Firewatch

Campo Santo - 2016 - PC/PS4

Firewatch is a game made, in part, by some of the awesome folks over at the Idle Thumbs network who host a bunch of gaming podcasts that I frequently listen to. So being somewhat familiar with some of the folks who made this game had be very excited to see this game released. Director Jake Rodkin and writer Sean Vanaman previously worked at Telltale on The Walking Dead game, so that's the kind of high caliber writing I was expecting from Firewatch. And it delivers - kind of. Firewatch is a narrative heavy exploration game where you the player character take a summer job as a park ranger to escape and diconnect from your own life for a while.

For most intents and purposes, Firewatch is another Walking Simulator, except for when choosing dialogue responses when talking to Deliliah, a fellow park ranger who keeps in contact with you via radio. The dialogue interactions between Henry, the player character, and Delilah are very well written, charming and geniuine in a way that sells the evolution of the relationship between two middle aged people who don't know each other and whose relationship grows only through conversations over a radio. Picking up or looking at certain objects in the game will sometimes generate a prompt to question Delilah about what you're looking at which can be informative or humorous or reveal aspects of Henry or Delilah's characters. Firewatch can hit a range of emotions from quiet and metitative to tense and suspenseful. It's a game that has you pondering events of the plot, or mulling over things Deliliah is saying all while exploring the wilderness.

The excellent characters and writing had me hooked and this seemed like it would be a game I would fall in love with up until I got to the ending. The ending to the game comes rather abruptly and leaves a lot of plot threads unaddressed or explained unsatisfactorily. It appears as though Campo Santo ran out of time during development and possibly weren't able to include some of the content that would have neatly wrapped up these story threads. But as it stands, these threads don't end up connecting or leading anywhere and the ending of the game feels abrupt and unsatisfying. Still, the first two thirds of the game are engaging and well written, so if you're up for a walk in the woods that you know won't take you anywhere, check out Firewatch

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.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Nintendo - 2002 - GameCube/WiiU

See also my Top 10 Zelda Games

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

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

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

Wind Waker Video Review

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

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Ateroid Base - 2015 - XboxOne/PC

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

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

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

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Video Review

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

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

Super Mario Maker

Nintendo - 2015 - WiiU

I think this game along with Minecraft would have been the two most amazing games for me to have as a kid. These are the kinds of creative games that would have captivated me for days and weeks. As it stands they're still quite captivating to me, but I simply don't have the free time to pour days and days into these games. For the uninitiated, Super Mario Maker isn't really a Mario game as much as it is an official Mario level editor. You can post your levels online to share and also play levels others have created. So it's either not a Mario game at all, or it's an infinite amount of Mario games, depending on how you look at it

The editor is functionally easy to use and create levels. You simply drag items from the toolbar and place them on the stage. It's a nice use of the WiiU tablet and is finally something first party from Nintendo that makes the WiiU tablet feel justified. Although the editor is functionally easy to use, figuring out its strange hidden quirks and odd UI design can be baffling at times. In what I can only imagine was a need to conserve UI space, certain items are hidden under other items, requiring you to shake item A to reveal item B. But not all items are shakable, and there's no way to tell whether or not they are other than trial and error. Furthermore, menu options and menu navigation are obfuscated in the UI by labeling them under random animals. How do I save my level? Do I click the dog? The robot? The frog? I know Super Mario Maker is somewhat of a spiritual successor to Mario Paint and Mario Paint used some of these UI oddities, but that doesn't make it any easier for people like myself who didn't play a ton of Mario Paint and/or don't remember what the various animals mean in relation to the UI. It may sound like I'm nitpicking, but I really did find this UI totally unintuitive.

When designing levels, you can do so under the original Mario template, the Mario 3 template, the Super Mario World template or the New Super Mario Bros. template. Choosing which template you want also dictates what abilities Mario will have when playing the level. For instance, Super Mario World Mario can spin jump and use Yoshi and the cape powerup. New Super Mario Bros. Mario can do all of these things as well as wall jump.

Once you dig in and start messing around with building levels, it really starts to bring to life how awesome the level designers at Nintendo are. Once you build a few things yourself and realize how hard it actually is to make a good level, it gives you an appreciation for how good the Nintendo level designers are at what they do. This is further exemplified when playing other creator's courses online. Unfortunately, I'd have to say the majority of the levels I've played online aren't that good and some are just downright garbage. There are some levels that are quite good, but finding them is a difficult task. The level filtering, searching and discovery options that exist in the game right now leave a lot to be desired. Nintendo has said they're working on a web portal that would partially solve that problem, but at the time of writing this review, that solution doesn't exist. Another thing I'd really like to see added is the ability to upload multiple levels together to make a "world" or a series of levels as opposed to uploading single standalone levels. Hopefully this is something they're working on as Nintendo has seemed willing to patch in additional content for this game already with the addition of checkpoints and conditional powerup items being added after launch

Super Mario Maker Video Review

Summary
Although the UI is confusing and there are a few features missing that I'd like to see added, Nintendo has otherwise succeeded in creating a tool that lets anyone with an imagination create a Mario level, bring it to life and share it with others. The drawback to this is that anyone with an imagination can create a Mario level, bring it to life and share it with others so there's a lot of, shall we say, not so great levels to sift through when looking at random stages online. Still, I've already spent many hours playing others' stages and have enjoyed making a few of my own and I look forward to spending more time in the future doing both in Super Mario Maker.

P.S. Here's a few of the stages I've made if you have the game and want to give these a shot:

James' evil castle: E1F2-0000-0034-E50A
The first level I ever made in Mario Maker. It's in the style of Mario 3. Not by best level; it was mostly me experimenting with the editor

P Switch Shenanigans: 6446-0000-003F-A95E
A difficult level in the style of Super Mario World designed for expert Mario players

Look Closely: 9244-0000-008C-61AD
I made a puzzle game in the style of Mario 3. See if you can figure out how to get through it

Undertale

Toby Fox - 2015 - PC

I like the Mother series well enough. I actually preferred Mother 3 over Mother 2 (a.k.a. Earthbound in the U.S.). Both of those games construct a fun and wacky world populated with lovably silly enemies but despite the goofy nature of their settings, they still both manage to pull off well written characters in an emotionally charged story. Underneath the layers of American culture parody and just general wackiness, there's still direct messages from the game's authors commenting on human life and friendships and other similar topics. Experiencing the wackiness and interesting stories of those games was my favorite thing about them. My least favorite part was the combat. Aside from the often humorous in-battle text, these games featured pretty standard and simple RPG combat systems. Mother 3 tried to mix this up a bit by awarding players bonus damage for attacking with the rhythm of the music (think Crypt of the Necrodancer), but I still didn't really find the combat system that interesting. Especially with the amount of grinding that these games practically require you to do before being able to advance to the next area. It felt like the combat was getting in the way of the excellent story, rather than complimenting it.

So now fast forward 10 years from Mother 3 to Toby Fox's Undertale which strongly evokes the Mother series visually, musically, thematically, and even directly at some points in the game. Like the Mother games, you play as a young kid wearing a striped shirt exploring a weird and dangerous world filled with wacky monsters. Thankfully, one of the big deviations from the Mother games is the unique combat system found in Undertale. Undertale's combat presents the player with an interesting twist which is that you actually don't have to kill any of the monsters in the game. If you choose to fight monsters, you'll be faced with a timing mechanic similar to something you might find in one of the Paper Mario games. But an alternative to fighting is using the "act" menu which allows you to talk to or interact with the monsters to finish the encounter without killing them. This usually plays out as a bit of a puzzle where you meed figure out the right combination of actions to pacify the enemy. Regardless of which of these two actions you choose, you'll be faced with a "bullet hell"-like system when you defend and the monster attacks. Different monsters have different attack patterns, so memorizing how to dodge them is it's own fun mini-game

Also created by Toby Fox, Undertale's soundtrack is an absolute delight. It's a mix of chiptunes, synths and the occasional live instrument and echoes various other RPG soundtracks from Final Fantasy to Earthbound. My favorites are Ruins which sounds like it could fit in any RPG ever, Another Medium which at times sounds like it's trying to evoke Thousand Year Door's X-Naut Fortress, Snowy, which perfectly sets the mood for walking through a winter forest, CORE which is a rockin' electronic dance tune, Death by Glamour which is a variation on the aforementioned CORE track, and ASGORE which sounds like appropriate epic RPG final boss music. For more examples of what I believe to be music references to other games, listen to Dummy! (which I believe to be an "Off" reference) Alphys' Theme (which I believe to be another Paper Mario reference), Amalgam (which sounds very Earthbound-y to me) and Oh! One True Love (which is undoubtedly a reference to Final Fantasy VI's opera scene). The whole soundtrack is really, really solid and I fell in love with it almost instantly

As neat as the combat is an even as lovingly crafted as the soundtrack is, the real star of Undertale is the story. The characters are very memorable and endearing and the quality of writing here is top notch. The way Undertale builds expectation and then throws you a twist just when you think you've got things figured out is masterful. It's rare when games can make me laugh, and I usually count it as a success if a game can tell a joke and even get me to crack a smile. Undertale had me laughing out loud on several occasions. It handles the serious, somber, relaxing, strange and horrifying moments in the story just as well as the humor. It's so rare when a game can hit all these narrative notes as well as Undertale.

Undertale Video Review

Summary
Undertale is one of the best and RPGs I've played in years. I found it to be not only an homage to, but an evolution and improvement on blueprint established by the Mother series. It's not a systematically deep RPG with layers of strategy or anything like that. But what it does do is use game systems to tell a well written story with endearing characters full of memorable moments. It also has a soundtrack that leaves a lasting impact almost as big as its characters. Undertale's unique battle system keeps players engaged dodging various projectiles in a bullet-hell like frenzy on defense while giving the player an option of a timing based fighting system, or a non-violent puzzle to resolve combat. Depending on your actions in battle, Undertale adapts acknowledges your actions in the story as well, which gives real weight to the decisions you make in the game. It's such a smart game and I enjoyed every second I played of it. I finished my first playthough in one sitting and am currently halfway through a second. I'll likely play through this a third time as well since there's just so many cool easter eggs and little things to learn about the game's story that you inevitably miss in one single playthrough. All fans of RPGs and good storytelling need to play this game. This was one of my absolute favorites of 2015 so far this year.

The Beginner's Guide

Davey Wreden (Everything Unlimited Ltd.) - 2015 - PC

Davey Wreden, who co-created The Stanley Parable, a game which I absolutely adored for its smart deconstruction and examination of game design, has a new game out. His new game, The Beginner's Guide, seems very similar to The Stanley Parable at first glace. Both fall under the sometimes derogatory genre of "walking simulator". Both begin by dropping the player in a foreign environment with little or no context or introductory story elements. And both have a narrator who serves as the main storyteller and provides some context to what you're doing in the game. And that's about where the similarities end. Players who enjoyed The Stanley Parable's quirky sense of humor should know that The Beginner's Guide has a very different tone and there's not many jokes or things that will make you laugh in the game. It's a more serious and thought provoking experience that invites its players to think analytically not only about the games they play, but the creators that make the games they play. 

The Beginner's Guide begins on a custom Counterstrike map where Davey Wreden, the game's creator, introduces himself as the narrator. He explains that the custom Counterstrike map, and every level other and short game that appears in The Beginner's Guide were all created by a developer named CODA who retired a few years ago from making games. Wreden, who claims he was influenced and inspired by CODA's work has complied many of his short games together into one mega-game - The Beginner's Guide - and has shared them on the internet in order to pique interest in CODA's work and hopefully coax him back into making games.

CODA's levels and games start simple, beginning with a basic custom Counterstrike map and then progress to more thematically complex games that explore conveying emotion through level design and dialogue with NPCs. Wreden accompanies your exploration with narrative commenting on the level design, CODA's design intentions and development process and also continuously elaborates on the nature of the relationship between CODA and himself. The Beginner's Guide is a fascinating game to play if you have any interest at all in game design and it really gets you to think a lot about the design process and the fact that developers themselves are human beings and how their emotional state can affect a game's design and also vice versa. 

The Beginner's Guide Video Review

Summary

The Beginner's Guide is a solid follow-up to The Stanley Parable. Although it's tonally and thematically different, it's still just as interesting as The Stanley Parable and I found it to be even more thought provoking. Check this out if you want to experience a more "mature" version of the Stanley Parable, or to see some really neat level design and emotional storytelling

Five Nights at Freddy's

Scott Cawthon - 2014  - PC/Android/iOS

I don't like jumpscares. At least not the ones in movies, television or games. Strangely, I enjoy events like Universal's Halloween Horror Nights which are entirely predicated jumpscares, but there's at least a high production value and good spooky atmosphere present in the many scare houses and other attractions at the park. And that, to me, is the key. I think jumpscares are at their most effective when a good atmosphere is constructed that makes you a little nervous and on edge. Then just when you least suspect it - BAM! Something pops out and scares you. And that's it, now you've got your audience terrified. It's tempting to keep going back to the well and get more jumpscares over and over, but each subsequent jumpscare loses some effectiveness as they become more frequent and expected - especially in the case of Halloween Horror Nights where something pops out at you every 5 seconds. Which now that I think of it is probably why that event doesn't get to me. But most games/movies/TV shows know how to use jumpscares effectively, which is when I start not to like them. I just don't enjoy being scared that way... Which is why I've been hesitant to play Five Nights at Freddy's for a while. It's a game entirely predicated on jumpscares and it uses them effectively

The premise of this game is that you are a security guard who takes a night shift at a restaurant known as Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. During your shift, it's revealed that the establishment's mascot animatronics have come to life and of course are trying to murder you. Your job is to last from midnight to 6am which is approximately 8 minutes of real time. In order to complete the game, you have to survive five consecutive nights, hence the name of the game. My question is: after surviving one night and knowing the animatronics are homicidal, why would you ever come back? Anyway, you're instructed that the animatronics only move in the dark when you're not watching them, so you're safe as long as you keep an eye on their locations. Your player is stuck at their guard post so your only defenses are checking security cameras, turning the lights on in the dark hallways adjacent to your guard post and closing the electronic doors, but each of these actions consumes electrical power, of which you have limited supply. If you run out of power, you're totally defenseless and more than likely are going to get jumpscared. This game is particularly effective at using audio, or more specifically the lack thereof, to create atmosphere. It's really unnerving to only hear the quiet humming of the security cameras or the buzzing of the florescent lights while your're waiting for what seems like an inevitable loud and disruptive jumpscare.

Since people love to watch other people get scared, this game got a huge boost in popularity from "let's play" videos on YouTube. This first game in the series was relatively critically and commercially successful and has spawned 3 sequels with an upcoming RPG spinoff as well as a movie adaptation from Warner Brothers pictures coming soon. All of this is a little much for me, especially considering the game came out only a little more than a year ago. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game well enough, but having 3 sequels and a movie deal in less than a year seems a bit excessive, no?

Summary

Five Nights at Freddy's is a game that knows how to use jumpscares effectively. It creates a tense atmosphere and keeps the player busy tracking the locations of multiple homicidal animatronics which pop out to scare the player when least expected. I think it's a good enough game, but this game's relative popularity has always been a little confusing to me... I suppose most other people a good jumpscare a lot more than I do.

BioShock

2K - 2007 - PC/X360/PS3

Wooo!! 100 reviews! I figured it would be appropriate to cap off #100 with the original Bioshock since I started back in 2013 reviewing the same franchise with my very first review of BioShock Infinite. I still don't think I'm a great games critic or reviewer and I still have a lot to work on, but in re-reading my first review from two years ago, I can see how far I've come. In addition to more comprehensive and insightful writing, I've started including video reviews with my posts as well, in case you hadn't noticed. Of course having 100+ reviews and a ton of content introduces a problem of content discovery, which I'm attempting to remedy with new features like my games of the year list and my top 10 lists - both of which I intend to add to and update often, so keep an eye on those. Anyway, enough with the housekeeping, let's get on to talking about Bioshock.

I remember seeing Bioshock for the first time at E3 2006 before it was released later in 2007. It was by far the most interesting game trailer I saw at E3 that year. The underwater city setting, strange combat powers and gruesome violence were so unlike anything I had seen in a game before. When I eventually got my hands on the game it also played unlike anything I had experienced before, having at that time never played its spiritual predecessors, the System Shock games. Bioshock's combination of shooting mechanics, light RPG and puzzle solving elements, and high level of audiovisual presentation were unlike anything else around at that time. I remember being struck by how cinematic and directed the game felt. It felt like a movie. It felt like an amusement park ride where you're barraged by an overwhelming presentation of audiovisual effects that all spring to life as you pass by them. Bioshock's atmosphere was so unique and refreshing and it absolutely captivated me.

Bioshock takes place in the 1960s and follows the story of a man named Jack who, at the beginning of the game survives a plane crash that leaves him swimming in the middle of the ocean. You guide Jack away from the burning plane and to a lighthouse, the only structure visible in the vast ocean other than the flaming, sinking wreckage. Investigating the interior of the lighthouse reveals a bathysphere which takes you deep underwater and eventually reveals the massive underwater city of Rapture, where the remainder of the game takes place. The trip to Rapture is accompanied by a voiceover from a man named Andrew Ryan, who introduces himself as the creator of Rapture and conveys that he built the city as a haven free from external social, political or religious influences. But of course upon entering the city, it's immediately obvious that something has gone very wrong in Ryan's utopia and now masked and bandaged psychotic murderers known as splicers roam the remains of Rapture. You're contacted via radio by a man named Atlas who urges you to assist him in rescuing his family who he claims has been trapped in the bathysphere dock by Ryan. Atlas warns you to be wary of splicers who were previously Rapture's human residents, driven insane from abuse of a drug called ADAM.

When processed, ADAM becomes something called a plasmid, which when injected into a user's bloodstram can rewrite genetic code and grant its users dangerous and powerful new abilities. In addition to traditional firearms and melee weapons, pasmids serve as your main defense against splicers and Rapture's other many dangerous inhabitants. The use of plasmids also rewards players for their environmental awareness. For example, the electro-bolt plasmid is extra effective when targets are standing in water. Similarly, the incinerate plasmid is effective when used on oil spills that can be found throughout Rapture.

Experimentation with Bioshock's many plasmid powers is one of the most rewarding parts about the game. In fact, the game seems to reward experimentation and clever planning in general. For instance, when splicers are hurt, they often seek out a nearby health station to heal themselves. In addition to being used by the player to heal themselves, these health stations can be hacked to yield cheaper healing prices and to damage any enemies that tries to use it for themselves. Or the player can choose to simply destroy the station which yields several consumable first aid kits. Rapture's hostile security robots can be simply destroyed (they're weak vs. electro-bolt or armor-piercing rounds) or they can be hacked to aid the player in battle. There's a multitude of options available to the player on how to dispatch enemies and it's fun and rewarding to experiment with the game's many systems to find a playstyle and strategy that best suits you.

There's also a moral choice element to Bioshock. "Little Sisters" human girls who have been inplanted with a parasite and mentally conditioned to hunt for and gather ADAM are plentiful throughout Rapture. They and their powerful "Big Daddy" protectors are neutral to the player upon encounter, but Big Daddies will go hostile if they or the Little Sister are attacked. Dispatching a Big Daddy leaves the player with a choice: rescuing or harvesting the Little Sisters. Harvesting kills the Little Sister and grants the player a wealth of ADAM which can be used to purchase new plasmids and other useful upgrades. Rescuing the Little Sisters yields very little ADAM and gives few immediate bonuses, but rescuing multiple Little Sisters can unlock powerful plasmids later in the game.

BioShock Video Review:

Summary
Bioshock is a wonderful blend of an immersive and atmospheric environment, a memorable story, and well designed game systems that reward the player for experimentation. While Bioshock's sequels improved on some mechanics, I don't think they ever recaptured the brilliance of the original game and its great blend of atmosphere, story and game mechanics.

Contradiction - Spot the Liar!

Baggy Cat - 2015 - PC/iOS

If you've been reading these reviews for a while now, you've likely realized that I'm a bit of a video game music nerd. I stumbled across this game when I learned that one of my all-time favorite composers, Tim Follin, had returned to the video games industry since "retiring" from it in 2005 after his amazing talents had been wasted on mostly unknown or poorly received games. It was quite to my surprise that Follin was returning to the industry to work on a game not only as a composer, but as a designer and writer as well. So how does a game made by someone with no design experience who's been absent from the industry for 10 years play? It plays about how you'd expect, for better or for worse. It's not all bad though, Contradiction is charming in a unique way that I think can only be accomplished by a first-time designer who, as far as I can tell, has been isolated from the popular design trends, progressions and philosophies that have developed in the last decade or two.

Contradiction is a full FMV murder mystery game straight out of the 90s which I admit would have been way more eye-rolling if I hadn't just played the excellent "Her Story". You play as Fredrick Jenks, a British detective who is tasked with investigating a murder in a small fictional village. All locations in the village are essentially still frames, even though some are animated, and you can move between the frames by clicking on UI arrows displayed on the screen which always triggers a short movie of Jenks strolling to where you guided him. While interviewing suspects, Jenks has a list of topics he can ask about which when selected, loads an an FMV scene where Jenks grills the suspect about whatever you selected which often then reveals more topics to ask about. The main gameplay mechanic in Contradiction is to find pieces of the suspect's story that don't quite add up or are downright contradictions, hence the title. Most of the contradictions are pretty logical, but some are a little more of a stretch or are otherwise debatable. Thankfully, this game is pretty generous with hints and gives them to you in a way that doesn't make you feel stupid or like you're cheating. Jenks can go to the phone booth and call his chief who will generally point you in the correct direction to progress the game or also may hint at contradictions suspects have made.

Follin, whose composing career work dates all the way back to the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum days, also composed the music in Contradiction. It's not quite as in-your-face as some of my other favorites of his like this or this or this. It's more appropriately subtle and blends in perfectly as Jenks traverses the village looking for clues and interviewing suspects. Aside from the music, the extremely cheesy acting is another standout in Contradiction, especially with the actor portraying Jenks who loves to smirk at his suspects with his trademark goofy deductive grin. In fact, Jenks is so excitably overanimated and the acting in general is so cheesy that it makes me wonder if it was an intentional directorial choice or if Follin actually thought his actors were delivering believable performances. In any case, I'm happy about it. The delightfully cheesy acting seems to fit the style of this game perfectly as does the music.

But in addition to the cheesy acting, there are several other strange design choices and signs of low budget production you should be at least aware of before playing this game, especially if that sort of thing bothers you. I've heard this game was riddled with UI problems at launch that have since been corrected, but one holdover is the strange combination of topics Jenks can ask about with the physical items he's carrying into one functional grouping. Your items and your topics appear together, but you can't use a topic like an item and most items you can't bring up in conversation, making this a puzzling design choice. I've also encountered a bug a few times where none of the suspect's answers were selectable as contradictions and I had to leave and re-enter the scene in order to fix it. (Minor spoilers ahead). The budgetary constraints this game was made were apparent in the poor sound quality in the FMV scenes but especially obvious in the ending to this game. The latter half of the game really seems as though its building up to something as the plot starts sprinkling in elements of the occult and mysticism. But it's all thrown away at the last second when the murderer is revealed and the game just ends quickly and unceremoniously - but not before strangely setting itself up for a sequel. I later read that this abrupt ending was apparently due to financial constraints and a sequel would only be possible with enough support of the first game

Summary
It has design problems, bugs, obvious budget problems and wonderfully cheesy acting but I really enjoyed Contradiction in spite of itself. It was a flashback to the old puzzle games I played as a kid. All things considered, Contradiction is a pretty good first attempt at making a game for someone who has no experience doing this sort of thing. At the very least, I'm glad Follin is back doing things in the games industry and I hope he gets the funding and support to make a sequel so we can see what lessons were learned and what improvements can be made

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.

Final Fantasy IX

Squaresoft - 2000 - PS1

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

After the more modern/sci-fi settings used in FF 6-8, Final Fantasy IX is a return to the series roots. It takes place in the world of Gaia, a world full of knights, mages, magic, and other traditional high fantasy. The story initially follows Zidane, who is a member of a band of thieves who is charged with kidnapping the princess Garnet of Alexandria kingdom. In a twist, Garnet is actually looking a discreet transport from Alexandria and consents to the kidnapping as it fits her own agenda. They are joined by Vivi, a young child black mage who is also accidentally kidnapped and knight captain Steiner who is Garnet's royal bodyguard and is loyal to his kingdom to a fault. The four are eventually joined by other party members and are swept up in adventure, conflict and conspiracy as tends to happen in Final Fantasy games. Also in continuing with trends in other Final Fantasy games, the plot does sort of take a dive off of the deep end at around disc 3 or so. Without getting too spoiler-y, the traditional fantasy setting does get strangely thrown out the window at some point, but the game is still worth playing if you appreciate good writing.

What sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles for me, aside from its setting, is its well written characters. Now those of you who have played other Final Fantasy games may be rolling your eyes at "well written characters", but I think it really applies to FFIX in a way that no other FF game before or since has achieved. The characters in FFIX aren't the flat, one-dimensional stereotypes of characters that are found in most JRPGs. There's also none of (or very little of) the angsty JRPG melodrama found in the rest of the series. The characters in FFIX are more subtle and nuanced which speaks volumes for not only the writers but the translation and localization process this game had to undergo. This game even has humor. Like legitimate, actual, intentional humor. And it works. Usually when humorous dialogue is written in a Final Fantasy game, it's facepalm material. It's funny, but for all the wrong reasons. FFIX gets it right in a way that really endears all of its characters to the player.

The battle system is... well... it's just fine. There's nothing really wrong with it. But there's also nothing really right with it either. There's nothing too broken like FFVIII, but also nothing that really sticks out and grabs your attention to make you want to keep playing just one more battle like FFVII. It's pretty straightforward and standard for a Final Fantasy game. It's pseudo turn based with the ATB introduced in previous games and your characters fit into pre-defined roles of black mage, white mage, summoner, knight, thief etc. Just about the only thing noteworthy is that all abilities you learn throughout the game are learned from using a specific weapon a certain number of times in battle. For instance, if you want to learn the "fire" spell, you have to equip Vivi with the "Fire Staff" or whatever it's called. This creates a sort of interesting dynamic where the weapons and armor you have equipped for your party may not always be the "best" speaking strictly statistically. There's also the new "limit break" system called trance, where your character becomes more powerful and gets access to new abilities, but this triggers pretty much just randomly and always seems to happen when you're in a random, easily winnable battle and never against a boss when you really need it. So yeah, the battle system is... just fine I guess.

What's way better than "just fine" and another notable reason to check out this game is another superb, phenomenal, varied and otherwise spectacular soundtrack composed by Uematsu. I think Uematsu has gone on record saying this was his favorite soundtrack he composed. It's not necessarily my favorite as a whole, but picking a favorite Uematsu soundtrack is like trying to pick a favorite burger off of the menu at Red Robin. I love them all. Standouts are the "Battle Theme", "Stirring in the Forest", "Crossing Those Hills", "Border Village Dali" and "Hunter's Chance" but the whole soundtrack is really a standout as tends to be the case with Nobou Uematsu.

Final Fantasy IX Video Review

Summary
It may not have the best battle system and the plot gets a little weird about halfway through, but FFIX is still worth checking out if you like a well written story with well defined characters. The writing and soundtrack are enough to carry you through when the battle system is being dull and the story is getting weird. This game really is pretty charming once you get invested in it and it's become one of my favorites in the Final Fantasy series and just in general

80 Days

Inkle - 2014 - Andriod/iOS

I've returned from my very first Pax Prime and it was amazing. I demoed Dark Souls 3, Final Fantasy XV, Mario Maker, Rock Band 4 and played many other indie games and met some of their developers. It was a really cool convention and I'd recommend it to anyone who's really interested in games as long as you don't mind long lines. One of the things I did to pass the time in these long lines, plane trips and other downtime was download and play a game called 80 Days.

80 Days is a game that re-imagines Jules Verne's classic 1873 novel "Around the World in 80 Days" as a choose your own adventure style video game. For those unfamiliar with the novel, the book tells the story of an Englishman named Phileas Fogg who makes a wager to the tune of 20,000 pounds that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. In the game, you play the role of Phileas Fogg's valet, Passepartout, and you manage finances and make decisions on how to plot your route around the globe. The setting still takes place in the 1870s, but now everything is steampunk for some reason. It was kind of an odd creative choice to rewrite the world this way. It didn't do anything for me, but then again I've never understood the appeal of steampunk.

From a gameplay standpoint, this game is sort of like a cross between the Oregon Trail and maybe FTL, but it's more narrative focused than either of those games. It's really more of an interactive novel and it never really gets too "gamey". Most of your interaction will come through picking your character's dialogue from a few choices. It's probably the largest, most involved example of a choose your own adventure book. You can pick your destinations from a map kind of FTL style, but you have to weigh the pros and cons of each decision. Each route has a monetary cost, a time cost, and a "comfortability" cost. In addition to managing finances, you also have to keep an eye on Fogg's health which may start to decrease if you take wearisome routes, or don't stop to rest enough. You can also chat up strangers in each town which may unlock new routes or faster/cheaper routes on your map. Some conversations may even extend the narrative in a surprising way. Events in the game occur randomly as well, so each playthough is guaranteed to be different, even if you take the same routes through the same cities. This is perhaps 80 Days' most interesting feature, as it grants this game a high amount of replayability.

I can remember reading the novel in middle school, I think, and little bits and pieces of it came back to me as I was playing through the game. Most of the story is entirely new, and totally random and also based on the decisions you make, but there are lots of little winks and nods to the novel like the characters being very aware that traveling eastward with the sun vs. westward against the sun will gain them extra time (Spoiler alert for a 150 year old novel). It's a fairly well written game, which is good because there really isn't too much else about this game. The "gamey" parts of 80 Days feel somewhat ancillary to the story; they exist in more of a supporting role. The spotlight of 80 Days is on the story, not the gameplay

80 Days is a well written interactive novel, but it's a game that expects its players to draw enjoyment from its plot, so you might not care for this game if you come into it expecting a strong gameplay hook. At the very least, it's an interesting example of the concept of a choose your own adventure book taken to its absolute farthest point. I personally accomplished my journey around the globe in 68 days, easily winning Fogg's wager with ample time to spare. Check this game out if you'd like to experience your own version of Jules Verne's classic novel.

Dear Esther

The Chinese Room - 2012 (2008 Original) - PC

I've played a few of the games that are sometimes referred to dismissively as "walking simulators" by some. Journey and Proteus totally didn't connect with me while Gone Home came close. I thought The Stanley Parable was absolutely brilliant. Dear Esther, which probably can be credited with popularizing this genre, is no Stanley Parable but it did resonate more strongly with me than most of the other similar games I've played that fall into this grouping.

Dear Esther is a game about exploration. You explore an island by yourself and are occasionally accompanied by voiceover dialogue that elaborates on bits of the story. The story that is presented in the voiceovers is somewhat vague, and I'm pretty sure that was an intentional design decision. I later found out that on subsequent replays of Dear Ester, the bits of dialogue that play are actually randomly chosen, so you might hear one voiceover on one given playthough, but not on the next. Or vice versa. I'm okay with this decision to deliberately obfuscate the story, because I think you can piece together enough information from whatever dialogue is randomly chosen and combine that with the knowledge you gain by observing and exploring to come up with the gist of the story, even if some of its details are fuzzy. It's a game I found narratively similar to Dark Souls, of all games. While there may or may not be an absolute truth to Dear Esther's story, I found myself filling in the deliberate vagaries of the story with my own imagination, similar to what I had done in Dark Souls.

Dear Esther got its start in 2008 as a Half Life 2 mod, and was later re-released as a standalone game in 2012. I played the 2012 remake and found the audiovisuals to be top notch. Both hearing and seeing the wind rustling through the grass and the waves crashing on the shore really helped immerse me in this world in a way that none of the other "walking simulators" had done previously. I let my mind wander with the strange details of the story and tried to piece it together while simultaneously drinking in the high fidelity audiovisual presentation

Dear Esther Video Review

Summary
"Walking Simulators" are a pretty niche appeal. I think this game does it right though. High quality graphics and an interesting story were enough to keep me engaged throughout the experience, though I can definitely see those not used to this sort of thing finding it boring, or the vagueness of its story frustrating. It's definitely not one of my favorite games ever, but it's a neat experience if you're up for something different

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