It’s very rare that a mobile game gets as artsy as an indie console or PC game. Monument Valley is where Journey meets Echochrome straight out of the gate. It has the aesthetics of Journey and the gameplay of Echochrome. Flipping levels to create illusions that create new pathways—that’s what Monument is all about. The game isn’t really all that hard; in fact, it’s a cakewalk, but it’s all about the experience.
There’s an underlying story here, and the ending is a bit touching. You’re a princess (that resembles a white cloak from Journey) who is trying to restore gems at the end of each level. If I say more, I will spoil the experience. New gameplay elements are slowly added in, like crows getting in your way that you must avoid or use to press switches. Walking on different planes is another, while an interactive column (that’s actually a small character) becomes an ally. The game is strange, yet so damn beautiful.
But there is one huge problem. The game is only 10 levels long, and they are extremely short. For $4, you’re getting a fantastic experience, but it’s over way too soon. I would have liked an endless mode or some sort of puzzle mode that didn’t include a story. The puzzles are just so fun to solve, and each level is like opening a present. The more you fiddle with the level, the more beautiful everything gets and the more fun it becomes.
As it is, Monument Valley is a rare gem on mobile devices. It looks and plays beautifully, but the shortness will enrage people who fall in love with it.
The Nexus 7 was the best 7-inch tablet on the market at the time. With the powerful Tegra 3 chipset, it seemed like it was unstoppable—that is, until its cousin came along to trump it. Not only is the 2013 addition thinner and sleeker, but it’s also four times as powerful and well worth upgrading. Google partnered with Asus once again, but this time ditched the Tegra chipset and threw in the Snapdragon CPU and Adreno GPU. Once you open the box, you will immediately notice the physical changes to the tablet. The deep black and the overall more rectangular shape and sharper edges look slick and clean. Gone is the soft bumpy back from before, replaced with plastic and a beveled Nexus logo. I do miss that softback, as it didn’t scratch, but the new back still has a soft, fuzzy feeling to it.
Apart from that, you will also notice the front-facing camera has moved to the right, as there is now a back camera that is 5.0 MP. The front camera has improved slightly by 0.1 MP, but it makes a difference. While other tablets have more powerful rear-facing cameras, the Nexus 7 does record in 1080p and looks pretty good in well-lit areas. I would have liked to see at least an 8 MP camera, but just having a camera added is a great addition. There isn’t a flash, so the camera is nearly useless at night.
Let’s talk about the screen. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The 1920×1200 resolution LCD screen looks clear, bright, and crisp. The resolution upgrade is very noticeable compared to the 2012 model. With 323 PPI, everything is going to pop out at you, from games to comics. The sound is also something I love on this tablet that most tablets don’t have. We have 5.1 surround sound in this thing. There are two small speakers at the bottom and one large one at the top. The speakers are made by Fraunhofer, who is the guy who invented the MP3. I immediately noticed the sound difference when I started playing games. It sounds like everything is coming at you from all angles; it’s rich, crisp, and so much clearer than the 2012 model.
So what’s under the hood? The speed increase is incredible, as apps load faster and things just process at a much faster rate. My comics rendered faster, games loaded quicker, and I had zero hangs when loading graphics-heavy websites in Chrome or switching apps quickly. The Snapdragon Krait 300 CPU is clocked at 1.51 GHz and is quad-core. This is much faster than the 2012’s 1.3 GHz CPU. The Adreno 320 GPU helps a lot as well and loads faster than the Tegra 3. The games looked better, and everything loaded so much faster. For example, on the 2012 model, I could not select the best graphics option in Rival Knights; on the 2013 model, I could. I also had a lot of slowdown with low framerate on the 2012 model in Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf. On the 2013 model, it ran at 60 FPS.
The battery also lasts a good while for a slimmer battery. You will get hours of gaming or reading out of this thing, even with WiFi on. Besides processing speed, the 2013 model has Bluetooth 4.0, screen mirroring, Qi wireless battery charging, and a notification indicator at the bottom of the tablet. These may not seem like much, but they make a big difference in an upgrade. Not to mention the loose charging port from the previous model has been fixed with a more sturdy USB slot. The tablet is also 2 ounces lighter, so you can’t really complain.
Bottom line: The Google Nexus 7 (2013) is the best 7-inch tablet you can get your hands on at a great price. If you own the 2012 model, I highly recommend upgrading like I did. It’s fast, sleek, has a gorgeous screen, and has fantastic surround and sound speakers.
Media Molecule is known for innovation. LittleBigPlanet was a huge revolution in creative sandbox gameplay and platforming. Tearaway does the same thing for the Vita, but for the platforming genre. The game is the best-looking game for Vita and is the only one that uses all of the hardware’s features in a very unique and original way.
You play as the messenger Atoi, who must reach the sun where you (the player) have ripped a hole and are letting Scraps into the world of Tearaway. The game uses a front-facing camera to show you the sun. You can then control Atoi and guide him using the rear touchpad and touchscreen. There really aren’t complicated puzzles, but challenging platforming sections. When you see gray areas with the PS buttons on them (like the rear touchpad), you can poke your finger through them in the game. The first time I did this, it made me giddy and smile. You can do this to fight off scraps, push blocks around, and bounce drum pads to help Atoi along. You can also use the touch screen to roll out paper and interact with dozens and dozens of various papercraft items.
Just these two major features alone are enough to call Tearaway the best game for Vita, but it doesn’t stop there. You can customize Atoi and characters in the world, kind of like LBP. There’s no Pop-It, but you can buy items using confetti you find in the world. There aren’t as many items as LBP, but because it’s a straight-up platformer, you won’t really need that many items. Tearaway also has a unique papercraft origami collection you can find and print out online to create your own Tearaway world. To acquire these blueprints, you need to find pure white objects in the world and take pictures of them. This adds to the creativity on a whole new level and helps build on this “real world leaking into the virtual world” theme.
Outside of platforming and customizing things, there is combat, but it’s very simple and easy. You can’t die in the game, and combat never varies, from jumping on scraps to picking them up and throwing them. Some involve jumping on their springpad and tapping them to kill them. I wish the combat were a little deeper, but what’s here at least works and is fun. There’s a lot of stuff to find in the world, like hidden presents and side objectives where you help out various animals. After you beat the game, the only thing you can do is complete the game 100%, but the game is well worth multiple playthroughs.
Let’s talk about graphics. I have no idea how MM got this game to look like a PS3 game, but they did. There are no jaggies, no ugly low-resolution textures, the lighting is great, and the animations are gorgeous. Wrinkled paper on the ground can be stepped on, and you can watch it depress and rise back up when you walk off of it. All effects are done on paper, and no other game looks like it. This is truly the best game on Vita right now, and every owner needs to play it.
The Sly series was one of the best on PS2. It was original, artsy, had slick controls, and had clever humor that you could only find on Sony’s consoles. After Sly 3, the series went into limbo during most of the PS3’s lifecycle with no sign of a new game insight. With Sucker Punch powering away at the Infamous series, all fans lost hope. Thieves in Time was finally announced with much rejoicing, but once the game arrived, everyone was scratching their heads. Why is this game almost identical to the previous three in every way, shape, and form?
If you’re familiar with the Sly games, you know how this game plays out. 5 chapters of various different villains that the gang must take down. Each chapter starts with an intro from Bentley the turtle (the computer and tech wiz). After this, Sly goes and takes pictures to gather feedback on what to do next. As soon as I saw this in the first chapter, I rolled my eyes. I knew I was in for another Sly game with the same gameplay we are now tired of. Sure, it’s quality, but I wanted evolution in the series. When I say nothing has changed, I mean absolutely nothing. The same guard paths can be followed: pickpocketing, the same yellow flashlights, the same small confusing hubs with 30 clue bottles, and a safe. You get the picture. However, the hubs aren’t as interesting to traverse, and I completely bypassed collecting any extras as it felt like a chore.
That’s not to say every little thing is the same. The clever and witty humor turned into Saturday morning cartoon slapstick humor with jokes written by 8-year-olds. No longer do you find the darker humor that adults can relate to. I didn’t laugh or smile at a single joke or line of dialogue. This is especially sad since you go back in time to find five of Sly’sancestors, which opens a path for great dialog. Roichi is Sly’s Japanese Samurai ancestor, Tennessee Kid is his wild west ancestor, Bob is Sly’s very first ancestor from 10,000 B.C., Sir Gallenth is his medieval ancestor, and Salim is his Arabian Nights ancestor. These are actually interesting characters, but their personalities are limited by poor writing. No longer is the banter between Sly, Bentley, and Murray something you look forward to at every cutscene.
I also miss the more clever gameplay segments; now we just get a ton of boring mini-games and quick-time events. Hell, even the final boss is an easy, quick-time event fest. The most interesting part of the whole game is the bosses, which are rather challenging and fun to fight. The only new addition to the entire series are the new costume abilities. These add a special set of skills Sly needs to get through some missions. Apart from this, you can expect the same controls. It’s a crying shame for a series that is so dear to PlayStation fans.
With all of that said, the game looks pretty damn good on Vita, minus the occasional slowdown and the super long load times. Jumping from area to area was painful due to the 45-second or long loading screens. Some gameplay segments were shorter than the actual load times. This really hurt the game, as I set my Vita down to actually go do something while the game loaded. Long-term fans may either hate this game or love it. Newcomers will actually see it as a quality PlayStation title. As someone who has played the games since the very first one, I find it rather disappointing and almost a chore to play through.
Bastion was a fantastic game with a memorable narrative and fast-paced combat. Transistor slows it down a bit with more strategic combat and a slightly less memorable story. The story is about love. The whole story never really makes sense; you’re just thrown in the middle of some battle between a woman named Red, a man named Grant, and a sect called the Camerada. I had no idea who this rebellious sect was, who Red was, or who Grant was. I guess that’s kind of the point. You’re in some sort of computer world, and the transistor is your weapon. A horde called the Process is trying to kill you.
The combat can be done in real-time, or you can stop time and plan out your moves. These moves eat away at a meter, so you need to plan carefully. Each enemy has a different play style, so you really need to adjust and learn each one. Your combat moves are completely customizable, which is a nice touch. At access points, you can load a main type of weapon onto each face button. There are two add-ons for each button, and these will add characteristics to that weapon. Of course, you can make any weapon you have the main weapon. This is great because it allows for many combinations of weapon types. However, you have a limited number of add-ons you can use until you upgrade your maxed-out stats. I found a very frustrating feature of your weapons to be your health. Once you lose health, a weapon will break until you get two access points again. If all four weapons break, it’s game over.
I honestly felt the game never really came together in any way except for the art and audio. The music is fantastic, and the game is wonderful to look at. There are some boss fights thrown in, but they’re extremely tough and will frustrate most players. I also found the game to be way too short, coming in at about 5 hours. With that said, the main focus is combat here. The game is intense, and the added element of strategy and the combination of weapons are all up to you. There’s a small test area you can access to hone your skills (kind of like Bastion), but in the end, this game isn’t something I’m going to remember a year from now. It’s a nice attempt at a spiritual successor but doesn’t really come close.
The game also lacks replay value. It felt so frustrating that the last thing I wanted to do was play again. For serious masochists, there are limiters you can add to make the game even harder. Once you kill an enemy, a cell will burst out. You get so many seconds before that enemy respawns unless you absorb the cell. A limiter can put a shield around this, requiring you to break it before absorbing it to gain more XP. But remember, once you have used your time to stop the ability to plan out your combat, you can’t fight in real-time until it recharges. You can literally lose a whole health bar in those 5 seconds.
With that said, if you loved Bastion, you’re not really missing much here except some eye and ear candy. The story makes no sense despite having a touching ending, and I never really connected with any characters. It’s a fun weekend to play through, not much more than that.
When you think of Hitman, you don’t exactly think of a board game. Hitman GO has Agent 47 sliding around various levels, trying to find the best way to the end, or his target, without getting caught. The enemies vary, with some who follow a path and will move one space when you do; other enemies will catch you if you land on the space they are facing (but they don’t move). The game is more of a puzzle than anything else. Some levels have briefcases you need to get to, while others want you to finish in a certain number of moves. There are other elements introduced later on, such as trap doors, items you can throw to distract enemies, and so on.
The game is highly addictive since levels have that (I get it now!) appeal where you just want to do one more level. I especially love when you have an assassination level and the Ave Maria theme plays from Hitman: Blood Money (composed by the oh-so-excellent Jasper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed II soundtrack fame). I also love the graphics, which look very good for a simple puzzle game.
However, this game just doesn’t feel like Hitman, and that’s the issue. Sure, you’re sneaking around, but there’s no violence, no gruesome death scenes, and no nudity. There’s zero plot (which is really fine for this kind of game), but many Hitman fans will scratch their heads wondering why this game even exists.
That’s not to say the game is bad. But even with faceless woodblocks, the game would have been just as good. At least non-Hitman fans can enjoy this game. Anyone who loves puzzles or board games, in fact.
Ever since Amnesia: The Dark Descent was released, atmospheric horror adventure games have been popping up, but none are as good. Among the Sleep is probably the only one that has come close (even more so than Amnesia’s own mediocre sequel). You play as an infant (gasp, a baby in a horror game!) and you just wander around a very strange land-out horror adventure trying to figure out who this mysterious dark creature is that is trying to find you.
The game starts out pretty cheery. It’s your second birthday, and you get a gift from a mysterious person. As your mom puts you in your playpen, you learn the controls and get out to open this gift. Lo and behold, it’s a creepy talking teddy bear that you can hug and use as a flashlight. As you go deeper and deeper into this crazy world, the game gets tenser. You go from simple climbing puzzles to finding and hunting for items and keys and running and hiding from this scary creature. A lot of elements feel similar to amnesia, such as not being able to fight at all but only running.
Due to the claustrophobic and nearly haphazard way everything is laid out, no particular moment is really memorable, save for the first 30 minutes. You end up going through random doors; hallways appear out of nowhere in the dark; strange sounds will clatter away in the background; and things will flash in front of you. All of this is to make you tense, but there’s no real scary moment where you jump. It’s all about a tense atmosphere that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
The main goal, you could say, is to find four relics to unlock a mysterious door. This is your hub that you always come back to. The game actually has a pretty crazy finale, and things finally start clicking as to who this creature is and what it represents. It’s pretty sad in the end. The whole game can be beaten in less than 4 hours, which is a real shame. I would have liked to see the actual story unfold and some more cutscenes. The graphics are fairly decent, but the textures are flat and muddy, so you won’t be seeing much in the pitch dark 90% of the time. The game supports Oculus Rift if you are lucky enough to own one, so that is a bonus.
Overall, Among the Sleep is a short but sweet horror ride for any fan of amnesia or adventure games. There’s no combat, just you as a vulnerable baby trying to run away from your fears and keeping your teddy by your side.
Racing simulators were not something you’d think of on a phone outside of looking like something from the Atari days. Now that phones are nearly as powerful as home computers, racing simulators can have all the processor-demanding traits to bring a great experience to your phone or tablet. Real Racing 3 is probably the best mobile racing game out there, and for many reasons.
Let’s just get this out of the way. Yes, the game is free-to-play, and yes, the game is always tempting you to pay for more R$ or gold coins. If you’re patient enough to wait for upgrades, repairs, etc., then you will have a great time. Jump in for about 20 minutes, do a few races, buy and upgrade, and go about your business until it’s done. If you want to just cram away at races for hours, you will either need to cheat (by altering your save data on the Android version to give you unlimited money) or you will completely hate this game.
Before you go about hating it, give it a chance. There are hundreds of races, plenty of real-world tracks, and a lot of great-looking real-world cars. Once you jump into a race, you will notice how fantastic the controls are and just how real the game can feel. As you rumble across strips on turns, you will feel your phone vibrate accordingly. Using the accelerometer makes the game feel smooth and realistic. All you need is the gas on your right and the brakes on your left. Each car has its own characteristic feeling to it, just like any console simulator.
Once you finish a race, you will work your way around achievements, unlocking new events and cars, and also trying to upgrade your car as fast as you can. You can even customize your vehicle a little with ride height, rims, paint, and decals. This all may come at a huge cost of grinding and waiting, but it’s well worth it once you can finally beat that race you couldn’t before thanks to your new upgrade. However, people who don’t have the patience will quickly uninstall this game and give it a 1 star on the app store, which isn’t quite fair.
Outside of the tense races and many race types, the graphics are fantastic. The cars look great, and the dust kicking up behind opponents’ tires makes you forget you are on a phone. The only issue I had graphics-wise was the massive amount of slowdown when 22 cars were on screen. Even on a Samsung Galaxy S4, with some of the best mobile hardware out there, I received a slowdown. Apart from this, you also get slick menus and some nice music to go along with all this.
If I were to rate this game based on the free-to-play model, I would give it a 4/10. Simply because some of the wait times are really long, earning enough cash to upgrade can be a bit of a grind. On the flip side, those kinds of people will see a wonderfully crafted racing simulator that’s one of a kind right now on the mobile market.
Whether you like it or not, I have to start out by saying Lords of Shadow 1 was a masterpiece. The game was finely crafted from all angles that make up a great video game. It was the best Castlevania reboot ever done, and it was a fantastic action-adventure genre. It was challenging, beautiful, and memorable. Lords of Shadow 2 is not so much. In fact, I don’t know what happened. They took everything that made Lords of Shadow 1 great and threw it out the window.
The story picks up after Mirror of Fate. Gabriel wants to die and have eternal peace. He already has to deal with the death of Maria. Zobek (voiced by Patrick Stewart) will give him the vampire killer in exchange for killing Satan. In order to do this, you must help out various other people and find three of Satan’s acolytes. You see, even the story got screwed up. The first game’s story flowed and was touching. Lords of Shadow 2 takes forever to get interesting and has very few cutscenes until the very end. The setting also really throws the game off; being set in modern times just ruins the whole thing. The level design is terrible and confusing, with a poorly implemented “open world” design that just makes you want to tear your hair out.
The game starts off with a nice pace, but once you step out into the present, all that magic from the first game just disappears. Secondly, the combat hasn’t changed much, and the upgrade system feels meaningless. While the combat is still responsive and quite good, the enemies that defined the use of the combat system have been simplified and cut down to a mere half-dozen. Yes, the same half-dozen enemies through the entire game. It’s repetitive and irritating, and you will end up just running past most of them if you can. Not to mention the increased amount of collectibles in the game that require going back through these labyrinthine levels and remembering where these spots are.
If that isn’t disappointing enough, the ending is just terrible. Unlike the sad, tearful ending of the first game, we just get a “what the hell is this?” ending, leading into another Lords of Shadow game we know will never happen. At least the boss fights are fun and, honestly, the best part of the whole game. They are super challenging, and the designs are pretty cool. Satan is a very challenging boss and worthy of being an end boss. Chipping away at health and scrounging your items is fun, but it should be through the entire game, not just the boss fights.
It also doesn’t help that the only store is in one part of the entire game. You have to go all the way back just to buy something. I honestly wanted this game to have a more linear path, so it feels more unique. But here’s the worst part about the game: the stealth sections. Yes, why the hell are there stealth sections in a Castlevania game? They are broken, just boring, and completely slow the game down. Some are confusing, most are boring, and they are all completely unnecessary. Instead of the clever puzzles of the first game, the developers lazy through stealth sections to replace them. Lords of Shadow 2 is just a lazy excuse for a game that never should have been.
At least the graphics are fantastic, and the voice acting is superb. None of that matters if everything around it is a sub-part of a masterpiece. As it is, Lords of Shadow 2 won’t please fans of the first game and definitely won’t draw in haters of the first game to give it a chance. If you never play this game, you won’t miss out on anything, even if you played the first. Do yourself a favor and just forget it even exists.
Vanillaware is known for one of the hardest JRPGs on the PS2, Odin Sphere, and I was very excited upon hearing about the spiritual successor to that game. While Dragon’s Crown isn’t nearly as hard as that game (it’s much more forgiving), it still has a lot of challenges that await you. Dragon’s Crown’s biggest disappointment is its short length. There are almost no main quests and mainly side quests (about 50). Once you finish the game, you unlock a hard mode and then an inferno mode. Thankfully, the game can be played with up to four players, so it can be a blast.
The story is about a crown that has been taken by an ancient dragon. Your job is to return this crown to your kingdom and kill the dragon. The story is very light, and I know there could have been so much more here. But the super short length makes it impossible to write a better story. There are very few cutscenes and not much spoken dialogue (which is only done by a narrator). Once you jump into the game, you can attack, use items, cast spells, and use the right analog stick to move a hand around the screen to collect treasure. You always have a non-fighting thief with you who can pick locks on hidden doors and open chests. Sadly, you can’t change out your equipment during a mission (most levels can be passed in less than 10 minutes). However, at the end of each level is a boss, and they increase in difficulty throughout all 8 levels or so. Each level has two bosses at different levels for various players.
Once you finish a mission, you can return to town to appraise your items, bury or resurrect bones you find in levels for new AI partners, level up, acquire new quests, and buy runes. Runes are found throughout levels in pairs, which need to be matched with runes in your possession. These add various buffs to your party, which can turn the tide of a battle. Outside of those main things, there’s not much to do besides hit the level cap. The missions are extremely repetitive since you need to find nine talismans before facing the Ancient Dragon (that’s almost all there is to the entire main quest line), and once you are able to beat the Ancient Dragon (probably when you’re around level 30), you do it all over again on a harder difficulty. It gets kind of boring after a while and extremely tough towards the end. It’s best to go in with actual people since your AI partners can mess things up. Thankfully, unlike Odin Sphere, you have lives and can even pay to keep reviving with your coins. This alleviates some of the frustration.
I just wish there was so much more to this game. It feels so small and claustrophobic. The short levels, the nearly non-existent questline, and the story—but at least the characters you pick are fun to use, and the controls work well. The art itself is stunning, with beautiful water-color backdrops and crazy-looking enemies and bosses. This game is mainly designed for fans of the co-op arcade RPGs of yesteryear from Capcom. Not much of a story, but tons of combat, enemies to kill, and levels to acquire. If you want a story-heavy RPG like The Elder Scrolls or Fable, you won’t find that here.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !