Duck Game

Landon Podbelski - 2014 - PC 

I am a sucker for a good local multiplayer game. Local multiplayer is one of my favorite experiences in games growing up with a Nintendo 64 and playing titles like Mario Party, GoldenEye and Mario Kart 64. It's an experience that's been getting more and more rare in recent AAA games especially since the advent of the internet and online multiplayer. I'm happy to see that indies and other small studios have noticed this absense and have picked up the mantle of developing awesome local multiplayer experiences. Duck Game is one such title, although it also has an online component. It's an arena combat game much like Towerfall: Ascension, another game I really loved. 

Duck Game takes those short and fast rounds from Towerfall and makes them even faster. For those not familiar with Towerfall, Duck Game is a 2D arena combat game. Think Super Smash Bros, but all weapons are a one hit kill. Levels are small and weapons are deadly, so rounds go really fast. Often times you're not even done laughing about the crazy thing that happened in the previous round by the time the next round starts. 

Another way Duck Game distinguishes itself from other games of its ilk is through its wacky sense of humor. It's a game published by Adult Swim games and I can't think of a more fitting publisher for this game's sense of humor. I mean you're controlling Ducks shooting each other with automatic weapons. There is a button on the controller mapped to "quack". That's it. That's all it does is make a quacking noise. That's the type of wacky humor that is on display here. 

The soundtrack, which strongly channels the sounds of the Sega Genesis, is another highlight. Like its gameplay, the tracks are short but sweet and pack a lot of punch. My favorites are Synth Rock, Steelmill Sunset and Butt Spin. Great stuff if you like the iconic electronic buzz of the Genesis sound chip.

Summary

If you're looking for an awesome and wacky time with some friends on the couch, you're looking for Duck Game. If you have no one to play with, it also features an online mode and a pretty fun single player challenge mode as well. Sometimes I just want to have a stupid and goofy time when I sit down to play a video game. And when I do, I'll be looking at Duck Game

Dark Souls 3

From Software - 2016 - PC/PS4/XboxOne

When I finished Dark Souls II earlier this year, I criticized it for having lackluster level design and a dull story especially when compared to the amazing precedent that was set with the original Dark Souls. Hidetaka Miyazaki, who directed Demon's Souls and Dark Souls was busy making Bloodborne while Dark Souls 2 was in development and I think his presence was missed. DS2 wasn't terrible, but it didn't quite have the magic of the first game. Miyazaki's magic, while difficult to describe, was something I immediately felt when I started Dark Souls 3. I think it's most noticeable in the level and enemy design. From Software in general has an unrivaled expertise in 3D level design. If you ever want to see video game level design's version of the Mona Lisa, you need to check out some of From Software's offerings from DS1 and DS3

Not only are the environments created in a very mechanically and structurally pleasing way, but the visuals are top notch here as well. As much as DS3's world in concerned with killing you, it's also just as concerned with having you admire its beauty. DS3 has some of the most breathtaking mountains, valleys, lakes and castles I've ever seen in a video game. It can be hard to admire the scenery with the constant threat of death right in front of you, but if you have a chance to stop and take it in, Dark Souls 3 is quite a sight to behold. It's also quite proficient at one of my favorite things to see done well: environmental storytelling. Want to get an idea of how old DS3's Firelink Shrine is? Head below the shrine and see the massive crypt filled with the remains of past fire keepers. Stuff like that really helps with player immersion and bringing the game world to life

The game mechanics are mostly what you'd come to expect if you've played any of From Software's similar offerings. It does seem like the team made a decision to push the combat mechanics more in the direction of DS1 than DS2. Gone is DS2's health bar reduction on every death. Enemies now respawn indefinitely like DS1. Also "humanity", which is now called "ember" is a binary state, again just like DS1. The primary new mix up to the gameplay formula comes in the form of weapon arts. Weapon arts are unique skills that are tied to your left hand item and can range from temporary buffs to entirely new unique moves. Often times your left hand item will be a shield which may have a shield bash or shield parry as like the previous Dark Souls games, or your shield may even default to your right hand weapon's weapon art skill as is the case when you have nothing at all equipped in the left hand slot. Most weapon arts consume your magic meter as well which also gives non magic classes incentive to put points into leveling up their magic bar. I found weapon arts to be a welcome addition to the Souls formula that adds interesting and unique skills and abilities and makes experimenting around with different equipment load outs even more fun and interesting

The strange and alluring mystique of Dark Souls' lore is back in full force. As I wandered through the Dark Souls 3's various mysterious locations, I found myself reading the item descriptions of various weapons and armor I picked up for additional lore. I was even drawn to watching several YouTube videos explaining the backstories of several bosses and NPC and theorizing on their connections. There are also several tie ins and reoccurring characters from the first Dark Souls so veterans of the series are in for a few surprising pay-offs especially for those who are deeply invested in the lore.

Summary
If this truly is the last Souls game we get, it is certainly a worthy send off for the series. Level design, audiovisuals, gameplay and lore are all top notch here and in some cases arguably the best we've seen of the Dark Souls series. This is one of my favorite games of the year so far and a must play for fans of these games who are up for one more challenge.

Star Wars: Battlefront (2015)

DICE (EA) - 2015 - PC/PS4/XboxOne

My self imposed policy for writing about games here is that I've tried to complete or at least get close to completing every game I review. For the most part, I've attained that goal with most of the games I've written about here with just a handful of exceptions. Other than I think DOTA 2, this is the first multiplayer-only game I've reviewed so I really can't finish this game. Yes I know, Star Wars Battlefront 2015 has a few training missions you can play offline, but let's be honest. No one is playing them. Just like no one plays DOTA 2 offline. I'm not a huge multiplayer shooter guy, but I am a big Star Wars fan, so I feel obliged to discuss this game a bit but before we begin - Full disclosure - I haven't played THAT much of Star Wars Battlefront 2015 which I will now refer to as just Battlefront for convenience, even though that causes confusion since there is also another game called Star Wars Battlefront that came out in 2004 (I guess we have to call that Battlefront 1 now...?). Anyway, I've probably only played about 5 hours of this game but I still feel like that's enough time to talk about it and have an at least somewhat informed opinion.

First of all the good - this game is gorgeous. EA and Dice have nailed the audiovisual presentation here. I usually play most of my games on PC as I have a fairly high end rig, but even playing on console (Battlefront came bundled with my PS4), this game still looks amazing. The way the sparks fly out of surfaces when laser blasts hit them, the sound effects of the different vehicles, everything combines to make this probably the most accurate and high fidelity recreation of the Star Wars universe in any video game I've played to date. Until I heard the voice acting. Darth Vader sounds ridiculous. And the Emporer too. Like come on, EA couldn't find anyone who could do the voices better than this? I feel like every aspiring soundalike has a good pocket Vader or pocket Palpatine.

So as some people already know, this game was widely criticized at launch for not having enough content. Which I agree with. Not having a single player campaign was a big downer for me especially since I enjoyed the campaigns from the other two games in the series. I read recently that a decision was made to cut single player content from the game in order to ship the game alongside Star Wars Episode 7 - a decision that I think ultimately hurt the game. I believe most people, myself included, would have gladly waiting a few more months for a game with more content especially since Battlefront had almost nothing to do with Episode 7. But I'm not sure Battlefront's problem ends with lack of content. I don't think Battlefront did enough to set itself apart. Yes it has the Star Wars license and did a reasonably good job adapting it to the game, but it still just mostly felt like Battlefield, but model swapped with Star Wars characters, vehicles and guns. In a market that's already heavily saturated with multiplayer shooters, there's nothing that really makes Battlefront stand out from the crowd aside from the Star Wars license which is admittedly the only reason I played this game in the first place.

Summary

Star Wars Battlefront 2015 is a very pretty albeit somewhat vanilla multiplayer shooter that is somewhat light in content. I've heard several rumors recently about EA announcing a Battlefront 2 which hopefully isn't the real title of the game or else everyone will always have to qualify if they're talking about Battlefront 2 2005 or Battlefront 2 2017 (maybe). Hopefully EA and Dice have taken the criticism on Battlefront 2015 to heart and we'll get a more interesting and content heavy game this time around

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Blizzard Entertainment - 2014 - PC/iOS/Android

For the longest time, I've never understood Magic: The Gathering. I have several friends who are way, way into it, collect all the cards and go to weekly tournaments. It just never clicked with me. Then I played Hearthstone. I get it now. Magic is still not something I'm interested in diving into, but now I at least understand its relatively large popularity and massive player base. 

Hearthstone is Blizzard Entertainment's take on Magic The Gathering. I haven't played too much Magic so I can't speak to the differences and similarities between the two games, but I can tell you what Hearthstone is. It's a two player digital card game where the objective it to reduce your opponent's hero's health to zero. All heroes have a starting health of 30, a unique special ability and a unique card set which can govern your high level playstyle. There is also a common pool of cards from which any class can draw from to compile their deck, but usually the class specific cards are slightly more powerful and can synergize better around the hero's playstyle. All heroes are unlocked at the beginning, but playing as a certain hero will unlock more of that class' unique cards. That seems to be the main philosophy behind the progression system in Hearthstone: play more to unlock more cards. Of course you can spend real money to buy card packs as well but I'm happy to report I've resisted that temptation thus far. Which isn't to say that Hearthstone isn't worth spending money on, it's just that my personal reaction to the free to play model is to see how much fun I can have with the game without spending any money on it. And Hearthstone is very facilitative to my preference towards playing free to play games as the in game currency is given away fairly liberally to encourage buying more card packs. 

There are 4 main game modes in Hearthstone: "play" where you can play against a friend or be paired up against a random online opponent of supposed equal strength. "Solo play" is similar to the normal play mode, but here you can practice strategies against an AI or pay real money to play through an adventure campaign where you can unlock unique cards. The "Arena" mode costs a modest entry fee of real or in game currency to construct a semi-random deck of cards from a semi-random list of heroes. You're given three lives to play against other players in the same mode. The longer you last, the better your reward will be. But once you die three times, you're out of the arena until you pay another entry fee. The final game mode is the "Tavern Brawl" which is a weekly event that applies different wacky game changing rules each week. One of the last Tavern Brawls I did was to construct a deck out of just two different cards. Pretty interesting. 

Summary

I've had a pretty fun time with Hearthstone. It's neat as a mobile app to pick up and play a few rounds while I'm waiting on something. I don't think this is a game I'd ever get into playing competitively as I'm of the opinion there's way too much luck involved. But it's still a neat little game that scratches the itch in my brain that enjoys making rapid cost/benefit analysis decisions.

Rocket League

Psyonix - 2015 - PC/PS4

As I've written before, I prefer my sports games to be fantastical as opposed to realistic. If I want to play a "realistic" sport, I'll just go outside and actually play it. But when I want to play a game of soccer with flying rocket powered RC cars, I'm coming to Rocket League

Really all you need to know about Rocket League is "soccer with flying rocket powered RC cars". And that's what's brilliant about Rocket League's design: simplicity. It's easy to grasp the mechanics and understand what you need to do to win the game. But there's still an incredible amount of depth and skill required in mastering these mechanics. Controlling your car is easy, but learning how to manipulate the ball can be difficult. The ball is essentially a large, low gravity physics object and learning how to strike the ball so it goes where you want it to can be a bit frustrating for new players. After learning how to strike the ball, the next challenge in the Rocket League meta game is learning where to position your car in different situations so you can be prepared when your teammate crosses the ball over to you and you can take that game winning shot on goal.

Learning when to use your rocket fuel is also crucial step on the way to becoming a Rocket League master. Newer players may be tempted to constantly burn through their fuel in order to get to the ball first - which in my experience can be a valid strategy. There are several glowing powerup pads scattered throughout the field that will refill your rocket fuel when you drive over them, so it's often tempting to use your fuel very aggressively. But I've also found having some spare fuel to intercept an opponent's shot on goal or to take a shot of your own when the ball bounces your way can be the difference between victory and defeat.

After playing several hours against the CPU just trying to get the hang of the game, playing against others online was initially a little intimidating. But the Rocket League matchmaking system seemed to work pretty well and I found that I was being pared with and against players of similar skill level pretty often. Playing online even supports local split screen, so you and a friend in the same room can join a team together and take on the internet. Rocket League supports 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 matches. I've mostly only palyed 2v2 and 3v3 and I think 3v3 is my favorite. 4v4 can feel crowded, 2v2 can feel empty, and although I haven't tried it, I'd imagine 1v1 would just feel gimmicky. Although it's not something I'm personally interested in, there's also a decent infrastructure with tiered rankings in place for those who want to play this game competitively as well

Rocket League Video Review

Summary
Rocket League is a great execution of an awesome idea. It reminds me what's great about my favorite competitive games: it's easy to pick up and play, anyone can learn it. But it takes time and practice to really master this game.

Dark Souls II

FromSoftware - 2014 - PS3\PS4\X360\XboxOne\PC

I started playing Dark Souls 2 immediately after completing the first Dark Souls game as I couldn't get enough of the first game. It's tough but fair action RPG combat system had taught me to pay attention to enemy attack patterns, be wary of traps and to frequently praise the sun. I needed more. On the surface, Dark Souls 2 appears to be a very safe "more of the same" sequel to the first game. However, there are some notable departures from the original formula once you dig in to the game.

Firstly humanity and hollowing are no longer a boolean "yes" or "no", you're either human or you're partially hollow. The more you die, the more hollow you become and the more your maximum health decreases. This can be reversed by using a consumable "human effigy", which are thankfully quite plentiful in this game. But if you're human or close to being human, the more susceptible to invasions you are. But you can still only summon a friendly companion to battle if you're 100% human.

I know Hidetaka Miyazaki, who directed both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls was busy making Bloodborne during Dark Souls 2's development. I think the lack of his presence is felt when examining some of the details of Dark Souls 2 up close. For example the level design of the first Dark Souls game was something I really loved. All of the levels looped back on each other so that as you progressed, you would unlock natural paths and shortcuts back to earlier levels in the game. Not so much with Dark Souls 2. The level design is much more linear and you'll need to just keep progressing in a certain direction until you can't progress any more, then warp back to another bonfire, which is an ability you have from the get-go in this game. Another really strange design decision is that you can only level up in one particular bonfire by talking to a nearby NPC as opposed to leveling up at any bonfire as was the case in the first game. In practice this becomes rather annoying as you have to warp back and forth to level up and suffer through loading screens each time which seems unnecessary.

Another place where Miyazaki's absence is felt is with the story. Yes, the first Dark Souls game had a sparse and cryptic story as is the case with the second game, but there were memorable characters and bosses and locations. They were made memorable through repeated mentions and given weight by the way they the characters referred to them. Even though the story was sparse and cryptic, it felt plausibly real. Dark Souls 2's story is just simply sparse and cryptic. New locations are discovered and conquered without fanfare or reaction by the game's story. Fighting a boss in Dark Souls 2 is not an epic clash with the legendary creature you've heard so much about. It's just another boss. Even the "greater soul" bosses seem unremarkable from both a story and gameplay perspective.

Speaking of gameplay, the combat is still pretty solid. It's a bit more balanced and polished, and there seems to be more a few more valid builds now. However, I will say that the difficulty curve does seem especially wonky. There are a few pain points in the beginning and middle of the game, but everything else including the end of the game is a relative cakewalk. I've talked with a few friends who have played this game about their experience with the difficulty curve and have had some conflicting reports, so which parts of the game you find challenging may partially depend on your character build and playstyle.

Summary
It may not have the brilliance of its predecessor, but Dark Souls 2 is still a solid game for those people looking for more masochistic fun. Story and level design aren't quite what they were in the first Dark Souls game, but this game is still solid enough to warrant a recommendation. I've now moved on to Bloodborne to satiate my love of these games and have so far been enjoying this same style of game with a fresh setting.

BattleBlock Theater

The Behemoth - 2013 - X360/PC

BattleBlock Theater is the third game from developer The Behemoth whose previous games are Alien Homnid and Castle Crashers. It was designed by Dan Paladin (aka Synj) and Tom Fulp, both of Newgrounds.com fame and features the same art style and sense of humor you'd expect if you've played The Behemoth's previous games or are aware of their Newgrounds submissions. BattleBlock Theater is a cooperative 2D platformer that requires two players, connected either online or played locally to navigate through a series of levels that require players to be good platformers, puzzle solvers, and beat-em-up-ers. 

The core gameplay in BattleBlock is mostly good, but what makes this game stand out is the humor. In a bizarre but funny opening cutscene, a narrator (voiced by Will Stamper who is also an active Newgrounds contributor) explains that several friends have been shipwrecked on an island full of cats, because this game's roots are in internet culture. The cats have captured the surviving members of the shipwreck, including Hatty Hattington, the former captain of the ship. The cats, now lead by Hatty Hattington who appears to be the victim of mind control, are forcing the survivors to participate in gladiatorial like challenges in a theater for the cats amusement, which is the very ridiculous context to the actions you're performing throughout the game. The narrator is the real star of BattleBlock Theater and will chime in frequently to comment on the actions you're performing during each stage. When an entire level is complete, you'll be treated to another cutscene featuring the narrator sometimes explaining what's happening in the plot, but mostly just being funny with this game's uniquely weird sense of humor.

Each stage requires both players to cooperate to navigate through a series of traps and enemies, all the while collecting green gems. When enough gems are collected, the stage exit is unlocked, allowing you to advance to the next one. But if you really want to be a completionist, you can try to search for all of the gems in each level. There are two difficulty settings on BattleBlock theater, "Normal" and "Insane", both of which I think are very flawed. On normal when a player dies, they instantly respawn next to their partner. There's pretty much no challenge with this difficulty and because there's practically no punishment or consequence for dying, players are free to be as careless as they want while progressing through each level. This may be fine for some, but I personally need a little more tension and challenge while playing, so I opted for "Insane" mode. In insane mode, when either player dies, both players are forced to restart the entire level. From the beginning. Now this is fine for the first few handfuls of levels, but when the number of enemies and difficulty of platforming starts to rise near the middle of the game, this mode starts to get really frustrating, especially when you pull off a difficult section perfectly, but your partner dies and both players are forced to start the entire level over. I think BattleBlock could have really benefited from some different difficulty settings here. Either a checkpoint system or a number of lives other than just one would have been very, very welcome. This is a relatively simple thing that I think unfortunately really hamstrings BattleBlock Theater

BattleBlock Theater Video Review

Summary 

Overall though, this is still a pretty solid game. It's another good couch co-op game, a type of game which I personally love and have been enjoying its recent resurgence. There are also several competitive mini games included here, most of which I actually didn't mess around with much, but they look like they could be fun if you're into competing rather than cooperating. There's also a built in level editor if you want to make your own sinister stages for your friends to navigate through. All in all BattleBlock Theater is a good game to share with friends, and features the most absurdly weird, yet still funny sense of humor you'll find in a video game

Rock Band 3

Harmonix/Backbone Entertainment - 2010 - X360/PS3/Wii/DS

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

I'm a big fan of the rhythm game genre and in particular the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. Now there hasn't been a release in either of these franchises since 2010. This fact, coupled with the decreasing sales and popularity of these franchises caused many people to speculate that these types of games were "dead". Then out of the blue, Harmonix announced Rock Band 4 and Activision followed suit with an announcement of Guitar Hero Live. Obviously neither of these franchises are dead (at least at the time of writing) and both have new games launching in the coming weeks, but I do think there are a few reasons we haven't heard from these games in five years. First and probably foremost was oversaturation. If you include the DJ Hero games and the various portable releases from each franchise, Harmonix and Activision combined to release thirty five Rock Band and Guitar Hero titles between 2005 and 2010. I'm serious. Check Wikipedia. The American economic downturn that occurred at the end of last decade certainly didn't do any good to either of these franchises that require players to buy relatively expensive accessories. Plus I think some players decided they didn't want to have ridiculous Fisher Price-looking plastic instruments cluttering their living space anymore. I think that last point still holds true in 2015, but there obviously hasn't been any oversaturation in a while and the U.S. economy is doing better which is why I think we're now seeing releases from these franchises. So what do I want to see from either Rock Band 4 or Guitar Hero Live? Let's take a dive into one of my all-time favorite rhythm games, Rock Band 3, and examine some of the things I think it does well and some of the things it does not so well.

Let's get the bad things with Rock Band 3 out of the way first. The game has obsession with realism and wanting the player to learn real instruments. This is fine when done well, and a game like Rocksmith really shows how this concept can be pulled off successfully. But Rockband 3's execution of this was way too complicated. Rock Band 3 introduced "Pro Mode" for guitar, drums, and its new keyboard accessory. Mad Catz partnered with Harmonix to sell a "pro guitar" with 102 plastic buttons. There wasn't really a great tutorial for this instrument, and the strange chord notation was almost impossible to interpret at the speed Rock Band throws notes at you. Especially for someone who has no actual experience playing guitar (me). This was the same problem with the "pro keyboard" which expected the player to play a 25 button mini-keyboard at full song speed. I actually liked the "pro drums", which added 3 cymbals to Rock Band's normal drumkit of 4 pads. I found it to be a welcomed challenge as opposed to an impossible one. But aside from the drums, I think the whole "pro mode" experiment was a failure, especially when you consider that none of the older DLC or other imported songs supported the pro guitar, and most didn't support the keyboard at all. They strangely did however, support pro drums. My speculation is that the songs were always encoded to differentiate between cymbals and drums, even though the original drum kits only had 4 pads. I think Harmonix has recognized this failure and has removed support for pro instruments and the keyboard peripheral entirely for Rock Band 4 although they will continue to support pro drums. 

The most awesome thing about Rock Band 3 is the massive library of DLC songs you have access to. If you include importable tracks from previous entries in the series, the total of playable songs is upwards of 4,000 which is pretty awesome especially assuming Harmonix makes this library available again for Rock Band 4. You can be practically guaranteed to find something you'll like when browsing the online store. Rock Band 3 also introduces vocal harmonies, allowing there to be more than one vocalist, provided you have more than one microphone. Tracks that support vocal harmonies will show separate vocal tracks with separate lyrics for each singer. Another new feature is the ability for players to drop in and out of songs on the fly without restarting a track. This, combined with the ability to make song playlists and enable "no-fail mode" made it very accessible as a casual party game. Rock Band 3 also features an expanded career mode and a more in depth character creator. All of these features combine to make Rock Band 3 a very full featured and well polished game

Rock Band 3 Video Review

Summary

Despite it's faults and it's misguided attempt to integrate playing "real" instruments, Rock Band 3 is still the most fun I've had playing rhythm party game. I've actually already played a pre-release build of Rock Band 4 at Pax and I think it captures all of the great things that Rock Band 3 did well. If people are willing to dust off their plastic instruments and hook them up to their next-gen consoles, I think Rock Band 4 should do just fine. I probably won't buy it initially as I don't even own a next-gen console yet, but I'm glad these franchises have been resurrected and I'm looking forward to eventually playing more fake plastic instruments.

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

Dark Souls

FromSoftware - 2011 - PS3/PC/X360

I did it! Praise the sun! I've finished Dark Souls! Good Lord this game is mercilessly difficult. And also one of the best designed games I've ever played. If you've heard people tell you how good this game is, it's true. It's also no exaggeration how difficult this game is, so this is definitely not a game for everyone. I think if you're an seasoned gamer who's up for a challenge and you approach this game with patience and an open mind, you'll be able to discover the fun in building your character, experimenting with the game's systems, exploring the masterfully designed levels and discovering this game's hidden lore.

This game simultaneously does the best and worst job teaching mechanics I've seen in a video game recently.The Northern Undead Asylum where you begin the game serves as the game's tutorial. It teaches you how to move your character, to read messages on the floor, and that shiny things and bonfires are good. It teaches you how to defend with a shield by forcing you to walk down a narrow corridor with a guy on the far end shooting arrows at you. The only way you'll make it is learning to use the shield. It then throws a fairly difficult boss at you, teaching you that Dark Souls will be hard and that running away is a valid option and is sometimes the best one. You eventually have to kill the boss to complete the tutorial, but if you manage to scramble across the boss room before he kills you, a better weapon can be found and the game also gives you some hints for dealing more damage. The tutorial also teaches you what is probably Dark Souls' most important lesson which is that you cannot hack and slash your way through this game. You must pay attention to enemy attack animations, learn their tells, and understand when it's safe to attack them. It's an excellent tutorial for the game and teaches you all of Dark Souls' basic mechanics... but it doesn't address or teach its more complex mechanics at all. It's also easy to be overwhelmed by the spreadsheet of statistics presented to you on the player stats page, which isn't explained in detail. Dark Souls is a game that expects its players to learn its more complicated systems by experimentation or trial and error. Or just google everything, which is probably what most people do.

After completing the tutorial level, Dark Souls opens up quite a bit and becomes very non-linear for the rest of the game. You can take any path in any order you want, some paths are easier and intended to be taken first, some paths are harder and intended to be done later in the game, and some paths are completely optional and never required to finish the game. But you don't know which paths are which until you take them. Trial and error is another one of the design themes found throughout Dark Souls. Yes, it's frustrating at times, but the joy of exploring and discovering new paths or new secrets offsets the frustration of accidentally taking a path intended for later in the game and getting your butt kicked.

You can level up your character by spending the souls of the enemies you killed on upgrades while at a bonfire. If you die, you lose all of your accumulated souls, so you're encouraged to spend them often. Mercifully, if you can make it back to where you died, you can recover your lost souls, but dying twice in a row without recovery will see your unspent souls lost forever. It creates a sort of system where even when you're dying over and over again, you feel like you're making progress both through leveling up, and also by learning from deaths, memorizing enemy patterns and remembering level layouts. Progress in Dark Souls can be marked by killing bosses or discovering shortcuts that lead back to previously explored areas in the game, giving the game a bit of a metroidvania feel. You'll find that a lot of the weapons and armor in Dark Souls are not really statistically better or worse, just different. Some weapons may have comparable stats, but differing swing arcs or varying ranges. It's not so much a matter of finding the best weapons and armor in Dark Souls, but finding the ones that best suit your playstyle

There's also an ever-present multiplayer component to Dark Souls. You basically always play the game online, seeing ghostly glimpses of other players and reading the sometimes helpful, sometimes trolling messages left by them. You can also optionally opt-in to a cooperative multiplayer component to get assistance from another player to take down a difficult boss. The thing is, when you opt-in to the cooperative multiplayer, it also makes you susceptible to hostile PvP invasions from other players. It's a really cool mechanical tradeoff and another really smart design decision

The story of Dark Souls is communicated very unconventionally. Often NPCs will reveal very little about themselves or the world around them, so most of the narrative is communicated through environmental storytelling and also reading the item descriptions on new things you pick up. Don't be mistaken, there really is a lot of lore in Dark Souls, it's just hard to find and it's very open ended. The story purposely poses a lot of interesting unanswered questions and leaves it up to the player to fill in the gaps with their own imagination and interpretation of what happened.

Dark Souls Video Review

Summary
Dark Souls is probably the hardest game I've completed. It's also one of the best designed games I've played recently. If you can approach this game with a certain amount of patience and endurance, you'll really enjoy it. The feeling of finally killing that boss you've been stuck on is a feeling of reward that is unmatched in any other game. Even the little rewarding moments of finding a new weapon, or discovering a new shortcut or learning something new about the game's mechanics you didn't know before feels awesome. It's not for everyone, but the people who it IS for will find Dark Souls very enjoyable.

Mario Kart 8

Nintendo - 2014 - WiiU

I haven't quite figured out the difference between Nintendo and Activision. Why is it that Nintendo can continue remaking the same games over and over again and garner praise and fan worship while Activision is demonized for doing the same thing while running its franchises into the ground? (See Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Call of Duty). Is it the amount of effort/quality put in to each sequel? Is it the time between releases? Like it or hate it, I think Nintendo has perfected the art of iterative remakes and have applied their remaking expertise on the latest Mario Kart

So what's new in Mario Kart 8? It's the first Mario Kart game in true HD, and it looks very pretty. The new instant replay feature is a nice addition, but the touted hover-karts are mostly a gimmick with no really interesting affects on gameplay. If you include DLC, MK8 boasts the highest number of playable characters and the highest number of courses in any Mario Kart game. Priced reasonably at $7.99, the MK8 DLC pack includes 3 new characters. 4 new vehicles and 8 new tracks. The MK8 DLC is nice, high quality DLC done the right way. There's also the free 200cc DLC which unlocks mirror mode and the uncomfortably fast 200cc mode for those who enjoy an extra challenge.

Kart customization plays a big role in MK8. When selecting your vehicle, you must pick a body type,  a size (small, med, large), a set of tires, and a glider. All of these decisions have an effect on your kart's stats which can be viewed by pressing the start button while customizing your vehicle. I've found that having a good kart build that comfortably suits your playstyle can determine your success in MK8.

So I'm a big fan of Mario Kart 64 and its battle mode in particular. I think most Mario Kart fans would agree that Nintendo hasn't come close to reproducing the brilliance of the MK64 battle mode in any Mario Kart title since, and Mario Kart 8 is no exception. The implementation seems especially lazy in MK 8. They've just copy/pasted some courses verbatim from the racing mode and send some players forward and some players backward on the track which gives a sort of jousting with items feel. Except the courses are WAY too big to make it exciting. When you do finally find an opponent, you just sort of circle around the items and hope you get something good to finish them off. It just doesn't feel right at all. It doesn't have that "thrill of the hunt" feel that is given by the MK 64 tracks that were tailor made for battle mode like Block Fort or Double Deck. MK 8 battle mode is one of those things you try with your friends and then go "eehhh, let's never do that again".

Mario Kart 8 Video Review

Summary
Mario Kart 8 has the biggest roster of playable characters, the largest selection of tracks and is the prettiest looking Mario Kart game yet. The DLC is reasonably priced and packs a lot of bang for the buck. It's a shame the battle mode is total garbage. If Nintendo released a proper battle mode DLC pack, I would buy it in a heartbeat and Mario Kart 8 would likely replace Mario Kart 64 as my all time favorite Mario Kart game.

DOTA 2

Valve - 2013 - PC

This is a bit of a strange review as I'm not sure who my target audience is. I feel like most people who have heard of DOTA 2 are quite aware of what it is and already know whether or not they like it. Similarly, I feel like the gamers who have somehow managed to not have heard of the massively popular DOTA 2 are also probably the people who either won't like or won't care about this game. So let me preface this review with a few disclaimers: First of all, I'm not being critical of DOTA 2 due to some MOBA bias. I realize both DOTA 2 and League of Legends are currently both massively popular and players of each game tend to have strong opinions about which is better. I don't care. I'm completely apathetic towards both games. Secondly, it should probably be known that I'm not very good at DOTA 2. Like at all. I've probably played maybe 4 or 5 games of DOTA 2 total, but it's enough to know that this is not a game for me.

So for those who aren't aware, the basic rules of a multiplayer online battle arena or MOBA are that two competing teams of players are pushing towards some sort of team goal which is usually the capture or destruction of the enemy team's base. There are also usually strong RPG elements to the game where players will have to level up to improve and strengthen their character. This can be done both by killing players on the enemy team which is risky, but rewarding or also by killing weaker non playable characters known in the MOBA communities as "creep". Character choice plays an important role in MOBAs as most characters have vastly varying strengths, weaknesses, statistics, abilities and playstyles. Ideally, teams will consist of complimentary characters and playstyles to create a strong and versatile team. Some MOBAs have further in-match customization of characters through equippable items, weapons, or armor

I love competitive games with a lot of depth, strategy and skill, so several of my friends have recommended this game to me many times. I don't deny that DOTA 2 has a ton of depth, demands a lot of high level thinking and strategy and also requires a fair amount of actual technical skill to be good. These are the aspects of DOTA 2 that appeal to me and make me want to play the game. But it comes in a wrapper that includes so many other aspects that I don't care for. The biggest and most off-putting aspect of DOTA 2 is the community. The DOTA 2 community is notoriously hostile and unwelcoming towards new players, which I am one of. I mean, I kind of understand the problem. It's a team game and people want to win. No one wants to play with a team member who doesn't know what they're doing. The other problem is match length. A typical game of DOTA can last upwards of 45 minutes. Finding 45 consecutive uninterrupted minutes is a lot to ask of my free time. That's not even counting the time spend waiting for other players to join and queue up the game. I like the freedom of starting and stopping my games on my own time.

The final and maybe most fixable problem is the immense barrier of entry to this game. There's a ton of game mechanics, item functions and matchup knowledge to learn before you can start to really compete in this game. Any good game has a learning curve, but I found DOTA's tutorial to be buggy and uninformative. During one part of the tutorial, my character got stuck on a bridge and was unable to move. Then a later section of the tutorial was uncompletable for me because the game wouldn't detect when I bought the correct items from the shop, then I ran out of gold. The character specific player guides didn't seem that helpful unless you were already comfortable with the basic mechanics and terminology of the game. DOTA 2 has an assumed set of knowledge from its users that brand new players don't and won't have. Even the UI seems clunky and unintuitive to me. It took me 5 minutes just to figure out how to leave a game. I'm sure if I was really driven to learn this game by myself, I could look past some of these flaws, but I just don't want to put in the time to learn a game I don't think I'll have fun with

Summary
I know I'm being harsh on a popular and well-liked game, but it's not for me. A hostile community, long play sessions and a nightmarishly large learning curve will likely bar me from playing this game indefinitely. On the bright side though, it's free to play. So try it yourself and make up your own mind as to whether DOTA 2 is worth your time investment

Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

Game Freak - 2014 - 3DS

After Gold/Silver, I had taken a pretty long break from the Pokemon franchise until two years ago when I picked up Pokemon X/Y for my 3DS on its release. I thought X/Y was a decent enough game, I liked the 3D models, enhancements to the battle system (especially the Exp. ALL given at the very beginning of the game) and finally the integration of Pokemon trading over the internet. I criticized the extremely weak story writing and the laughably easy difficulty. Like I said before, I thought it was a decent Pokemon game and a good first foray into the 3D environment for the franchise, but it didn't really rekindle the love I had for the series when I had played Red/Blue or Gold/Silver as a kid. I wasn't even planning on playing Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire until my girlfriend suggested it was something she was interested in and thought we could play through them together. I figured I would pick it up, play through the first few gyms with her and then most likely forget about it as there are so many other games I've been playing recently. Quite the opposite happened. At the time of this writing, I have completed the game a mere couple weeks after picking it up while my girlfriend has moved on to other games. I could feel the "One more battle" addiction that I had as a kid returning while I was also simultaneously fighting off the "Gotta catch 'em all" compulsion.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS) aren't really totally new Pokemon games, they're really more 3D upgrades or re-imaginings of the 2002 Ruby and Sapphire Game Boy Advance games. Before playing ORAS, I had previously thought I had never played the old Ruby and Sapphire versions, which was mostly true, but as I began playing I realized I had casually played Pokemon Emerald on an emulator back in college. Emerald was a 2003 pseudo sequel/remake to Ruby and Sapphire the same way that Pokemon Yellow was a sequel/remake of Red/Blue. So faint memories of playing the original began returning even though the new game is in 3D and features new Pokemon and all that. The events and story of the original are mostly intact, although my memory of this game is admittedly quite fuzzy, while the battle system and mechanics have been upgraded to match X/Y and also include all of the new X/Y pokemon. You can actually transfer over all of your Pokemon from X/Y using Nintendo's Pokemon Bank software, but there is of course a $5 fee charged to use this service which I shamefully admit I paid for. Gotta catch 'em all, I suppose.

ORAS isn't the same giant leap forward for the franchise the same way X/Y was with new graphics and features and game modes, but it does polish what X/Y did very nicely. The difficulty curve in ORAS feels much more adequate and I found I wasn't constantly annihilating opposing Pokemon trainers in my way, but at the same time it's not exactly what I would describe as a difficult RPG. There are a few new features they've added to the game which were pretty cool. The first of which, called "DexNav", makes it possible to spot wild Pokemon in the grass before even entering a battle with them. This is really nice for completionists like myself who want to guarantee an encounter with a specific Pokemon instead of wandering around back and forth in the grass, just hoping to encounter that one rare Jigglypuff or whatever it is you're looking for. They've also finally made a 3D model of the world map that you can optionally soar around in when you use the HM move "Fly", but this isn't as interesting as you might think. I didn't find the 3D world map model to be that detailed or interesting and, in practice, you'll find that this mode is just a less convenient version of picking your destination off of the 2D map. They've also added a ton more mini-games to play with your Pokemon that improve their base stats or improve their happiness value, but I have no idea what the latter even matters.

Summary
Pokemon ORAS is a pretty cool re-imagining of the original Ruby and Sapphire games which are now nearly 15 years old believe it or not. If you're a fan of the original Ruby and Sapphire versions, you won't be disappointed with this remake. If you're a new fan and looking for an entry point to the series on the 3DS, I'd recommend ORAS over X/Y. A slightly more interesting story, further refinements and additions to the pokemon gameplay, more mega evolutions, and a better balanced and more challenging difficulty gives these games the clear edge in my book. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish the "delta episode", which is apparently some new end-game story they've added on.

Theatrythym Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Square Enix - 2014 - 3DS

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

Finally back with my first review of 2015! Hope everyone out there had a fun and safe holiday break. I happened to take my 3DS with me while visiting family and got a chance to play some Theatrhythm Curtain Call. It's a rhythm game whose soundtrack is made of compositions from nearly every Final Fantasy game to date. Curtain Call is a sequel to the first Final Fantasy Theatrhythm game which came out in 2012. I actually got a chance to play the first game earlier last year, but didn't write a review on it. Both games are basically Square Enix's attempt to try to capture the audience of Final Fantasy fans who love the soundtracks for the series. And as someone who is a huge Final Fantasy and Nobou Uematsu fan, this game is a great tribute to the series and its music

The gameplay in Curtain Call basically consists of listening to a Final Fantasy song and then tapping along on your DS screen with your stylus, guided by on screen tapping prompts. The game scores you on how well you did or if you perform too poorly, you can fail a song a la Rock Band or Guitar Hero. But as long as we're comparing rhythm games to one another, Curtain Call is much more similar to Elite Beat Agents gameplay wise. There are also some light RPG elements which I guess are obligatory because Final Fantasy. You can choose a party of Final Fantasy characters from pretty much every game in the series, give them skills and items and level them up. Your character's level and skills can give you point bonuses or extra health or other helpful things while playing, but the RPG elements of Curtain Call can really be ignored if you're not into that sort of thing. If you're just playing the game for the music and rhythm parts, not micromanaging your party won't hurt you. Or if you're really into maxing out your party for the highest points and most health, that's cool too. But I guess it doesn't speak too well about the importance of Curtain Call's RPG system if you can completely ignore it while playing the game

Let me just say that having played both games, Curtain Call is completely superior to the original game in every way. If you want to try this series out, go straight after Curtain Call and don't bother with its predecessor if you have the choice. Curtain Call has every single song from the original plus way more. It also has more unlockable characters, a slightly more complex RPG system, a hefty growing library of DLC, and more gameplay modes than the original including a multiplayer mode.

Summary:
Curtain call is the the perfect type of portable game for me. Gameplay sessions can be short - you don't have to commit a huge amount of time to playing the game and you can save pretty much at any point. It's also quite easy to pick back up after not having played for several weeks. It's a great tribute to the quality musical compositions in the Final Fantasy series and seeing all of the FF characters be cartoonized was actually kind of adorable. There's also now some DLC out for Square Enix games other than Final Fantasy. Hooray for Chrono Trigger DLC! It's a nice addition to your 3DS library if you're a Final Fantasy fan or a fan of rhythm games. It's a must-buy if you're both!

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (Smash 4)

Sora Ltd. (Nintendo) / Bandai Namco Games - 2014 - 3DS

I am huge, huge fan of the Smash Bros. series. I've poured literally thousands of hours into the first three Smash games and love them very dearly. I first played Smash 64 at a friend's house and instantly fell in love with this series' accessibility and wacky party game-like zaniness that all came wrapped in a package of Nintendo characters I already was familiar with. After dozens of hours of play, my friends and I found that we really enjoyed playing with the items off and on the more neutral stages, and we started playing the game from a more competitive angle. When Melee came out, its faster game speed and emphasis on combos and juggling nicely facilitated this playstyle and I fell deeper in love. Brawl didn't have Melee's speed, depth or balance, but Brawl mods like Project M have quenched my thirst for playing Smash competitively and I actually recently competed in a national Project M tournament earlier this year. (Don't bother looking for my name among the finalists, although I did manage to take 3 stocks off of one of the guys who tied for 7th). Anyway, I wanted to preface this review with my history of competitive Smash so you know where I'm coming from here when I talk about Smash 4.

As of this writing, the WiiU version of Smash 4 has yet to be released, so the version of the game I'm reviewing is the 3DS one. This is the first iteration of Smash that has appeared on a handheld platform, and I'm glad to say it's made the transition about as well as it possibly could have. Any complaints I'd have about the mobile version of the game would be more against the 3DS' hardware than Smash 4's software. The circle pad feels a bit flimsy for a quick reflex based fighting game like Smash, but other than that, the game plays fine. I still don't like looking at that tiny screen and my hands do start to hurt after after a few matches of gripping that un-ergonomic surface of the 3DS, but those are more complaints against the 3DS than Smash 4. Speed wise, Smash 4 plays somewhere in between Melee's speed and Brawl's speed, although Smash 4 retains Brawl's "floaty" feel when characters are airborne. I actually think this "game feel" is a good fit for the 3DS version of Smash 4. I don't really want to have to press a million buttons really quickly on the tiny 3DS gamepad. I think the game speed of Smash 4 is appropriate for the mobile hardware and I don't think it would work if Nintendo tried to put a game as fast as Melee or Project M on the 3DS, even if they could.

I know most players treat Smash as a party game, but I'm going quickly discuss how Smash 4 plays as a competitive fighter because I belong to that small subset of hardcore Smash players who are interested in such things. I know some fellow competitive Smashers may disagree with me here, but I don't think Smash 4 really works as a competitive game. At least not in the same way Melee or Project M do. I know Nintendo has made concessions to competitive players like "For Glory" mode and the neutral "Omega" versions of each stage, but I don't think the actual game engine quite facilitates deep competitive play. While the slow speed and floaty feel makes the game feel appropriate for the 3DS, it also de-emphasizes combos and technical skill. In Melee and P:M, once you win the situation that is referred to in fighting games as the "neutral position", you can use combos, prediction and technical play to rack up as much damage as possible while your opponent uses mix-ups and DI (Directional Influence) to attempt to escape your combos and counter your efforts. These deep and complex systems are what I love about Smash. Almost none of these systems are present in Smash 4. In my experience, once a player wins neutral in Smash 4, they can get one or maybe two hits - that's it. Then the situation is reset to neutral again. I recently competed in a local Smash 4 tournament and I found it to be...well... not really that much fun. Games took nearly 8 minutes to finish, even when we played with only 3 stocks (competitive smash is normally played with 4). Systems like "auto-sweet spotting the ledge", "multiple air dodges", and blast zones being too far away all contribute to Smash 4 just not feeling quite right when played competitively.

But alright, enough comparisons to Melee and Project M. As a party game, Smash 4 is just as fun as ever. Once my friend and I stopped trying to play this game competitively, turned the items back on and played on some of the non-omega versions of the stages, the game became very fun for me again and I found myself enjoying Smash's wacky "anything can happen" feel all over again. The roster of selectable fighters has been expanded from Brawl's 39 characters to 49 (50 if you count the Mewtwo DLC) and you can additionally play as any Mii character found on your 3DS. You can also customize your fighter's movesets which is something I admittedly haven't played around with much yet. Old game modes from previous iterations make a return and are joined by new ones like "Smash Run" which is the sort-of successor to Brawl's "Subspace Emissary" which can also be played multiplayer in Smash 4. Speaking of which, the multiplayer on the 3DS works pretty nicely. It's quick and easy to set up and we never had a problem with connectivity, even when there were tons of 3DS's in the room at the local Smash tournament. I've only ever played one Smash 4 game where I experienced any lag as opposed to Brawl's online multiplayer which was a borderline unplayable laggy mess.

Summary:
Smash 4 may not be the competitive successor to Melee like I foolishly hoped it might be, but it's still a really fun party game. I think it's great that tons of people will now be able to play Smash together on-the-go now. It'll also be nice to have something to do now when waiting at Melee/P:M tournaments in between matches. Also if you're interested in learning about competitive Smash, I would highly, highly recommend this documentary on YouTube. It's an 8-part series and is kind of long, but it's really well made and provides a window into why players like me have fallen in love with playing the Smash series competitively. Also if you own Brawl, go download Project M.

Minecraft

Mojang - 2011 - PC/X360/XboxOne/PS3/PS4/Mobile/Vita

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

Wooo 50 reviews! Wooo!! When selecting which games I'll write about each week, I give priority to the more obscure games that people may not have heard of. I think it's important to shine a spotlight on the smaller indie titles that may have slipped through the cracks. Games like To the Moon, The Swapper and The Stanley Parable all offer amazing unique experiences and are deserving of attention and discussion, but tend to run under the radar because they're not behind big publishers. I was thinking for my 50th review maybe I would review one of my all-time favorite video games. A game that I really love, like Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII. But nah, people already know about those games. So I'm here this week to shine a spotlight on a game you may not have heard of. It's a little indie game I discovered called Minecraft.

If you didn't pick up on the heavy sarcasm at the end of that last paragraph and/or are otherwise oblivious to the video game world, Minecraft is hugely popular. Like HUGE. To date, it's sold nearly 50 million copies across all platforms making it one of the best selling video games of all time, according to Wikipedia. That's more than the original Super Mario Bros. A public beta of Minecraft was released in 2009 and it spread like wildfire across the internet, solely through word of mouth. It was officially released in 2011 and has now made it's creator, Markus Persson (a.ka. Notch), like 97 trillion dollars from sales and merchandise. Don't look that last number up, but it's probably true.

So what makes Minecraft so popular? First of all, it's mind blowing. The first time I played Pokemon Red/Blue? Mind blown. First time I played Ocarina of Time? Mind blown. If you've never had your mind blown by a video game, I don't really know how to quantify that for you. The first week I owned Minecraft, I played it obsessively. And when I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about playing it. It's a completely absorbing experience. The other reason I think Minecraft is so popular is that there are just so many ways you can play the game. You can play it like a survival game where you forage for resources and see how long you can stay alive. You can play it like an exploration game, just traversing the vast landscapes and seeing what you'll discover. You can play it like a traditional single player game where you upgrade your weapons and equipment and eventually get strong enough to take down the final boss. You can play it like a creative game because the game engine literally allows you to construct whatever you can dream up, as long as you have the materials. Or you can play with friends and blow each other's stuff up. And the best part is that none of these playstyles are mutually exclusive.

I was a huge fan of LEGOs as a kid. And I guess I still am as an adult. So the creative building block element of Minecraft is really appealing to me. The entire world of Minecraft is randomly and procedurally generated each time you start a new game or explore a new area. The terrain that is generated is essentially just made up of little blocks that the game engine will allow you to remove and replace however you see fit. There's quite a bit possible with just that game mechanic alone. But then you add in the fact that there are rare blocks that are generated like the gold ore block or the diamond ore block that can be used to make more complex objects or tools in the game... this really makes the exploration aspect of the game addicting and satisfying. Then there's the redstone ore. Oh man the redstone. Minecraft's redstone actually allows the player to create complex circuitry with logic gates in the game of Minecraft. People have made calculators and functioning CPUs in the game of Minecraft. That's CRAZY. I hope that helps you understand what a powerful creative tool the engine of Minecraft is. Then there's the people that have recreated famous structures or landmarks in Minecraft. There's the Minecraft Enterprise, the world of Game of Thrones in Minecraft, and Pharrell Williams' "Happy" recreated in game through the engine of Minecraft. That's just awesome.

Summary:
If you want to learn more about Minecraft, its developers, and the impact it's had on the games industry, check out this pretty cool documentary on youtube. If you somehow haven't played this game, you really should give it a try. If you know me personally and want to play on my server, give me a shout. And if you're one of those people who've stayed clear of this game because "eww the graphics are bad", I'm gonna come smack you. You're missing out on one of the most important and unique video game experiences ever created.

Risk of Rain

Hopoo Games - 2013 - PC

Risk of Rain is a 2D side scrolling roguelike shooter. Imagine if Spelunky had a bigger emphasis on combat. The object of Risk of Rain is to complete all six of its levels without dying. All of the levels in Risk or Rain are pseudo randomly generated and the monsters and powerups in the level are also randomly generated. In order to advance to the next level, you must find and activate the teleporter hidden in each level. Activating the teleporter summons the level's boss monster, which is also random, and many hordes of enemies. You'll want to be sure you've found enough powerups in the level so you're adequately prepared to fight the boss when you activate the teleporter. But don't spend too much time wandering around looking for powerups because every five minutes or so, the game's difficulty level automatically increases, spawning more tougher and stronger monsters. It creates a nice little time management risk/reward metagame similar to the one that's present in Spelunky. There's also light RPG elements in the game where killing monsters gives you EXP and money. EXP is used to level up your character and get stronger while money can be used to unlock containers scattered around the level to obtain new powerups and items.

Risk of rain can be tackled solo or cooperatively and co-op mode can be played over the internet or couch co-op style. I played the game all three ways, and I must say I enjoyed playing the game co-op more than single player, but the co-op exposes some of the game's flaws. First off, the game doesn't seem to adequately balance the difficulty to account for the extra player(s). It seemed noticeably easier to me co-op as opposed to single player. The other problem is that when one player dies, the other player is left to fend for themselves which isn't really that fun for either player. When one of us died, we usually just restarted the game.

I usually prefer playing games like this couch co-op style, because it's easier to share the experience with another person when they're actually physically present in the room. But the couch co-op mode here has a few problems. The game in general can become a bit hectic with bullets and powerups and enemies flying all over the screen. But when 2 or 3 players all share the same screen, it can become a bit hard to follow and tell what's going on. Also because there's only one camera in the couch co-op mode, all the players have to make an effort to stick together which can be hard to coordinate. The preferable way to play this game seems to be the over the internet multiplayer so that each player has their own camera and is free to explore as they please. Although even the internet multiplayer was a bit tricky to set up initially. You have to figure out your IP and share it with your friends and all that. I had to change some firewall settings and forward some ports as well. The actual implementation of the internet multiplayer here seems a little bare and clunky. It kind of reminded me of how internet gaming was in the late 90s. Maybe I've become spoiled by all these games that handle internet matchmaking with friends very gracefully and smoothly

The controls for Risk of Rain are pretty simple. The default character can jump, shoot, dodge and has two special shooting abilities which are on a cooldown. There are other characters in the game that are unlockable and a slightly different moveset, abilities and statistics.

Summary:
Boiled down to its simplest mechanics, the game is just shooting enemies, looking for powerups and waiting for your cooldowns to recharge. But Risk of Rain is a game that really does feel like it's greater than the sum of its parts. Always competing against the clock gives a constant sense of urgency. Leveling up and unlocking new powerups and items lends a real sense of power and progression throughout the game. Somehow surviving against an impossible number of enemies on screen gives a great sense of accomplishment. Risk of Rain is a mechanically and graphically simple game, but you may end up spending more time than you would think playing it once it gets its hooks into you. Check it out