PC

Review – Back to the Future the Game (PC)

Telltale is one of those companies that focuses on a single type of game. They are the absolute king of the “Slightly Overly Simple Un-losable Adventure Game” niche. They are also working very hard on becoming king of the “Somewhat Unlikely Licensed Based Slightly Overly Simple Un-losable Adventure Game” niche. They have Homestar Runner, Wallace & Grommit, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Law & Order, just to name, well, most of them. There is also Sam & Max but I believe that is an in house property. Back to the Future was the first real hit in this very focused genre of game, though it wasn’t their first try. A lot of that probably has to do with there not really being any decent games based on Back to the Future in the first place.

There is that shitty NES game, that crappy SNES game, that sort of okish Japanese SNES game. Does this movie series really even need a game? It certainly could use something. Back to the Future is suck a high point of movie popularity, it almost seems like a tragedy that the franchise hasn’t really gone anywhere beyond the films. Then again, maybe it’s closed little universe is part of what keeps it popular. The whole three part series from start to finish is pretty locked tight without too many holes. They actually do a fairly decent job at handling all of the time paradoxes created as well, something every Time Travel movie inevitably fails at (Time Traveler’s Wife does it alright I suppose).

Which was my first through when starting this game series. How will it fit into the time line? There is really only one place you could stick something in between the movies, the night after Marty returns from 1955, but that would be a stretch. They could set things after the movies but then the Delorean is trashed, so that’s no fun. Telltale decided to do the easy (and really best) combination, the game takes place after the movie series, but Doc has “built a new Delorean”… or something. Supposedly it’s explained but I didn’t catch it so I’m honestly not sure why the Delorean exists in this time period other than “The Delorean is awesome so it has to be there”. The Time Train is neat as well but it’s a little “frickin huge”.

The Game’s plot starts off with Marty discovering a driverless Delorean and a distress call from Doc trapped in 1931 Hill Valley. The plot itself spans 5 themed chapters that were each released as individual “games” over a series of months. This is sort of Telltale’s style. I don’t mind episodic games, but in Telltale’s case it’s actually kind of feels like an annoying way to milk interest out of a game for months. The total run time for all five episodes is something like twelve hours, which isn’t terrible for the price or anything, and at this point, it’s all available in one package.

The secondary effect of the episodic nature is that you have these pre schedule cleanouts in your inventory. For the most part, at least, you start out the next game with the assumption that you have Item X that you will need and you never have anything real useful taken from you.

Anyway, the plot itself, takes place primarily in 1931 Hill Valley and 1986 Hill Valley. Marty gets the distress call and heads off to rescue Doc which of course sets of an accidental chain of events that lead to unintended consequences. Time is kind of a messy thing like that. The story does a decent job of handling it’s Paradoxes though there are some things, for example, somehow George and Lorraine get together and have Marty no matter which warped instance of the future you might create. The only true issue I had with the plot occurs between Episode 2 and Episode 3. Slight spoiler space, the events cause a rather large shift in Doc Brown’s timeline. As they return from the past, Marty finds Doc has been displaced into his altered timeline self. Somehow, despite both being in the same Delorean, Marty is not also shifted. For that matter, it’s arguable that the Delorean itself wouldn’t have existed either. Even considering the whole fade from existence time lag thing the series uses as a gimmick, it doesn’t explain why Doc Brown immediately shifts yet Marty does not.

Anyway, the game does a good job of keeping the feel of the series, though it’s not quite as funny as the movie series. All of the major spaces are featured in various time lines, the School, the Clocktower square, Marty’s House, Doc’s Lab, that billboard in front of Hilldale even when Hilldale doesn’t exist yet. Like the movies, all of the major events in the history of Time revolve around a handful of locations, which actually works well since it IS something the movies did.

The presentation helps things out, a lot. It’s not a straight Delorean driving simulator, but it does work exceptionally well at making a game out of the Back to the Future concept. I mean, it’s certainly not some crappy shooter wannabe game with dual timers and bowling ball guns. The game follows a story driven Adventure model. You walk from place to place collecting items occasionally and talking to folks to find out where to go next. Each episode also features several “action” scene where you must do actions in a certain order and avoid bad guys while doing it. For example, at one point you must keep one of Doc’s experiments going by doing different actions such as lighting a burner or pushing a bellows based on the things that Doc yells to you from another room. Like, he may yell “you’re full of hot air” signaling the need to push the bellows. Another had you playing guitar against an opponent to see who rocks the most, you must move carefully to ensure that the opponent accidentally falls on himself.

The main problem with all of this, and the game in general, and problem is possibly a relative term, there is no way to fail. Ever. If you don’t push the proper science buttons you simply have to start the puzzle over a bit. If you don’t out rock the other guy, he wanders off until you challenge him again. Just as examples. If you get stuck trying to figure out where to go next there is even a hint system that by hint 3 will more or less just tell you where to go next. This can be good or bad depending on how much challenge you want in the game. Don’t come into this game expecting much challenge. The reality is, the driving force behind most adventure games is the narrative anyway.

Which, as I mentioned, is pretty good. In general, it’s a pretty decent game. It’s probably not really action packed enough for some people but then, it’s Back to the Future. It’s simple enough that anyone can play through it though you can skip the hints and get more of a challenge out of it if you’d like as well, which is a nice balance.

Review – Saints Row the Third DLC Part 1: Genki Bowl VII & Shark Attack Pack (PC)

Jun 5th, 2012

by Ramen Junkie.

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I’m pretty torn on the Downloadable content for Saints Row the Third here. On one hand, I really love this game, and more is good. On the other hand, a load of it is costumes that SHOULD have been built into the game to start with. At the very least they should run closer to a buck each and not the standard $2-$3. Yeah, yeah, $3 is not much but consider that at this point, buying all of the DLC will cost you MORE than the game itself. It adds up.

I did get some of the DLC off of a recent sale through GamersGate though, so I’ve been hitting the streets of Steelport once again. Specifically I picked up the Season Pass, which includes all three of the main mission based DLCs, the Explosive Pack, which was basically a spiffy Grenade launcher, and the real winner of all so far, the Shark Gun, which is a gun that summons a shark to obliterate your enemies.

… and then I was all BAM! SHARK!

I mean seriously, that one is awesome, I really can’t get enough of it.

Anyway, the meat here is the Season Pass, which includes extra missions from the three DLC packs, Genki Bowl VII, Ganstas in Space, and The Trouble with Clones. You can buy these individually but it’ll cost you about the same as the Season Pass and you won’t get the pretty neat looking NyteBlade car. Let’s see how they all stack up here…

Genkie Bowl VII

Murder Time Fun Time! Genki is basically a game show sort of mascot of the Saints Row series. He is a lime green and pink cat who gets off on slaughtering people. There are some Genki related missions in the main story, and Genki Bowl VII adds some additional missions of a similar nature. These missions are somewhat similar to some of the existing missions in the game but only the Apocalypse Genki is an EXACT replica, contrary to popular opinion. Apocalypse Genki is essentially just more of the indoor Genki levels where you must battle mascots in a maze, gain a specific level of money and escape alive. It does twist things up a bit, there are less fire and electrical traps and the environments are more jungle themed and nicer looking.

Sexy Kitten Yarngasm is comparable to the Tank Mayhem missions though it kind of feels more like a rampaging Katamari round that anything. The Tank missions are more focused on shooting than running things over, The Yarnball is a more designed to chase down the Genki trucks. Also, the yarnball has an area attack that works sort of like a Tank shot, except you only get so many of them and they have to be earned. These sort of seem like nitpicky differences but they are enough to make it feel like a different mission. Similarly, there’s the Super Ethical PR Opportunity, which is similar to the escort missions, though you gain score by fueling Genki’s desire for murder.

The most unique is the Sad Panda Skydiving events, which involved skydiving between buildings to take out swarms of Mascots. It’s actually a little confusing at first but it’s not too bad once you get the hang of it.

Of the three DLCs I’d still have to rank Genki Bowl the weakest depending on how much you enjoy Genki missions. I prefer the more story driven missions. The real benefit to this is probably the end prizes. You get three useless Homies, (Homies being useless in general), but you also get the Yarnball vehicle and Genki’s car, which still functions as it does during the escort missions and lets you drive around spewing fire all over the place.

Review – The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (PC)

Jan 16th, 2012

by Ramen Junkie.

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Aside from Saints Row the III, I’ve been spending a decent amount of my gaming time playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I have made it no secret that I am a huge fan of this series of games. I like free form games in general, Skyrim is no exception. While it is very enjoyable, there seems to have been some core focus shift in the design of this game, especially when comparing it to Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout, and New Vegas.

Here’s a few general observations…

The game seems to be much more story focused. Or possibly the story is just more interesting than Morrowind or Oblivion were. I have played a lot of Morrowind. on the main quest, I think ONCE I delivered the letter or whatever, that was involved in the first quest. I have never done anything else quest wise in Morrowind. For Oblivion, i did stick somewhat with the quest, but I took an approach I like to compare to the old Xena and Hercules TV shows, where I’d do little side jobs and missions as they came up, you know, to help people out, and maybe make a profit. So I did pretty well on the quests, then, after destroying a Black Gate i happened across, I stumbled upon the Shivering Isles.

I mentioned this once to someone who said they thought the idea of just stumbling in was kind of funny. Anyway, I rolled with it and set a rule that, even though I could leave, I was “trapped” there until I completed it. I may get there eventually. I think I’m maybe 75% of the way through.

In Skyrim, so far I have been fairly compelled to stick to the main quest. At this point though it’s become a bit hard since I’ve been put on a quest to find some junk in a cave clear across the map by these monks (Davokin or whatever). This is so I can become the Dragon Born Master or some rubbish. Basically, it’s starting to become a chore, and so I’ve started heading after other quests.

Combat is pretty epic. This is not a hard and fast rule, but combat in this game feels better than the previous games. My chief complaint with all of the Bethesda games is that the combat sucks. The enemy AI is dumb as hell and everything is very similar and stiff. This is very obvious next to say, Saints row III, which has people ducking and dodging behind cars and peeking around corners etc. I’m not saying SR3 has the best combat engine or anything, it’s just not “most of the guys just run at you blindly”.

Skyrim seems to have improve this quite a bit. It is still kind of weak but at the very least all of the humanoid characters don’t feel like direct clones of each other with different faces. Also there are interesting enemies, like Giants, and mammoths and Giant Spiders and Giant Dragons. You know, BIG ENEMIES.

The Dragons are a central focus to the plot and have very fun combat. They will swoop off and around and dive down to land nearby and snap at you as you get close. It’s very cool. It’s also a little creepy. I’m not sure if there are a set number of dragons but so far I have faced three. The first is scripted for the introduction. The second seemed ot be a scripted attack on a tower for the plot, this was the first one you actually get to fight. The third, I was simply exploring and suddenly i hear a low roar overhead. Next thing I know, I’m being assaulted by a dragon. i got killed due to the combat being outside some temple and me being pretty restricted in my movement area. I reloaded and left the place assuming that the Dragon was a scripted event I wasn’t meant to face yet. Still, the dragon apparently followed or something because soon out in the field I was attacked a second time. This time I had more room to maneuver to shoot arrows and whatnot, and I was victorious.

Like I said, it’s pretty epic.

The Level system is streamlined. Skyrim seems to have done away with stats. I’m sure the planning session behind this used the term “accessibility”. People who play Modern Warfare all day don’t want to screw around with picking strength or Dexterity. They just want to kill things. You still naturally improve abilities as you use them and you also get to buy perks themed around different abilities based on level. For example, because I shoot a lot of arrows, I have leveled up my Archery stat. As a result I have unlocked Zoomed aiming and bonuses to damage.

They also, thank god, removed the need to “sleep and rest on what you’ve learned” when you level up. This was probably the most annoying feature of the previous games. There’s nothing better than leveling up early in a dungeon, now you’re stats are stuck until you burn your level off, but you can’t sleep because there are enemies everywhere.

On a related note for “accessibility” they need to dump the random useless loot gimmick. Back in Morrowind, when I found out i could pick up every cup or pitcher or cracked plate, I loved it, it was neat and gimmicky and I quickly amassed more crap than I could carry. Now, it’s tired and pointless. This stuff isn’t even useful to sell off for quick cash.

Everything looks nicer. My second complaint about these games, is how vanilla all of the characters are. Because there has to be this “one size fits all” aspect to armor and helmets and clothing, every humanoid in the entire world is the same height and build. They also have some of the ugliest face meshes around and they are topped off by worse hair. I have modded Oblivion fairly heavily for visual appeal and it’s still fairly iffy in some points. I have yet to apply any mods to Skyrim. It’s not perfect, but it is better. Even the clothing itself seems a bit better. The armor looks like armor, and it’s kind of ornate, but not garishly so. I always hated that the better armor in the previous games was ugly as heck. This actually is part of why previously (not in Skyrim) I play these games in “god mode’. So I can wear some of the earlier better looking armors.

Anyway, it’s quite a bit of fun. I know there are some mixed reviews on comparisons, and I do kind of wish the world were a bit larger, but I would say Skyrim is probably better than the previous titles. I need to go back and replay Morrowind some probably, a lot of people still tout it as the best game in the series.

Review – Trine 2 (PC)

Dec 14th, 2011

by Ramen Junkie.

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Frozenbyte | 12.07.2011

It feels uncommon for Indie games to get sequels. It really probably isn’t but it just seems to be the case. There could be a myriad of reasons behind this of course, return doesn’t work out to enough from the investment or even just the developer exhausted every angle they could push for a title in it’s fist outing. Whatever the reason, Frozenbyte, the creators of Trine, didn’t follow that model and gave us a sequel.

Really, Trine deserves a sequel more than most indie games anyway. The original game is extremely well done all around. It did have some minor clipping issues in a few parts but overall the presentation is fantastic.

Trine 2, follows the mold set forth by it’s predecessor with essentially nothing but improvements. You get the same basic gameplay, side scrolling platformer with character based puzzles to solve. Trine gives you the same three heroes from the first game, The Knight, The Wizard, and the Thief, each with unique abilities and special traits. The Knigt is useful for bashing things and combat, the Wizard can conjure blocks to use to stack and build platforms or even just use to bash enemies with, the Thief has her grapple line and bow for distant targets.

Trine 2 also carries over’s it’s predecessor’s rich well build levels and backgrounds. It’s insane how much detailing has been poured into this world. At the same time, it’s so well staged that you rarely get lost in as to what is happening in the background or foreground environments. Despite being played in a 2D world, the environment flows in three dimensions. Enemies and other critters often jump in from the fore and background.

Speaking of enemies, they are so much more improved this round. One of my main complaints with Trine 1 was you pretty much just battled the exact same skeleton over and over. Sometimes there were sword skeletons, sometimes archer skeletons, sometimes giant boss skeletons. But they were all essentially the same. The game had blown it’s design budget on environmental and forgotten to design more than one enemy. Trine 2 introduces Orcs and Goblins and that sort of ilk, which gives a while new variety to the enemies encountered. Even if half the time their actions amount the the same as those boring old skeletons, they at least look different, which is a huge plus.

The gameplay itself has also been nicely tweaked. The needlessly limiting mana bar is gone now, you can create blocks and use skills all you want now. The experience and skill system has been streamlined, giving less skills overall but removing some relatively needless extra steps. You also no longer find items in chests, instead you collect little poems and artwork. These don’t affect gameplay making missing a chest less painful later on.

What somewhat does hurt is that the game seems to have been simplified a bit too much making it possibly too easy. The health restoring checkpoints are extremely frequent, often in the middle of the larger battle fields, making it nearly impossible to get killed. Also there are experience vials everywhere. It’s actually kind of frustrating when you feel compelled to try to get them all to upgrade your character’s skills but it ends up breaking the flow of the game.

On the subject of upgrades, though the upgrade tree has been simplified, the Wizard is still pretty much the only one worth updating to allow for more and more blocks to be built.

Despite some minor gripes, Trine 2 is still fantastic. if you enjoyed the first game or even just platform titles in general there is no real excuse not to play through Trine 2, though I suppose starting on the first game would be better if you’re fresh to the series.

Trine 2 is available on Steam.

Review – Dino D-Day (PC)

Dec 13th, 2011

by Ramen Junkie.

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So I was pretty excited over Dino D-Day when it was first announced. The idea seemed goofy and it was accompanied by a campy campaign of fake WWII posters about Dinosaurs. Plus, few games let you really play as Dinosaurs that I can think of. Actually the only one I can think of is Jurassic Park on the Genesis, which was pretty awesome to play as the Velociraptor. This was back in the days when Velociraptors looked like bad ass mini T-Rexes and not this modern day “They have feathers and look like Dinosaur Chickens” bull crap.

SCREW YOU SCIENCE.

Anyway, the game seemed interesting enough that I picked it up when it was released. I may have even pre ordered it. I played it a few times and unfortunately… I got bored. Playing as the dinosaurs wasn’t nearly as exciting as it could be. The raptors are tiny, the big Anklyosaur looking tank is slow and the other guys are just boring. The 3rd person view makes aiming iffy and the controls were kind of confusing too which didn’t help. They also seemed to die pretty easily for a thick skinned giant killer lizard.

Aside from the Dinosaurs, you had some human soldiers to play as, and it was essentially a slightly bland looking Day of Defeat clone.

The creators have done some patching to try to fix some of the issues but it also suffered from another major issue, one that tends to fluctuate over time. There’s no servers. Dino D-Day is an online only Multiplayer game. There are supposedly plans for a single player campaign or some sort but they have not come to fruition yet. Due to it’s lackluster gameplay, the few servers the game had dwindled quickly. This is of course a death nail for this sort of game, no servers means you can’t even play it.

Fortunately the developers still seem to have hope for a revival. There are still patches and any time the game is on sale for cheap there is a related spike in interest by the game playing community. Personally I think even a weak Single Player campaign would help the game immensely, running around slaughtering idiot computer soldiers as a Velociraptor could be a lot of fun. They could even beef up the stats for Single player to make the gameplay more action filled instead of a constant die easily and respawn fest that it is.

I guess the bottom line is, the IDEA is neat. And the developers seem to really want to make it neat, so if you can manage to get it for fairly cheap and want to support the idea and maybe get the benefits later, then go for it. But if you’re looking for an immediate awesome payoff you may end up disappointed.