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.