That game company is a really talented bunch. With Journey and Flow under their belt, they are known for making artistically stunning games on Sony’s consoles. When Flower was released on PS3, it amazed gamers around the world with its gorgeous visuals and music. It’s a very simple game, but that’s okay for what it does.
You control a single flower petal and ride the wind to help other flowers bloom and remove gloom and grayness from the world around you. You can control the speed of the petals, and the novelty came from using the PS3’s SixAxis controller to move the petals around. On the Vita, you can use the gyroscope or hold the rear touchpad. I honestly don’t like the controls and feel it is very difficult to control at low or high speeds. I always missed a set of petals in a run and had to turn around and go back, breaking the magic and flow of the game.
It was like this constantly throughout the entire game. Once I felt the game had jumped from petal set to petal set only to let me go and lose focus of the current run. As the game progressed, this became more complicated as you avoided falling electrical towers that would shock you and send you flying backward. It’s a beautiful game to behold, even on Vita, but the frustrating controls and mechanics bring it down quite a bit.
Flower also has some underlying environmental message that feels hypocritical. The game goes from green grasses to dark and dreary in a few levels, only to have you restore color to the city (which clearly represents Los Angeles), so I don’t have any idea what the story is or what the message is about.
There are about seven levels, not including the credit level, which was interesting. Flower is a PlayStation classic and should be played just for its beauty and unique gameplay that no other game can touch. The music is amazing, and I really felt sucked into the game only to be ripped out again by bad controls.
Skateboarding games have always been one of my favorite genres. They’re intense, require an insane amount of skills and coordination, and are just so much fun to play. I started all the way back to the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and ended at Skate 3. From there, the genre pretty much died, but Olli revived the series a bit, and I fell in love with the first game.
The second is no different, and that’s both good and bad. On the plus side, the game feels smoother, there are more tricks, the entire game is more responsive, and there are more modes and new levels and themes. The downside is that it’s pretty much the same game with no real evolution of the series.
Career mode is where you will spend most of your time. Here you have six different goals, varying in tricks, scores, and special spots. Using the left analog stick, you can push down and then up to pop the board up and flick it around to do tricks. Holding it down over a rail will allow you to grind. To properly land a trick, you must press X right before landing, or they will all be sloppy. This trick system is similar to Skate’s and is a great evolution of the button combo system.
Sadly, you can’t do grabs, and there’s no vert skating. Half-pipe rounds would have been fun, and it’s sad that the sequel doesn’t really add all that much. There are two other modes, which are trick spot and just a leaderboard tracker. They’re fun but aren’t really different from the career mode.
The game looks nice with fun music, awesome 2D scenes, and a great Hollywood/Los Angeles theme, and it’s just super smooth. With all that said, OlliOlli 2 is a great entry for newcomers and veterans who will find enough new stuff in the career mode to consider a purchase.
Kratos and God of War are PlayStation icons and symbols of what the system can offer. This game was the biggest hit in 2005, and I went nuts for it like everyone else. It reinvented the action-adventure genre like no one else had with epic boss fights, cinematic combat, and insane-level design. We finally get all of this in portable form on the Vita. While it isn’t the most ideal version, it’s still plenty of fun.
God of War is really starting to show its age and flaws these days; that is really clear. It was a new idea, however well executed, but still had some issues. The game isn’t quite as epic as I remember, thanks to the newer games in the series being insanely huge. There are only two big boss fights in this game, and I could swear there were more. The game is brutal in spots but still rewarding, with many secrets and areas to explore.
You play as Kratos, a Spartan general who cried out for Ares to save him and defeat his enemies, but this all came at a huge price. I won’t spoil more of the story if you have never played this series, but longtime fans know it already. The game has amazing combat, which is what was praised so much 13 years ago. Using the Blades of Chaos, Kratos can swing and spin them around with amazing animations and kill hordes of enemies. I’m not kidding about hordes; there are some scenes where you must defeat nearly a hundred enemies, which is brutal.
The enemy variety is also great, as there are small, easy enemies to huge, lumbering cyclops that take many hits to kill. God of War is famous for quick-time event kills. After so much damage is taken, the enemies will display the circle button above their heads. This initiates a quick-time button pressing, which will give you health orbs. Each enemy has its own unique animation. Each enemy is also a challenge on their own, as some are dangerous on hordes while others are not so much alone. The level design is fantastic, and the enemy placement is cleverly laid out to offer a challenge every step of the way.
The series is also famous for the magic powers you acquire that are different with every game. You get four, which become very useful for various enemies. Poseidon’s Rage is great for clearing hordes of weaker enemies, as it’s an AOE attack. Zeus’ Fury is the only long-range weapon you get for picking off ranged enemies. Souls of Hades is like a shield, and Medusa’s Gaze is great for larger single enemies to turn them to stone. On top of the Blades of Chaos, you also get Artemis’ Blade, which is a powerful short-range heavy weapon, but once the Blades were fully upgraded, I honestly never really used it.
Outside of combat, there are puzzles that will sometimes slow you down. Most consist of pressing switches in order, climbing puzzles, or jigsaws. Pandora’s Temple is a giant puzzle within itself that takes up a third of the game near the middle. I just can’t stress enough how hard this game can be. Some spots had me restarting dozens of times until I got it right, and this included platforming sections. The first game’s Hell area is notorious for being brutally difficult. Having to balance on long spinning logs covered in blades and then climb spinning spiked towers that stretch on forever is daunting, but rewarding when you do complete it.
Overall, God of War is still a blast to play 13 years later and is as polished as I remember. Outside of hardware limitations at the time, Sony did an amazing job creating what they did. There are some cheap deaths, unbalanced difficulty in spots, and the quick-time events do get repetitive, but it’s minor issues that can’t really bring the game down even today.
The Vita version is the only way to play this game in portable form, and it’s not the most ideal version. The PS3 version runs at a smooth 60FPS, but the Vita cleans up the visuals a little and does have some FPS drops when a lot of enemies are on screen, but it’s not often. I’m sad to see this game doesn’t hit 60FPS, which it does even on PS2 sometimes, which keeps this game from getting a perfect score.
It’s sad to say that the Vita was a mostly commercial flop as Sony got scared with the first sign of trouble. The Vita still continues to release JRPGs and visual novels today, but first- and third-party support has been long gone. The Slim Vita was released right at the beginning of all this, but there’s still a huge library to play on for anyone who hasn’t picked up a Vita yet. While the launch system was a fantastic piece of hardware, the slim version is as well.
While I won’t get into technical details about the hardware, the Slim Vita is virtually the same system, just slimmer, more ergonomic, lighter, and with much better buttons and placement. The awkward oval start, select, and home buttons are gone with new circle buttons that are firm and less mushy. Everything just has a more satisfying click and less of a mushy feeling to it, which is nice. The downside to being lighter and slimmer is a cheaper feeling, but it still feels good in the hands.
The home button no longer lights up, so those LEDs were moved to the top next to the power button as small bars, which look sleek and minimal. The Vita also uses a standard micro-USB cable, which is nice and ditches the proprietary charger; it’s just too bad they didn’t do that with storage. 1GB of internal memory is included for tiny games and saves, but you can’t use it concurrently with the outrageously expensive memory card.
The biggest change of all is the LCD screen, which is no longer OLED. The Vita was touted as having a fantastic-looking screen, and while the LCD is nothing to scoff at, it doesn’t pop like the OLED did, but you wouldn’t notice unless they were side by side. This change always has more battery life as well. Also noted is the exclusion of 3G models, as AT&T killed the Vita plans less than a year after launch.
Overall, the Slim Vita is the best version to get due to all the improvements. Griping about the OLED screen isn’t enough to justify not wanting this version. We won’t get another iteration, so this is the best you can find.
The original Walking Dead was a fantastic adventure game. It was well written, tense, memorable, and had amazing characters. The dialog choices kept the game moving, and you always felt like you were in control of every moment. Season Two adds to this while taking place moments after the end of the first game.
This time around, you play solely as Clementine. Right off the bat, I can tell you that your choices from the first season hardly impact Season Two. I imported my save, but I didn’t see many changes or choices I made from Season One affect anything here. We get an all-new cast, setting, and goal for Season Two that kept me going until the end.
Clementine is a child, but her raw character shows this season thanks to what she went through. Going from an innocent child to a hardened killer isn’t easy, and it makes Clementine such a likable character. Adults respect her for how mature she is; she can make adult decisions, but she still has some vulnerabilities that a child would have at her age. The new characters come across as strong, just like in Season One, but I felt a slight disconnect from them. Something about these new characters didn’t quite click as well. A lot is introduced early on, so this might be the reason.
Throughout the game, we are seeing Clem get to a word-of-mouth safe haven called Wellington as she meets new friends, makes new enemies, and has to escape dire circumstances. I feel that this time around, the game is more of an interactive movie than a game. There are hardly any gameplay moments, and there is zero puzzle solving. The action sequences are somewhat entertaining, but the horrific moments of terror are far and few this time around. The few spots where you can walk around an area feel pointless, as all you do is go to the only interactive object to progress. The gameplay is seriously lacking here, but that’s not really a bad thing.
The dialog options are still strong, and many choices had me wanting to go back and change my choice, but that’s good. I always thought about what would happen if I chose something else, as some choices are designed to unfold later and some are immediate. The pacing of this game is also slower and less balanced. There are many slow moments of downtime and dialog build-up. Sometimes 20 minutes would go by with nothing but dialog options, which is a stark contrast to the first game.
I did notice the visuals are slightly improved with better lighting and more detailed textures, but overall the game engine is seriously aging and doesn’t hold up to other games. Season Two is still a memorable game with great characters, excellent writing, and tense moments. If only it were paced better and had more gameplay.
I’m going to talk about the PS Vita differences and how it holds up on the system, but the review for the original Dead or Alive 5 on PS3 is below. The PS Vita version is fantastic and feels like an excellent port. The game runs smoothly with the same great animations and good-looking textures. Nothing really seems to have been cut, but stuff has been added. For one, there are new training modes to practice combos and various other challenges. The biggest addition is the new Touch Fight Mode, where you see through the eyes of your character and can touch and flick to fight. This promotes DoA’s famous breast physics, and you can also change how bouncy the breasts are.
In addition to all this, you can use cross-save features and play online with other PS3 owners. While the content wasn’t cut, modes were such as not being able to upload matches to YouTube, lobby matches, and tag team solo play only. Despite those taken out, the game is solid and works well on Vita’s limited controls. I have to say this is one of the best fighting games available on the system, and any fighting or DoA fan should own it.
Hot Shots Golf has always been a solid golf series for PlayStation owners since the wee days of the PS1. While it provides cartoony visuals, the game is as close to a real golf simulator as you can get. The game has easy controls, fun gameplay, and amazing original courses.
World Invitational doesn’t deviate too far from the already familiar formula. You can create a character and customize every aspect, from hair decorations to shoes. Unlocking new items requires meeting certain conditions during the career mode, and it gives you something to do and shoot for. Once you get out onto the course, things are still quite familiar, and you start to realize why this is the best golf game on the Vita.
The standard golf game affair is here, from zooming to the hole, seeing wind speed, checking your lie, and even changing your swing and clubs. Controls are very easy, and the swing meter is actually customizable. There are several different types of players. You have unlocked swing meters, which is strange, but my favorite is the three-step meter. Setting your power and then your accuracy is the easiest way to go. I found that this game has an overly sensitive swing meter, no matter which you use, and it’s very hard to get a perfect swing, more so than most golf games. Courses are also very difficult right off the bat, with crazy doglegs, narrow greens, and crazy wind conditions. This is actually the hardest Hot Shots golf game I have played, and it will turn casual players off due to the difficulty.
The game is also grinding heavy, and unlocking items takes forever. I actually couldn’t advance very far in my career because of the difficulty, and unlocking new clubs and earning enough coins just becomes discouraging. There’s no way to restart holes or courses, as you have to quit and go back in, which is a huge downer. I would start out poorly, and by the 5th hole, I would want to restart, but you have to lose all your progress. This grind-heavy playstyle is just a huge turn-off, and acquiring trophies in the game is nigh impossible without having a high-level character.
The graphics are amazing, with awesome ball physics, beautiful lighting, and great models. All this is nothing if you get frustrated early on in the game, and it’s not just me. I had a friend buy the game shortly after me, and even playing online is quite hard, and we quickly got frustrated with the game. Occasionally I would go back and try again, but getting to the 15th hole and screwing up big time sucks as you have to quit and start over. There’s no point in finishing because you know you’re going to lose. If you could restart holes, this would alleviate the majority of the frustration in the game.
As it is, the game is nice to look at, easy, and fun to play. Grinding to unlock new items, upgrade your character, and not being able to restart holes makes this quite a frustrating game. The overly sensitive shot meter takes away from pure skill, and the courses are extremely hard to play right from the start. I can only recommend this to hardcore golf players, despite the audience this series normally aims for.
The Vita is a strange system, as several developers tried to make various genres stable on the system. With Monster Hunter clone Soul Sacrifice not exactly bringing about that feat, Freedom Wars is the next game to make the Vita a blockbuster hit for co-op monster-slaying fun. Freedom Wars starts out a little strange, just like Soul Sacrifice. I didn’t understand the game for a while, and it seemed like there was something missing throughout the whole adventure.
Freedom Wars tries to bring about an interesting anime-style post-apocalyptic adventure in which people are all prisoners and sentenced to fight monsters that will destroy settlements unless they have some sort of trait that the government can benefit from. Everyone starts off with a lifetime sentence, but it can get reduced based on various accomplishments such as donating loot from battles to “the cause,” fighting monsters, taking part in more missions, and behaving. This is ingrained into the player’s head from the start, as you are sentenced to 1,000 years for walking for too long. Yeah, it’s crazy, and I loved it. If you run for too long, you get your sentence lengthened, so you have to buy an upgrade that allows you to run, talk to other people, and do various other things, which are actually quite cool.
Once you read your sentence, you put your thumbprint on it, and off you go. Now, the game is very slow to start, and this is a huge downfall for these types of games, as Soul Sacrifice suffered the same problem. There’s a bunch of dialog and backstory to get through, a lengthy tutorial—not just for combat—and then getting used to controls and getting through missions. It takes over 5 hours just to get into the swing of things and start chipping away on missions, which is not a good thing. These anime-type games always do this, from monster slaying to JRPGs, and it drives me crazy.
Once you do get into the field, you can switch between melee and ranged weapons. The goal is to lock on to enemies and hack away at a weak point, but your special weapon is your grapple, which can heal or do damage, among various other things. Once you grapple to a weak point, you can hack away at it, and then the monster falls, allowing all the bots and yourself to go to town. It only gets fun when you find momentum and your AI teammates are all getting along and doing their jobs. You also have an assistant bot that always looks out for you that you can customize and assign certain weapons to. Once you fall, you can be revived, but if it takes too long, you lose your life. If you lose all your lives, your sentence is lengthened, and your reward for the next turn is reduced, making this a tough game towards the end. I was able to whittle away at 4-5 star missions, and it started getting ridiculously difficult and repetitive.
Without human teammates, the game becomes frustrating because you can fall in battle, and three bots are right next to you and won’t revive you. There are also issues with the same 3 or 4 maps being recycled over and over again and with the same mission goals. Save these VIPs, destroy all these monsters, etc. It gets really boring towards the 10th hour, and I just stopped playing after a while because I had no reason to go back.
Let’s talk about upgrading and creating weapons. This is so complicated and irritating, as most of the time you can only upgrade or create something with the components you have, and it takes quite a few missions to build up a little variety. See, you have to create and build workshops to assign the civilians you save in missions to reduce build time and create things like healing items, weapons, ammo, etc. You can upgrade these buildings sometimes, but in the end, it’s all just a bunch of filler and nonsense. Give me a workshop to upgrade and create, and leave me alone. It’s always so complex and unintuitive with these Japanese games. From JRPGs to action games, all the way to free-to-play mobile games, There are layers upon layers of unnecessary upgrade menus and fusing and defusing, etc. It hurts the game quite a bit, so I just rely on buying more powerful weapons and upgrading them; I completely skip creating new weapons entirely.
Customizing your character is quite deep, as you can buy new color packs, armor, and accessories in the game with points you earn in missions. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and there are a lot of things to customize here, so players won’t be disappointed. Overall, the game looks quite good with great lighting effects and textures; it’s probably one of the better-looking Vita games out there. There’s a lot of detail here and in the game; it’s just a mess and completely unorganized and unpolished. I feel the developers were trying several different things and couldn’t decide on just one. The gameplay is clunky, with repetitive missions, recycled maps, and annoying AI bots. The story is nearly non-existent, as it takes forever to unfold as you slog through missions after missions just to get a text-cut scene. I would love to see a sequel, but seeing as the Vita is slowly dying, I doubt that will happen.
Freedom Wars is only for people who love Soul Sacrifice, Monster Hunter, or are really patient and don’t mind repetitive combat to get to an ultimate goal. Playing with friends helps, but it doesn’t hide the mess and unpolish in this game.
Lara Croft has made a huge comeback thanks to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. With her spin-off top-down series, Lara was bound to find her way onto the mobile market. Feeding off the success of Hitman GO, Square Enix takes another popular franchise and ups the ante on the GO series. With fantastically designed puzzles, great graphics, and easy controls, Lara Croft GO is the best mobile game released this year.
If you played Hitman GO, you will be in familiar territory. The levels are comprised of squares that Lara moves along; these squares have dots on them, so you know which ones you can land on. There are various puzzles that will make you really think before advancing to the next level. From pulling switches, avoiding enemies, killing enemies, moving platforms, moving stone pillars, and various other gameplay tidbits. It’s not just as easy as pulling this switch over here and having that switch be done. Enemies play a huge role in this game, and movement is key here. Every time Lara moves a space, so does an enemy. You must line up your moves to avoid the enemy or go around them. The puzzles are brilliantly laid out here and will constantly keep you in check.
The game also felt progressively balanced in difficulty. I started off clearing levels quickly and then slowly had to start thinking. Once I thought I had mastered certain gameplay elements, another was thrown at me and made me think all over again. I can’t stress enough how well these puzzles are designed; they feel like they were made with care and delicate thought in each and every square. In between solving puzzles, there are hidden vases throughout the level that hold gems that will unlock outfits for Lara if all are found in the level.
The game is also quite decent in length. It took me a good two weeks to finish the game, and there is replay value here. Throughout the whole game, I never felt like it was impossible or too hard. It was always something that stared me right in the face, and when I figured out the puzzles slowly, I had a lot of “Aha!” moments, which are so satisfying. Some puzzles I really had to work on, and some were quite easy, but the easy ones in between keep it from getting too frustrating.
The graphics in Lara Croft GO are beautiful papercraft models with great lighting effects and high-quality textures. This is a high-end mobile game at its finest, and I firmly believe every Tomb Raider or puzzle fan must own it. I hope to see more games in the GO series, as they are addictive and so wonderfully crafted. This is a hidden gem and an oasis among awful and ugly free-to-play games.
Horror games that are truly scary are far and few these days. Neverending Nightmares actually helps change that idea with an extremely intense atmosphere, which is what horror games are all about. Neverending Nightmares has you playing as a boy (or man?) named Thomas who roams the pencil-sketched hallways in his checkered pajamas trying to find his sister (or wife?) that had been murdered (or she killed herself?). There’s a lot of open interpretation of the game’s story, but that’s kind of the fun part.
The game’s pace is at a crawl; let me just say that right away. Thomas trods along the hallways with a limited—and I mean limited—sprint button. The slow pace is supposed to add to the tension, but sometimes I wish he moved just a tad faster as the game got repetitive towards the end. The point of the game is to continue moving left (or right) through the hallways, opening doors, and interacting with anything that’s colored and stands out from the black and white background. These give hints at what may have happened to the girl that Thomas is looking for. While there’s no inventory system or even a combat system, there’s really no other goal than to head downward. Sure, there are enemies in the game, but your goal is to avoid them or hide from them. The toughest of them all are the big ogre-like monsters that require you to hide in closets, or worse, run from them. I found these segments frustrating as Thomas’ sprint is limited to about three seconds, and I had to exploit this to escape from these ogres and make it to the next door. I had to tap rapidly to stretch out the sprint or time when I started perfectly. This isn’t fun, and it doesn’t add anything but frustration.
The game has three possible endings, but there are no clues as to how to get them. At the end of each level, you are approached by this girl in different ways, but it all kind of blurs together. When you die, you start off in bed again, leading to the fact that Thomas might be asleep and can’t wake up. Is he insane? Is he a ghost? Who knows, but the endless hallways are probably the worst part of the game. Sometimes I thought the game was glitching because I would go through 5–6 hallways that I swore I went through earlier, but somehow I was progressing.
Thankfully, the game is actually scary; use headphones, and you will be in for a scary night. The music is haunting, and so are the sound effects. I applaud the game for the atmosphere, but the gameplay is really something that’s lacking and needs more polish. I’m fine with just wandering around places, but give me something to do while I’m doing that.
As it stands, Neverending Nightmares is a great horror experience, but as an actual game, it’s lacking mechanics, and the story and progression need work. I shouldn’t be playing a game thinking I’m not going anywhere or giving clues as to how to get a different ending.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.