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Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date: 11/21/2012

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The Walking Dead has been a gripping and highly entertaining adventure game thus far, so now that the season finale is here we can see how every choice you made stacks up. Thankfully choices have impacted things throughout the series instead of stacking them up for the end. A few from each episode will affect this episode, but I have to say that this episode is extremely heart-wrenching and the most shocking of them all, not to mention the shortest.

Lee and your surviving gang are on their way to save Clem from a mysterious man who snatched her up. They leave their boat behind for a bit to go find her, but things go completely downhill because the zombies are in the thousands and not to mention all the shocking moments that lead up to the end. Something happens every 20 minutes or so that will make you set your controller down and take a breather and say, “How did that happen?!” That’s how great this series is. Each character is memorable and you will either love them or hate them depending on your choices. The system Telltale set up is so organic and smooth that you don’t really notice your choice caused this until you really think. That is excellent game design, but I will take some time to address issues that I have held off until now.

Firstly, the graphics are pretty dated which I mentioned in the first episode. The art style looks like the comics, but the graphics are about 7 years old. There are hitches and stuttering often which never got addressed. Each episode is extremely short, but this one clocks in at just a measly hour. Why this is a stand-alone episode is beyond me, they could have just made this series four episodes. The pacing is also all over the place. Episode 2 was probably the most disappointing of them all, and Episode 4 was lacking in the shocking moment department. There’s also no challenge in the game with this just being an interactive experience. This is one of my favorite adventure games of all time, but I would like to see some serious upgrades in Season 2.

With all that said Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger and who knows when we will find out what’s happened next. After seeing how successful this series is I’m sure Season 2 will start pouring out through next year starting in spring. Episode 5 is very touching and after you finish the game you will realize that Season 2 will start with a whole new cast of characters. As it stands Episode 5 delivers a great ending and you really feel satisfied with your journey through Savannah and will sit back and wait for Season 2.

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Resident Evil: Revelations

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/15/2012

Posted in: 3DS, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Retro Consoles, Sony, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Tagged: 3d, 3ds, capcom, chris redfield, g virus, game of the year, jill valentine, Nintendo, outbreak, resident evil, revelations, survival, zombie, zombies. Leave a comment

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 2/7/2012

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Revelations is the first Resident Evil game on 3DS and is probably the best portable RE game ever made. Not to mention, probably one of the better, more recent Resident Evil games. The controls are solid, the story is at least a little interesting, and the monsters are awesome. Of course, the game has great 3D effects and a lengthy campaign. Hop aboard Queen Zenobia as Jill Valentine and find out for yourself.

You start out as Jill Valentine aboard Queen Zenobia, which is a derelict ship that possibly holds answers for the T-Abyss virus that the terrorist group Veltro unleashed into the ocean (or will unleash). The game has an over-the-shoulder perspective like RE4 and 5, but when you use your weapons, the camera goes into the first person to utilize the 3D effects. It works well, and you can move around while aiming by holding L. There are many different weapons in the game, and you can find custom parts to upgrade them. It really makes a difference when facing tough enemies, but not every custom part is easy to find. Some are hidden away, needing certain keys, but this is grouped into a major issue with the game (I will explain later). The shooting feels great and is really solid. The weapons vary from various machine guns to shotguns and pistols. Each type of weapon shares the same ammo pool, but each weapon is different in range, fire rate, and damage.

The exploration is a lot like early RE games because it is claustrophobic and you are stuck on a ship the whole time. This felt a lot like the mansion in RE1, but I prefer the more open adventure feeling of the later games. This leads to constant backtracking, but Capcom tries to skirt this by blocking off passages or making new ones available via keys. I find these ships confusing to navigate and am always lost until later in the game, when the last few chapters are linear and more cinematic and you only have one way to go. It would help if the map system didn’t stink so much. It is in 3D, but you can’t turn it the way you want, and there are no lines that divide sectors. Half the time, I couldn’t tell if I was on the bottom floor or the top floor and just had to run around guessing. The mini-map is more detailed, but why not the full map too?

This is probably the worst thing about the game, but sometimes the enemies can be tough, and too many spawn. This is a close-quarters game, so having 10 enemies spawn in one hallway is a disaster and leads to frustrating deaths. Not to mention the extremely tough final boss, who is a lot like Nemesis. The game does have a pretty good dodge feature where you push the analog nub towards the enemy at the right moment. This can ease tough boss fights, but finding their weakness is key. The enemy designs are awesome, and some are almost Silent Hill-like. They are creepy and gross, and they stray away from the human zombies that we are used to in this series. It is a nice change and should be introduced more often.

The game also has some pretty awesome gameplay change-ups where you use a turret to fight off a giant monster, carry wounded team members, swim, and do various other things that change up the pace. Revelations is a fun roller coaster ride that is full of surprises and will keep you entertained throughout the entire 10-hour campaign. Once you beat that, you can do co-op missions where you fight off hordes of monsters, but some sort of single-player mission mode would have been nice. Revelations also look fantastic with visuals that fully utilize the 3DS hardware.

Overall, Revelations is fun with great visuals, 3D effects, and awesome gunplay. The monsters look good, and the story is decent but nothing memorable. The gameplay is changed up often, and there is a nice long 10-hour campaign. If you love Resident Evil, then this is a must-have for any 3DS owner.

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Serious Sam 3: BFE

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/29/2012

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Retro Consoles, Sony, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Tagged: bfe, directx 9, fps, graphics, pc, serious sam, serious sam 3, shooter, steam. Leave a comment

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Croteam

Release Date: 11/22/2011

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Serious Sam is one of the original old-school shooters where you just shot everything on sight. Forget about the story, gameplay, cinematic events, or anything else. Serious Sam is one of the less popular FPS series that is shadowed by Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem. BFE doesn’t really do anything new or add anything new except a spiffy new engine, which is seriously wasted. The game is repetitive, lacks any awesome guns (except a couple), and has the same handful of enemies thousands of times over. BFE is mainly for newcomers because only the super-hardcore fans will truly enjoy this (if that).

The story is paper-thin, with Sam trying to stop an alien invasion. That’s it. This is the prequel to First Encounter, but who really cares? The game tries to be a bit different by starting off slow with a sledgehammer and introducing awesome melee attacks to show off the new engine. You acquire a pistol, then a shotgun, and then more guns as the game goes on. There are dozens of secret areas everywhere (I couldn’t find a single one for some reason). You shoot thousands of enemies throughout the game, but in extremely difficult waves that can be in the hundreds.

I honestly felt that my arsenal was underwhelmed by the vast amounts of enemies the game throws at you. The most effective weapons were the cannon, C4, and Devastator, but the ammo for those is pretty rare (except C4). All the rest were pretty useless except the minigun, which was good at reducing crowds in a wide area but ate up ammo quick. I can’t tell you how boring the game got by the end, and it will really test your endurance. I played on the easy setting and still got my ass kicked sometimes. For the hell of it, I tried it on the hardest difficulty, and it was impossible. I couldn’t get past the third level; it was that hard. By the last level, you are thrown probably a few thousand enemies with wave after wave that takes you about 45 minutes to chew through. The waves get so big that I backpedaled half the level to get some breathing room in some areas.

When it comes to looks, BFE is impressive for a DirectX 9 game. This is the most customizable PC game ever made when it comes to graphics options. There are options here I have never even heard of! There are about 45 options, but when you max the game out, it looks amazing, but it is sadly wasted on a bland and boring art style. Everything is brown and dead, with nothing interesting to look at. Halfway through the game, I couldn’t take it anymore but finished it anyway. I do have to say that I am disappointed that Sam’s macho quips aren’t as funny this time around as in previous games. They just seem stale and are pretty mellow. Oh well.

Multiplayer is where BFE shines, but no one is playing online. During my entire week of playing the campaign, I logged in at different times of the day and night and maybe got 1 or 2 people playing if I was lucky. The server list is almost always empty, which is sad. This is a game that you will have to get buddies to go LAN on. When I did get a tiny game going, it was addictive and felt very old-school with fast movement, lots of jumping, and twitch reaction shooting. There are some neat modes, but I never got to play most of them because this game is nearly abandoned despite Croteam releasing a patch about 2 weeks ago.

I can only recommend this to hardcore FPS fans and hardcore fans of past Sam games. The campaign is nothing special and gets incredibly boring and monotonous halfway through, not to mention freaking tough as nails. The weapon arsenal is disappointing, and there are only a handful of different enemies. There isn’t enough new here to make it a true sequel, but the game looks damn good. For the low price, it is worth a fun play-through, but don’t expect tons of people to be playing online.

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Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date: 10/10/2012

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Now that we are almost done with this series, I am sad that the next one will be it. Episode 4 sees the gang trying to get on a boat and out of Savannah, Georgia, but things don’t go as planned. There are a bunch of new characters this time around, but most are hard to care for because they make brief appearances. By this point, most or a little of your gang will be with you, but this episode is mainly lacking the suspenseful choices like in the last one. We get bigger areas to explore, a little more action, and finally, a ton of zombies.

The series has been lacking any zombies lately and has just dealt with internal turmoil, but Episode 4 skirts this and brings the gang back to realizing that the zombies are the real threat here. There’s a strange calm before the storm within the group; the conversations are tense and borderline everyone going postal on each other. I found that there was a lack of gameplay here and that it focused more on delivering a story, but that is ok in this series. There is more action with some zombie shooting, action-oriented puzzles, and larger areas to explore. I sat through the whole episode in one go because it was so intense and entertaining. You always want to know what is going to happen next.

The new characters are hard to really like except Molly because of her shady personality. The new guys are brief and seem pretty generic. I really don’t care for Christa or Omid, who we met at the end of the last episode. Christa is selfish, and Omid is boring and just seems useless. What grows even more are the characters you have right now from the original group. Clementine and Lee’s relationship really blossoms here, and their trust will be tested.

This episode is just a mishmash of everything from the past ones: lots of zombies, action, large areas, new characters, and tense conversations, but nothing very serious. What has stayed the same throughout is the constant, intense atmosphere that makes you stay in the game, and you never want to quit until it’s over. This is my favorite adventure series of all time. The game puts you in control just enough to make you feel like you made all the important choices. The game has been built up to the climax, and the cliffhanger ending here is so abrupt and so sudden that you just hang your end, knowing you have to wait another month or two for the last episode. This is just like a good TV series, but better.

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They Bleed Pixels

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/29/2012

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch. Tagged: 8 bit, gore, indie, pc, platformer, steam, super meat boy, they bleed pixels, vampire. Leave a comment

Publisher: Spooky Squid Games

Developer: Spooky Squid Games

Release Date: 8/29/2012

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If you loved Super Meat Boy, you should check this game out. Will you love it as much? Probably not. TBP is all about a little girl who picks up some mysterious cursed book that turns her into a demon in her dreams. The game has a Lovecraftian style but the same 8-bit graphics as Super Meat Boy. The game features twitch reflex platforming and combat.

The platforming is simple enough, with abilities to double jump and cling to walls, but the game requires mastering the controls to maneuver through nigh-impossible paths that require pixel-perfect timing. The combat is actually what brings this game down so much. The developers tried to make it too complicated. Hitting the attack button doesn’t really do much damage to enemies, which is stupid. You also don’t get a multiplier if you use a standard attack. They want you to be “creative” and use the dash attack, knock them into obstacles, and use the high kick. I know these kinds of moves don’t belong in this kind of game. The combat system is convoluted and requires too much thinking for a game that relies on instinct and muscle memory responses. After a platforming section, I start wailing on an enemy and realize I have to think about this combat system. It hurts my brain and really messes with the momentum of the otherwise solid platforming and controls.

There is a neat checkpoint system that allows you to put it wherever you want. If you get enough purple orbs, you can fill up your checkpoint meter and stay still for a while. This will place a checkpoint at that spot, allowing you to save them for complicated platforming sections. This alleviates the frustrating combat that leads to some cheap deaths. If you do well enough on a level, you can unlock special stages that are from the iOS version and user-created.

With all of this combined, They Bleed Pixels would be great if it weren’t for that combat system. You just can’t stop and think about fighting when you are on a good platforming run. The custom checkpoint system helps remove some of that frustration, but in the end, I just want to hit an enemy a few times and be done. Even having to do the complicated moves just to flip switches is pretty annoying. If you can look past this, you will enjoy this game, but most people will just stick with Super Meat Boy.

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Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

the-walking-dead-game-episode-3-walkthrough

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date: 8/29/2012

Available On

The Walking Dead is probably my favorite adventure series of all time. It surpasses most adventure game clichés like inventory management, tank controls, and disjointed pacing. The Walking Dead: Episode 3 is well-paced, and there are some of the toughest choices you have to make. Things get very serious this time around because the group is starting to lose its mental stability. There’s a lot of internal fighting, and you must decide how this all turns out.

The group is trying to get to Savannah, Georgia, because things at the motel didn’t work out so well. They find a train engine that takes them partway, but I won’t say any more. There are a few major areas you can explore with a few simple puzzles, but like usual, the opening is awesome, and I played through this entire episode and wanted the next one right away. There are three new characters introduced, but at the same time, a few people in the group die. Who or how is up to you, but you will be shocked at how this all turns out. I actually had to pause the game with my mouth agape due to the shocking turns and, mainly, how it actually happened.

There’s more zombie killing this time around, but not nearly as much as in the first episode. I found myself glued to my computer more than Episode 2, and I felt like the story was actually progressing better. A lot of bugs are also starting to get ironed out, such as the constant stuttering during cut scenes and some control issues. You won’t be exploring much, just in the main puzzle areas, but this is OK because of how much the story advances through dialog choices. This is about the time when a lot of your choices from the last two episodes will really start blossoming here. Some choices I made actually determined huge plot changes, and I realized either I shouldn’t have done something or wish I had done something, but that’s the excitement of this series. You feel like you are playing a movie and directing it yourself.

I just can’t wait for the fourth episode because things will really start going downhill from there. This episode is a huge turning point for the story, and every fan will want more.

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Keyboard & Mouse

Darksiders II

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/25/2012

Posted in: Microsoft, Nintendo, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360. Tagged: adventure, darksiders, darksiders 2, darksiders ii, death, four horsemen, pc, steam, war. Leave a comment

Publisher: THQ

Developer: Vigil Games

Release Date: 8/14/2012

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THQ and Vigil return with a new protagonist and tons of improvements over the first game. This time you play as Death, War’s brother, who is trying to redeem War from the Charred Council’s wrath for destroying humanity. On your adventure, you meet new and old faces, as well as a ton of puzzles, bosses, and combatants, as well as new abilities.

The first thing I have to mention is that this game isn’t nearly as confusing to play as the first game. I was always lost and had no idea what to do. Even finding hidden chests was a pain. This time around, there are lots of collectibles and chests, as well as some free-roaming, but in a more organized fashion. You wind up traveling through three different realms, each with its own secrets. The Forge Land is where you start, and you can buy armor and weapons, so Vulgrim plays a small part this time around. By finding Book of the Dead pages and Boatman coins, you can trade them in for special keys as well as random boxes with a piece of armor or weapon from Vulgrim. There are lots of different items to collect and find, so loot is abundant here.

My favorite part about the game is the platforming. It’s just so fun and fluid, as well as fast-paced. The level design is ingenious here because it seems labyrinthine at first, but I rarely had to go to a walkthrough to figure out where to go or what to do. Death even gets to acquire some abilities that are just for puzzle-solving, like the Soulsplitter, which allows him to split into two, and the Voidwalker, which makes a return from the last game. I found the puzzles to be really fun, and they were just challenging enough that you only had to think for a bit before it all clicked. The satisfaction reminded me of how I felt when solving puzzles in Portal.

Secondly, the combat is a lot better than in the last game. Death feels fast, fluid, and has a lot more moves at his disposal than War did. You can buy over 20 new moves throughout the game, as well as upgrade your skills. You will need to play the game twice to be able to upgrade all the skills, but what I did unlock was fun. Eventually, certain moves leached health from enemies, gave me more wrath (needed to do these moves), and stunned enemies. You can turn into Reaper for a while, which does a lot of damage, and you take very little damage. Overall, the combat was just fine, but the camera had issues. Every so often, when I was in a tight corner, the camera didn’t know what to do. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you can’t really see what’s going on and will take hits. After Forge Lands, the game gets extremely difficult. I died multiple times during certain fights because they were so hard. You also get fewer health potions later on, which can lead to frustrating deaths.

The boss fights are some of the best things the game has to offer. There are plenty of them, and they are fun but challenging. You have to be quick, dodge, and learn the enemy’s moves. There isn’t a block button here, so the game can get really tough. I did find the final boss disappointing because I beat him in one try in just a few short minutes. Besides these issues, the combat is fun, solid, and well done.

I did find the game a bit repetitive after a while. It was the same thing over and over again, just in different orders. Fight these enemies, solve this puzzle, and do this platforming bit. Most action-adventure games are like that, but Darksiders II doesn’t offer much variety. Even the enemies repeat themselves constantly, to the point where you just get sick of killing them. The only time I felt excited about combat after the mid-way point was during the boss fights. Thankfully, the game is just overall fun, so even when you feel the game is getting old, you will want to press on.

The game looks pretty good, with a gorgeous art style. The textures can look a bit ugly up close, and I was disappointed that Vigil didn’t include any PC-specific features. In fact, the graphics options only allow you to change the resolution, and V-Sync doesn’t even work. The keyboard and mouse controls are clunky, so stick with the Games for Windows controller if you have it. There are plenty of collectibles in the world, so people who are dedicated to them will stay busy. This is one long game, ranging from about 15 to 20 hours if you just go through the story and most side quests. If you complete it 100%, you are looking at close to 40 hours of gameplay here. I just couldn’t find the motivation to collect everything, like in games such as the new Batman games and Assassin’s Creed. After I got to the end of the game, I just wanted to finish it and be done.

Overall, Darksiders II is a solid action-adventure game with some minor issues. There are no PC-specific graphics options, there are camera issues during combat, and the final boss fight is a disappointment. Enemies repeat often, and the same puzzle, platform, and combat formula follow throughout with not much variety, but the game is fun. There are a lot of collectibles and a few side quests, and the boss fights are a blast. If you loved the first game, you will love this even more. People who didn’t like the last one should check this out.

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – 9 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/14/2012

Posted in: Android, iOS, Mac, Microsoft, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, Retro Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox. Tagged: bioware, jedi, knights of the old republic, kotor, lucas arts, pc, star wars, steam. Leave a comment

Publisher: LucasArts

Developer: BioWare

Release Date: 11/18/2003

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BioWare is a company that revolutionized the action RPG genre for the western era. In a time where Japanese RPGs dominated the market, BioWare was sitting in a little studio, churning out one of the best RPGs of all time. I remember when I was younger how much of a big hoopla this game was. For someone who didn’t own an Xbox or a PC that could run the game, it still slipped under my radar. I eventually got a chance to rent the game years later on 360 and quickly got bored due to its age. I finally picked it up again on the PC, and I am glad I did. The game may feel very dated and old (an entire decade), but there’s no denying the excellent story and well-crafted atmosphere that truly feel genuine in the Star Wars universe.

You play a custom character that has to defeat the evil Sith Lord Darth Malak. He has found some sort of Star Forge to use against the Republic, so you are shadowing his footsteps to find the star maps to this star forge. This takes you across several planets, such as Tatooine, Dantooine, Kashyyyk, Korriban, Kevin, and even Taris. You acquire companions of all types along the way and endure some pretty tough battles and story choices. You have to constantly choose between the light and dark side during choices, and there are plenty of ways to go about the story.

Firstly, you can choose any world in any order. Each one is roughly laid out the same, with a larger hub area than an area beyond where your main quest and some side quests lie. I got rather annoyed with the constant similar layouts and wished for variety. Each world has the Star Map area blocked off until you fix some global catastrophe on the planet. Some are so serious that your decision will determine if you are allowed back on later. Besides running around and talking to people to get quests and buy stuff, the combat and customization are fathoms deep; fans will be pleased.

You can customize your character with a plethora of items, such as implants, shields, different weapons from lightsabers, blasters, vibroblades, belts, armor, robes, and headgear, and I haven’t even started on leveling up. You should pick your character based on how you’re going to fight. I chose to use melee weapons because you eventually go through Jedi training and get your first lightsaber. I have to say that this brought a smile to my face when I inserted my crystals and watched my character whip around those sabers with the classic lightsaber sounds. Nothing can top that.

The game allows you to customize all your items by inserting upgrades that you find or buy. This is mandatory because there really isn’t a “most powerful weapon in the game.” You just get a powerful weapon, and you have to upgrade it, or it won’t do you much good. Other than this, there is the deep leveling system. You can choose an attribute, feat, power, and skill. Feats affect what you use physically in combat and what combat attacks you can use. Powers are forceful powers, and there are plenty of them. All the light and dark powers you can possibly think of are here. I had a lot of fun using them in combat and getting an edge over certain enemies. The level cap is at 20, but most people probably won’t even hit that by the end. I finished at level 18 and didn’t have too much trouble finishing it. You can even choose how your companions level up because you can control them too! This is great for people who like variety and can’t have every skill available for their character.

Combat is turn-based, with dice rolling behind the scenes. I really would have liked real-time combat, but what’s here is exciting and fun on its own. There are tons of different enemies to fight on each planet, and some are harder than others. I found the game really hard at first, but after a while, you will level up and find the game very balanced. There are some issues in combat that just really annoyed me. There seems to be a targeting problem in small areas. When you click the action you want, the characters will get stuck in an endlessly looping animation if there is someone in their way. This can cause you a battle because you have to disengage and restart the attack or move around the obstruction. This happened quite a lot, but you will learn to just live with it.

While the story is interesting and choosing how dialog will change it is fun, there are some issues here. Instead of your choice being final, some dialog trees will allow you to go back and change your answer, or no matter how you persuade or force persuade, neither will work and you can’t continue the dialog. This is usually on side missions, but I have never seen the persuade option fail so much in a BioWare game. No matter how much I leveled up my persuasion attribute, I failed an awful lot. Other than this, though, my other issue is that some dialog just drags on way too long. I found myself skipping a lot of it or just reading ahead of the voices. These, again, are just minor issues that can be overlooked.

The graphics in the game look old and terrible these days, but back in the day, they looked amazing. I can see why it looked so good then, but you can still feel the Star Wars atmosphere, and that’s what counts the most. The character models and animations are stiff, blocky, and repeat a lot, but overall they work. Even some of the voice acting is spotty at best, but overall it is pretty good.

KotOR is an amazing Star Wars experience, but the age may turn a lot of people off. My biggest issue of all is that the game doesn’t give any clues on where to go. You get no hints and are left on your own to just figure out what to do. I had to use a walkthrough through most of the game because I had no idea where to go, or some quests were very cryptic. This is a huge no-no for me and really hurts the score the most. Overall, this is an amazing Star Wars game, and any Star Wars fan will love this game.

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Keyboard & Mouse

the-walking-dead-game-episode-2-walkthrough

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date: 6/29/2012

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The first episode was just amazing and had some shocking moments. I have been waiting for this episode, but I feel a little letdown this time around. Lee and the gang need to find food because they ran out at the motel they are holding down. You go to try to find food and wind up on a dairy farm, but the food isn’t exactly what you think it might be. There aren’t as many shocking moments, and they don’t come off as surprising as in the first episode. The big moments are more dialog choices than actual gameplay, which is disappointing. One moment does have you chopping off a guy’s leg stuck in a bear trap, but other than that, the other moments are pretty typical, like yanking a gun out of a guy’s hand. In fact, there aren’t even really that many zombies in this episode; they kind of take a back seat to the internal struggle on the farm.

The game plays out exactly the same, but there are fewer exploring segments and even fewer puzzles to solve. In fact, this mainly felt like an interactively animated episode rather than an adventure game. Not to say that is bad, but fans of the first episode may find it disappointing. There are some more important choices you have to make, and that is probably the biggest switch from the first episode. Some changes actually determine the lives of a few characters you probably got attached to. Episode 2 does what this series is doing best, and that’s slowly drawing the characters’s personalities out and constantly making you question how you feel about them.

The game isn’t so much tense gameplay-wise as story-wise. The whole time, I was surprised when something did happen. You are thrown important choices and need to make decisions quickly at times when you least expect them, and they really make you think. I had such a hard time picking almost every choice because sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the best thing to do. A lot of times, I wonder how that will affect me later on in the series.

Overall, Episode 2 doesn’t have as much action or surprising moments, but it expands the character’s personality and gives you some seriously heavy situations that force you to make big decisions. The episode also puts zombies on the back burner for the problems on this farm and the group, so be prepared for that.

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Blades of Time

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/29/2012

Posted in: Mac, Microsoft, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox 360. Tagged: adventure, blades of time, hack, pc, platformer, sexy, slash, steam, xblades. Leave a comment

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Gaijin Entertainment

Release Date: 3/6/2012

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X Blades was a pretty bad game when it came out, with combat that wasn’t fun, a lame story, bad graphics, and just all-around bad. The sequel is much better but still isn’t great. Ayumi is back, trying to find some sort of dragon sphere in Dragon Land, but she has to get through the Sky Guards, who are trying to stop her from awakening The Keeper, who is guarding this sphere. The plot is very “meh” and doesn’t have any redeeming value. The combat is decent with some fun shooting mechanics, but everything here is broken to some degree.

Take combat, for starters. There are only light and heavy attacks, and the same combos are used throughout the whole game. You can’t unlock new moves or combos, just spells. These spells consist of fire, ice, and power. As you beat up on enemies, your spell gauge will increase to one and two skulls. One unleashes a weak attack, while two are powerful. If you fill your bar up all the way, you get a health pack. This would be fine if unleashing this magic wasn’t done in a terrible fashion. Holding down the spell button to charge it and then pressing the appropriate spell button slows down combat. Why can’t I just equip the spell and unleash it with one button? It doesn’t help that enemies can interrupt the spell charge, leading to cheap deaths. Speaking of deaths, you can die very easily in this game, causing you to constantly use health packs.

Platforming is just as bad because Ayumi doesn’t jump very far, making you rely on her dash move. If you don’t judge the distance right, she will just drop like a rock after her dash. That’s why you dash jump around floating corrals, but fighting on small platforms is a nightmare because the knockback seems to be glitched because she will fly across the level sometimes if hit by large enemies. You can shoot with guns you find throughout the game, and this is at least decent. Shooting enemies feels good with the different weapons and can actually help you when you’re low on health and need to back off.

The third part of Blades of Time is puzzle-solving. This is in the form of rewinding time and using switches that you stand on. Anyone who has played Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time will know what I’m talking about. This seems to be dull and confusing at first, but you can also use it during combat. Some larger enemies need two Ayumis to take them down via quick-time events, which are poorly implemented here. I really felt this time the rewind feature could have been used in better ways than opening doors and beating only a couple different enemies. You can use your compass to find hidden items that give you various stat effects, but these are really easy to find because the compass points you right to them.

The graphics are average at best. The textures have a pretty low resolution, but the art style is nice with varied environments and different suits that Ayumi wears. Overall, everything is just flawed in some way due to poor mechanics. The combat is repetitive and dull with the same attacks; the puzzle-solving is boring and confusing; and the few platforming sections are hard due to bad jumping mechanics. The story is bland with boring characters, and even Ayumi isn’t all that interesting (she tries to be a new-age Lara Croft). The game is playable, but after you play it, you will quickly forget about it.