Imagine you’re riding a motorcycle down a hill. Now imagine that everything around you is on fire and exploding. Now imagine that you’re about to fall off the bike and be gruesomely incinerated, and that’s considered a success. Trials Fusion is a best kind of madness, and when it’s at peak performance, there’s not much else like it. Sadly, Trials doesn’t like to stay at the top of its game for too long, but we’ll get to that.
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Trials Fusion review: Riding High, Falling Low
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Monument Valley – Lose Yourself
Monument Valley made me smile a lot. After sitting down with it for about an hour and a half, playing through to completion, my only issue is that I wanted to stay in that world a little longer. It’s a short, beautiful experience, and I think you should see it for yourself. (more…) -
The Nightmares Return in Bad Dream: Cyclops and Bad Dream: Memories
This series continues to make me really, really excited every time I hear word of a new entry. They’re all super simple, less than 15 minutes each, and I eat them up like some kind of horrible, terrifying, but still delicious candy.
In case you’re not familiar, the Bad Dream series is an anthology piece composed of short horror stories. Each one is a relatively easy point and click adventure game, and you’re tasked with doing some really weird things based around the theme of the episode. In the new Bad Dream: Cyclops, for example, you start off collecting teeth for the tooth fairy after losing a vital organ, and it only gets better from there. Cyclops may be my favorite episode so far, for reasons I won’t dare ruin here. Bad Dream: Memories makes for an excellent fifth chapter, based around visiting one’s childhood home.
With 5 games in the series and not a bad one in the bunch, I’m prepared to call the Bad Dream games the horror event of the year. They creep you out quickly and effortlessly (make sure you play with headphones, in the dark), and each tells its own twisted fairy tale. If you’re interested in slicing off your fingers or trying to outsmart death itself, check out the series here. I really hope Desert Fox continues this descent into madness, because I’ll be following right alongside him all the way down.
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Games of the Month – February 2014
Wait, it’s almost April? Danganronpa took up almost all of my February, and now that Dark Souls II is here, I’m not sure when I’ll be feel like picking up anything else. February was a month with some really pleasant surprises, and a few (kind of expected) disappointments. While the new South Park and Castlevania games may not have had me smitten, there were certainly a few games in there that I couldn’t put down until I had drained every bit of their essence. Let’s begin with the one that took up almost all of last month for me, and the game I still keep talking about with anyone else who finished it.
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If there’s a better game than Dark Souls 2 this year, I’ll be surprised.
After over a solid week of playing Dark Souls 2, I still haven’t been able to finish it. I’ve had it since the moment it was released, I’ve dropped 44 hours into it, I still have no idea when the game is going to end, and I’m loving every second of it.I’ve often proclaimed the original Dark Souls to be my favorite game of the last console generation (with Fallout 3 being right up there with it), and I wasn’t sure how a direct sequel could fare against my highest of high expectations. Demon’s Souls was a revelation for me, and showed me a world that nearly ruined me for all other games. When Dark Souls released only to be a grander, more refined version of that, I didn’t know what more I could ask for. It turns out what I needed to ask for was Dark Souls 2.
As a refinement upon a refinement, Dark Souls 2 is one of the most ambitious games I’ve ever come across. It fixes most of the issues I’ve had with previous games, and alleviates problems that I didn’t even realize were there in the first place. It maintains what makes the series so special, while still subverting expectations and keeping you on your toes throughout. As someone who has played through both previous games in the series for dozens upon dozens of hours, Dark Souls 2 manages to stay fresh, and surprises me in ways Demon’s Souls did a half-decade ago. If there’s a better feeling in gaming than taking down one of these bosses, or seeing a new enemy that you’ve never seen before, or stumbling into brand new location filled with new challenges and treasures, I’ve yet to discover it.
The world is almost wide open from the introduction, and the amount of paths available at once gives an immense sense of freedom. At just about in point in the game, you have access to three or more bosses and locations that you can be exploring, as long as you’re clever enough to discover where they’re hidden. Any time I was having trouble with a boss or location, I could simply teleport away to somewhere else and begin exploring something I’d never seen before. The fast-travel system allows you to move quickly between anywhere you’ve been, and allows you to zip away from any place you don’t feel like being in, without having to wander for 15 minutes just to find that merchant you think was by that one stump six hours ago.
The world of Drangleic in Dark Souls 2 is massive compared to either of the previous two games. Dark Souls seemed sprawling at times, but it was all connected and looped back into itself, making it actually really compact. Dark Souls 2 seems to sprawl for miles in every direction, with far more locations to fight your way through. With the fast-travel system, you are required to frequent familiar areas less than ever before, and you’re given more time to head straight into unseen territory whenever you please. Each area is so tightly packed with secrets though, abuse of teleportation will only do you more harm than good. Should you run through and area and never return, you’ll probably bypass some great new equipment, characters to meet, or even a few boss fights.
I can’t say enough good things about Dark Souls 2, and I’m still mulling around the idea that it could be the best game I’ve ever played. It’s way too soon to make a statement like that though, so for now let’s just say it’s pretty darn excellent at what it does. This is probably my favorite game in the series, and no other games makes me feel the constant sense of reward that the Souls games do. If there’s any contender for Game of the Year 2014 looking to take down Dark Souls 2 for me, it’s going to have to be a hell of a thing.
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Guest Review! – Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare
Here’s our first Guest Post of 2014, and from a brand new contributor! Friend of the site, James Page, has been kind enough to write a full review of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare for HippoChippies. You can check out where to find more of James at the end of this review.
Since 2009, PopCap Games has been building a legacy of the popular tower defense game which has spanned into a sequel, Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time. With its major success, PopCap has now released Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare on Xbox One and Xbox 360. I picked this game up on release day last week and have been playing all week long. After pouring several hours into the game, I can honestly say that it is exactly the experience that I hoped for, expect for maybe one or two complaints. The game has been an experience that I am happy to say that I have been a part of.
PvZ Garden Warfare doesn’t have a story involved in its 40 dollar price tag. The game is an only online multiplayer game that has five different modes to it as well as a mode called Garden Ops. The problem with this is that out of the five modes, one is a beginners mode. The other four modes are really only two modes. One mode is Team Vanquish (which also has another mode called Classic Team Vanquish) which is your standard team deathmatch. The other mode is Gardens and Graveyards and classic Gardens and Graveyards. This is a mix of the Rush mode and Conquest mode from the Battlefield games series. Finally Garden Ops is just like the Horde mode from the Gears of War series. These modes are unique to PvZ and make each mode fun. The problem is that there are far too few maps and modes for the game. The game presents itself well, and even has extremely unique character classes and hundreds of options for customization but with the few maps and modes, the game can grow stale after more than a few hours of continuous play. That being said, if you take several hour breaks between a couple hours of play, the game stays fun. Although you can’t play it all day long and it not get repetitive, the game is ambitious and extremely creative and although there are few modes and maps, for 40 dollars it’s hard to complain.
The graphics in PvZ Garden Warfare are gorgeous. The graphics are 900p on Xbox One and everything looks fantastic. It is one of the most beautiful looking animated, cartoon-like games I have ever played. The only thing that keeps the graphics from getting a perfect score is the texture glitches that happen every now and then in such a small multiplayer game. No game is perfect in the texture department but I have had texture pop ins and outs several times in the past week but other then the occasional texture issue, the game is beautiful.
Sound: The sound is the best and worst thing about this game. The sounds that guns make, the grunts from zombies and plants and every sound effect in game is fantastic. If sound effects and soundtracks were different categories this would get a perfect ten out of ten. The problem is that they are calculated together in my reviews and the music is repetitive an unimaginative. The music is by no means bad. In fact, the music itself is okay. But the problem is that there are only two to four tracks in the whole game. Think about how repetitive that will get and you realize the problem.
The gameplay is phenomenal. I never imagined that a Plants vs. Zombies third person shooter could feel and control so great. The developers really outdid themselves with the gameplay and gave us something that feels fresh and unique. Each plant and zombie has its own special abilities and they are different than anything you have experienced in a long time. I would play the game just for its gameplay for hours straight. I just hope other games can take this level of gameplay and apply it to other games in the future.
PvZ Garden warfare is surprisingly fun to play. In fact, it is the most entertaining multiplayer game I have played in as long as I can remember. The game itself shouldn’t really be as entertaining as it is simply because of the lack of modes and maps but the addicting nature of the flawless gameplay makes it entertaining. It isn’t the most entertaining game I have ever played in my life but it is extremely fun and will keep me occupied for more than just a couple hours a day.
The replay value is tricky. Since the game has no story, I can’t base replay off of going back after you have beaten the story so I have to base it off of something else. The game is fun to replay for several days as long as you have a goal to strive for. PopCap games did an excellent job of giving you that goal. Throughout the game, you gain coins which will buy you different packs of cards and the more you spend, the more different kinds of characters you can unlock and try out on the battlefield (each of these characters are slight character variations that give the four main classes different stat boosts or different weapons but main abilities stay the same). As long as you are striving to get these characters, the replay value is great. I can already tell now though that whenever all characters are unlocked, the replay value will be bad. In fact, from the minute the last character is unlocked, you will probably only want to play a few more hours depending on if you like the character or not. After that, you will set the game aside and probably not play it again for a long time or ever again unless you are bored and have no other game to play. I would say that replay value is good but after a while it will start to lose its flavor and eventually drift into the wind.
Verdict: Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare is a blast. It is a blast of fresh air and a great new take on the shooter genre. It has a few minor hiccups here and there but as a whole the experience is great. Total Rating: 8.5/10
Suggested Price: I have to suggest buying this game new for full price. Show support for this 40 dollar game cause not only do they deliver a great game for 20 dollars less then most but also, you do not have to spend microtransactions to acquire the items and characters in the game because as of now, there are no microtransactions. Give the developers (PopCap Games) the love they deserve and buy it new. As much as I love used prices, I still recommend buying it new to give PopCap games the revenue they deserve for this great game.
You can find more of James Page on his Facebook, and you can follow him on Twitter @JHPage94. He’ll also be appearing as a guest on our Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Spoilercast.
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