the classes needed to unlock the final weapon and tech achievements. I was ready to move on to Mass Effect 2. I imported my shiny new renegade character into Mass Effect 2 for the lone achievement I needed, the insanity run. Turns out I quite liked my infiltrator playthrough in Mass Effect so that's the renegade character I brought forward. Turns out that's one of the harder classes to play through Mass Effect 2's insanity difficulty. And I had to do insanity from the bottom of the hill, so that turned out to be a true bitch. And it all almost fell apart in the end. I lost the loyalty of one of the crew members literally right before the point of no return. I managed to have said character survive the game by avoiding using them at all for the entirety of the final mission. If the character had died in the final mission, it would have meant another full playthrough to rectify the situation. It really was a giant pain in the ass to do all of this, but in the end it feels well worth it as I'll be able to experience the end of the awesome Mass Effect trilogy from both sides with characters of my creation. My paragon soldier Erin, and my renegade infiltrator Asia. Another plus, I sparked enough interest in Magus that allowed him to talk himself into tackling the same project. As the saying goes, misery loves company, and I'll get to enjoy listening to him talk about his experience knowing what's ahead of him and behind me. I'm just glad there is a bit of time before the final Mass Effect 2 download content arrives. No pun intended as the DLC is called The Arrival, and it will bridge the gap leading into Mass Effect 3. Next up for me I'll be doubling up on a couple games. One digital, one retail.

Yakuza 3 -- All-In-One.

It's been over two weeks since my last update. I didn't fall off the face of the Earth. I just put a hundred and seven hours into earning the platinum trophy in Yakuza 3. Yakuza 3 was developed and published by SEGA for the PlayStation 3. Why did I wait so long to play Yakuza 3? Truth be told, part of me held out hope that a patch would be released returning the infamous cut content to the game. That never materialized of course and with the release of Yakuza 4 rapidly approaching I had to get it in. As I previously stated it took me a hundred and seven hours to earn the trophies and this is with the twenty missing sub-missions and the missing cabaret content. Yakuza 3 is a massive game stuffed to the brim with extra content and you'll pretty much have to do it all if you want that platinum trophy. Even if you don't want it you'll find Yakuza 3 to be daunting in scope and scale. The story picks up a couple years after the end of Yakuza 2 with Kazuma and Haruka running an orphanage in Okinawa. Much like Michael Corleone, Kazuma finds himself pulled back in to the world of organized crime after seemingly leaving it behind. Pretty soon you find yourself involved in a crooked land development deal that spirals into a greater conspiracy. Yakuza 3's story is twofold. On one hand you have the main story and its focus on Japanese politics. On the other hand you have the day to day dealings with the orphanage and the more personal dealings with the characters in Okinawa. The two halves don't really mesh all that well. I enjoyed the more personal aspects to the story. The more main story focus side left a bit to be desired in my opinion. It took a step back from the quality found in the previous two titles. This is the series' first entry on the PlayStation 3 and as such it has never looked or played better. The static camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds are gone. In their place is a free flowing camera and a fully rendered 3D world. Just being able to stop and look around in 3D is very cool especially for a city you know so well from the previous games. The game looks great on the PlayStation 3 and there is a wealth of detail everywhere you look. The game is not without its flaws though. From a design standpoint, they're stuck in last generation as far as menus and the overriding game system are concerned. If you fail at a minigame for example, you have to load all the way out to the game proper and go back in choosing your way through four or five menu levels instead just having the option to replay it. The game seems built on a structure from last generation and has the load times to go with it. If I'm knocking the score a point for the story and a point for the overriding antiquated structure that means I'm giving Yakuza 3 an 8. Everything else about the game is great and it features an amazing amount of gameplay value, especially considering the entry price these days. What's next for me? I'm probably going to play an old classic. Then I'm going to do something probably a bit stupid instead of knocking out a few more backlogged titles or jumping in on one of the new games I've got sitting here.

Two Worlds II -- Final Opinion.

I have fully completed Two Worlds II earning the full thousand achievement points. Two Worlds II is a decidedly fun but flawed experience. Two Worlds II is one of those games that's on the brink of being a quality title. The combat is just a tad off, yet remains fun. You can mix and match between the standard warrior, mage, and archer. You have skill trees with decent depth that allow you to pick and choose skills to suit your play style or if you've got the patience you can level enough to max out everything. I actually managed to stay away from my traditional playing style of an archer and played the game as a pure mage. I also ran through the game again as a pure warrior. The game's magic system is actually quite cool. You create spells by mixing and matching cards. Want to increase the power of your fireball spell? Add more fire cards. Want to increase the speed the fireballs travel? Add more missile cards. Add a ricochet card and your fireball will bounce off your target with the potential of hitting other targets. Add a time card to increase the duration of your spells. It's really cool just to sit there trying out different combinations of cards never knowing what you'll create. I stumbled upon spells that let me turn invisible and jump five times my normal jump this way. The same sort of system is in place for the items you can collect. Mix items you've collected to create potions that do everything from heal life and refill magic to allowing you to walk on water or increase defense against particular elements. The game's world is an interesting place to explore. You'll have the standards of a European fantasy forest, swamp, and wasteland to explore, but you'll also have an African savannah as well as a Southeast Asian jungle. The game's story is a direct continuation from the original game. I never played the original Two Worlds but the story is not the reason to play Two Worlds II. The dialog is stilted. The voice work is as stilted. The translation is less than stellar. But somehow the game manages to pull off a very cheesy charm. The game offers up a surprising amount of content with an rather good online campaign separate from the single player game. A village mode wherein you'll build and manage your own town. Some online duels and team deathmatch as well as an online race to collect more crystals than your opponents. These extra modes are decent. I'm giving Two Worlds 2 a 7.5. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in a large European PC style action RPG on a console, especially when you can find the game for $30 or less. It's the kind of game that doesn't need to be played, but it's one you might not want ignore. There is potential here. This team might actually be able to grow this series into something really good.

Two Worlds II -- Initial Impression.

After spending the last week going through all of the Dragon Age: Origins download content I've done something on the spur of the moment. I bought Two Worlds II even though I was determined to stick to my backlog for the foreseeable future. Oh well. Two Worlds II is developed by the Polish developers Reality Pump (worst name ever?) and is published by SouthPeak Games. It's the sequel to a game that sold rather well despite being blasted by critics and players alike. Two Worlds was technically a mess. Glitches, bugs, broken everything. So one might be asking themselves why anyone would buy a sequel to such a monstrosity. Two Worlds fans are a rare breed. They fully acknowledge how shitty the game is. They're not delusional. But almost to a man they talk about how there is just a special something that hooks them. Two Worlds II is supposed to be far superior from a technical standpoint, but still far from perfect. But there is the same talk of that special something again. The kind of thing that's present in titles like Onechanbara and Deadly Premonition. So I took the leap. I'll jump in and see if there is something to it all under the rather ugly surface. I've merely scratched that surface with a couple hours playtime. It's too early for me to have a true sense of what's to come as I'm still trying to come to terms with how everything works. It's a bit much to try and wrap my head around initially. It will take some time to figure out just how everything works. The game's magic and crafting systems appear to have some serious depth to them and everyone says the combat gets better with a few levels and a decent weapon under your belt. I am going to do something different for this type of game than my standard operating procedure. I'm going to play a mage and avoid my typical thief or assassin build. Or at least I hope to. Will this end up like Oblivion with a hundred hours put in? We'll see...

Dead Space -- All-In-One.

Another single entry it seems. I'm attempting to be a little more steadfast in paring down my backlog. I can now remove Dead Space from said list. Dead Space was developed by Electronic Arts at their Redwood Shores location and comes from the team who made The Simpsons Game. Electronic Arts published Dead Space way back in October of 2008. Dead Space is by no means the oldest title in my backlog I'm sad to say. I originally played the demo for Dead Space back in 2008 and decided to pass on the game. The game was released to glowing critical response and player reaction and everyone talks about how the demo was a poor representation of the full game. Amazon has one of their crazy holiday deals and I end up paying half off for a month old game. I have such a weakness to those Amazon deals. Cut to over two years later and the game has sat on my shelf not having been played. The sequel is rapidly approaching and seeing how I'm trying to deal with my backlog Dead Space became an easy choice. I have fully completed the game earning the full thousand points which amounts to playing through the game almost three times. Dead Space is a third-person shooter with a horror motif. The game has the player character arriving to make repairs on a mining ship in the remote reaches of outer space. Of course he arrives to find something horribly amiss. The theme of Dead Space is heavily inspired by the film Event Horizon. As far as gameplay is concerned Dead Space is a solid game mechanically. The gimmick of needing to dismember enemies to kill them works well enough. The zero gravity sections also work rather well. As there was an achievement for playing through the game with just one gun, I did this on my initial playthrough of the game. It wasn't until the second playthrough that I got to mess around with the other weapons available. The different weapons all have a distinct feel and they're outside of the typical standards of pistol, rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher. They definately give the game a unique feel in that regard. It's too bad the rest of the game doesn't feel as original. The story and stetting all feel familiar. The big plot twist you'll see coming miles away. The horror technique feels familiar as well. They borrow heavily from the Condemned titles. But where Condemned managed to keep me on edge from start to finish Dead Space's scares quickly become tame and predictable. Graphically the game looks good, not great. It's all entirely solid looking. The sound design tries its best to scare you with noises, not so much musically. The score is unremarkable and takes a back seat to sound here. Another thing of note is the ragdoll physics. It's sort of mood breaking. I'm there on a derelict ship in outer space, walking along in the dark, wondering where the next attack is going to come from. Or at least I should be, but instead I'm amused by the corpse that's somehow stuck to my shoes that I've been dragging along with me for the last forty feet. How about the fat enemies that sometimes bounce around the corridors with all the weight of a beach ball once killed? Overall I'd say that Dead Space was pretty good. Nothing about it really excels. I'll be interested in the sequel, when I can get it at reduced price. I'm giving Dead Space a 7.5.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Golden Sun: Dark Dawn with a total time of forty and a half hours. In the end the game turned out to be as good as I was hoping it would be. Dark Dawn picks up the story thirty years after the events of Golden Sun: The Lost Age and remains heavily connected to the preceding games. One of the brothers who founded Camelot has said a few times that Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age were just a prelude to the real event. Dark Dawn is the beginning of that event. And just like how Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age functioned as a pair telling one story from different perspectives, it's clear that Dark Dawn is only one half of the tale. They teasingly hint of previous characters and their current actions in Dark Dawn. I really hope the game sells well enough here to see the other half of the story told. Because it's still a charmingly told tale just like everything Camelot has ever done. I don't want to see another Shining Force III situation where we didn't get to experience the whole thing. I liked Dark Dawn's story and its characters. Golden Sun's battle system is still lightning fast for a JRPG. It's still as deep as you want it to be, even though it's rarely necessary for you to really have to use it to its fullest. Only a handful of boss battles will force you use some strategy. The game looks great, even with the Nintendo DS and it's less than appealing 3D capabilities. The control is perfect. The soundtrack is on par with the previous entries in the series. The game's puzzles are still great. And the game is still packed with them. Finding and figuring out how to collect every last treasure and djinn will take some effort. I really like Golden Sun's puzzle structure. It's almost like the original Zelda and one secret on every screen. They're that prevalent. I thoroughly enjoyed Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and am giving the game a 9. I just hope we don't have to wait another seven years for the sequel.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn -- Initial Impression.

It's time for another one of those games. You know those games, don't you? The ones that speak to your gaming core directly. The ones you cherish. The ones that helped form your personal gold standard which you use to judge everything that comes after. There are a handful of series or teams that have had this impact on me. Phantasy Star, Ys, Shinobi, and the Shining series. It's strange, but I'm always a bit apprehensive going in to one of these games. They've never disappointed me. They've always delivered great gaming experiences. But as the years go by the fear that they will fail seems to grow a little more. Maybe because there are so few series left that remain untarnished in my eyes. Even the mighty Mario and Zelda have slipped over the years. I'm going to be playing Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It's essentially a Shining game without the name. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn was developed by Camelot Software Planning and was published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. Camelot Software Planning started out as an internal team at SEGA named Consumer Development Studio #4. They were created to work with Climax Entertainment in the development of RPGs for the SEGA Genesis. Their first release was 1991's Shining in the Darkness. They would go on to create Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention with Climax Entertainment. They would cease co-production of games with Climax Entertainment and would become Sonic Software Planning where they created Shining Force and Shining Force II: Sword of Hayja for the Game Gear as well as Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing for the Genesis. They change names once again as Camelot Software Planning and go on to make Shining Force CD for the SEGA CD and Shining Wisdom, Shining the Holy Ark, and Shining Force III for the SEGA Saturn. During this time they make Beyond the Beyond for the PlayStation and then jump ships again landing at Nintendo and the Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games. They make Golden Sun and Golden Sun II: The Lost Age for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance. Then it's back to Nintendo sports titles until November of 2010 when they release Golden Sun: Dark Dawn after seven long years of waiting. As I said earlier the Golden Sun series is pretty much the natural evolution of the Shining series in everything but the Shining name. It's what would have been anyway had they remained with SEGA all these years. I've put a few hours into Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and everything seems to be on track for a great gaming experience. The story and characters initially retain that most important Shining charm. The graphics work much better than I was expecting giving the meshing of the Shining style and Nintendo DS 3D capabilities. The controls work well. They went the whole way and have created two control styles that allow you to mix and match between the extremes of zero touch capabilities and full touch capabilities resulting in the best of both worlds. The game's puzzles have been great so far. There have been a lot of them and a few of them took some thought. The story is deeply rooted in the previous titles and the game does a really good job of bringing you up to speed with the events of the first two games. Everything seems to be going great. I just need to see how the story plays out. At this point I'm rather confident this one will end up meeting my expectations.

Splatterhouse -- All-In-One.

I've completed Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360. The game is a remake of the 1988 arcade game by the same name. Splatterhouse was developed and published by Namco Bandai Games. But that's not the whole story. Splatterhouse originally was being developed by BottleRocket until sometime in 2009 when representatives from Namco Bandai Games arrived at their offices and reclaimed the development kits ceasing development entirely. The game was then completed with an internal Namco Bandai team, the one responsible for the Afro Samurai games. The original Splatterhouse was a beat 'em up locked on a single 2D plane. The remake is a 3D action game. Both games have you playing as Rick trying to rescue your girlfriend Jennifer from the West Mansion after having been mortally wounded by West's minions and revived from a mask that has been fused to your face. The story is actually the best part of Splatterhouse. There is a lot of influence from H. P. Lovecraft and Poe. The mask is genuinely funny. The tale itself follows a classic path. The rest of the game doesn't fare so well. The graphics are downright ugly. And I'm not talking about the aesthetic. The graphics have an amateurish look about them. Musically the game uses licensed metal music that is just atrocious. The gameplay has its issues. Like bad collision detection. Cheap deaths. Enemies that can juggle kill you. It seems they designed enough enemies for half the game and then reused them for the second half. You know the deal, bosses become standard enemies. And how do they scale the challenge? You're on a harder level, so that means you now fight three of them at once! The game is also decidedly over the top and your tolerance for its humor may wane. You can only pull the colon out of a creature through its ass so many times before it gets old, you know? In spite of everything Splatterhouse remained almost fun throughout. I'd suggest plucking it out of the bargain bin, if only for the original three Splatterhouse games that are unlocked along the way of finishing the remake. I'm giving Splatterhouse a 6.5.