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.

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball

Software Creations - 1994 - SNES

I am not a baseball fan. I played softball in high school more or less against my will for 3 or 4 years. I was terrible at it and the experience made me hate the sport of baseball. It's quite boring compared to other sports I watch or play; there's just a lot of standing around and waiting for something to happen. And watching baseball on TV is even more dull and uninteresting to me. So understand when you read this that I am not, for example, a football fan telling you how great Madden is or a soccer fan telling you amazing FIFA is. I am someone who hates baseball telling you that my favorite sports video game is actually my least favorite sport

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (KGJPMLB) is actually the first of four baseball games to bear Griffey's name. There was another one made for the SNES and two more for the N64. I haven't bothered playing the other games in the series because I'm sure they probably added a bunch of new features and depth and realism to the game, which is not really what I look for in a sports game. The whole realism thing is exactly what turns me off in modern sports games too. I don't care if LeBron James' face has 90 billion polygons and the sweat will roll realistically down his face or whatever. I want to make LeBron James do 17 backflips, dunk the ball and shatter the glass NBA Jam style. I want to be able to piledrive players on the opposite team way after the whistle NFL Blitz style. I want fantasy in sports games, not realism. The beauty of KGJPMLB is in its simplicity and its goofiness, not depth or realism.

Ever played Divekick? The metagame of KGJPMLB is sort of similar. The buttons and controls are easy to grasp, so the difficulty and fun of the game lies not with memorizing complex sets of buttons, but more with trying to predict what your opponent will do. And like Divekick, the game is best played with another human opponent, not by yourself. One player plays the batter and the other will play the pitcher. And just as in real baseball, this is where the main interaction of the game lies. But KGJPMLB speeds up the normal slow pace of baseball by cutting out all of the downtime and waiting in the game and speeding up the action. The pitcher will be able to control the speed of his pitches, holding down for a fastball and holding up for a changeup. The pitcher can also throw curveballs, holding either left or right to make the ball veer wildly back and forth. The hitting/pitching mechanics are simple and well implemented. As a batter, you'll probably find the game difficult to play on reaction. You'll have a huge advantage if you've caught on to the pitchers patterns and can guess what speed and direction the ball is coming at. And as the pitcher, you need to keep varying the pitches to keep the batter on his toes. It's so satisfying as a pitcher when you throw two consecutive fastballs and then the batter swings way early at your changeup and curses you out.

As I mentioned before, the game is also kind of goofy. Apparently KGJPMLB had difficulty securing the rights to depict actual players from the MLB player's association. As such, Ken Griffey, Jr. is the only real MLB player to appear in the game, despite the game depicting real teams and real stadiums. This opened the door for KGJPMLB to take a little creative license with the player's names on each team. The player's names on each team in the game belong to a specific theme. For instance, the Kansas City Royals are all named after Presidents (A. Lincoln, J. Kennedy, R. Nixon etc.), the Boston Red Sox are named after characters from the show Cheers (C. Claven, N. Peterson, S. Malone etc.), and the Milwaukee Brewers are superheroes' secret identities (C. Kent, P. Parker, B. Wayne etc.). It's kind of a fun "guess the theme" mini-game each time you play a new team. KGJPMLB is animated in a sort of cartoonish way that matches perfectly matches its goofy, fun gameplay. When players overrun the ball in the outfield and slam into the backstop, they make a crashing sound and fall comically flat over backwards, which I used to love and laugh at as a kid. After striking out, the players may also break their bats in frustration, which is a nice little touch. Anyone who has played this game before also remembers batters turning to face the screen and yelling "Aww c'mon!" directly at the player after striking out in what I found out is actually a soundbyte of Jim Belushi's voice

Composed by the legendary Tim Follin, this game has a very short, but very excellent soundtrack. Also if you've never heard of Tim Follin before, you should look him up. He's probably never composed for any game that you've played or maybe even heard of, but he's an absolute legendary oldschool chiptune composer. All the while you're playing KGJPMLB, you'll be treated to this rockin' anthem, which is one of my all-time favorite tracks ever composed for any video game. Love that track. So catchy.

Summary:
If you and a friend are looking for a good, quick game to kill some time, you can do worse than KGJPMLB. It's fast, goofy and fun and will probably have the two of you shouting at each other in no time. KGJPMLB is a good example of exactly what I want in a sports game: Crazy, goofy, fast-paced action with a good sense of humor.

Home

Benjamin Rivers - 2012 - PC/Mobile

Like the similarly named Gone Home or even The Stanley Parable, Home is an experience that may challenge your definition of what a game really is. And like those other two games, I think Home is probably best played without any expectations or prior knowledge about the game or what it is. Having said that, you should probably stop reading this if you haven't played Home and think you might want to. Just know that you should play it if you like narrative focused games or unique, thought provoking experiences. Also it's really short and probably best played in one sitting, so set aside an hour or two and play Home. And Gone Home. And The Stanley Parable. If you haven't already.

Still reading eh? I'll try not to spoil too much of this game then. In Home, your character wakes up in an unfamiliar house with blood on his clothes and an injured leg. He can't remember what he was doing before or how he wound up in the house. He soon finds a dead body and makes other unsettling discoveries which prompt him to want to race home as quickly as possible to make sure his wife is okay. Along the way, you'll find clues that may offer insight as to what your character was doing before he blacked out or why he wound up in that house to begin with. You'll also need to make some decisions that will affect how the game plays out. For example, you find a live rat stuck in a mousetrap: do you free him or leave him be?

Graphically, Home is pretty simple. Standard indie game pixel art graphics. But I think the graphic style suits the game perfectly. Home and Lone Survivor are a good demonstration of how when you have a simpler graphic style, the sound and music design becomes more impactful. The player is paying more attention to what they're hearing to as opposed to what they're seeing. I don't think Home had superb sound design, but it was a good example of less is more. Most of the time, you'll just hear the player character's footsteps and maybe the occasional background noise which are adequate to create the atmosphere. But when you hear something unexpected, it can be very surprising or unsettling. I did have a few control issues with the game though. On several occasions, I accidentally skipped some text that I was still reading and the game wouldn't repeat the text or go back to it. And the game felt a bit unresponsive sometimes when playing with a controller, but these are minor complaints.

Okay, past this point is spoiler territory. The ending of this game warrants some discussion because it's what makes the game unique and interesting. But I don't think I can dance around the ending without revealing it, so if you don't want the game spoiled, stop reading.

The game does a good job of creating suspense and setting you up with mysteries like "Who killed the man in the house? What was your character doing in that house? Where is your wife? Is she alive or dead? Are you the murderer?". Depending on your actions and decisions, you'll get clues that can support theories about the answers to these questions. But the game will not directly give you any sort of concrete ending. It's left vague and up to the player's interpretation of the clues and events to draw conclusions about them. In fact, at the end Home, the game will link you to its homepage (ha ha) where you can see other player's interpretations of the game's events and share your own. I was initially kind of put off by this. I think I was expecting the kind of ending that 999 had where there's a great twist at the end, the player is given satisfying answers to all of the mysteries of the game, and all of your questions are explained and wrapped up. Nothing like that here. After being initially dissapointed, I decided to play through Home again since it's only an hour or so long. I found I enjoyed it more the second time where I could focus on the details and try to form my own viewpoints on the game's ending.

Summary:
Home certainly isn't for everyone, but I love this style of game. I love games that tell me a good story or can make me stop and think a bit about what the game was trying to communicate. I hear Benjamin Rivers is now working on what is being described as a "futuristic sci-fi psychological romance" game. Sounds completely crazy, and I'd like to play it

Chrono Trigger

Squaresoft - 1995 - SNES/PS1/DS/Mobile

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

I wonder why Japanese style role playing games aren't made much anymore. At least they're not released as frequently as they used to be. Especially when you compare what's been released in the last generation of gaming systems to what was released on the SNES or the PS1. It seems like SNES/PS1 JRPGs usually sold well, were usually well received and games like Final Fantasy VII (PS1) and Chrono Trigger (SNES) are now often referred to as some of the best games ever made. A video I watched recently suggests that JRPGs like Chrono Trigger are on the rise again. I sure hope so. By the way, you should totally watch all of PBS Game/Show's videos. Good stuff.

Referring to themselves as "the dream team", Chrono Trigger was the brainchild of Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of the Final Fantasy series), Yuji Horii (creator of the Dragon Quest series) and Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball Z). Sakaguchi designed the battle system, so everything will feel familiar to anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game before. There's the active time battle system, potions and ethers and all that stuff. Horii wrote most of the story and scenarios with input from Toriyama. Both Horii and Toriyama were big fans of time travel fiction and wrote the game around the theme of time travel. Toriyama did a lot of the artwork for the game including the character designs and the visual styles for each time period. When I think about it, Chrono Trigger shares quite a few stylistic similarities with Dragonball Z. It's especially evident in the future and prehistoric time periods, whereas the present and middle ages feel more like they're out of Dragon Quest. So it's pretty much like playing a Dragon Quest game set in a world out of Dragonball Z with the battle system of an old school Final Fantasy.

Squaresoft also commissioned a then unknown and unproved composer, Yasunori Mitsuda to do the soundtrack for the game. Chrono Trigger has become one of my all time favorite video game soundtracks and it's some of Mitsuda's best work. Tracks like Time Circuits, Silvard, Secret of the Forest, Chrono Trigger and Frog's Theme blow my mind. Keep in mind when you listen to these they were made in 1995 on a SNES. Also keep in mind this was Mitsuda's very first soundtrack. Crazy. No one should be this good on their first try. The tracks perfectly complement the time period and scenery and art style to create mood. Exactly what a good soundtrack should do. There's even little musical motifs he repeats throughout the soundtrack, altering them slightly to fit the mood of each track. Amazing stuff. Also Robo's Theme sounds suspiciously like Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give you Up". Just sayin'.

The main character of Chrono Trigger is a boy named Crono. Yeah, Chrono and Crono. It gets confusing. I'm guessing in Japanese, Crono's name is written as some clever play on the word for "time" rather than just dropping the "h" from "chrono", but whatever. In the beginning of the game, Crono's scientist friend accidentally transports them 400 years into the past while testing a new invention. When trying to get back to the present, the party way overshoots their destination and winds up in the year 2300. When they arrive in the future, they find the world is in ruins. Few humans are left, there is no food and the Earth is a barren wasteland. The find out that the Earth was practically destroyed in 1999 by a giant monster called Lavos who emerged from deep in the Earth's core, where he had been resting for millions of years, slowly absorbing the Earth's energy. Yes, the Earth is destroyed in 1999. Keep in mind this game was made 20 years ago, but they probably should have picked a date farther in the future to avoid dating themselves. Most of the game's plot then deals with the party trying to find a way to defeat Lavos and spare the Earth from being destroyed in 1999. You'll need to time travel to different eras to learn how to defeat Lavos, enlisting help from a robot from the future, a cave woman from the prehistoric era, and even a talking frog from medieval times. The story's tone covers everything from adventurous & light-hearted to mysterious & thrilling and even sometimes bleak & depressing. It's well paced, and there are memorable characters and events that held my interest throughout the game

Gameplay wise, Chrono Trigger feels like a pretty standard old school Final Fantasy style RPG. You wait for your action meter to fill up, perform an action and repeat. There's really nothing too special about the battle system in Chrono Trigger, which is kind of disappointing. But even with a bland combat system, there's still fun to be had in battles though. The fights will feel challenging, but also not unfair. I never feel like I need to sit and grind in Chrono Trigger, and I do feel like that's necessity in some of the older Final Fantasy games and other older JRPGs. Which is fine if you like grinding, but I don't. If you get stuck on a boss in Chrono Trigger, you're probably not using the correct strategy. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, while others are magic weak. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, but only after using magic. Some have attack patterns you can exploit. You kind of have to experiment to find which strategies work best on which bosses. And I like having to figure out that these strategy puzzles rather than having to grind to get past bosses.

Chrono Trigger is notably one of the first RPGs to have a seamless transition between exploring and fighting. When you encounter an enemy while exploring, a menu just pops up and you start fighting, no transition or screen wipe to another battle scene or anything like that. It's also one of the first games I can think of to have multiple different endings depending on what actions you choose and which sidequests you do. There's also a good amount of optional sidequesting you can do to see more of a certain character's background story while also obtaining more powerful weapons and equipment for that character. There's even a secret party member you can unlock if you make the proper dialogue choices and do the appropriate sidequests.

Summary:
In short, Chrono Trigger is a fun and memorable adventure if you like old school JRPGs. The battle system is a bit unimaginative, but the game is carried by its well paced story, inspired art design and its incredible soundtrack. I played through its sequel Chrono Cross and... kinda didn't like it much. I'd love to see another game in the Chrono series and it seems now is a perfect time for it what with Square Enix's recent financial struggles. Another Chrono game seems like money in the bank to me. That and a FF7 HD remake.

Thomas Was Alone

Mike Bithell - 2012 - PC/PS3/Vita

What an unusual game this was. In Thomas Was Alone, you can switch control between several multi-colored rectangles while trying to guide them through each of the game's 100 levels. Throughout each level, a narrator with a British accent tells you what each of the rectangles is thinking or feeling. Each of the levels are very short and are completed by aligning each of your rectangles with its matching outline that is found somewhere in the level.

I found this game to be a bit disappointing and uninteresting. Oh it has interesting ideas, sure, but the execution of these ideas falls flat. For instance, the game's story is about these multicolored rectangles that are given names and personalities and are supposed to represent artificial intelligences in a computer system. But I couldn't remember which name belonged to which color rectangle and the story became very hard to follow. Even if I could remember who was what color, the story was pretty abstract and uneventful. The rectangles just wander around and you hear what they're thinking, but nothing interesting ever really happens to them. There's also several references to other games and pop culture, but they're not at all clever or well done. They're just kind of thrown in without purpose

The other interesting idea this game has - but doesn't execute well on - is the concept that each rectangle has a different ability. There's one that can double jump, one that can float in water, and one that has a bouncy trampoline-like property. But there's nothing really new or novel done with the puzzle solving sections that incorporates using all of your rectangle's abilities in a mechanically interesting way. There's one rectangle who's slow and fat and can't jump high. And nearly all of the puzzles in the game involve simply getting the fat rectangle to the end of the level which is usually time consuming and annoying. The puzzle solutions are almost always obvious and very frequently tedious. I feel Thomas Was Alone misses the fundamental point of why puzzle games are fun. In a good puzzle game, the fun is found in trying to figure out the solution to a difficult problem. You feel an endorphin rush when you have that "Ah ha!" moment and finally figure out a problem you've been stuck on. Carrying out the solution to a puzzle once you know what to do is usually not that fun or interesting. Thomas Was Alone presents you problems with obvious solutions over and over again. It's all execution and no critical thinking.

Summary:
I didn't really care for Thomas Was Alone. It doesn't have the charm or humor of Portal, it doesn't have the exhilarating platforming of Donkey Kong Country 2, and it certainly doesn't have the mind bending puzzles of Braid. But it's unique and it has its own identity. And I'd rather unique games like this be made than copy/paste sequels or games recycling the same ideas and gameplay for the millionth time

Braid

Jonathan Blow - 2008 - PC/PS3/X360

Braid is my gold standard for puzzle design in video games. It introduces a simple concept - most of the puzzles in Braid revolve around time manipulation. You have control of a character and also control over of the flow of time in that character's world. It throws a few puzzles at you that require understanding of these concepts. It starts simple and then elaborates. Each stage tests your understanding of the previous stage's mechanics and also adds in a new layer of complexity. As an avid gamer, as a programmer, and especially as a fan of puzzle games, I'm usually able to learn and understand game systems very quickly. In most puzzle games, it's usually fairly easy for me to figure out where the game wants me to go, what it wants me to do and how I'm supposed to do it. There were a few puzzles in Braid where I just stared at the TV screen for minutes, just trying to comprehend the complex game systems that were being layered to create Braid's sublime puzzles. Braid's puzzles are completely mind bending, but in the best way. It feels great when a solution clicks and you finally figure out what you're supposed to do. And it boggles my mind even more to think how the developer came up with these puzzles.

Braid's levels are divided up into 5 short worlds. Each world introduces and elaborates on a new puzzle solving mechanic. For instance the first world, which is labeled world 2 for some reason, simply introduces character movement and the rewind time mechanic. You can move left and right on a 2d plane and jump just like a platformer. Then it teaches you that you can rewind time to undo your actions Prince of Persia style. This can of course be used to cheat death and undo platforming mistakes you make. You'll need to collect all of the puzzle pieces in each world to unlock final world in Braid. Puzzle pieces are always obviously placed, but difficult to obtain. They are frequently placed behind locked doors or put up high in the air and its up to the player to figure out how to obtain them, which requires a good understanding of the game's time mechanics. A heads up though - the first world is home to my least favorite puzzle in the game. Anyone who has played Braid before knows the one I'm talking about. The solution is kind of ridiculous and out of place with the rest of Braid's excellent puzzle design. You're not wrong for looking up the solution for how to get all of the first world's puzzle pieces.

The second world introduces objects that have a green glow on their outline. With these objects, their physical position and movement is completely unaffected by the flow of time. This concept can be trickier than you would think. In the third world, the flow of time is directly tied to your character's physical position. As you move forward, time advances. As you walk backward, time rewinds. This idea is then combined with the second world's mechanics to create some really mind bending puzzles. The fourth and fifth worlds are similar, both introducing new mechanics and combining them with concepts from previous worlds. The fifth world especially is home to some really excellent and difficult problems.

Where Braid falters a bit is with its story. It's presented by reading short bits of text that are found before each level. The narrative feels very abstract and artsy. There's not a clear sense of who the main character is or what he's struggling with. There's something about the main character and a princess he's in love with or used to be in love with or something, I don't know. It's so unclear and "open to interpretation". I still can't decide if the ending to this game makes any sense or not. I kind of don't think it does. It feels like the developer may have had some message or theme he wanted to communicate to the player, but Braid failed to connect with me on a narrative level.

Summary:
Overall, Braid is a good demonstration of excellent game and puzzle design. Aside from that one stupid puzzle in the first world, I've never been so impressed by creative ideas mixed with well thought out design. It's a bit short and the story is kind of nonsense, but Braid more than makes up for that with its sublime puzzles. If you like these types of problem solving games, Braid is absolutely a must play. The Witness, Jonathan Blow's next game, should be out in the coming months. It's definitely my most anticipated game of 2014 and I'm hopeful it'll be as well made as Braid. Expect a post on it later this year.

Hotline Miami

Dennaton Games - 2012 - PC/Vita/PS3/PS4

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

Hotline Miami is a top-down fast paced action game set in Miami in the late 80s. You play as a delusional, mask wearing psychopath who receives cryptic voicemals on his answering machine instructing him to kill various groups of people. You'll use a combination of ranged and melee weapons to make a bloody pixelated mess of every single enemy on the screen before being allowed to proceed to the next stage.

First off, let me just say that this game's soundtrack is completely awesome. It's a collaboration between several different artists who each give their take on what the Miami neon nightlife of the 80s sounded like. Most of the tracks are kind of electronic/dance/techno of some sort, which isn't even my thing, but they all mesh perfectly together to give this game amazingly unique style. Just listen to tracks like Daisuke (El Huervo), Hotline (Jasper Byrne), Knock Knock (Scattle), Miami Disco (Perturbator), or Paris (M.O.O.N). All different artists, all amazing tracks. This is my favorite game soundtrack in recent memory for a few reasons. A: It's awesome. B: It's ****ing awesome C: It breaks the mold of having this fully orchestrated, symphonic sound that most modern games seem to be conforming to, especially the big budget ones. It's proof that modern games don't need or even shouldn't have that symphonic sound if they want to stand out and create a unique and memorable soundtrack. I really hope more developers/creative minds take note of the Hotline Miami soundtrack and we can start exploring new directions in game soundtracks. That's my rant on that. Anyway fun fact, Jasper Byrne, who contributed a few tracks to Hotline Miami's soundtrack, is also the same guy who developed Lone Survivor

So how does the game play? You'll need to switch up melee and ranged weapons to defeat each enemy in the level. Melee weapons are fast and silent, but if an enemy notices you approaching, you're probably toast. Ranged weapons allow you to combat enemies at a safer distance, but they usually makes a lot of noise which can attract other nearby enemies which is often more risky. Nearly every weapon in the game is a one hit kill though, so you have to constantly be on your toes. The game awards you on a point system for killing enemies more quickly or for killing several enemies in a row. Certain amounts of points can give you unlockable weapons and masks. Masks can enhance a certain playstyle or statistic. For example, there's a mask that increases your view distance, and there's also a mash that increases your running speed. Most of the masks I found didn't alter the gameplay too substantially though. The levels get progressively harder throughout the game and I died a ton, especially near the end. But dying evokes what I like to call "the good kind of frustration" in this game. It never feels unfair or like the game isn't playing by its own rules. If you die, it's probably your fault. You weren't careful enough, or you didn't pay attention to a certain enemy or you made a bad strategic decision. It's the kind of frustration that makes you want to replay the level over and over until you get it right.

In addition to the jammin' soundtrack, this game has a pretty unique art style as well. Everything is pixelated, which seems to be the indie game norm right now, but it still feels very unique to this game. During dialogue, all of the characters have ugly pixelated disembodied heads that hover eerily back and forth during conversation. This combined with the crazy psychedelic neon lights that constantly fade in and out in the background make the game feel just like a late 80s/early 90s PC game. But at the same time, it's still uniquely Hotline Miami. Later in the game, your character will start hallucinating and seeing visions of other people wearing animal masks, and also visions of mutilated bodies and dead corpses. It reminded me a bit of the hallucinations experienced by characters in Silent Hill, which I loved. The amount of violence in this game is also pretty high, but it's kind of offset by the game's pixelated art style. At the end of each level, you'll be standing on a mountain of bloody, pixelated corpses which gives a weird sense of awesomeness.

Summary:
If you can handle a bit of challenge, Hotline Miami is a good time. It's a bit short, a bit weird and a bit violent, but it has a lot of style. I'm looking forward to Hotline Mami 2 which should be out later this year.

Star Wars: TIE FIghter

Totally Games - 1994 - PC

(See also my Top 10 Star Wars Games)

Greatest Star Wars game ever made. Trust me, I've played nearly all of them. I've played the good ones (Jedi Knight/Dark Forces, Knights of the Old Republic), I've played the bad ones (Rebel Assault, Super Bombad Racing), and I've played the ones no one has ever heard of (The Gungan Frontier, Droidworks). TIE Fighter stands alone as the greatest Star Wars game ever made, and one of the great classic old-school PC games. 

Star Wars: TIE Fighter is a flight simulator game. Remember when that used to be a genre? Where have all of those games gone? So if you're looking to play this game, you need to fight a USB joystick. Remember when those used to be a thing? Ahh the 90s... But seriously, get yourself a fight stick. This game DOES NOT play well with a mouse or keyboard. I haven't tried using a controller, but for the optimal TIE Fighter pilot experience, you're probably going to want a joystick.

So problem #1 is finding a USB joystick in the year 2014. Problem #2 is getting this game to run on a modern PC. I've done it before, it's a pain in the butt, but it's possible. Steam or GOG can we PLEASE get a re-release of this game with compatibility settings for modern machines? Please? Anyway, problem #3 is that this game was made in 1994 for DOS. So, you know, it kind of looks like it was made for DOS in 1994. Here's a tip though if you're trying to get this game to work: look for the remastered collectors edition. The model resolutions and polygon counts are a bit higher. It still looks like garbage but, you know, slightly higher resolution garbage. Or if you know me personally, ask and I'll let you borrow my CD that has all the compatibility files with it. But if you can get past those three problems, you're in for an amazing game.

Star Wars: TIE Fighter is a sort-of sequel to Star Wars: X-Wing, which was released a year earlier in 1993. I say "sort-of" sequel because it's essentially the same game, but you play as the Empire instead of the Rebellion, which is way, way cooler. Star Wars fans know what I'm talking about. There's also a few game engine upgrades, mechanical tweaks and graphical enhancements in TIE Fighter which make it slightly more polished than its predecessor. You'll start as a lowly trainee pilot, given the Imperial standard TIE Fighter at the beginning of the first campaign. The first levels start you off doing routine cargo inspections and escort missions while teaching you the controls for the ship, which are surprisingly complex. Nearly every button on the keyboard is mapped to one ship function or another. As you progress through the campaigns, you gain access to additional ships, progressing from TIE Fighter, to TIE Interceptor, to TIE Bomber to eventually experimental prototype craft like the TIE Advanced. The mission types vary as well, from cover missions to bombing raids, to starfighter dogfights, even full on epic assaults as in the movies.

While piloting your craft, you'll usually need to pay attention to several systems at once. You need to watch the recharge rate of your lasers/ions. If there's not enough energy in the cannon bays, you won't be able to fire. Increasing the recharge rate of your cannons draws power from other systems on the craft, like shields or engines. You'll also need to watch the energy level of the shields. If there's not enough energy in the shields, you're defenseless. But increasing the recharge rate of the shields similarly draws power from other systems like engines and cannons. So there's a little power balance subgame you'll be constantly playing throughout the mission which usually gets pretty frantic while your trying to keep one enemy ship in your sights while two or three others are on your tail. Some of the power balance is situational as well. For instance, cannons are not as important when attacking a stationary defense platform with no starfighter support, so cannon power can be redirected to engines or to boost shields. And shields are not as important as the speed to keep up and maneuver with faster targets, like the Rebel A-Wing. Here, shield power should be redirected to engines. The loadout of your craft can be customized as well. Equip the fast, ship seeking concussion missiles when expecting heavy starfighter resistance. Bring slow, but heavy damage dealing proton torpedoes when on a bombing run. Like any good game, there's a good bit of strategy mixed in with the skill required to succeed. 

The game does the movies such great justice. Seemingly every measure was taken to try to deliver the experience of piloting a starfighter just like in the movies. The little details like what systems and weapons and speeds each of the Star Wars craft should have are perfectly replicated here in the game. Concessions are not made. For instance, TIE Fighters, TIE Interceptors and TIE Bombers have no hyperdrives. They need to return back to the star destroyer or space platform from which they launched at the end of the mission. They also have no shielding systems, so they can be destroyed in two or three shots. Just like the movies. It's the little details that give this game so much credit with me and probably with other Star Wars fans as well. The game is even voice acted, and acted surprisingly well considering it was 1994. Most of the missions take place between The Battle of Hoth and The Battle of Endor, but for the super hardcore Star Wars fans, there's a whole set of missions that has you serving for Grand Admiral Thrawn, from Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire books. There's lots of really awesome Star Wars references and homages like that throughout the game.

Summary:

KOTOR and Jedi Knight/Dark Forces come close, but this is definitely the best Star Wars game ever made. Don't believe me? Check this game out. It's fun, fast, requires a good mix of skill and strategy, and is very true to the movies. It's a shame that it's so old and requires a good bit of effort to get the game to run on a modern machine. It would be nice to get a re-release, or dare I ask... a re-make? It would be great to see this game rendered on modern hardware and co-op online play would be amazing. Please someone make this happen... Disney??

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.

Final Fantasy X

Squaresoft - 2001 - PS2/PS3/Vita

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

I picked up the HD remastered versions of Final Fantasy X/X-2 on PS3 when they came out last month, and I replayed FFX for the first time in probably at least 10 years. I remember really enjoying when I first played it and I was worried my memory of the game would be greater than what the game actually was. But I enjoyed it quite a bit a second time around and it held up pretty well aside from the horrendous cutscenes. It's crazy to think about how Square just churned out hit after hit of amazing classic RPGs from this franchise in the 90s and early 00s and then to think about what garbage the FF series has given us since this game. 

A quick sidenote for those who never played a game in this series or are otherwise unaware: The stories and battle mechanics of each game in the Final Fantasy series are completely unrelated. Each game in the series has a completely new cast of characters and settings, and there's nearly always a different battle system with different battle mechanics and rules. The series has some common elements and reoccurring motifs; for instance there's usually magic or summon monsters and for some reason there's almost always a character named Cid that appears somewhere in the game. But you don't have to have played FF9 before FF10 or anything like that.

FF10 (or FFX for you Romans) follows the story of a young man named Tidus who is a star blitzball player from the futuristic city of Zanarkand. Blitzball is some kind of crazy combination of football and soccer, but played underwater. It also serves as FFX's primary minigame. It's kind of broken and clunky, but the football fan in me enjoys it despite its faults. Anyway, in the game's prologue, the Zanarkand blitzball arena is suddenly attacked by a massive whale-looking monster known as "Sin". Sin magically transports Tidus 1000 years into the future to another world called "Spira". While searching for a way to get back home to Zanarkand, Tidus learns about the world of Spira and befriends some of its residents. He learns that Spira has always been under constant torment by the same Sin monster he encountered in Zanarkand. Tidus soon befriends a young girl, Yuna, who is training to become a summoner in hopes to obtain a summon monster powerful enough to destroy Sin. FFX's main storyline deals with Tidus, Yuna and her guardian's journey across Spira and their quest to defeat Sin. 

I found the story and pacing for FFX to be both very good. Now the thing that's an absolute trainwreck and nearly ruins the game are the voice acting and cutscenes. Final Fantasy X was the first game in the series to be voice acted, and it definitely shows. Each cutscene is more awkward and cringe-worthy than the last. You may have seen the infamous laughing scene on YouTube before. Yeah, that's pretty much how all of the cutscenes in this game are. Now the actual story that is behind these cutscenes is pretty good. But oh man, those cutscenes. It might actually be better to watch them on mute. You have to try to focus on what the game is trying to show you, not how the game is showing it. If you can't do that, you'll probably find this game's story pretty laughable. No pun intended. 

Final Fantasy X's battle system is pretty tight and well balanced. Information like damage, status effects, and weaknesses are clearly communicated to the player during battle instead of having to guess which enemies are weak vs. which elements or try to figure out whether the status effect spell you just cast was successful based on what color a sprite is. If you equip your party with the proper "sensor weapons", you will even see strategies on how to defeat specific enemies, their HP, and what their weaknesses are. It's the kind of useful information the FF series always used to hide in the background instead of telling you straight up for some reason. There's a good variety of enemies that all have strengths and weaknesses to different members of your party. For instance flying-type monsters need to be taken down by a ranged fighter, while Tidus' sword is effective on smaller more nimble monsters. Still others may be weak to magic spells and require a Mage to defeat. It's a fun, strategic turn-based battle system that will have you rotating your party members in and out in order to try to exploit enemies' weaknesses.

FFX is notable for not having a world map to explore, which is normally a series staple for Final Fantasy. I was afraid this would be too much like FFXIII, a game which I hated for having linear corridor after linear corridor strung together as level design. But you never really get that feeling in FFX. The level design does a good job with divergent paths and interesting things to do and people to talk to in all of the areas to make you forget there's no world map linking everything together. The level design and pacing is pretty good in this game... except for the puzzle solving sections in stupid cloister of trails areas. People who have played this game before know what I'm talking about. Tedious, time wasting puzzles with random arbitrary logic that you have to solve by trial and error. Terrible game design. Whoever put these in the game needs to be smacked upside the head. 

Final Fantasy X also is notable for being the first game in the series that was not exclusively composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. It was a collaboration between him and some other dudes. It's still a excellent soundtrack, but it sounds different than a lot of the other games in the series, and some of it sounds very un-Final Fantasy to me. Most of the soundtrack has a very electronic and synthesized sound. Still good, just different. Standout tracks include The Main Battle Theme (Nobuo Uematsu),  Rikku's Theme (Nobuo Uematsu), Battle With Seymour (Nobuo Uematsu), Besaid Island (Masashi Hamauzu), and Illusion (Junya Nakano). It's easy to hear each composer's different style and which tracks they contributed to the soundtrack. 

The soundtrack to the HD version was remixed, which I was a little disappointed in. Even though it had been 10 years since I played this game, I have the soundtrack on my phone and listen to it all the time, so some of the remixes were a little jarring to me. The HD remix soundtrack grew on me eventually, some tracks are more subtle and little less "in your face" than the originals and probably more appropriate in certain areas. But at least include the option for me to switch back to the old ones if I want!

Summary:

Overall FFX is a pretty solid game. Solid battle system, excellent soundtrack and good story. Terrible voice acting. I would actually recommend it as a good entry point for newcomers to the series if it weren't for those cutscenes. As it stands though, I'd probably tell Final Fantasy newbies to start with the masterpiece that is FFVII. It's may not be as polished, refined or pretty looking as FFX, but at least it doesn't have this in it.

Okami

Clover Studio - 2006 - PS2/PS3/Wii

This is unfortunately one of those “best game no one has ever played” games. Okami is a very artistic, creative and refreshing take on the "Legend of Zelda" formula. You play as an incarnation of the Japanese Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu, who has returned to the land of Nippon incarnated as a white wolf to save the land from the evil 8-headed dragon serpent Orochi. Everything from the art style, to the musical score is highly Japanese culture infused. But it's more along the lines of ancient Japanese history, folklore and religion than like Japanese anime, for instance.

Art plays an important role in Okami. Early in the game, you'll meet up with Issun, who is an artist, painter and muse. Issun kind of serves as the game's narrator and Amaterasu's voice, the same way the fairy in a Zelda game would. Issun and Amaterasu soon come into the possession of the "celestial brush". It is a magical paintbrush that allows Amaterasu and Issun to perform miracles and is also Okami's main gameplay device. It allows the player to essentially freeze frame the game and paint on the canvas that is the current image on the screen. So for example, after unlocking the wind ability for the brush, painting swirly lines in the sky will cause wind to blow, which may turn a windmill that unlocks a gate blocking your path or something like that. Or in combat, drawing a slash through an opponent will cause a magical sword to appear, cleaving an enemy in two. It's an interesting gameplay device that is both the game's main puzzle solving mechanic and fighting mechanic and also fits in perfectly thematically with the game.

Most of the gameplay in Okami is puzzle solving and fighting with the celestial brush. The brush is used to "perform miracles" which usually involve restoring and healing wildlife or feeding animals. Doing these tasks gives Amaterasu more "praise" (experience), which can be spent to upgrade Amaterasu's stats. Honestly the combat system in Okami was kind of "meh" for me. You pretty much just figure out which brush technique works well on which enemies and then you're good to go. There's not a lot of challenge offered by the combat here. If you're playing Okami, you'll be doing it for the visual style and the presentation of the game's story. Okami's focus on storytelling is pretty strong and the game can get fairly text heavy at certain points. Actually I believe the game's opening cutscene and text bubble intro take a good 10-15 minutes to get through. So if story isn't your thing, you may be put off by the amount of reading you'll need to do. But Okami tells a pretty interesting and unique story. As someone not too familiar with Japanese folklore or the Shinto religion, Okami's interpretation of these things was pretty interesting and fascinating to me and kept me playing through the end.

I don't think I've ever been so positively struck by a game's art direction. Everything in the game has that large brushstroke accent that you typically see in classical Japanese paintings. It makes the entire game look very stylized and painting-ish. Very cool. Check out the screenshot below, click to enlarge it. The art style of this game is a huge plus, and I'm not someone who typically cares about that kind of stuff. It's a great case for art style being more important than realism in games. The excellent soundtrack further helps in immersing the player with the use of traditional Japanese string instruments, wind instruments, and drums. I'm sure the instruments all have specific names, but I'm too lazy to look them up. Here's a sample of the soundtrack. Awesome stuff

Summary:
Okami is a very refreshing and unique experience and it's a shame more people didn't play it when it came out. It's definitely worth a look if you're a Zelda fan or are looking for something very different to play. As long as you're aware of the amount of text reading you'll do in this game, you won't be disappointed.

Shadow of the Colossus

Team ICO - 2005 - PS2/PS3

Shadow of the Colossus is another one of those artsy games that I know is probably just not meant for me. I don’t exactly know who this game is meant for though; I think nearly everyone I've asked about this game has either never played it or found it unremarkable. Yet I frequently see this game on lists of the “best games of all-time” and lists of “games as art”. Games as art? Yeah, I could see that. One of the best games of all time? Ehhhhh I don’t know about that.

In Shadow of the Colossus, you play a nameless hero who has traveled via horse to a faraway temple to bring back the life of some other nameless dead chick whose body you brought with you. The game doesn't tell you how she died or why it’s important to you to bring her back, which seem like kind of fundamental storytelling details to me, but whatever. Some mystical disembodied voice in the temple tells you that if you kill the 16 giant creatures known as colossi that inhabit the surrounding land, that it will somehow magically bring the dead chick back to life.

So the gameplay in Shadow of the Colossus consists of traveling to the various colossus lairs and trying to figure out how to take them down. For each one, you’ll need to figure out where their weak point is and then figure out how to climb up on the colossus and strike it. This usually involves knocking the colossus down or using the environment to climb up on it or something like that. It’s kind of like 16 boss fights from a Zelda game all strung together in a row. If you’re like me, you’ll get a really strong sense of repetition playing this game, which was kind of a turn-off. Plus the colossus fights are usually quite long, which I guess gives a feeling of epicness to the battle when it’s finally over. But if you die or fall off of the colossus while climbing it, you’ll probably get frustrated with the slow pace of the battles like I did.

Summary:
The game does have a few bright spots though - it conveys emotion with very little dialogue which is always cool to me. And figuring out the puzzles on how to defeat the bosses is kind of fun even though executing them can feel kind of tedious. I've seen the soundtrack to this game given a lot of praise across the internet, but the overly epic orchestra sound doesn't typically do a whole lot for me. When new games boast that they have a “fully orchestrated soundtrack!!” my response is usually “well that sucks”. It's not bad I guess, but it's no DKC2

I’m now going to drop some mild spoilers about this game’s ending, so if you’re thinking about actually playing Shadow of the Colossus, you may want to stop reading.

The ending to this game is insanity. Complete insanity. It’s not clear or understandable what happens or why it happened at all. I guess “open to interpretation” is the polite thing to say, but I’m going to stick with “insanity”. It's just so bizarre and abstract and doesn't serve to wrap up the game or conclude the story in any satisfying way. Just weird random crazy things happen to all of the characters. The end. I've heard ICO actually does have a really good ending, but Shadow of the Colossus has kind of scared me away from playing ICO. I still have it on my “games to play” list though, so maybe I’ll finish and review it one of these days, but don't count on it

Towerfall: Ascension

Matt Thorson - 2013 - Ouya/PC/PS4

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

I can't remember the last game I played that was this much pure fun. And I don't think I've laughed and screamed at the TV with any game this much outside of Smash. Towerfall is a fast paced brawler/platformer/shooter game. It guess it kind of defies genre classification. I suppose you could file it under party game? It plays best multiplayer, that's for sure.

Towerfall is kind of like Smash, except every hit is a one hit kill. And the levels wrap around Pac-Man style. And every player has projectiles. So I guess not really like Smash then, but it's similarly as fun. It's easy to pick up and play, the only buttons are jump, shoot and dodge. Moving your character around and learning the game is quick and easy, but like any good game, there's a deceptive amount of depth. You don't always want to shoot when your opponent is expecting you to because then he will dodge and catch your arrow. You also don't want to mindlessly fire away arrows at your opponent because ammo is limited and your opponent can pick up any stray arrows that miss and fall on the ground. You also have to be mindful of opponents that get up close to you as jumping on an enemy's head is also a one hit kill.  You also have to be aware of the edges of the screen and remember that the level wraps around. It's possible to get easy kills on unaware opponents by shooting back across the screen at an enemy on the other half of the level or jump down the bottom of the stage to head stomp somebody on top

There are also powerups that appear throughout the match that can give you arrows that explode on impact, bounce off walls or cut through the stage. Matches are quick, usually averaging about 30 seconds per round, so you'll want to race to pick up powerups as you see them. There are also powerups that can grant you invisibility, flight or trigger arena traps to try to kill your opponents. There's usually a lot happening on screen all at once and matches can get a little hectic, but I mean that in the best way possible. At the end of each round, there's an instant replay system that shows the final kill of the game. This is actually a pretty cool feature because things often happen so quickly that you'll miss how someone died. There's also a good variety of levels that have different powerups, different layouts and different terrain. You can also randomize the rules of Towerfall each round for maximum ridiculousness. One of my favorites was playing under a rule that doesn't show you how many arrows you have left combined with another rule that instantly kills you if you try to fire an arrow when you have no ammo left. The amount of customization and variety in Towerfall is a huge plus

As stated before, Towerfall definitely plays best with friends. The single player is alright for what it is I suppose, but if you're buying Towerfall, you're getting it to play with other people. Towerfall supports up to 4 simultaneous players and I found that 4 seemed to maximize the fun, hilarity and craziness of the games. Towerfall doesn't support online play of any kind which is really unfortunate because I think a game like this could really be fun online. At the same time though, this game is really fun to share with other people in the same room, yelling, laughing and screaming at the TV and at each other. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this game eventually gets some sort of online support though, I would imagine that's going to be an often-requested feature. The only other thing that might be limiting this game is the hardware. This game plays best with 4 people. I happen to have 4 USB controllers for my PC, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority. And I don't think a whole lot of other people have 4 Ouya controllers or 4 PS4 controllers lying around either.

Towerfall: Ascension Video Review

Summary:
If you've heard the positive buzz about this game, it's true. Believe the hype. This game is well designed, fun and fast paced. It's the early leading candidate for my 2014 game of the year. Yes, I know this technically came out last year on the Ouya. But now it's out on platforms that people actually widely own and use, so I hope this game gets lots of exposure in the near future. Check it out if you want a good, fun party game to share with friends

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

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Chunsoft - 2012 - Vita/3DS

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is the sequel to 999, which I played for the first time last year. If you're not familiar with these games, just imagine the Japanese anime interpretation of the movie Saw made into a graphic novel/videogame. And then sprinkle some puzzles on top. Basically 9 people wake up together locked in a room with no memory of how they got there and are forced to play a game riddled with deathtraps in order to find a way out.

Despite my grievances with 999's game design, the quality of the writing enticed me enough to play its sequel. Thankfully, VLR corrects most of the frustrating game design from predecessor. Like 999, VLR has a non-linear story with branching decision points and multiple different endings are required in order to get the "true" ending. VLR implements a much needed "time travel flowchart" where you can skip to any decision point or puzzle you've already encountered in the game, so you don't have to completely restart the game every time you get an ending. Honestly, if 999 had this feature, I could and would have forgiven a lot of that game's faults.

There are numerous UI enhancements to VLR as well. In 999, if you needed to consult your notes when solving a puzzle, you had to flip back and forth between menu screens. I can remember sarcastically thinking "If only the DS had two screens and I could look at both of these things at the same time...". Thankfully, the developers have now taken advantage of the DS' hardware and corrected this annoyance.  There's also now a built in note taking feature which allows you to doodle or jot down quick things that you think may be important later in the game. All puzzle solving sections are now fully three dimensional rooms with a rotating camera rather than a 2D screen, which allowed me to get a better sense of the rooms I was in. Nearly all of the text in the story sections has been supplemented with voice acting. When I first heard this, I was kind of nervous because I've found that bad voice acting can take me out of a game really easily. But I found that the voicework in VLR to be pretty good quality. It really enhanced the game and added more flavor to the characters. I kind of wish 999 was voice acted after playing this.

Where this game stumbles a bit is with the puzzles. They're not really bad puzzles, but they don't give the profound "Ah Ha!" moments like puzzles in games like Portal or Braid. Some of the logic behind the puzzles isn't communicated that well and you kind of have to trial and error your way into what the game wants you to do. Solutions to some other puzzles seem random or ambiguous or arbitrary. It almost reminded me a bit of To The Moon. I loved the writing in that game, but the puzzles didn't mesh with the narrative. They feel like an afterthought, as though some video game police would come by and arrest this game for not being "gamey" enough. The puzzles' only purpose seem to be to ruin the excellent pace set by the narrative. The game seems to grind to a halt at each puzzle section, and I felt like I couldn't get past the poorly integrated puzzles fast enough and get back to the story.

Where 999 made the terrible mistake of forcing the player to repeat puzzle sections, VLR makes the mistake of blasting the user with the same dialogue they've already heard a bunch of times before. If you're going to make a game with 24 endings or whatever it is, at least make each of them different from another. So many of the "false" endings feel like copies of the same thing and a lot of them repeat dialogue verbatim. I think I may have the dialogue telling how the main character initially gets captured committed to my memory for the rest of my life. It's told to you exactly the same way 8 or 9 times verbatim. Whyyyy??? Would it be that hard to write it slightly differently each time in order to keep the player engaged? Or drop slight little tidbits of knowledge or tell the player interesting details or facts not found in the other sections where the same story is told?

If I were to be able to give the director of this game some feedback/advice, it would be to redesign or eliminate the puzzles, don't repeat dialogue and cut back on some of the false endings. There's just too many. More is not always better. This game is really too long, it's significantly longer than 999 and I was ready for this game to be over long before it actually was. But man, the director, Kotaro Uchikoshi, really has a talent for writing compelling sci-fi murder mysteries. The ending to VLR is even more mind blowing and well executed than 999's ending. It's really top notch suspenseful writing. My only criticism is that the game's attempts at humor often miss the mark. But maybe that's a Japanese to English translation thing. Also why must all of the female characters in this game be hyper-sexualized? It's out of place in a murder mystery and doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the writing. It's just seems juvenile and sophomoric. It's a bit hard to buy that the main character would really be thinking about undressing one of the other girls moments after witnessing someone else die, which happens frequently throughout the game.

Summary:
Despite this game's flaws, I still enjoyed it a lot. I think even more than 999. But if this series or this type of game interests you, I would start with 999 first. It's a bit shorter and there's several very important references to 999 in VLR that you won't get if you don't play it first. I recently read that Uchikoshi said he's having trouble securing funding to make a third game in the series due to poor sales of the first two. I hope somehow, someway another game like these gets made. Uchikoshi is an excellent writer and if the kinks in his game design get worked out, Zero Escape 3 would be an instant buy for me

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Rare - 1995 - SNES

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

This game is my childhood. Which is ironic because I never actually owned this game. I can remember riding my bike down to Blockbuster video on the weekend and spending my allowance on renting this game again and again. I'm sure I probably spent enough money renting this game that I could have just bought it. I was a huge fan of the original Donkey Kong Country and this game was an excellent sequel. I remember how mind blowing it was when I found out there was a secret bonus world as a kid.

As an adult, I still love this game and I may have replayed it more now than I ever did as a kid. The platforming is excellently done. It requires a mix of skill, timing and precision and is very satisfying when pulled off correctly. In DKC2, Donkey Kong has been kidnapped by the vile Kaptain K. Rool and it's up to Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie to rescue him. Dixie can float and hover after her jumps while Diddy has a longer cartwheel attack and is a bit faster than Dixie. I remember as a kid loving the safety of Dixie's slow floaty jumps. Now I much prefer blasting through the levels as fast as possible with Diddy's speed.

Of course you can always play the levels more slowly, finding all of the bonus rooms, hidden DK coins and Kong letters. But to me, the satisfaction of perfectly speed running a DKC2 level is unmatched in any other platformer, even a Mario or a Sonic game. The level design in most levels is really excellent and lends itself to be a good challenge for speed running.

DKC2 was the first video game soundtrack I really fell in love with as a kid. I can remember putting a tape recorder up to the TV's speakers and recording the soundtrack on cassette tape so I could listen to it later. Even as an adult I love listening to it at work and David Wise is one of my favorite video game composers next to Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) and Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger). Stickerbrush Symphony, Hot Head Hop, and Disco Train are some highlights, but the whole soundtrack is really solid from top to bottom.

One interesting mechanic in the game that I don't think I've seen in any other platformers is that DKC2 actually kind of discourages you from saving too much. Each time you find a save point in a world, the first save is free. But each time you save the game after that, it costs 2 coins. If you're not playing the game on an emulator, it sort of makes you think twice before mindlessly and habitually saving after every single level. Kind of an interesting risk/reward mechanic, I think it like to see that implemented in modern games. I mean I've played this game enough times that actually beating the levels has become trivial and I rack up quite an abundance of extra coins, but a beginner to this game will likely find it quite challenging.

There's a really good difficulty curve in this game that teaches you the mechanics in the easier early levels, but then nicely matches your skill progression with more difficult levels as you advance through the game, which I feel is difficult to do in game design. Then the final levels and the secret world are a great and challenging test of you platforming skill and reflexes. There's also great variety in the level design between horizontal/vertical levels, climbing levels, underwater levels, barrel levels, minecart levels, animal levels and so on. The game can be played solo or tackled cooperatively although both players can't play simultaneously unfortunately.

Summary:
Check it out if you enjoy platformers, difficult games, or excellent soundtracks. To me, DKC2 stands shoulder to shoulder with Mario 3 and Sonic 2 as one of the best all-time platformers.