Super Hexagon is a game where I can say it’s barely that; in fact, it’s a game you might quit in less than one minute. I don’t know what the designers were thinking, but this game is so hard that it becomes no fun in less than 5 minutes. You are just a triangle rotating around a circle, trying to find your way through gaps in a giant hexagon that closes in on you. I couldn’t get past 28 seconds of survival, and that was after I memorized every stage and died about 50 times.
That’s really all I can say about this game, because it’s hardly a game at all. The graphics are so simple, with just basic colors and shapes; the only praise I can give this game is the awesome 8-bit soundtrack. The game requires memorization and super-fast-twitch reflexes to win. It doesn’t help that there are only hard difficulties; there is nothing easy to start out with. It doesn’t help that the visuals will give you a headache in less than 10 minutes, and it just hurts your eyes. I like the fact that the game is trying to be challenging, but I’m glad I didn’t pay much for this game.
With that said, I really can’t recommend this to many people unless you are seriously hardcore, but the majority of players will uninstall it in less than 5 minutes. Why play a game that takes over 20 minutes of practice just to advance past the 30-second mark? I honestly don’t understand why this game was even made or what audience it was supposed to be for. I really can’t say much else about this game because there just isn’t anything there to say; it’s hardly a game as it is.
While everyone is playing Black Ops II and Battlefield 3, there is a little multiplayer game called Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. This knight-in-shining-armor online-only game pits players against each other and lets them have at it with deadly swords, crossbows, flaming pots, shields, and various other Camelot-era weapons. This is a different multiplayer game and will keep you hooked for dozens of hours.
There’s no story here at all, so don’t worry about that; this game doesn’t need a story. You open up the game, and you are greeted with a server list. There’s a tutorial that shows you the ropes of this game. There’s a bit more to it than just swinging around weapons. Each one has range, damage, and speed that you have to think about. In a small arena, you probably want a short and fast weapon, while on the more open maps, you should use a javelin and a giant polearm. There are three basic attacks: overhead, side-by-side, and jab swings. You can feint attacks as well to trick your opponent, which is a key move you have to learn to master. You block, but you have to time it, and you can’t just block aimlessly. You have to be looking at the weapon, or the block won’t really connect. This is really a knight simulator, and the game is just so much fun.
It doesn’t stop there, though; there are some projectiles. The bow is great to use and has an arrow cam that helps you adjust your aim. There’s also a crossbow, but reloading is very slow, and you can’t see around you when reloading. Larger classes get axes to throw, while smaller ones get knives and daggers. I found a strategy where I’d use up my projectiles and try to get some kills that way before going in. There are 4 classes: man-at-arms, knight, vanguard, and archer. The Vanguard is the biggest class and can kill in just a couple of hits, but it is extremely slow. He and the Man-at-Arms have a charging attack that will devastate anyone in its path. If you use a kite shield with these classes, it protects you from rear attacks, which is actually how I died the most. I would be battling an enemy, and I’d get creamed by two guys coming up from behind that I couldn’t see or hear.
Some levels have traps in them that you can activate to help your team or whittle down someone’s health before going in for the kill. Each class is a lot of fun to play, and I found myself constantly switching between them, unlike other multiplayer games. I just wish there were more classes. Four isn’t all that much, and there aren’t enough maps. Torn Banner is putting out free content, but it’s been slow coming since the release last year. However, I still find myself coming back and playing a few rounds at least once a week; the game is very addictive.
The game modes are also lacking. There’s just Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All (Deathmatch), Capture the Flag, and Dueling, which is 1v1. There are a couple more, but these are typical modes found in other games. One mode that is unique to this game is a siege-type mode where you use battering rams, trebuchets, and various other long-range siege weapons to break into the enemy’s fortress and take it over. That is probably the most fun. On one map, my team was trying to push a battering ram through a small village. We were trying to fight off the other team, and it was a constant back and forth. Once we got to the front doors, their archers made easy work of the battering team because their moat didn’t allow us to surround the team and defend them. We just had to do archery battles or hang back and wait for people to come out.
As it stands, Chivalry has proven to be a very popular and well-made multiplayer game. The graphics are fantastic, and everything looks superb. Hopefully, Torn Banner can continue to dole out new content to make players happy and continue playing.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior was a game trying to be different, a sniper simulator similar to Sniper Elite but much worse. Ghost Warrior 2 improves upon the predecessor a lot but is still not worth the price of admission. I actually wanted to be interested in the story; it kept trying to pull me in, but it just fell flat in the end. The voice acting is actually pretty decent, if cheesy sometimes. I don’t know why you’re on these missions; it never explains. All I know is that you’re hunting a guy named Marinov or something like that and trying to stop the sale of bioweapons. It was a typical present-day military story, but the plot twists actually had me interested, almost.
The game is actually a lot of fun, but all the gameplay mechanics are half-baked and fall flat. The game is supposed to be a sniper simulator, but it holds your hand through every scenario. It marks who to shoot in what order, how far away they are, and even gives you a red dot to accommodate for which way the wind is blowing. With the sniper rifles rendered in such high detail, why not let us figure it out for ourselves? Well, the average 15-year-old Call of Duty player wouldn’t like that, that’s why. The shooting feels fine, but all the sniper rifles feel exactly the same—all three. There is a serious lack of weapons; to begin with, your only other weapon is a silenced pistol. That’s it. I understand you’re a sniper, but why not a silenced sub-machine gun or something?
The other major issue is that every single gameplay mechanic is broken in some way. The game tries to implement stealth, but it doesn’t work. I was able to just walk around without being detected and even run. Stealth kills don’t work right and are unsatisfying because the animations are terrible, and the death kills aren’t very gruesome. Even the bullet cam shots stink; it’s nothing like Sniper Elite V2. On top of all this, the AI is dumb as dirt. In one mission, I alerted everyone but stepped into a bush, and not a single enemy saw me even after I stepped out again. I was able to kill everyone, and none of them even looked for me. Sometimes I died during scripted events without knowing why. Having your core gameplay elements break is not fun.
Ghost Warrior 2 fails to make a sniper simulator like it wants. The game is highly linear and is nearly on rails. The upside is that the game is still mindless and fun. Sometimes when the game does let you go on your own and you have to clear an area, things like killing two enemies with one bullet and clearing the whole area without getting detected feel a bit satisfying. Other than that, the same scenarios were repeated until the game ended. Snipe these enemies, sneak around a bit, scripted event, cutscene, hide, snipe these enemies, rinse, and repeat.
The game actually looks pretty decent but doesn’t use CryEngine 3 like Crysis 2 or 3 does at all. It doesn’t take advantage of the DirectX 11 features at all. The game looks like it has medium-high settings on Crysis 2. It still looks good, but there are some eyesores. Plants that you sneak through a move at a low framerate are literally just flat textures that bend around. The cattails are not even in 3D and look like something from a PS2 game. A huge oversight or just plain lazy? I don’t know. Don’t even ask me about the multiplayer because no one is playing and it’s boring anyway.
Overall, Ghost Warrior 2 is mindless fun but not worth the price of admission. Every core element is broken in some way, and even the graphics are broken in spots. Pick this up when it’s $5 or less; otherwise, pass it up and play Crysis 3 instead.
This is exactly how you do a game series reboot, right? I wish I could end my review with that, but I need to tell you why. Tomb Raider suffered through a few mediocre games during the first run of the series during the late 90’s and early 2000s. The first reboot did well for the series by maturing Lara and giving us better controls and a more cinematic experience. Now comes Tomb Raider (2013), a fantastic game that shows the more human side of Lara. The game starts out with you and a science crew on a ship on the way to an archeological site, but things go awry when Lara decides to head to the Dragon’s Triangle off the coast of Japan. A mysterious storm destroys the boat, and Lara and the team are stranded on this island. There is a mysterious cult trying to sacrifice people to a sun goddess to end these storms. Lara has to deal with this if she wants, of course.
What makes Tomb Raider so memorable is the struggle she goes through while surviving. She is nearly raped, suffers tremendous injuries, and has to cope with herself, dealing with the fact that she has to kill to survive. She is not comfortable with this at first and really struggles to pull the trigger. This adds layers of depth to her character that weren’t seen before. Not only is her personality more memorable, but her looks have changed. No longer is Lara wearing the short shorts and tight shirt with her huge bust. She has been knocked down a few cup sizes and is much younger, straight out of college, in fact. It’s hard to really describe her more than this; you have to play the game to really connect.
The gameplay in Tomb Raider has completely changed, but yes, there is platforming and gunplay. Both are tight and very well crafted. Gunplay consists of using scraps to create a pistol, bow, machine gun, and shotgun. That’s it. As you progress and find salvage in crates and dead bodies, you can upgrade these to look and feel like better weapons. There are many upgrades that increase damage and accuracy, as well as adding new ammo types. Lara’s animations are very well done and realistic, and this falls into combat. She scrambles around and ducks behind cover; the guns feel great to shoot, and you can see how inexperienced Lara is; she’s not a Navy SEAL or commando. Unlike other games like this, her stumbling animations don’t interfere with the game at all. You can still move around, you can dodge, and there’s even some melee thrown in. As you upgrade your skills (done at various campfires throughout the game), you can dodge, and through quick-time events, you can do some pretty gruesome kills.
While gunplay is tight and fun, exploring is just as important. This island is massive, and you can go anywhere; there are no limits. Fast travel via camps really helps, but there’s a reason for moving around everywhere: collecting hidden items. These range from relics, GPS caches, documents, etc. There are hidden tombs found throughout the game that hold area maps for these items. These tombs consist of cleverly made physics puzzles that are really fun to complete. You get rewards like art and 3D models to view. The whole game just has an amazing atmosphere and is so much fun to explore.
On top of all the climbing around, you get a climbing axe, which is an important tool for climbing and combat. Your bow is used for shooting ropes across valleys and canyons to pull items to solve puzzles, break doors, and access new areas. The whole exploring ideal in this game is just fantastic and really fun. I did have to think about how to get to new areas and actually try to navigate and experiment with that good game design. There is a Survival Instinct ability that highlights map markers and objectives, and when you unlock the skill, you can see items through walls.
The story itself is a bit confusing; the whole spiritual thing is a bit unbelievable in such a realistic world like this, but that is what Tomb Raider is known for. Lara is the main character here, and what she goes through was the main story for me. I loved every second of the story. The voice acting is awesome, and the graphics look amazing—some of the best on PC yet. The new DirectX 11 features like Tessellation and the new TressFX technology applied to Lara’s hair look nice, but there were a lot of bugs and glitches for Nvidia users during launch (they are now fixed). You will need a monster rig to play this game on the highest settings.
The multiplayer was tacked on late in development and is pretty boring. The combat was designed for cinematic gameplay, not multiplayer. It feels just like it does in the story, but it just doesn’t suit multiplayer well. I played all three rounds and got bored of the game. Some people may like it, but there are better multiplayer shooters out there.
Overall, Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games of all time and is really memorable. The voice acting is solid, and Lara’s new personality makes her more human and more relatable. The graphics are outstanding, and the gunplay and exploring mechanics are fun and very cinematic.
I’m not much of a kart racing fan because the games tend to be too simple and easy, but Transformed really knocks it out of the park. The last Sonic Kart Racer was just okay; it had a slow pace, and it just wasn’t designed very well. This game really surprised me with its excellent graphics, track design, and character selection.
The obvious are Sega mascots such as Sonic, Amy, Shadow, Robotnik, Alex Kidd, and various others. While any of these guys outside of Sonic aren’t well known, it is nice to see them here. PC users get exclusive characters such as Football Manager (I know), Team Fortress, and Shogun (I know… Not exactly amazing characters you would want in a kart racer, but oh well. When you start your first race, you will immediately see how much better this game is. The handling is so much more fluid, and the races just flow. What really sells the game are the tracks that change mid-race and are able to transform into flying and nautical vehicles. Each character has three different vehicles, and it just feels great. They all handle things differently, so it makes you stay on your toes. The track design is amazing. There are hazards everywhere, and the weapons are really cool. The tracks are featured in various games, like Sonic’s Green Hill Zone and Samba De Amigo’s crazy LSD track. These levels are fun, but I just wish there were more.
The weapons vary from iceballs, twisters, remote cars that explode, rockets, blowfish, and various other crazy weapons. You pick up the question-mark capsules to find them, but you will find an All-Stars weapon that will make you really powerful and fast. Your car transforms, and it just looks really cool. Along the way, you can pick up coins that are used in other modes’ load screens in a slot machine to acquire boosts and other items. I just found the game to be very pleasing to play, but not with a single player. Easy was too easy, medium was too hard, and hard was impossible. The AI is really bad, but people play kart racing games for multiplayer anyway, which is where all the fun is to be had in this game. Unlike the last game, PC gamers get online multiplayer.
The graphics are really nice, with bright, vibrant colors, great-looking textures, and some really amazing lighting effects. Of course, the PC gets the best treatment, and it looks way better than the last game. As you play the game, you will eventually find tracks that become your favorites and find which character you prefer. The dynamically changing tracks just add that much more fun to the game. Hitting speed boosts, finding weapons, and avoiding track hazards are so much fun, and the sense of speed is incredible.
I just wish there was a bit more, but while there is more content than in the last game, I feel something is just missing. Maybe if the AI wasn’t so bad, the single-player would be more fun, but I found myself getting bored with it. The only reason to constantly come back is multiplayer. There is a licensed feature that allows you to add up to three stickers that you earned, but I felt this was completely useless and something to put in for little kids. However, as it stands, it doesn’t add anything significantly new to the genre or push it forward, which is what it needs. While it may not reinvent the wheel, it just makes it bigger and louder.
Dead Space is one of my favorite franchises of all time. The first game was the most memorable with its deformed and twisted monsters, a very deep and intriguing plot, and revolutionary HUD that was very minimal. Dead Space 2 was more of the same, but not enough new to make it memorable. It also had so-called multiplayer, which was fun for a few hours but quickly got boring. Dead Space 3 is here with a co-op and a new more open design. Is it better than DS2? In a way.
The story is pretty epic and is told on a larger scale now. You are no longer stuck on a derelict ship or space colony. You start out on Earth in your run-down apartment, where we find out Isaac has turned himself into a depressive bum. Ellie has recently left Isaac for another man, but they soon get brought back together to save humanity once again. A crazy man named Danik is trying to find a way to bring humanity to “ascension” and “rebirth” by wanting the Necromorphs to destroy everything. You and a team cast off to the Marker homeworld to stop all this once and for all. The problem here is that the game is stretched out so much that the story is hard to follow during the first half. Cutscenes are too far apart, and so little is told because it is saved for the end. The story is a bit disappointing, and the ending doesn’t have the wow factor that it should. You just finish it and think, “That’s it?” It’s one of those trilogy endings.
The gameplay is pretty much the same and untouched. Things feel a bit more smooth and streamlined, but nothing has changed there. The first big change you will notice is that you can create your own weapons. A crafting system has been implemented where you get loot off of dead bodies to craft various items. You can build weapons from blueprints or build your own. You start out with a frame, then add an upper tool, a lower tool, and a tip for each tool. After that, you can add chips that increase the gun’s stats more than two support modules, such as more ammo, stasis-coated bullets, and various other things. This is really awesome and allows you to combine your favorite weapons. Stick a flamethrower under your shotgun. How about a blade gun under your plasma gun? Do whatever you want. The problem here is that you can only carry two weapons now. This really sucked. I guess they thought that each gun had two weapons, so it really was four. It doesn’t really work that way. It also takes a really long time to gather enough materials to craft anything. I couldn’t really do much until I was nearly halfway through the game. This is to encourage people to spend money on microtransactions and sucker them into buying materials. Taking advantage of impatient gamers isn’t a nice thing to do, but what can you expect from a greedy corporation like EA?
The crafting system is similar to your suit because you can gather materials to upgrade them, like air capacity, stasis, telekinesis, health, and armor. Another major addition is side missions. There are only seven of them in the game, but three additional ones are added for co-op only. I found these side missions boring because they were all the same. Go through the same identical compound, killing hordes of Necromorphs, to find a chest of stuff. The stuff isn’t even that good. The loot packs don’t give you much, so these side missions were disappointing. At least the main missions are fun and varied, with some fun scripted events. You can set out scavenger bots to help find loot if you want, but that’s just a distraction rather than a mission. I felt EA really tried too hard with this game. Instead of making the game memorable like the first one with scares, they just make it completely action-based and stretch out the world.
The first half consists of you floating around several ships in space, trying to find information and various other things. Humans are a new enemy in this game and are a nice change of pace, but the same old Necromorphs pop up. Sure, they are cool, but there weren’t enough new ones. By the end of the game, I was so sick of these damn things. I honestly don’t want to see another Necromorph again, not because they’re scary but because I’m tired of seeing them. The game just isn’t as scary as it used to be. In the beginning, it felt a bit eerie, but after that, it was just the same hordes of monsters coming at you. Once you are done being in space, you crash land on an icy planet, which is the “homeworld,” but things just feel the same here too.
The game just suffers from fatigue at this point. Fans will enjoy this game for sure, but you long for a good scare or something to really change. There is a lot of backtracking towards the end of the game, with you running back and forth through the same area several times. It is almost like the developers ran out of ideas towards the end. I would have loved a shorter, more solid campaign, but what is here is fun. The graphics look good on PC, but the textures still stink. Up-close shots really show that this is a console port. There are some nicer lighting effects, but they are subtle. Even an older rig can handle this game maxed out.
Should you buy this game? If you are a hardcore fan, sure, but I just suggest waiting for a price drop. When you finish this 15-hour campaign, you will be slightly disappointed. Sure, it’s fun and all, and crafting weapons is neat, but the scare factor that people expect when they play a Dead Space game is nearly gone.
Whine, whine, whine. Bitch, bitch, bitch. That’s all fans ever do these days. Instead of embracing a new take on a series and trying something new, they want the same damn thing over and over again. I have never heard a fan base cry over a game as much as DMC and over just the character redesign at that. Just because he doesn’t have white hair doesn’t make him a bad character—or that man bra. Ninja Theory did an amazing job with this game, and it has all the greatness of past games: fluid animations, slick controls and combat, fun boss fights, and an engaging story. In fact, the character designs in this game are so much better than in past games. It’s the whole “breath of fresh air” thing going on.
The story at least sticks to the lore of previous games. You start out with Dante coming out of his trailer, and a mysterious woman named Kat is telling him to run. You are stuck in Limbo. This is the main world you will play in, where the environment constantly shifts around you. It’s very interesting and fun, and it’s a nice visual treat. You learn about Dante and Virgil’s childhood as well as their father Sparda. Exploration requires some platforming via the two angel and devil whips. Pulling platforms towards you or jumping around in the air on different floating platforms. Not a single level is the same, so the game is never visually tiring. DmC doesn’t really focus on puzzles, which is good because most people play these games for the action, and boy is it good.
I can understand this game not being as hard as previous games, but playing it with higher difficulties solved the problem. Moving on, the combat system is very fluid and pretty deep. There are four different weapons you will acquire: two angels and two demons. The Eryx is similar to the Beowulf gauntlets and the Arbiter, which is a demon scythe. The angelic scythe is Osiris, while Aquila has two fast-moving glaives. There are three weapons you can use, which are Ebony and Ivory pistols, Kablooey, and Revenant, which is a shotgun. Kablooey shoots darts that explode when you detonate them, making it the most powerful gun in the game. Of course, your standard weapon is Rebellion which is a fast-moving mid-range sword. The weapons handle excellently and are really fun to use.
The game still uses the stylish system when fighting. Going from Dirty to Sensational I was never able to get past sadistic, even when I tried hard. You are rated just like in previous games and penalized for dying and using items. The same orb and star system are here. You also get to use Devil Trigger, which regenerates your health while throwing all enemies in the air for a limited amount of time. Saving this up for tough fights like bosses is crucial. The controls are really smooth, with one button being held down to activate either demonic or angelic weapons. Switching between each is fast and easy. You can also use your demonic whip to pull enemies toward you or the angelic one to pull yourself toward enemies. You eventually unlock more combo moves, and then you can really have at it. The fighting system feels great and is silky smooth; I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Honestly, it feels more fluid than past games.
There are hidden areas throughout the game, which are key doors that have special missions. Finding the keys is tough, but you get health fragments to increase your health bar. You can also buy these in the shop, but each one will cost more red orbs than in past games. Honestly, the game feels very similar to the past ones, the only difference being in what you see in the game. The boss fights are amazing and challenging on their own, but they look unique and have a very disgusting demonic style to them. I loved fighting the bosses, which are one of the best features of the game.
When it comes to visuals, the PC has some nice flair to it. Better lighting, anti-aliasing, HD textures, and it can run at 60+FPS, which is actually a huge step up over the consoles. This alone makes it the superior version, even without the flair. Of course, this was made for consoles, so there are a few ugly spots here and there, but overall, it looks great. I love the art style, and the voice acting is superb. Even the facial animations are very well done. I honestly loved how Ninja Theory redid Dante and Virgil; I just like them better in this game. People need to just stop complaining and sit down with this game without a bitter taste in their mouths beforehand.
Overall, DmC is an excellent game, and my expectations were met. I feel it is better than previous games, but of course, the previous games do hold a special place for me. It’s time to move on, though. It’s sad that a fan base can’t accept change because they want the main character to have white hair or that the combat didn’t kill you 500 times on the first level on the easy difficulty. Grow up and get over it, is what I say. The past games are still there; DMC was in no way ever “ruined” or “doomed.” I hope Ninja Theory makes a sequel and continues to give the middle finger to the fans who show no love or support.
Skyrim with guns. That was Ubisoft’s description for Far Cry 3. While it isn’t quite Skyrim with guns, that’s okay because no one really wanted that. Far Cry 3 is still a huge open-world game and is exactly what Far Cry 2 should have been. After Far Cry 2 left a bitter taste in my mouth with its boring, empty world and mediocre story and missions, I just didn’t have much hope for Far Cry 3. Thankfully, I was wrong, because this game is truly great, with memorable characters and a great story. The whole world feels more lively this time around and less empty.
Far Cry 3 has an awesome opening and really shows that this is already the best game in the series. You play Jason Brody, just a regular guy who vacations on an island with his girlfriend and a few friends. Of course, things go wrong, and you are captured by some local pirates. The story has a lot of torture scenes spread throughout, but the beginning jailbreak with your brother really shows off the amazing voice acting and animations. You immediately get attached to these characters, and you are introduced to one of the most memorable game characters in recent history, Vaas. This guy is a sick and twisted psychopath and is truly demented. His relationship with Jason reminds me a lot of the Joker and Batman. Jason makes Vaas question his own sanity, and he is not comfortable with that. Jason seems to always come back from the dead, and this infuriates Vaas all the time. Every time Vaas comes on screen, you can’t help but get excited for what he’s going to do next. Truly a well-developed character.
Once you get past the first scene, you are dumped into this huge, luscious jungle and start getting introduced to various gameplay elements. Hunting is introduced as well as crafting. This includes crafting with animal skins to hold more things like ammo, weapons, and syringes. You can gather plants to craft syringes for health, enhance perception, hunt, steadily aim, and various other things. While these two new elements are fun, they seem a bit disconnected from the formula of Far Cry. The hunting is a bit underdeveloped because stalking these animals isn’t anything like in Assassin’s Creed III. You can try sneaking up on them, but most are hidden in grass, forcing you to use hunting syringes. When you fire off a shot, all animals scatter, and some take quite a few hits to take down. If you don’t get them down in one shot, you have to chase them down, and eventually you lose them. The crafting requires different animal skins for each set, but I really felt it was a hassle to do this.
The same goes for plant gathering. Certain plants are required for certain syringes, but early on, these fill up your loot sack, forcing you to hunt for the skins for a bigger one. You also get a small wallet and have to craft a larger one for more money. Not exactly economical game-wise, but this is to the taste of the player. I didn’t mind it, but I never really pursued hunting specific animals. I just gathered whatever got in my way. There just isn’t a huge incentive for hunting and gathering this game.
There are a few side quests, such as hunting specific animals with certain weapons, killing marked targets, racing, and the Trial of the Rakyat, which requires you to complete certain goals, such as killing everyone in the area with headshots. These are fun and can break up the main story. The map is actually completely blacked out until you find radio towers and take them offline. This involves climbing the towers and figuring out how to scale them. It feels a bit like Assassin’s Creed, actually. There are also loot containers and relics spread throughout the island, but I honestly didn’t bother. I really hate item gathering in games because it is a lazy way to extend the playtime, but some people out there like it.
My favorite part of the game was the main story. Missions vary greatly, but I looked forward to the new characters and the ever-evolving story of Jason, Vaas, and Hoyt (the main bad guy). The whole idea of going from a city slicker to a powerful tribal warrior is really interesting. There are some fantasy elements thrown in when you go through trials to become the most powerful Rakyat warrior on the island. You have to defeat a giant boss at one point with a bow and arrow. Pretty exciting and fun. This is probably one of the more interesting FPS campaigns I have played in a long time; in fact, most FPS games seem to bore me these days. Far Cry 3 was a nice change of pace.
When it comes to visuals, Far Cry 3 pushes PCs yet again, like it did back when it first came out. The game has amazing DirectX 11 features such as SSAO and HBAO, as well as anti-aliasing, high-resolution textures, high-quality shadows, some amazing lighting effects, and some great shaders thrown in to make this game look like a lush jungle. You will need the latest PC gaming hardware to run it like this, though; even my rig couldn’t run it 100% maxed out. The PC version is definitely the best. When it comes to multiplayer, I really can’t say much other than that you won’t be coming back too often. Nothing really exciting there.
Overall, Far Cry 3 sports amazing visuals, a great story, and memorable characters. The huge open world is fun to explore, but the hunting and crafting mechanics feel a bit forced and underdeveloped. Multiplayer isn’t as interesting as you think, but the co-op campaign is where it’s at. If FPS games have been boring you lately, take this for a spin.
Have you ever wanted to play an MC Escher sketch? Echochrome may come to mind, but Antichamber feels like a mix of Portal, using cubes instead of portals, and Echochrome’s art style. There isn’t really a story here; you just wake up in a hub with four surrounding walls. One wall has your game options, which you just interact with; one wall has the various clues you find throughout the game; and the third wall has your map, where you can jump to levels you have discovered. All you really know is that you are chasing down a gray, mysterious block and trying to escape.
These types of games are never touched by big publishers, so it is up to indie developers to make them. Antichamber has a great block-gun puzzle mechanic that really gets your gears turning. You eventually upgrade to a yellow or red gun, but the basic is blue. Once you learn how the antichamber works and how optical illusions can change the world around you, you get the gun. You walk around linear hallways, trying to discover new areas. You may see a staircase leading up, but it disappears, and a straight hallway opens up. There may be an eye on a wall, and if you stare at it long enough, it will open up. Another illusion puzzle has you going up and down a shaft three different times; each time is different. These illusions are really unique and make Antichamber stand out from other first-person puzzle games like Portal.
The block puzzles consist of shapes on walls, and you have to fill in these shapes in certain ways. Sometimes there is glass blocking certain areas, so you need to drag them around instead. Lasers are a major part of the puzzle; some need to be blocked, and some need to be activated. Figuring these puzzles out is hard because you also have to generate new blocks if there aren’t enough. Drag them around in the puzzle grid in a square shape to fill in the middle. The puzzles get harder and harder as you move along.
If you mess up, you just press Esc to go back to the map room and start that room over again. I just wish the game had some more platforming rooms thrown in and wasn’t so puzzle-heavy; even Portal made you jump around some. The antichamber uses doors as another puzzle element. You have to insert cubes into holes to open doors, but sometimes there aren’t enough cubes. Use one to hold the door open, go through it, grab the cube, and just piggyback a few cubes to gather what you need for the final puzzle. Antichamber really had me stuck most of the way because of how unique and different the puzzles were; there’s nothing else like it.
There isn’t anything else like the visuals of this game. All white and bright primary colors. You feel like you are in one of MC Escher’s sketches. Nothing fancy here at all, which is what made Echochrome so great as well. Due to this art style and the illusions, the whole chamber can be very confusing to navigate. Pathways open up to nowhere; a pit may drop you into another part of the chamber, which can be confusing. I even found the ending pointless, but the whole idea is to solve puzzles. If you don’t like puzzle-solving, stay away from this game.
Overall, Antichamber has a wonderful art style and puzzle-solving elements that are like nothing else out there. This game is making a huge splash in the indie scene for a reason. If you love quirky puzzle games, this is just for you.
With fans being so upset with Diablo III, I have to first say, turn here. Torchlight II builds upon the already excellent engine and adds more content, a lengthy campaign, and tons of great loot. The dungeon crawler genre is all about getting great loot, leveling your character, and fighting tough bosses. Once you get to the last couple of dungeons, you will be guzzling potions like crazy. The game is non-stop action with no breaks. While Diablo III may have a larger budget in the millions, a better story, and better graphics, Torchlight II delivers on what the fans want: loot, dungeons, and bosses.
You can pretty much forget the story. It is told in three pieces and isn’t very interesting. Something about Nephilim invading the world and you trying to stop it? I honestly don’t know. I lost track because the story is broken up too much and told in between three large acts, so you forget what happens. What matters is the action. You can choose between four strong classes that are typical of the genre. Mage, duelist, warrior, and middle ground guy. Each class has a slew of great abilities that you actually won’t completely acquire in one play-through. I chose the duelist and stuck with akimbo pistols. There was even a perk called Akimbo! There’s something here for every type of player.
The loot feels nearly endless, and it is actually good. There are boss chests, large chests, and just regular ones spread throughout. You don’t have to worry about getting good loot. Of course, most of it ends up being junk, but when you beat a boss, you will get something good. You can equip rings, belts, shields, leg and body armor, helmets—you name it. You can enchant items that add random stat increases, add jewels, or even disenchant items to regain the money. There was even an option to use junk loot to create new items, like potions. I’m glad there are a lot of options for the main part of the game: the damn loot.
I found the dungeons and enemies to be plentiful and varied. I never really got bored. Each area has small, large, and champion enemies that get tougher to fight. Sometimes you will be swarmed by over a dozen, but that is the whole point. Every step led to an enemy, and I felt the urge to uncover every part of every map. I always found a secret somewhere or a new champion to beat. Doing this helps you level up faster, making the game easier. There are side quests that are fun, and some downright tough bosses. A couple at the very end had to be beaten 2-3 times over, which is a challenge all on its own.
When you die, Torchlight punishes you with gold instead of lame armor damage. Resurrecting at the entrance is the cheapest option, but doing so in town is free, just inconvenient. The best one is resurrecting on the spot, which costs three times as much as at the entrance. This really makes you wonder if it is worth it or not. Usually, I only resurrected on the spot in the middle of a large overworld area where backtracking would take forever.
You still get a pet this time around; you can equip armor and other items on it. You can have your pet take your loot back for you and sell it, and now you can give it a list of items like potions and scrolls to bring back for you. You lose your pet for two minutes, but this is a lifesaver. Let your pet do the tedious work while you continue fighting. I found this almost revolutionary for the genre, which is already one of the least updated in the gaming world. If you want one reason to play this, the loot is what kept me going. I wanted to acquire new abilities and get the best weapons and armor. There is also great balancing in multiplayer, which is what most people are going to do.
Overall, Torchlight II is a lot of fun and has all the genre staples that people want: lots of great loot that is dished out often, tough boss fights, and a lot of strong, varied enemies. Sure, the game isn’t a technical hound, but who needs that for this type of game? The story kind of stinks, but in the end, we just want to click away and kill stuff. Diablo III and TL2 are always being compared for a reason. TL2 did everything everyone expected D3 to do, and it didn’t. For even a fraction of the cost of D3, this game is a steal.
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