Luigi's Mansion

Nintendo - 2001 - Gamecube

Man Luigi's Mansion is a weird game. On paper, this game shouldn't even be good. Luigi explores a haunted mansion and vacuums ghosts? It's a type of game that's really easy to make wrong or design in a way that isn't fun for the player. It's really the type of game that only a developer like Nintendo could make

This was my first time playing Luigi's mansion since it launched back in 2001 which is fifteen years now. Crazy. Man I had forgotten how short this game is. A friend and I sat down to play through it one afternoon and we finished it in one sitting. If you don't dawdle around too much, you can finish this game in about 5 hours. Which is fine but unusually short for other Nintendo games of this era. The game still holds up pretty well, especially graphically considering the game is 15 years old now. The relative small size and scope of the mansion allowed the artists, modelers and animators to pour in a lot of detail into each of the rooms of the mansion which is still impressive today, especially considering this was a launch title.

Just about every encounter with a ghost boils down to trying to expose their weakness so that they can be vacuumed into Luigi's ghost capturing machine. Even 15 years later, this still feels like a unique idea. The closest elements in common with any other game are the light use of puzzle solving elements when trying to figure out how to expose the ghost's weakness. Even though the game still feels fresh it isn't without faults. I wouldn't criticize it for being too short, but I will criticize it for obvious attempts to pad out its length. Near the end of the game, Luigi is forced to trek back and forth from the roof of the mansion to the basement which takes roughly 5 minutes one way and there isn't anything new or interesting presented to you along the way. Now as an adult I can recognize when a game is stretching for time and I'm not sure why developers feel this is necessary. To me, artificially stretching a game's length in a boring or repetitive way is always way more egregious of a sin than just actually being short

Summary

Luigi's Mansion is a short but fun foray into a haunted house that's more about the atmosphere and elements of scariness than actually being scary, which I can appreciate. I've yet to play the Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon which is a 3DS exclusive sequel released in 2013 as part of Nintendo's "Year of Luigi" promotional event. I've heard good things about this game and I may need to check it out soon. As the popular internet saying goes: "The Year of Luigi never ends"

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Nintendo - 2002 - GameCube/WiiU

See also my Top 10 Zelda Games

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday break. If you haven't done so already, you can check out my best games I played in 2015 list right here. You may also be interested in my top 10 Zelda games list or my top 10 Star Wars games lists as well. Anyway, on with the review

When replaying The Wind Waker recently, it really struck me how well this game has aged. I think this game could literally come out tomorrow and it would have an amazing reception, despite the fact that this game is nearly 15 years old. Now I wasn't playing the HD remake on WiiU either, I'm talking about the original on GameCube. The cell shaded graphics which had a mixed reception on release now blend right in with the modern "toon" style graphics popularized by recent indie titles. This graphic style also allows for what I believe is the most expressive and emotive iteration of Link in any Zelda title. I love seeing the suspicion or anger or happiness that was so clearly readable on Link's face.

The Wind Waker finds Link exploring the open seas on a small sailboat in a very vast and open game world. The Wind Waker especially excels at the same thing a lot of the other Zelda titles do well which is immersive world building. The Wind Waker's world feels immersive and real because the characters and events in the world are well written enough to make it feel that way. There's a part of the game not too far into Wind Waker where Link needs to crawl through a maze of tunnels underneath Windfall Island. There's nothing in the main storyline of the game that will specifically or directly prompt you to crawl through these tunnels, this is just a hidden optional side quest. Once you reach the end of the tunnels, you'll find a treasure chest with a pictograph box which is an item that kicks off several more sidequests, but what struck me about the pictograph quest was the inclusion of some readable text next to the treasure chest where you find the pictograph box. The text explains that there was a thief who was imprisoned presumably for stealing the pictograph box, and who dug a series of tunnels below Windfall Island in an attempt to find a way to escape the prison cell. This was pretty cool to me, and a neat example of the high quality of writing and world building on display in the Wind Waker. The game could have just made you crawl through a maze and then simply given you the pictograph box, but the fact that they included this little story behind it that justifies the level design in a believable way adds some realism and fidelity to the world in the Wind Waker

Wind Waker Video Review

Summary
The game is also not without its faults. I think the stealth section that occurs near the beginning of the game is really tedious, too long and one of the weakest points of the game. I can remember having a poor first impression of this game and thinking on my first playthrough how dull this stealth part of the game was. And then right after introducing stealth to you, the game promptly drops it and never revisits it for the rest of the game. Plus there's a few too many mandatory fetch quests with a repetitive and boring sailing sections near the end of the game (which was I think partially remedied in the HD WiiU version). But even with its faults, the Wind Waker is one of the strongest Zelda titles out there, and a perfect place to start if you've never played a game in this series before.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Ateroid Base - 2015 - XboxOne/PC

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is the mouthful of a title given to developer Asteroid Base's inaugural game. I actually got to preview this at PAX Prime earlier this year and it was one of the most popular titles in the indie area and with good reason. Lovers is a cooperative space exploration game where two players must cooperate to man various stations on a spaceship to navigate through space and rescue little space critters. In order to complete a level, a certain number of little space critters has to be rescued for the exit to be unlocked but if you and your partner are feeling like completionists, you can collect all of the critters in each stage to get access to different model ships and unlock other powerups faster. The locations of the critters and the entire world as a whole are totally differently systematically generated on each run, giving every playthrough a fresh feel. Once you find a critter, usually some small challenge has to be completed before you can rescue them. For example, you may have to fight several waves of enemies, escape an explosion or fight a mini boss. 

There are various stations to man on each ship including weapons, shields, engines and a powerful yamato cannon weapon. There are several campaigns that are made up of 4 levels and a final boss fight. Each level offers upgrade crystals that you can install in your systems that will persist throughout the campaign. Deciding which crystals to place in which systems is initially a fun experimental learning process, but I've found once you know what the crystal combinations do, you usually fall into a pattern of upgrading that results in a familiar ship layout each time. But there are also several ship layouts to unlock in the game, each with their own stats and quirky gameplay rules. For instance, there's one unlockable ship that constantly rotates around while you play, making locating and controlling your character within the ship quite a challenge, but as a tradeoff, the ship is also immune to terrain damage. I'm a sucker for these kinds of unlockable gameplay variations and this game reminded me a bit of my favorite FTL from the space exploration and battles right down to the unlockable ships. Obviously the gameplay is nowhere close to the same, but there are similarities to be drawn between the two roguelike space exploration games

There are only two crew members, making coordination and teamwork a key to success in this game. Communication with your partner is necessary and coming up with a good strategy is vital so that you and your teammate aren't running to the same stations to man the same systems. Once you get that strategy established and you and your partner know how to run the ship like seasoned space travelers, it's a really neat feeling. But it's also just as fun to yell and scream at your partner when things are going horribly wrong and your ship is about to explode

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Video Review

Summary
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime offers the best experiences for couch co-op play. It's conceptually simple to learn and easy to pick up and play. But there's still a decent amount of strategy, skill and depth to be found here as well, and applying these strategies skill and depth of understanding of the game is especially necessary in the later levels where the difficulty gets ratcheted up quite a bit. I really enjoyed this game; it's one of the best couch cooperative experiences I've had. If you and a friend are looking for something to play, you can't go wrong with Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Lethal League

Team Reptile - 2014 - PC

Lethal League is what would happen if you crossed baseball and dodgeball and then sprinkled in a little bit of Super Smash Bros. Sound crazy? It is a little bit. Allow me to elaborate: The point of Lethal League is to hit the opposing player(s) with the ball without getting hit yourself. The ball starts off slowly, then gains speed through continuous hits and bouncing off of the walls like in Pong or Arkanoid. You can alter the trajectory of your hits by holding the corresponding direction on the joystick when you hit the ball. You can greatly accelerate the ball's speed by jumping in the air and performing a "slam" which rockets the ball back down to the ground. Each of the 6 playable characters in the game have special traits and abilities that can alter the ball's velocity, timing or trajectory to fake out opposing players. The game can be played 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2 or free for all style, similar to Smash Bros.

This game also reminds me somewhat of Divekick. The game is very accessible, fun and easy to pick up and play, but I'm a little skeptical about it's long term playerbase retention. I confess I haven't played too much of this game, but I'm suspicious that Lethal League may not have the mechanical depth to keep players coming back for more. Even if it may be somewhat lacking in staying power, Lethal League is still a fun and fast-paced game to pick up and compete with friends or strangers online.

Also of note is the game's awesome soundtrack which falls musically somewhere between Hotline Miami and Jet Set Radio. Like Hotline Miami, the soundtrack is a compilation from several artists that still manages to have a unified sound. Of note is "Scream" by Bignic, "Ordinary Days" by Klaus Veen and "Urabon" by Grillo. I know I've said this before, but I love when game soundtracks have a unique sound like this. Not enough games do that.

Lethal League Video Review

Summary
Lethal League is a fun, fast-paced and accessible spin on the fighting game genre. I'm a little skeptical about this game's lasting depth, but you should play it yourself to decide where this falls on the scale between novelty and legitimate deep competition. At least I hope you'll be able to agree it has an awesome soundtrack

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Nintendo - 1998 - N64/3DS

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

See also my Top 10 Zelda Games list

I was having a discussion with a friend about which Zelda game a newcomer to the franchise should play first. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were brought up, but Ocarina of Time wasn't even mentioned. And I wasn't really opposed to that. This game is a difficult sell to someone who has never played a Zelda title before. It's not so much that subsequent games have made massive improvements on the formula that OoT established or anything like that. But I realize that the reason I love this game is that I have SO MUCH NOSTALGIA tied up in this game. It was the first Zelda game where I got to explore the sprawling fields of Hyrule, the first Zelda game that really hooked me on its story and got me interested in its locations and characters and it was the first Zelda game I replayed over and over again obsessively. And the music! Oh man, the music. It always brings back so many memories. So either you read the last few sentences and knew exactly what I was talking about or you haven't played OoT. While I don't necessarily believe that subsequent Zeldas are "better" games, it's hard to come up with a sell for this game over other Zelda titles that isn't childhood nostalgia. But it's important to note how hugely important and impactful this game was when it came out.

This game was made in the era where 3D games were starting to come into their own. The first 3D game I played that really blew my mind was Mario 64. Those Mario worlds were fun to play and run around in, but what set the 3D worlds of OoT apart from Mario 64 were that OoT's 3D world felt "real" and lived in. It was a joy to explore. Especially with all of the detail put into the world; it made you want to explore each nook and cranny to make sure you didn't miss a hidden secret. I can distinctly remember being totally blown away by this the first time I played the game. I remember just walking around some of the villages and using the first person camera to admire all of the details.

The gameplay of OoT was revolutionary at the time and set a lot of precedents for how the rest of the 3D Zelda games would play. It sounds kind of silly now, but a lot of what we take for granted gameplay and systems wise not only in Zelda games, but 3D games in general had to be invented from scratch here. Everything from the way the puzzles worked to how the combat would function had to be converted from a 2D world to a 3D world. One of the most notable of these new 3D game systems was OoT's "Z targeting" system which governed how the camera would function in combat. By facing an enemy and pressing the Z button, the player could focus the camera on just one enemy until either the focus is switched by pressing the Z button again or the enemy is defeated. The developers did a fantastic job bringing this franchise into a 3D world

The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time Video Review

Summary:
OoT is sort of a difficult sell for someone who has never played a Zelda game before, because I'd only be selling them on nostalgia. My personal recommendation is to play Wind Waker if you've never tried this franchise before. I understand the WiiU version, which contains some graphical enhancements and gameplay tweaks, is the definitive version of the Wind Waker. But for "game connoisseurs" and people who have somehow otherwise missed out on playing OoT and are interested, it is one of my all time favorite games. I actually haven't played the 3DS remake of Ocarina of Time, so I can't speak for its quality, but I hear good things. I'm not really interested in playing OoT on a handheld and while the enhanced graphics look beautiful, they also clash with all of the great memories I have of playing the original version. And while I admit there's a great amount of nostalgia tied to my Ocarina of Time love, I am still confident in saying it is one of the greatest video games ever made.

Lone Survivor

Jasper Byrne - 2012 - PC/Vita/PS3

This game can be summed up pretty quickly: 2D Silent Hill. Lone Survivor is an indie survival horror game and if you've ever played a Silent Hill game before, this game will feel very familiar. The developer, Jasper Byrne, is a self-proclaimed Silent Hill fan and the influences are very apparent throughout the game. Everything including the gameplay, the narrative themes, and even the audio cues are very Silent Hill-esque. And Byrne, who also composed the game's soundtrack, does a great job channeling Silent Hill's Akira Yamaoka with his musical style. But even if you've never played a Silent Hill game, you may still want to give Lone Survivor a look.

Lone Survivor is short, and I think that's to its credit. It's about 5 hours long, and I think that's a perfect length for a game like this. Turning off all of the lights in your house and subjecting yourself to the twisted imagery and pulse pounding terrors of a good horror game now and again is fun, but it's also kind of nerve wracking and draining. Not something to do every single night. I've played a lot of games that do a good thing effectively, but wear out their welcome by doing it over and over again for too long. I felt Lone Survivor had a very appropriate length, and I'd like to see more shorter experience games like this. I think it can work if the games are appropriately priced, but that's a whole different discussion. 

You play as a nameless survivor of some disease outbreak that has seemingly turned all of the world's population into mindless zombie-like monsters. The main character has holed up in his apartment to survive the disease outbreak, but is now running out of food and is curious if there are any other survivors other than himself. So you'll start to venture outside your apartment and see the horrors of the monster infested world, but you'll still return to the apartment often to rest and save. You can combat the monsters with your handgun if you have enough ammo, or you can lay piles of meat around to attract the monsters to a certain location to try and sneak past. Like any good horror game, ammo management is key. You'll want to sneak past enemies when possible rather than shooting them to conserve your ammo. You'll also want to keep an eye on how many batteries you have left. Without batteries, your flashlight won't operate and you won't be able to see many important clues and objects in your environment.

While Lone Survivor probably isn't quite as complete of a game as some of the games it's influenced by, this game is still my favorite type of horror game. There are very few, if any, jump scares. Less means that the few jump scares that are in the game are more powerful and memorable. Rather than relying on jump scares, games like Silent Hill and Lone Survivor create the feeling of horror by constructing a creepy atmosphere through good music, sound and art design. Games like these understand that the most horrific things your imagination can cook up are more intense than anything the game can actually show you. So they simply focus on creating good atmosphere and let your imagination do the rest. I especially love the strange hallucinations and bizarre scenery present in Lone Survivor. Good stuff. I think the minimalist pixelated art style works to the game's favor here too. When you see a monster, you just kind of get a general impression of what it looks like, and again, your imagination fills in the details. Lone Survivor perfectly follows the prototype for my favorite kind of horror game.

Summary:

I didn't find the story quite as satisfying or the game design as nuanced as Silent Hill 2, but Lone Survivor is still worth a look if you like these kinds of games. Its length is appropriate, and it does a great job creating a dark and creepy atmosphere. I wish it had the narrative depth of SH2, but does do a great job replicating nearly everything else from that game.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Nintendo - 2013 - 3DS

See also my Top 10 Zelda Games list

There’s really only two video game franchises I’m a diehard fan of. I've played pretty much every Final Fantasy (except the MMOs) and I've played pretty much every Legend of Zelda game (except the DS ones). As mentioned in my Pokemon review, I have handheld-phobia which is why I haven’t bothered to play Spirit Tracks or Phantom Hourglass yet, but after finishing Pokemon X, I had confidence enough to try A link Between Worlds. My favorite entries in the Zelda franchise have been the 3d ones (Ocarina, Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker), but A Link to the Past is the only other game I've bothered to play through multiple times. So I was excited to play a direct sequel to that game. By the way, as long as Nintendo is doing direct sequels to games in their franchises, can we get a Majora's Mask sequel? Or at least another Zelda game with a weird and dark tone like that game had?

Love that game… Anyway, if you’re a Link to the Past fan, this game is going to feel very familiar. Music, sound effects, locations. Actually, about 5 minutes into the game, I realized they had copy/pasted the world map from the original game. I haven’t gone back to A Link to the Past to see if it was totally 100% copy/pasted but it’s pretty darn close. Your house, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle and everything else is right where it was on the SNES. Actually, some of the boss fights are completely copy/pasted from A Link to The Past, which I’m actually okay with. It’s usually not rocket science to take down a Zelda boss. Just stab whatever’s glowing, and if that doesn't work, cycle through all the items in your inventory till you find something that does. So I don’t think it really spoils anything when this game pays homage to the classic game’s bosses. If you've never played A Link to the Past, I still think you’ll get a lot out of this game, but you just won’t get all of the cool references to its predecessor.

What makes this game differ from other Zelda games is that you can rent every piece of equipment from nearly the beginning of the game. But if you die, you lose all of your equipment you had. That is, unless you purchase it, but purchasing equipment is way more expensive that renting it. Also the dungeons in the game can be explored and taken in any order since there’s not a linear progression of obtaining items. This was an interesting change and they definitely pulled it off, but I’m not sure if I personally liked it or not. It’s just different.

Where this game really excels is in the puzzle design in the dungeons. The solutions to the puzzles are almost always “AH HA!” than “What? Really??”. Whereas I felt the opposite to be true in some of the recent entries in the Zelda franchise. Actually, I think this is some of the best puzzle design in any of the Zelda games. The 2d/3d wall painting thing works really well as a puzzle solving mechanic and there are a lot of really good design choices made on all of the mechanics and puzzles found in the game.

Summary:
Overall, I found A Link Between Worlds to be a very solid Zelda game and although I haven’t played Spirit Tracks or Phantom Hourglass, it’s my favorite Zelda since Wind Waker.