The best downloadable game goes to a game that you can only download via a service such as Xbox LIVE Arcade or Steam. Usually, this is download only with no disc-based version available. This category is slowly getting phased out because almost every PC game, and most console and handheld games, are becoming download only. This category usually only applies to downloadable console games, but PC ones get thrown in every so often.
The Walking Dead mainly gets the award because it is not only gripping and thrilling, but I anticipated every single episode throughout the entire year. Telltale really made people watch their calendar because they wanted the next piece of the story to this amazing adventure game. If you can make players chomping at the bit for an entire year for each episode, you were successful. The other games were great, but nothing captures the atmosphere and heart-wrenching tale of TWD.
The Walking Dead has been a gripping and highly entertaining adventure game thus far, so now that the season finale is here we can see how every choice you made stacks up. Thankfully choices have impacted things throughout the series instead of stacking them up for the end. A few from each episode will affect this episode, but I have to say that this episode is extremely heart-wrenching and the most shocking of them all, not to mention the shortest.
Lee and your surviving gang are on their way to save Clem from a mysterious man who snatched her up. They leave their boat behind for a bit to go find her, but things go completely downhill because the zombies are in the thousands and not to mention all the shocking moments that lead up to the end. Something happens every 20 minutes or so that will make you set your controller down and take a breather and say, “How did that happen?!” That’s how great this series is. Each character is memorable and you will either love them or hate them depending on your choices. The system Telltale set up is so organic and smooth that you don’t really notice your choice caused this until you really think. That is excellent game design, but I will take some time to address issues that I have held off until now.
Firstly, the graphics are pretty dated which I mentioned in the first episode. The art style looks like the comics, but the graphics are about 7 years old. There are hitches and stuttering often which never got addressed. Each episode is extremely short, but this one clocks in at just a measly hour. Why this is a stand-alone episode is beyond me, they could have just made this series four episodes. The pacing is also all over the place. Episode 2 was probably the most disappointing of them all, and Episode 4 was lacking in the shocking moment department. There’s also no challenge in the game with this just being an interactive experience. This is one of my favorite adventure games of all time, but I would like to see some serious upgrades in Season 2.
With all that said Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger and who knows when we will find out what’s happened next. After seeing how successful this series is I’m sure Season 2 will start pouring out through next year starting in spring. Episode 5 is very touching and after you finish the game you will realize that Season 2 will start with a whole new cast of characters. As it stands Episode 5 delivers a great ending and you really feel satisfied with your journey through Savannah and will sit back and wait for Season 2.
Zombie shooters are very popular these days, but surprisingly, not a lot is bad. Dead Nation is a top-down shooter that has you blasting zombies away as a lone survivor during a zombie apocalypse. The story isn’t anything original, but the action will test your endurance with waves that come in the hundreds.
All your weapons are equipped with a flashlight, and this is the only thing that allows you to see what’s coming up to you. Zombies range in different sizes as well as really large ones that can kill you in a couple of hits and take a lot of bullets. The levels are very linear, with rubble blocking your way, but the whole point is to score high and get as much gold as you can to upgrade your weapons. You can find this in containers, on the backs of cars, and even in large chests. You will need to upgrade your weapons often, or you will never make it through the game. There are a lot of upgrades, and you won’t buy them all in one playthrough.
The levels are broken up into checkpoints, and in these safe areas, you can upgrade your weapons and swap armor that you find. You can upgrade the ammo capacity, clip capacity, damage, reload speed, firing rate, and other things. Each upgrade costs more, but it is necessary to upgrade as much as you can. You have items that you can throw, such as dynamite, grenades, flares, molotovs, and mines. The zombies become attracted to bright lights and loud noises, so these items can give you a lot of breathing room. Even shooting cars that have alarms can wipe out dozens in an instant. The same goes for barrels and other items that explode.
Enemies get tougher as you go on, but there are also “arenas” on some levels that can be really tough. Hitting a switch to wait for an elevator or a large bridge to expand can be very noisy, so you will have hordes on you while you wait. These can be the toughest areas because you need to use your weapons wisely. Use your rifle to pick off zombies when the numbers are low. Use your shotgun when you have zombies filtering through a choke point. The blade launcher will slice through enemies until it hits a wall, which can take out entire hordes. The game is extremely fun, with lots of gore and great graphics that make the whole game tense.
Of course, this game was designed with co-op in mind, which is the most fun and the easiest. Going through solo is really tough, and levels tend to stretch a bit too long. Dying really stinks because you can very easily get set back to the last checkpoint, meaning you have to fight through the same hordes over again to get to where you died. This is probably the worst thing about the game, but once you play enough, you will get good and learn what weapons are best to use.
Overall, Dead Nation is a fun PSN game that will give you a few hours of tense zombie shooting. This game will really test your endurance because it never lets up. Once you think you are safe, hordes of zombies come at you from all directions. Grab a friend and play this during a long night, and you are bound to have a lot of fun.
Revelations is the first Resident Evil game on 3DS and is probably the best portable RE game ever made. Not to mention, probably one of the better, more recent Resident Evil games. The controls are solid, the story is at least a little interesting, and the monsters are awesome. Of course, the game has great 3D effects and a lengthy campaign. Hop aboard Queen Zenobia as Jill Valentine and find out for yourself.
You start out as Jill Valentine aboard Queen Zenobia, which is a derelict ship that possibly holds answers for the T-Abyss virus that the terrorist group Veltro unleashed into the ocean (or will unleash). The game has an over-the-shoulder perspective like RE4 and 5, but when you use your weapons, the camera goes into the first person to utilize the 3D effects. It works well, and you can move around while aiming by holding L. There are many different weapons in the game, and you can find custom parts to upgrade them. It really makes a difference when facing tough enemies, but not every custom part is easy to find. Some are hidden away, needing certain keys, but this is grouped into a major issue with the game (I will explain later). The shooting feels great and is really solid. The weapons vary from various machine guns to shotguns and pistols. Each type of weapon shares the same ammo pool, but each weapon is different in range, fire rate, and damage.
The exploration is a lot like early RE games because it is claustrophobic and you are stuck on a ship the whole time. This felt a lot like the mansion in RE1, but I prefer the more open adventure feeling of the later games. This leads to constant backtracking, but Capcom tries to skirt this by blocking off passages or making new ones available via keys. I find these ships confusing to navigate and am always lost until later in the game, when the last few chapters are linear and more cinematic and you only have one way to go. It would help if the map system didn’t stink so much. It is in 3D, but you can’t turn it the way you want, and there are no lines that divide sectors. Half the time, I couldn’t tell if I was on the bottom floor or the top floor and just had to run around guessing. The mini-map is more detailed, but why not the full map too?
This is probably the worst thing about the game, but sometimes the enemies can be tough, and too many spawn. This is a close-quarters game, so having 10 enemies spawn in one hallway is a disaster and leads to frustrating deaths. Not to mention the extremely tough final boss, who is a lot like Nemesis. The game does have a pretty good dodge feature where you push the analog nub towards the enemy at the right moment. This can ease tough boss fights, but finding their weakness is key. The enemy designs are awesome, and some are almost Silent Hill-like. They are creepy and gross, and they stray away from the human zombies that we are used to in this series. It is a nice change and should be introduced more often.
The game also has some pretty awesome gameplay change-ups where you use a turret to fight off a giant monster, carry wounded team members, swim, and do various other things that change up the pace. Revelations is a fun roller coaster ride that is full of surprises and will keep you entertained throughout the entire 10-hour campaign. Once you beat that, you can do co-op missions where you fight off hordes of monsters, but some sort of single-player mission mode would have been nice. Revelations also look fantastic with visuals that fully utilize the 3DS hardware.
Overall, Revelations is fun with great visuals, 3D effects, and awesome gunplay. The monsters look good, and the story is decent but nothing memorable. The gameplay is changed up often, and there is a nice long 10-hour campaign. If you love Resident Evil, then this is a must-have for any 3DS owner.
Now that we are almost done with this series, I am sad that the next one will be it. Episode 4 sees the gang trying to get on a boat and out of Savannah, Georgia, but things don’t go as planned. There are a bunch of new characters this time around, but most are hard to care for because they make brief appearances. By this point, most or a little of your gang will be with you, but this episode is mainly lacking the suspenseful choices like in the last one. We get bigger areas to explore, a little more action, and finally, a ton of zombies.
The series has been lacking any zombies lately and has just dealt with internal turmoil, but Episode 4 skirts this and brings the gang back to realizing that the zombies are the real threat here. There’s a strange calm before the storm within the group; the conversations are tense and borderline everyone going postal on each other. I found that there was a lack of gameplay here and that it focused more on delivering a story, but that is ok in this series. There is more action with some zombie shooting, action-oriented puzzles, and larger areas to explore. I sat through the whole episode in one go because it was so intense and entertaining. You always want to know what is going to happen next.
The new characters are hard to really like except Molly because of her shady personality. The new guys are brief and seem pretty generic. I really don’t care for Christa or Omid, who we met at the end of the last episode. Christa is selfish, and Omid is boring and just seems useless. What grows even more are the characters you have right now from the original group. Clementine and Lee’s relationship really blossoms here, and their trust will be tested.
This episode is just a mishmash of everything from the past ones: lots of zombies, action, large areas, new characters, and tense conversations, but nothing very serious. What has stayed the same throughout is the constant, intense atmosphere that makes you stay in the game, and you never want to quit until it’s over. This is my favorite adventure series of all time. The game puts you in control just enough to make you feel like you made all the important choices. The game has been built up to the climax, and the cliffhanger ending here is so abrupt and so sudden that you just hang your end, knowing you have to wait another month or two for the last episode. This is just like a good TV series, but better.
90s kids remember Oregon Trail at school on those old, colorful iMacs, right? If you didn’t, then you had a terrible childhood! For those who did, you must play this game. Organ Trail is a zombie take on the Oregon Trail gameplay, but it is much better with a great atmosphere.
You start off by shooting some zombies, but you run out of ammo. Someone comes to help, but he ends up getting bitten, so you put him down. Yes, you can put down people in this game! After you name your characters with names that aren’t real names (you all did it!) You set off in your station wagon to the first town. This is where you decide what kind of supplies you are going to start off with. Ammo, money, tires, batteries, gas, food, and mufflers. Your station wagon is your life. If it breaks down, you aren’t getting to the west coast. In between landmarks, random events will display that will affect your character or car in some way. Sometimes harsh weather may make you drive slower; you might find interesting things on the road, lose things on the road, get ambushed by biker gangs, have to drive through a horde of zombies, etc.
Not all of this is as simple as flipping through menus. When a gang attacks, you have to ram them off the road with your car, or their bullets will cause precious damage to your car. When you see a horde, you have to decide how to approach them. Is the horde docile? Then sneak through at a slow speed. You can blast your way through or hire mercenaries to protect you, but they are very expensive. There are events that you run into where you have to decide whether to help the person, leave, or kill them. This is a game about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and it is very dark and moody. These events make the game feel like a true adventure. Even scavenging at any time can be a risky move due to how many bullets you have and your health. If you don’t survive, you could possibly die by taking too much damage!
Of course, you can rest and heal your group, but this costs food. Using medkits should only be kept for yourself so you can quickly heal after scavenging. When you reach a town, you can either buy upgrades for your car and pay to repair it, or you can use the scrap you find to do it yourself. This costs lots of food and may not be successful if you don’t have enough scrap. Sometimes you can take jobs for people or trade with them for items you desperately need. I have never played a game like this where I had to think about every single decision so much.
My only main issue is that the game can be too hard sometimes, and the shooting mechanic is clumsy. You hold back the gun and let go to shoot, but the three pixels that help you aim aren’t much help. I found the aiming too sensitive and desperately needed a longer guide or larger projectiles. The shooting sections are the hardest in the game because tons of zombies will come after you, so you must constantly be on the move. I found the character’s moves too slow—just barely faster than the zombies. If this issue were fixed, this game would be perfect. A lot of people will be turned off by the Atari 2600-style graphics, but they add to the charm. The atmosphere is surprisingly well done here, despite the ancient-looking graphics.
Overall, the game requires a lot of thinking and careful strategy but throws in enough random events to make it seem almost realistic. The shooting mechanic is finicky, and the character moves too slowly, but I couldn’t put this game down. Even after dying halfway across America, I tried again because the next journey was completely different from the last. I even decided to take more of something else and try again. This is a wonderful game, but it may not be for everyone.
The Walking Dead is probably my favorite adventure series of all time. It surpasses most adventure game clichés like inventory management, tank controls, and disjointed pacing. The Walking Dead: Episode 3 is well-paced, and there are some of the toughest choices you have to make. Things get very serious this time around because the group is starting to lose its mental stability. There’s a lot of internal fighting, and you must decide how this all turns out.
The group is trying to get to Savannah, Georgia, because things at the motel didn’t work out so well. They find a train engine that takes them partway, but I won’t say any more. There are a few major areas you can explore with a few simple puzzles, but like usual, the opening is awesome, and I played through this entire episode and wanted the next one right away. There are three new characters introduced, but at the same time, a few people in the group die. Who or how is up to you, but you will be shocked at how this all turns out. I actually had to pause the game with my mouth agape due to the shocking turns and, mainly, how it actually happened.
There’s more zombie killing this time around, but not nearly as much as in the first episode. I found myself glued to my computer more than Episode 2, and I felt like the story was actually progressing better. A lot of bugs are also starting to get ironed out, such as the constant stuttering during cut scenes and some control issues. You won’t be exploring much, just in the main puzzle areas, but this is OK because of how much the story advances through dialog choices. This is about the time when a lot of your choices from the last two episodes will really start blossoming here. Some choices I made actually determined huge plot changes, and I realized either I shouldn’t have done something or wish I had done something, but that’s the excitement of this series. You feel like you are playing a movie and directing it yourself.
I just can’t wait for the fourth episode because things will really start going downhill from there. This episode is a huge turning point for the story, and every fan will want more.
Most of the time, when a sexy protagonist is on the front cover, you know you’re in for a bad game. Lollipop Chainsaw is actually quite enjoyable if you look past the flaws. You play the sexy cheerleader Juliet Starling, who is part of a zombie hunting family. You must stop a goth kid from turning everyone in your high school and town into zombies. The story is pretty thin and not very interesting because the game isn’t even long enough to dish out a meaty story. With only six levels, you’re looking for a weekend rental at best. With this being a Suda 51 game, you can also expect crazy out of the you-know-what. The game is oozing with style and visual eye candy, but is it any good?
The answer is yet, but with flaws. The first issue is combat. There are plenty of combos you can buy and unlock at chop2shop.com stations. You can buy health and other items like art, threads, and music. Once you start unlocking more combos, the game becomes more diverse, but Juliet doesn’t feel like the limber cheerleader she should be. Basic attacks use her pom-poms, but it takes forever to make a zombie groggy enough for a chainsaw kill. I rarely used basic attacks and just stuck to chainsaw attacks. Her chainsaw is cumbersome, and the combat system in general needs more polish. I felt like I was controlling a giant, fat guy rather than a nimble girl. Her animations are too long, and you get constantly knocked back, which means tapping B to recover every time. The combat is just sluggish and not as limber as in games like Tomb Raider or Bayonetta.
The combat is even flawed with the chainsaw blaster. Aiming for the thing is a pain because it always sticks to enemies like there’s a magnet. I can’t go for precise headshots or aim at barrels. You can use Nick Tickets, which are special mini-games that use Nick’s head (her headless boyfriend) as a weapon. These are pretty crazy and funny, like shooting his head out of a cone-like topper or swinging him around on a rope, among others. You can use your rainbow power to become invincible for a while and start sparkle hunting. If you kill three or more zombies in a row, you will create a trippy girly pose of Juliet and earn bonus coins.
The combat is obviously the main focus because there’s not much else here. There are a few mini-games, like pole dancing and jumping on zombie heads, and a few mini-games that are level-specific, as well as a few chainsaw dash areas. The six levels are interesting and keep things mixed up, but it’s the bosses that are all different and interesting. Each one has some sort of musical skill from a different genre of music. Having to kill them is awesome and full of gore and guts, which you will see plenty of.
Lastly, the graphics are not technically impressive but have lots of visual flair. The blood from zombies flows pink, with rainbows, sparkles, and stars flying out. The game is very girly but appeals to men due to the sex appeal and violence. Juliet herself is hard to like and is not as memorable as other females like Lara Croft or Bayonetta. She’s a dingy, preppy cheerleader and is the exact stereotype of one. Nick says funnier things than she does, but the sayings just get repetitive and annoying after a while. Juliet is hard to like because she acts dumb and is weak and selfish personality-wise. The game just isn’t long enough to flesh out the characters and story more.
After you beat the game, there’s no reason to go back except for ranking mode to beat scores and unlock new stuff. The game has a lot of potential but needs some more polish before it can sit among the action/adventure kings like God of War, Tomb Raider, and Bayonetta. The combat is sluggish and cumbersome, the game is short, and the characters aren’t developed as well as they could have been. There is tons of visual flair, but the game is lacking technically, with some low-resolution textures and poor lighting effects. Lollipop Chainsaw is fun for a weekend, but nothing more.
The first episode was just amazing and had some shocking moments. I have been waiting for this episode, but I feel a little letdown this time around. Lee and the gang need to find food because they ran out at the motel they are holding down. You go to try to find food and wind up on a dairy farm, but the food isn’t exactly what you think it might be. There aren’t as many shocking moments, and they don’t come off as surprising as in the first episode. The big moments are more dialog choices than actual gameplay, which is disappointing. One moment does have you chopping off a guy’s leg stuck in a bear trap, but other than that, the other moments are pretty typical, like yanking a gun out of a guy’s hand. In fact, there aren’t even really that many zombies in this episode; they kind of take a back seat to the internal struggle on the farm.
The game plays out exactly the same, but there are fewer exploring segments and even fewer puzzles to solve. In fact, this mainly felt like an interactively animated episode rather than an adventure game. Not to say that is bad, but fans of the first episode may find it disappointing. There are some more important choices you have to make, and that is probably the biggest switch from the first episode. Some changes actually determine the lives of a few characters you probably got attached to. Episode 2 does what this series is doing best, and that’s slowly drawing the characters’s personalities out and constantly making you question how you feel about them.
The game isn’t so much tense gameplay-wise as story-wise. The whole time, I was surprised when something did happen. You are thrown important choices and need to make decisions quickly at times when you least expect them, and they really make you think. I had such a hard time picking almost every choice because sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the best thing to do. A lot of times, I wonder how that will affect me later on in the series.
Overall, Episode 2 doesn’t have as much action or surprising moments, but it expands the character’s personality and gives you some seriously heavy situations that force you to make big decisions. The episode also puts zombies on the back burner for the problems on this farm and the group, so be prepared for that.
The first ShellShock was a blip on the FPS timeline that no one knew about, cared about, or quickly forgot about. The game was poorly designed, and why a second game was ever approved is beyond me. The game is terrible; in fact, it is one of the worst FPS games I have played in a while. Not only is the story boring and uninteresting, but the game has bad level design and FPS mechanics that go against what everyone is used to.
Blood Trails has you trying to find your brother and a mysterious person called Whiteknight. Suddenly, there are zombies everywhere, and that’s where the game starts to head downhill. The biggest issue is how you kill enemies. You have to pump dozens of bullets into one enemy just to kill them, so headshots are essential. This game might as well be called ShellShock: Headshots because that’s the only way to put enemies down quickly before you are overrun. This especially goes for zombies, because most can take on almost 10 shotgun shells before going down. This is completely ridiculous and unnecessary, but for some reason, I guess the developers thought it was funny. Towards the end of the game, you will literally get hordes of zombies coming after you, so you better be precise and give an expert shot.
You think the guns would at least be fun to shoot, but they aren’t. There is no feedback from the gun, so they all feel the same. It doesn’t help that you can’t carry much ammo, so you will find yourself whacking enemies with a useless machete. The guns reload at a snail’s pace, and you can’t interrupt reload animations to take out zombies that are charging after you. I also don’t know how I keep missing zombies at point-blank range, but it must be the POV or how the engine is designed because this little mishap is just annoying. It doesn’t help that all the animations in the game are terrible and robot-like. Even the enemy AI is completely dumb because if you are high up, a zombie will just keep running into the wall and bounce back and forth at hyper speed.
If you want to talk about the atmosphere, the game nails that decently. The game can be scary at times and is very dark and gory, with body parts hanging everywhere, babies crying, horrific screams, and just plain old scary. There are some scripted events and some quick-time events, but even these are poorly designed and boring. The game seemed to have a good start in the beginning, but after the first level, you will just keep wondering when it will end. The game can be beaten in about 4 hours, so you won’t have to play it for long. Why should you play it, you ask? Only if you really need an FPS to fix for some reason or are just bored.
Overall, Blood Trails has decent visuals but terrible lighting effects that wash the scenes away. The gunplay is horrible, the enemy AI is dumber than dirt, enemies are way too tough to take down, and there are just so many bad quirks that you will regret even starting the game. There are other FPS games out there that are better, but if you have to, then go ahead.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.