DOOM (2016)

WHAT YEAR IS IT!?

...

...

Oh, it's 2018.

And my last post was in 2014.

SO IT ONLY MAKES PERFECT 1000% LOGICAL SENSE THAT I REVIEW A GAME FROM 2016.

SPECIFICALLY, DOOM 2016. Which is actually just called Doom, but it's not THAT Doom, so we have to do that thing where we add the year to the title to differentiate a reboot from the original. Like when SEGA tried to do that with Sonic The Hedgehog (2006), only that didn't turn out so well because the development was rushed and the game just full on lost sight of what made the original concept fun and engaging.

See where I'm going? HA! Trick question! You thought I was implying with the utmost masterful subtlety that id Software made similar mistakes with this version of Doom!  The truth is, I really can't draw a lot of comparisons between this Doom and the original because I've only played the original for a grand total of maybe fifteen minutes and couldn't really get into it, but I get it. It's a fucking legend without which we likely wouldn't have an entire GENRE. Doom 1993 just isn't for me. I'm used to FPS games having a lot of mechanics that hadn't been implemented yet, and that's not a knock on the quality or status of the game, I'm just giving a little bit of context for everything I'm getting ready to say about THIS Doom.

I REALLY FUCKING LIKED THIS DOOM.

It hits that perfect balance between mindless action, exploration, and storytelling. It knows exactly what it is, and it isn't afraid to just be DOOM and revel in its own nonsense. You're a sci-fi marine with a fuck-ton of guns mowing down waves of literal hellish abominations! You're a unstoppable death machine who will literally smash expositional material to the side in pursuit of the next shooting gallery, which the game will reward you for completing with more guns and upgrades to the ones you have!

Doom 2016 is just plain fun. It might just be the purest First-Person Shooter to come out in the last decade. Which isn't to say that any others in recent memory have been bad. Hell, some have been downright fantastic, just in different ways. Doom is a game FIRST, and a story...maybe a close third? I mean, you wake up in a science lab on Mars, find out a portal to Hell has opened up, then run around blowing things up while you sort of come around on the idea of maybe thinking about closing it at some point because Hell is pretty firmly established as "bad." There's a lot more story you can pick up by collecting little data thingies, but you can take it or leave it. I took it, incidentally, because I'm the biggest sucker for world-building, even if it's not meant to be taken all that seriously. I could tell you about the corporation that somehow figured out a way to tap Hell itself for power to solve humanity's energy crisis, but if you honestly give a shit you can just read the Doom wiki.

Besides appealing to the gun-toting psychopath in all of us, Doom 2016 is also filled with more than its fair share of collectables and secrets. That said, some are a lot more fun and satisfying to find than others. You might wander around lost for ten minutes, and discover what appears to be the way forward only to find a dead end with some ammo that's slightly harder to come by. Even the MAP STATION ITSELF is hidden away in a secret area in some of the levels! Overall, though, it's more fun than tedious when you decide you want to hunt down that last couple of secrets you missed before hitting that "end the level" button. I'm honestly debating playing through the game a second time and attempting a 100% collectable run.

HOWEVER. There are some things I take a bit of issue with. Yeah, it ain't perfect. Show me a game that is. Even the best ones have problems, and Doom's biggest one is PLATFORMING. Platforming, first-person camera, and instant death pits have NEVER played nicely together before, and they don't here. For the MOST part, it's not an issue, but once you get the ability to double-jump, suddenly you start seeing a lot of things that you just might be able to reach. And then you can't. And you fall. And you die. See, for being a game that encourages exploration (as I literally just finished saying a paragraph ago), Doom really likes to punish you for trying to push the boundaries. You may very well attempt a jump, fail, and walk away from a secret area instead of trying again because failing means reloading the last checkpoint again. Not that there's any real punishment for dying, even a lot. The only thing making death any more than a minor slap on the wrist is the load time, which itself is a minor inconvenience at worst.

Doom 2016 has a little bit of an inconsistent difficulty curve with the odd spike here and there (I played on what I guess passes for "normal), but  I found it really helps you get over the classic gaming fear of using powerful weapons you might need later. It practically encourages going all out with your rocket launcher or gauss cannon, and gives you JUST enough ammo for the infamous and immensely satisfying BFG 9000 that you're never put in an unfair situation that isn't of your own making. (I got ganged up on by some of the more powerful baddies a few times, but only because I was trying to kill them a certain way to complete a challenge.)

I haven't even mentioned the "glory kill" system yet! Every enemy has a set of unique cinematic kills you can perform by weakening them until they flash with a colored outline and getting into melee range. Performing one of these will always cause that enemy to drop a bunch of health pickups, which is the only real reason to keep doing it because it honestly gets a little boring seeing the same two or three animations hundreds of times. Similarly, using the chainsaw on an enemy will always one-hit kill them and cause them to drop a shitload of ammo for everything else, the downside being that stronger enemies cause the chainsaw to use more of its appropriately limited fuel.

Doom 2016 is a great game even if you're totally new to the series. It looks great, plays great, is fun to explore, even the backstory is an amusing read if you need a break from the onslaught, but the platforming detracts from it in the way it does from most FPS games, and the whole thing does get a little repetitive after a while once you've got all the weapons and seen all the different enemies. Some games you play for the in-depth story and relatable, well-developed character arcs, and some you play for the psychotic amusement of force-feeding demons their own still beating hearts. 

Doom is obviously the latter and gets a 9/10.

Five Nights At Freddy's (PC)

Horror games. If you've been paying my totally very often updated blog with anything remotely resembling half an iota of attention (or listening to SpellCast), you probably know that I really enjoy writing and talking about horror. And Star Wars.

In fact, I've probably run my checklist of things that make a horror experience scary into the ground and back out the other side of the planet at this point, so I'll reiterate a condensed version:

• Creepy things in the dark.
• They want to eat you.
• You can't fight them.

In other words: you're powerless. In most true horror games you typically have two options when faced with something that wants you dead: run for your goddamn life, or hide somewhere and hope it goes away. Amnesia and Outlast both make exceptional use of this concept, but what if I told you there was a game out there that further limited your options?

In Five Nights At Freddy's you are the new night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, an obvious parody of a certain restaurant known for pizza, arcade games and an arguably unsettling band of animatronic animals. Of course, there's no "arguably" about Freddy Fazbear and his friends, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken and Foxy the Pirate.

I am so far from settled. You don't even know.

As night watchman, your job is to...well...watch over the place. At night. The thing is, at night the animatronics get a bit "quirky" as your predecessor puts it in his recorded phone messages that serve as tutorial and background story. In case it wasn't apparent, Freddy and the gang are the creepy things in the dark that want to murder you. 

It seems that your predecessor's definition of "quirky" means they think you're an animatronic skeleton with no costume on, and they want to fix that by forcibly shoving you into one. Unfortunately, said costumes are full of electrical wires and sharp metal bits that would make inhabiting one understandably a bit uncomfortable.  

Remember what I said about having limited options when faced with an enemy?  Open or close the doors to your office. That's what you've got to work with. If someone is coming for you, hit the button and SLAM! Down come some alarmingly thick blast doors to keep them out. "But wait," you're probably saying. "Why would you ever even open the doors at all? If they just stay shut then nobody can get in! Problem solved, right?" 

Well, you're absolutely correct. At the start of each night, you can just hit both buttons and be completely safe for the next 6 in-game hours (about 10 minutes in real time).

Except no, that would be a stupid game mechanic and also completely un-scary.

As it turns out, your employers are cheap bastards who shut off the electricity at night and run the entire security system off of a generator. Guess what uses up that generator's power ridiculously fast? That's right. Absolutely everything you do. Looking at the cameras? Turning on the hallway lights? Closing the blast doors? Doing all of those at the same time will completely drain your power in minutes.

And if that happens, you'd better be goddamned ready for Freddy.

Get it yet? You are literally powerless. You have to develop a strategy for paying attention to the locations of the characters in the building and keeping them out when they show up at your doors, while trying to conserve enough power to last until morning, which involves using the provided protection as little as possible. 

"Well, so what?" You're saying now because I've already characterized you as an argumentative little shit, and there's no point in changing that now. "All you need to do is watch your doors, shut them if you see anyone, and open up when they leave! Problem solved again!"

Actually, you are partially right this time. Technically, you can make it through the first night without even bringing up the camera screen because you only need to watch out for Bonnie and Chica, who will always appear at your doors before actually entering the office to grab you and therefore give you advance warning and hopefully enough time to shut them out.

But that's only accounting for half of the characters out to get you. There is also Foxy, who lives in Pirate Cove, and of course Freddy himself. They become active on Nights 2 and 3 respectively and demand your attention via camera to be sufficiently kept at bay. Foxy is constantly gearing up for a sprint down the hallway, and Freddy likes to Solid Snake his way through the shadows directly toward your office. Catching them on camera slows them down, but also takes your attention away from Bonnie and Chica who may already be watching you.

This game is a master of using the player's own paranoia against them. There is so much atmosphere that you completely forget the only payoff is a simple jump scare because you're putting so much concentration into holding onto your limited control of the situation. Every sound you hear could just as easily be nothing as it could be one of the characters moving into another room. Footsteps? OH SHIT, BETTER CHECK THE DOORS AGAIN. Okay, it was nothing. Wait- Was that Freddy's laugh? Did he move again? Better find out where he went before-

CHRIST ON A BIKE!

This may sound obvious, but the only way to truly experience this game is to actually play it yourself. Yeah, that pretty much goes for every game, but watching a Let's Play of a horror game usually tends to spoil a lot of the fun by revealing the story and all the scares. This is most assuredly not so for Five Nights at Freddy's. I watched 3 YouTubers play this game, was still unprepared when John and I played it on Halloween, and I'm STILL WORKING UP THE NERVE TO PLAY THROUGH IT ON MY OWN TO ACTUALLY FINISH THE DAMN THING.

It's incredibly simple mechanically, but has a fascinating backstory that has spawned equally fascinating fan theories, and it still hits all the marks infinitely more complex games have managed to completely miss. My only real complaints are minor technical issues such as a complete lack of options (not even basic volume controls), and that a game about moving your mouse to the far left and right sides of your monitor doesn't constrain the cursor to the game window, meaning if you have multiple monitors you can easily inadvertently click outside of the game and force it to minimize (which in my case, usually means crashing it as well.)

Five Nights At Freddy's easily gets a  9/10.

Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion

FINALLY.

We're FINALLY getting some Star Wars that isn't set during the Clone Wars. I can't begin to tell you how long I've been sick of the goddamn Clone Wars.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike the Clone Wars. I just had some problems with it, and they're mostly the same problems with any prequel setting, really. The Clone Wars show takes place between Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3 with Ep2 detailing the beginning of said war, and Ep3 wrapping it up. And that's the problem. We KNOW HOW IT ENDS. The Clones slaughter half the Jedi, Anakin slaughters the other half, a handful of them escape to become Expanded Universe characters, Empire takes over and starts building the Death Star.

We didn't need another movie and 6 seasons to slowly build up and ominously foreshadow that. We didn't need to know that Anakin had an apprentice. We didn't need to know Darth Maul had a brother. We didn't need to see every time the Jedi almost captured or defeated General Grievous, because NONE OF THIS STUFF CAME UP DURING EPISODE 3.

Outside the Clone Wars show, nobody ever mentions- not even in passing- that Ahsoka even EXISTED. And that's ridiculous! As bland a character as I found her to be, she still had an important connection with Anakin, being, you know, HIS GODDAMN APPRENTICE.

I know this review is supposed to be about Rebels, but I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me.

Remember my rant on fan fiction? Where I talked about how you're better off creating your own characters based on the rules of an established universe, rather than trying to write about things someone else's characters would or wouldn't do in a given situation?

THAT is the number one reason Rebels is already better than Clone Wars.

We get a completely new cast of characters to watch! The writers don't have to worry about whether or not Obi-Wan or Yoda would or wouldn't act a certain way! They don't have to shoehorn in connections to existing characters just to justify having them on screen. Clone Wars would have been so much better if Ahsoka wasn't Anakin's apprentice, and just some other Jedi apprentice out having adventures!

And that's basically what we're getting with Rebels. Except it's not about Ahsoka. It's about a completely random group of previously unknown people doing what little they can to get in the Empire's way. Before the first episode, we have no idea who any of these guys are, and that's GREAT. We don't know what to expect from them! It's not completely predictable!

Well, it's no more or less predictable than any other work of fiction, at least. Obviously the main characters are always gonna make it out alive, because there'd be nowhere to go with the story if they all suddenly ended up dead, but we can reasonably believe they're in some semblance of peril! In Clone Wars, we KNOW Obi-Wan is going to make it out of every fight unscathed. We KNOW Anakin can't possibly die, no matter how deadly his injuries seem because we LITERALLY SEE HIM BECOME DARTH VADER IN EPISODE 3.

Sorry I'm harping on Clone Wars so much, but to be fair Rebels is basically a sequel series to Clone Wars with a very similar animation style, so it's really hard not to compare them. I'm just going to give a quick overview of what I really liked about Rebels so far and what I maybe didn't like so much.

WHAT I LIKED
The new characters. From what I've seen so far, they're all completely likable and I don't find any of them annoying in the slightest. They're all interesting, and I can only assume we'll learn more about all of them as the show goes on.

The almost complete LACK of any appearances by previously established characters in this first episode. The only character we've seen before is Obi-Wan Kenobi, who makes a very short appearance as a hologram recording of his warning to stay away from the Jedi Temple. There was no inexplicable Chewbacca cameo, despite Wookiees featuring prominently in the last half of the episode. There was no sudden appearance of a badass smuggler who we later find out is a young Han Solo. The focus was entirely on the main characters and the setting spoke for itself with the recognizable aliens in the background and the return of the iconic Imperial Star Destroyers, TIE Fighters and Stormtroopers.

The overall darker tone balanced by appropriately light touches of comic relief. One of the first shots of the episode is a Star Destroyer arriving in the atmosphere of a planet. 15 seconds in, and we're already told this is a significant amount of time after the Emperor took over and all but exterminated the Jedi Order. The Imperials are hard at work oppressing, stealing from, and enslaving their citizens. These aren't the Republic's snarky, cookie-cutter clones mowing down the silly Battle Droids anymore; these are full-fledged Stormtroopers ready to shoot anyone as soon as an officer gives the command. Things are definitely getting bad for the galaxy, but there's still the occasional sarcastic remark or light slapstick to lighten the mood a touch. Even the original trilogy had these moments, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Chopper is basically a grumpy old R2-D2, and Kanan is probably the closest we're ever going to get to a canon Kyle Katarn.

Nobody said "I have a bad feeling about this."

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
The Stormtroopers are treated a little too similarly to the Battle Droids for my liking. They make similar stupid mistakes and are outright murdered for comic relief. I really hope this doesn't become too much of a running gag. If there's one thing Episodes 1 and 2 did right, it was making the Battle Droids appropriately menacing. They were cold, murderous, expendable machines carrying out their programming, and Episode 3 and Clone Wars turned them into moronic saber fodder.

Kanan revealing himself as a Jedi was a very well done scene, but the impact would have been so much greater if we didn't see it coming lightyears away thanks to the earlier scene where Ezra finds his lightsaber and holocron. This is mostly just a nitpick with this particular episode, but it would have been a much more effective reveal if they hadn't already revealed it.

Ezra uses a slingshot. I will never be okay with this, and nothing will ever make it okay. It's just stupid, and that's that.

There's unique character design, and there's this.

There is absolutely NO reason he couldn't just use a blaster like everyone else! If it's a matter of showing him killing anyone, set the damn thing to stun! That's a thing! I didn't just heap praise on this show for having the darker atmosphere of a galaxy under the rule of an oppressive, totalitarian government just to watch Stormtroopers get taken out by a kid wielding a goddamned slingshot!

IN CLOSING
Overall, it's good. It's fantastic. It's just about everything you could want in a return to the classic Star Wars time period we all have undoubtedly fond memories of. There are little things that bug me about it, but they're just that: little things.

If you liked Clone Wars, you'll love Rebels. If you hated Clone Wars, you should definitely at least give Rebels a chance.

Halo 4 (360)

So. Halo 4. After 5 years, Master Chief finally gets to star in another Halo installment. No more prequels, midquels, spinoffs and all that nonsense. We're actually continuing the story that we last saw in a game whose tagline was "finish the fight."

The point I'm trying to get around to is that I'm not a fan of unnecessary sequels, which is exactly what Halo 4 is, so upon its announcement I had already decide that I would hate it. Even so, I was unable to force myself not to get excited for it after seeing gameplay footage featuring new weaponry from a certain ancient race of dead aliens. I decided that I would give it a chance.

Having finally gotten around to playing it, my response can be summed up as: "Eh."

Translation: "Better than I expected, but not by much."

Halo 4 feels much too small for Master Chief's return after a 5-year absence (1/2-second cameo in Reach not counting.) There are a lot of fantastic new ideas, but I don't feel they were taken as far as they should have been. I get the impression that 343 was afraid to change too much, lest they tempt the wrath of the Bungie fans. As such, there is a distinct lack of variety in Halo 4, especially when compared with what we saw in the jump from Halo 3 to Reach.

This lack of variety very clearly shines through in the enemy designs. Remember how Halo 3 added more advanced forms of the Flood, but used them just sparingly enough that they managed to be terrifying each time you ran into them? There are exactly 3 new enemies in Halo 4 and you fight them over. And over. And over. And over. And over. AND OVER again. To the point where "oh shit! It's those new guys again! Better be careful and strategize a bit before this next fight" becomes "oh, look. It's THESE assholes. Again. I wonder how many I will have to sprint toward and unload 1/4 of a clip of ammo into this time." It's repetitive even by FPS standards.

Also Covenant. Again. All the same ones. Because they're somehow evil again even though we CLEARLY had everyone but the Brutes realizing what assholes the Prophets were in Halo 2 and 3. So why are they suddenly evil again? The game's ONLY line of dialogue relating to the situation is "a lot can happen in 4 years." Supposedly, it's explained in some expanded universe material that it's a different group of Covenant who never got the "HUMANS GOOD, PROPHETS BAD" memo (or did, but told everyone to fuck off anyway), but really the only reason they're here now is because they're iconic enemies.

AND SPEAKING OF LACK OF VARIETY, LET'S TALK ABOUT THOSE FORERUNNER GUNS I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT.

Yeah. They're literally clones of the other guns.

The Light Rifle? It's just the DMR or Carbine. (Incidentally, they added the Battle Rifle back in alongside the DMR, so there are now FOUR guns that do the exact. Same. Thing.)

Scattershot? Shotgun.

Suppressor? Assault Rifle.

Binary Rifle? Sniper/Beam Rifle.

They do the EXACT SAME THINGS as these previous guns. I don't even think there's a difference the damage they inflict! Even the new grenade is literally as easy as stepping 3 feet away from it to avoid getting damaged. The only reason to use these new guns over the ones you start with is because they're a lot easier to find given the environment 85% of the game takes place. (Meaning on a Forerunner planet...thing....)

SO WHAT ABOUT STORY?

Halo 3 ended with Chief and Cortana stranded in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere in the other half of the ship that got cut in half buy the Ark's closing subspace portal. Still not clear on how that worked, what with the exploding Halo ring and their half of the ship NOT going through the portal with the rest of it, but hey. Killing off the main characters would just ruin the prospects for another sequel trilogy,wouldn't it? (Except Halo reach was just fantastic, despite Chief being demoted to Easter Egg and Cortana having exactly 4 seconds of background screentime.)

ANYWAY. Cortana wakes up Chief after some weird scanny-beam passes through the ship, and they soon get boarded by the aforementioned now-evil-again Covenant. After fighting them off, they find out that the Covenant weren't the ones scanning them. So who was it? None other than UNICRON!

Overused joke aside, the gigantic metal planet...thingy (AKA Requiem)...opens up and pulls all the nearby ships inside, where we discover that it's actually a very nice place once Chief escapes the flaming pile of wreckage he arrived in. The sun is shining, the grass is blowing in the wind, the holographic death machines slaughter everything in their path- wait...what? Okay...maybe not such a nice place after all...but still pretty enough to make Bethesda's environment artists jealous, that's for damn sure.

So it turns out that another ship, the UNSC Infinity, is on its way to pick up Chief and Cortana after finally picking up their distress signal. Except...Oh no! If they get too close to Requiem, they'll get sucked in and be trapped too! Cortana tries to warn the Infinity to stay away, but Chief's suit transmitter is being mysteriously jammed. So we're led on a big ol' mission to find and shut down the jammy thingy and stop the Infinity from trying to rescue us.

ONLY IT DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE SPOILERS: CORTANA WAS WRONG AND ALL THE STUFF YOU TURNED OFF ACTUALLY RELEASES A VERY VERY BAD FORERUNNER GUY WHO WANTS TO KILL ALL THE HUMANS BECAUSE HE DIDN'T THINK THEY WERE READY TO INHERIT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GALAXY AFTER HIS PEOPLE KILLED THEMSELVES TO STOP THE FLOOD.

OR. SOMETHING.

Chief, remember what happened the last time you took instructions from a computer on how to operate machinery left behind by an ancient alien race? Something about almost accidentally wiping out all life in the known galaxy?

Yet somehow 98% of the campaign involves fighting from one terminal to the next to plug in Cortana so she can do whatever it is she needs to do at that particular point, then move on. You fight through jungles to the crash site of the Infinity, you fight through the Infinity to destroy some Covenant ships attacking it, you fight through some more jungle, you fight through Forerunner buildings etc, etc, etc. The game feels extremely linear and almost claustrophobic, as opposed to the much more open areas of the previous Halo games. You could get lost in Halo CE, and 2 and 3 still felt very expansive. Even Reach had some wide nice lengthy vehicle sections. There is ONE level that tries to capture this feel in Halo 4, and it still keeps you pretty much on a straight track and gives you very little to actually explore. It doesn't even let you DRIVE the biggest land vehicle in the game! (Granted, the ONLY place it can go is along the path the game lays out for it, but how can they deny the player the opportunity to control a vehicle easily 8 times the size of the Elephant? It's the human equivalent of the Scarab for fuck's sake!)

BUT YOU DO FINALLY GET TO FLY A PELICAN, WHICH IS SOMETHING EVERYONE'S WANTED TO DO SINCE HALO CE, SO I HAVE TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S EXACTLY LIKE FLYING A FALCON ONLY WITH A SPARTAN LASER MOUNTED ON THE FRONT SO IT'S REALLY NOT ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE. (You know that mission in Reach where you fly the Falcon over a city, land at buildings, kill everyone inside, and push a button about 3 or 4 times? It's literally the exact same mission only with Forerunner buildings.)

Not to give too much away, but the entire plot is resolved in the space of this single game and doesn't even ask any new questions that warrant a sequel to answer them. Halo CE ended with the climactic destruction of a Halo ring, but had introduced the Flood, an enemy that would take a further 2 games to finally fully understand and ultimately defeat. The primary villain of Halo 4 is defeated at the end of the first game of what is supposed to be another trilogy, meaning the story isn't supposed to be fully resolved until Halo 6! This could have been another Halo spin-off and been all the better for it instead of branding itself as the Chief's triumphant return!  

In short,  Halo 4 is crippled right off the bat by its predecessors. 343 had a lot to live up to, and surely did their best, but overall it just doesn't work. The graphics are amazing, though, and the story itself is fairly interesting for those who haven't gotten into the books and other supplementary material. I can't help feeling this rendition of Halo may have been better off as a movie. Or even a multi-part episode of the apparently upcoming Halo TV show. (Yeah, it's a thing.)

For still being reasonably enjoyable, but rather lackluster, I'll give Halo 4 a 6.5/10.

Sonic Generations (360)

Okay, SEGA. You made Sonic. Pretty much all of his Genesis titles are among the best video games of all time. We get it. What you don't seem to get is that pretty much everything you've put him in after the death of the Dreamcast has been complete shit.

 It's painfully obvious that all you want to do is remake the old (actually good) levels that made Sonic great. Sonic Generations was off to a great start, even with the stupid plot, but why in the HELL would you only use ONE zone from EVERY game? I emphasize "every" because that's including the objectively awful Sonic 2006 and Sonic Unleashed. Because of this, literally only a QUARTER of the game is even in the same ballpark as "fun."

We start out 20ish years in the past, with the original Sonic (here on out referred to as "Classic Sonic") running around and doing...whatever the fuck else he did in his free time before he started battling gigantic eldritch abominations. Suddenly, Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks him. You're probably wondering what exactly the hell just happened.

Fuck it! We're cutting 20 years ahead to Sonic's birthday party! (So obviously he survived the attack in the past or he wouldn't be here in the present, right?) Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks again, with Sonic wondering what the hell it is. Shouldn't he know? He saw it when he was his past self helping his future self fight it, right? He should know how this whole story turns out because he was already present when it took place- WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T USE TIME TRAVEL AS A DEVICE FOR AN EXCUSE PLOT.

Steampunk Haunter sucks everyone into black holes and puts Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber where they find a bunch of locations from their past adventures (or Classic Sonic's future adventures) all frozen in time and de-colorized. They discover that by running really fast through the zones, they can unfreeze them and rescue their friends who have been trapped inside.

So as I said, we get ONE zone from each major Sonic game, for a total of 9 levels with two acts each. This is where the bad design really sets in. You play act one of each zone as Classic Sonic, and it's the standard side-scrolling, spin dash "no homing attack" gameplay you know and love. Act two is played as Modern Sonic, and is in the 3D, gimmicky, stupid special attacks gameplay style. This means you will be playing 2D versions of designed-for-3D levels as Classic Sonic, and 3D versions of designed-for-2D levels as Modern Sonic and this DOES. NOT. WORK. It's the reason exactly FIVE of the EIGHTEEN total acts don't suck.

Everywhere SEGA has had to come up with original level designs, they fail horribly. If it's not 2D based on an originally 2D level, or 3D originally based on a 3D level, it's awful. And even then all the levels taken from the later games are crap across the board because THEY WERE CRAP TO BEGIN WITH. There's far too much reliance on precision jumping and the homing attack, ridiculous enemy placement, forcing the player to learn new special attacks as Modern Sonic, it's all just stupid! Seriously, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SONIC CAN FUCKING WALL-JUMP NOW? (To be fair, there is a warning and offer of a tutorial when these new mechanics pop up, but I made the mistake of assuming they would be obvious and easy for someone like me- who has literally grown up with Sonic games- to figure out.) On top of this, some of the last few acts are insanely long. You know how in the old, good Sonic games, you had 10 minutes to get through each act, and most of the time you wouldn't need more than 5 or 6? GOOD FUCKING LUCK BEATING PLANET WISP IN LESS THAN 15, AND THAT'S IF YOU CAN QUICKLY FIGURE OUT WHERE THE HELL TO EVEN GO.

And that's not all. "Oh thank goodness," you think. "I've finally gotten through those horribly designed levels and can move on to the boss fight! That should be fun at least!"

NOPE. YOU GOTTA DO SOME CHALLENGES IN THOSE HORRIBLY DESIGNED LEVELS BEFORE YOU CAN GO TO THE BOSSES.

"Oh...okay. So what, I gotta beat the act with a tough, but reasonable time limit now or something?"

NOPE. YOU'RE RACING A COPY OF YOURSELF WHO'S NOT BOUND BY THE LAWS OF REALITY. HE FOLLOWS A SET PATH AT A CONSTANT SPEED EVERY TIME NO MATTER WHAT, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR MOVING PLATFORMS. AND IF YOU SCREW UP EVEN ONCE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CATCH UP IN TIME TO WIN.

"Oh...well that was tremendously unfair, but I managed to beat it. Can I fight the boss now?"

NOW YOU HAVE TO USE CHARMY TO GET THROUGH THIS JUMPING PUZZLE!

"Who? Oh, the annoying bee guy...I see. That was painfully frustrating, but I finally got it. Boss time now?"

MORE PUZZLES! BUTTONS AND LASER WALLS!

"Okay, I see you're trying to extend the gameplay experience, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Can I just fight the b-"

NO! PLAY MUSICAL TENNIS WITH VECTOR!

"Musica- What!? I don't- That doesn't even- Know what? Fuck you! I'm playing Sonic Spinball."

Okay. So let's say you complete the necessary challenges without putting a controller through a TV screen and make it to the bosses. Well, to sum it up: The first 2 are way too easy, and the last 2 are way too hard. Death Egg Robot and Perfect Chaos? Both immensely difficult final bosses in their respective debut games? Pushovers. You don't even go Super Sonic against Chaos. Also, his modernized design looks stupid. Why the hell does he have armor now? There was a high-definition version of him in Sonic Adventure's opening! Make him look like that!

And I don't know what the hell the Egg Dragoon came from (Sonic Unleashed, apparently) but FUCK THAT THING TO HELL AND BACK TWICE. It's a running boss fight with Sonic going constantly at full speed, so you have to boost to catch up. Unfortunately, while doing this he steers like a goddamn semi truck, making it effectively IMPOSSIBLE to get to Robotnik and damage him until the fight shifts into side-scroller mode and has you jumping over ice bombs. Because of the element of randomness to it, this fight can TAKE FUCKING FOREVER, only for you to fuck up when it's time to deliver the final hit and have to do the WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.

Oh, but that's nothing compared to the final boss fight with Steampunk Haunter. It shouldn't come as any surprise that both Sonics use the Chaos Emeralds to turn into their super forms for this fight, and as per tradition, you need to keep collecting rings throughout the battle in order to stay super. This would not normally be much of a problem, except...

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SEE THE RINGS WITH A BACKGROUND THAT FLASHY AND BUSY? YOU'VE GOT HYPERSPACE RAYS GOING THIS WAY, GEARS AND SHIT GOING THAT WAY, AND IT'S ZOOMED SO FAR OUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHERE YOU ARE HALF THE TIME. It doesn't even TELL you what you're supposed to do! Like at all! There is NO mention that all you have to do is catch up to the boss and keep boosting into his little orb thingy to damage him.

 The Sonic-switching mechanic is confusing and leaves you clueless as to what you're supposed to do even though the characters all told you a hundred times to use it. You spend 90% of the time trying to catch up to the boss only for it to go into side-scrolling mode, and the other 10% trying to get some goddamn rings so you can stay alive long enough to keep doing that! There is no point in switching whatsoever!

Also, do you know what a homing shot looks like? Don't worry. The extra characters will let you know. All of them. Every. Fucking. Time. It. Happens.

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT'S A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

There is simply not enough good in this game to counteract all the bad. The early levels are enjoyable to play,  and they're obviously all visually impressive, but the story is stupid, the gameplay shifts so rapidly between fun/nostalgic and tedious/infuriating, the voice acting is annoying as fuck,  all the required extra challenges are such obvious padding, and the classic bosses are so dumbed down it's downright insulting.

If you want Classic Sonic gameplay, PLAY A FUCKING CLASSIC SONIC GAME because SEGA apparently has no idea how to do a remake anything even remotely resembling justice.

4/10

And no, I'm not touching Sonic 4 Part 2 unless it goes on sale for a fucking buck because SEGA still hasn't figured out that homing attack is NOT A GODDAMN 2-D MECHANIC. I don't care if it's a level-for-level, platform-for-platform remake of EVERY Genesis Sonic game. 

Dead Space 2 (PC)

Oh hey, I've got a blog that I haven't posted in about 7 months. Sorry about that. I'll make it up to my nonexistent loyal readers by reviewing Dead Space 2. Obviously the sequel to Dead Space, which I have previously reviewed.

Dead Space 2 picks up some time after the events of the first one. In the opening cutscene Isaac Clarke finds himself being questioned by some scientist guys on a gigantic space station. They go over what happened during the last game for expository purposes, and then Isaac wakes up in a straight jacket while all hell breaks loose aboard the station. That's right! Isaac's old buddies, the Necromorphs are back and wasting no time slaughtering everyone! Your main objective becomes "get the fuck out of here!"

So DS2 almost literally throws you right into the action, which is not really a bad thing. Recall my rant on DS1's lack of scariness because of how you can kill everything? During the opening of DS2, you're stuck in a straight jacket. It's a very chaotic scene, and it actually manages to briefly make the Necromorphs scary for a while. Even once you're out of the jacket, it's still a while before you get an actual weapon and get back into the routine of "SEE MONSTER, SHOOT ARMS OFF, MOVE ON."

Unfortunately, Dead Space 2 does still suffer from that problem once you clear the first chapter. It's a bit saddening, because it is very obvious that it's at least trying to be scarier than its predecessor. The fact that the game is set on a residential space station gives it some some fairly wonderfully disturbing moments (especially considering that you're witnessing a Necromorph outbreak AS it's happening, rather than just seeing the aftermath), but it's still mostly just jump scares.

If anything, the changes Dead Space 2 has undergone have improved on its already good action game qualities, rather than its few good (if any) horror ones. Isaac has much more personality (also a face) this time, and seems to be fairly good at voicing the player's own opinions of the situation at hand. For instance, stomping on an enemy several times in a row will result in Isaac grunting, "Argh! Die! Fucker!" Barely audible in most cases, but I thought it was a nice touch.

Spoiler warning begins.


Sadly, Isaac is the only character to get any kind of development. The crazy guy just gets crazier until you predictably have to kill him, and the badass chick just stays the badass chick.

 Even the main antagonist throughout the game is never seen in person until seconds before the final boss. Seconds during which you kill him in a quicktime event. You never even really find out what his problem was or why he wants to kill Isaac so badly. Unless I'm just really bad at paying attention.

In fact, the entire ending just seems to come out of nowhere. Suddenly there's a giant marker that Isaac and the crazy guy apparently helped build, all the Necromorphs getting near if causes it to start sucking them in, and Isaac's hallucinatory dead girlfriend needs to kill him to complete the process.  Or something. The characters call it a "convergence event" but nobody ever explains what that actually means or why it's bad!

Spoiler warning ends.

There are several new types of Necromorph this time around, in addition to most of the originals. Most interestingly at first are the Stalkers. If you hear their sound, get a good look at them, and your first thought isn't "velociraptors" then something is wrong with you. These bastards are different from the other Necromorphs and are actually some of the scarier ones in the game for the sole reason that they HUNT YOU.

They seem unnervingly smart until you get their pattern down. They will charge at you, then run and hide behind a corner, and peek out at you. "Ha! What a dumb creature! Giving away his position like that!" You might say, as you go around the corner to dispatch the beastie- OH SHIT HE'S CHARGING AGAIN! Before you know it, you're on the ground and he's run off to hide again around a different corner. Unfortunately they're actually not nearly as clever as their first ambush might lead you to believe. Indeed, that first ambush is the only time I was actually afraid of them. Once you figure out their simple pattern, it becomes all to easy to blast their legs off mid-charge and leave them effectively harmless.

Another new enemy is the Puker. You get exactly one guess as to what he does. Time's up. He pukes acid at you. However, the damaging effects of the acid are the least of your worries, since it doesn't seem to really hurt you all that much. The main problem you will face when going against a Puker is that the acid slows you down a lot. This can cause serious trouble when you're facing a group of enemies, and is the reason a Puker should always be your primary target. They also have probably the most gruesome Isacc-killing scene when you lose a grapple with one. (Incidentally, this was the only enemy I ever lost a grapple with despite seriously trying to win.)

Strangely, with all those and more additions to the enemy team, nothing has really been done to make the bosses more interesting. In Dead Space you had a boss fight in zero-g, one you fought using the ship's turrets, and even one that was completely invincible! Dead Space 2's bosses are all just "shoot the big glowing weak spot until it dies," except for one fight which is 95% cutscene until you get a "shoot the explody thing" moment. Definitely a step backwards.

Which is disappointing because one of the bigger steps forward is the new and improved zero-gravity mechanic. Instead of just pointing, clicking and jumping to another part of the room, Isaac can now freely navigate areas with no gravity using little jets on his suit. It's fantastic, to be honest. I loved the zero-g sections of the first game, but the parts of DS2 where you actually fly around in space are just mind blowing, and they could have easily taken advantage of it for a boss fight or two. Instead, you get a couple of admittedly awesome scenes of falling through space at high speeds and carefully maneuvering around broken sections of the space station. They're fairly intense, but still only really serve to push Dead Space 2 further away from the horror genre and into action territory.

It's surprisingly easy to like the Dead Space series if you acknowledge that it sucks at horror and succeeds really well at action. Even if you're very easily scared, you'll come to expect all the jump scares they throw at you, but you'll still have fun desperately fighting off swarms of Necromorphs and running like hell after realizing you just fired your last plasma cutter shot. The story is a bit confusing and most of the characters except for Isaac are dull and forgettable, but Dead Space 2 makes some significant improvements on several aspects of the original, and  manages to be a fairly enjoyable game overall despite its few steps backwards.

8/10

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC)

 I suppose you remember my Dead Space review, where I had this to say on the subject of what makes something scary:

"Scary is being all alone with no weapons in a dark room hiding from something that is actively trying to murder you. Scary is hearing that thing moving around and having no idea whether or not it is even near you until you step on its toes."

Well, it turns out there is an entire game based on that EXACT concept, called Amnesia: The Dark Descent. That's right. There's a horror game that's ACTUALLY SCARY. And not just for 10 minutes like Silent Hill 2.

Amnesia is played in a first-person perspective, and involves solving puzzles, finding journal pages to regain your memory, and dealing with horrifying monsters while trying not to go batshit crazy. (Think of it as H.P. Lovecraft's MYST.)

The catch? You can't fight. At all. So if you something sees you and starts chasing you, you're pretty much fucked if you turn around. So you hide in the dark. But if you stay in the dark for too long, your sanity drops and makes the controls and screen go all weird (among other things). If you look at the monsters for too long, sanity drops. If you witness paranormal events, sanity drops. If your sanity drops too low while a monster is looking for you, it becomes more likely to find you.

Prior to playing, I had heard a great deal about how terrifying the game is. Of course, given that I've heard a great deal about how terrifying a lot of things are, only to be met with severe disappointment, I can be forgiven for my initial response consisting solely of the word "psh," followed by an explanation of how just about nothing is capable of inducing a legitimate fearful response in me.

A short time later, I downloaded the demo from Steam to see what it was all about. Sure enough, it was pretty much what I expected. Generic horror cliches and jump scares. The atmosphere is very reminiscent of Silent Hill though, very dark with occasional otherworldly sounds.

You are a man named Daniel, who- for some reason- has given himself amnesia, and awoken in a mysterious castle. Luckily, Daniel's former self had the foresight to leave messages explaining the situation, and ordering you to find and kill a man named Alexander. Pages from Daniel's diary are found throughout the castle, and explain more about how Daniel  came to be in this situation. Entering certain areas also triggers flashbacks as Daniel regains more of his memory.

For the most part, as I mentioned, the castle is extremely dark which takes a toll on Daniel's sanity. You can find tinderboxes here and there that allow you to light candles, torches and other sources of light. This has the advantage of keeping your sanity up, but each tinderbox is single-use and may be needed in the future, and turning on lights makes monsters able to see you easier. Additionally, you have a lantern, which provides a portable source of light for areas that have no candles or the like. The lantern runs on oil, though, so you need to use it sparingly or it will run out at the most inopportune moments.

I slowly made my way through the demo, up until a certain point. At this certain point, the game went much darker than normal, and the hallway inexplicably became flooded with about a foot of water.

"Oh, please." I said. "Water? Really?" No sooner had I whipped out my lantern and begun to step toward the nearest flooded room when I heard splashing that was most certainly NOT coming from me. I turned around and saw large splashes in the water....moving...TOWARD ME!?  Yes. I was being chased by water-dwelling monster that was FUCKING INVISIBLE.

Initial reaction: RUN THE FUCK AWAY! RUN! HOLY SHIT! RUN! RUN! RUN! OH GOD, WHY IS THERE A GATE IN THE WAY WHO PUTS A GATE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GODDAMN HALLWAY OH SHIT I'M BEING EATEN BY SOMETHING I CAN'T EVEN SEE! WHAT THE FUCK!?

And then I died. At which point the game's death screen helpfully pointed out, "STAY OUT OF THE WATER." No shit. So there's boxes and stuff you have you jump to in order to not get eaten alive by the invisible water monster. Easy enough. I'm certainly not going to make the same mistake agai-

*Splash*

WHY CAN'T I JUMP ON THE BOX!? SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! IT'S RIGHT FUCKING BEHIND ME AND I CAN'T GET ON THE BOX!

And that was the most heart-stopping moment in the DEMO. Running like hell up to a box and realizing you can't jump onto it. (You have to jump on the smaller one NEXT to it first.) The demo ends shortly after this area.

Realizing that a game had just effectively given me multiple heart attacks without resorting to jump scares and horror cliches, I hurriedly purchased the full version, eager to continue the experience. (On sale on Steam at the time for about $10.)

I was not disappointed. At all. On several occasions I had to take off my headphones to find out if the terrified, heavy breathing was coming from me or Daniel.

As a game in itself, it's actually fairly decent. There's reasonably challenging puzzles and fetch quests, and I needed to consult a guide a few times near the end to figure out just what to do, but the final encounter was severely disappointing. I know it's unreasonable to expect a massive boss fight in a game that has already firmly established itself as a "run and hide" sort, but something involving more than 3 mouse clicks would have been nice.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a surprisingly good game with one or two minor drawbacks. Every bit as terrifying as I had been told, which is certainly a first, and overall very entertaining to play.

9/10

Sonic The Hedgehog 4 (360)

Yep. I'm finally reposting a review from my DA journal. Word for word, copy/paste. Because I am lazy and wanted to update without actually putting any thought into a new review.

Quite some time ago, I posted a comment somewhere (it was either Halolz or the Escapist forums,) detailing a single course of action SEGA could take to earn my universal forgiveness for the travesty that is every Sonic game to come out since Adventure 2.

I said that they could remake Sonic 3 & Knuckles with current generation graphics. I would even allow the addition of some of the Loads and Loads of Characters they've crammed into the series as unlockable extras or something, so long as they didn't go overboard.

Less than a month after I said that, SEGA announced NOT S3&K, but SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4, a direct SEQUEL to S3&K. Not only was it a direct sequel to the greatest Sonic the Hedgehog game to ever exist, but it was to have similar side-scrolling gameplay, level design, and a cast consisting solely of the blue hedgehog himself and his arch-nemesis Dr. Robotnik. Not so much as a two-tailed fox more. Cue jaw-drop and a fan-girlish squee the likes of which would not be heard again until Portal 2's announcement.

Initially released screenshots and videos looked good. Maybe a bit TOO similar to the games whose honor STH4 is meant to restore, but I'd let it slide. Some of the original badniks even got pretty awesome graphical upgrades!

Fastforward a bit to unveil SEGA's first mistake of what was to be many. Two words: "Episode. One."

4 zones. That's it. Sonic's "triumphant return" is even shorter than his FIRST FUCKING GAME, which you can buy from the Wii shop channel for HALF THE PRICE.

Needless to say, my response to learning this was "well fuck that!" And so I forgot all about Sonic The Hedgehog 4 for a while.

NOW. For Christmas this year, I received an Xbox 360 (and a few other games, but that's neither here nor there.) Aware that there was a wide selection of downloadable games available from the marketplace, I decided to check 'em out. Among them, I saw STH4, which reminded me that the game existed.

So I got it.

After a few hours, I began to wish I hadn't.

The graphics are great, so it has that going for it. The backgrounds blend in and move nicely with the rest of the stages, which themselves are very well drawn and colorful as a Sonic game should be.

The first Zone, Splash Hill was a joyfully nostalgic breeze through an Green/Emerald Hill remake/mashup. Or it would have been. If not for that FUCKING homing attack mechanic SEGA decided would be a good idea to implement in a 2-D FUCKING GAME. FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT! Not only does it randomly lock on to everything you DON'T want to jump toward, but it essentially adds a double jump that moves you forward. This can be kind of handy in a very select few areas, but it makes the rest of the game a great deal HARDER when you're not used to it because you've been playing, say...every OTHER 2-D Sonic game. (Remember the fire shield from STH3? Imagine doing that involuntarily every other time you want to make a precise jump.)

Also, I hope you're not a fan of Sonic's speed, because you certainly won't be doing a lot of running in this game. What's that? A Sonic game that takes the focus off of running really fast? Yeah. I was shocked too, but every time I managed to get up to full speed, I ran smack straight into one of the badniks SEGA cleverly placed on EVERY stretch of land you'd otherwise be capable of using to run really fast on, and lost half my rings. With another hearty "fuck that!" I restarted the act, expecting I'd be smart enough not to make the same mistake, keep my rings, and actually make it to the Special Stage.

NOT SO.

This EXACT SAME incident occurred no less than 4 more times in different areas around the FIRST. FUCKING. ACT. I know collecting the Chaos Emeralds is supposed to be a challenge, but GOD DAMN! I can't even hold on to enough rings GET to them! (The Special Stages themselves are ironically not all that special. Basically exactly the same as the ones from STH1, only you control the rotation of the stage rather than Sonic himself. I know this because I've managed to get into one ONCE. Also you're on a ludicrous fun-killing time limit and have to collect rings to open gates.)

The other zones are more of the same. You have the clone of Casino Night Zone, the clone of Labyrinth Zone, and the clone of Metropolis Zone. I thought this was supposed to be a sequel to Sonic 3! Why are we going back through zones from Sonic 1 and 2? They even have all the same enemies! There is not a single new badnik design to be found!

These zones, while very visually pleasing, and effectively appealing to one's sense of nostalgia are considerably terribly designed. Aside from the enemy placement and lack of Hedgehog-suited terrain I mentioned earlier, SEGA decided to add fucking PUZZLES to the stages. WHY? This is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, NOT MYST, SEGA!

The took Labyrinth Zone, the second* most evil and unforgiving Zone in Sonic history, and made it EVEN MORE hard and unforgiving to the point where it's not even fun to play through anymore, it's just a chore! Why am I lighting torches? Why am I moving walls around? Why did I run out of time while doing this crap? WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I JUST RUN REAL FAST!?

And what. THE. FUCK. IS WITH THE LIBERAL USE OF INSTANT-DEATH PITS? I had 20 lives going into the Casino Zone. I lost 15 of them in ONE absurdly wide instant-death pit spanned by Mega Man-esque platforms-that-appear-and-disappear. Either make the platforms stationary, or put something under them to land on. Using both is just begging for an I Wanna Be The Guy comparison. That's just one example. These fucking pits are EVERYWHERE.

Even the bosses for this game are just rehashes from the first 3. You've got Robotnik's classic ball/chain, his pinball death machine, his "I run away while the water level creeps up absurdly fast," and his...whatever that thing is where he makes all the little copies of himself. These bosses have very slightly modified moves, but it hardly makes them any more difficult than they originally were. (Except Labyrinth's. The addition of moving smashy walls after the toned-down creeping water part is an admittedly welcome challenge.)

The final zone consists of a boss run with a few further changes. Namely, the smashy walls from the Labyrinth boss seem to be a lot more smashy. Annoyingly so. To the point where I lost my remaining lives and gave up for the day.

SEGA is trying. They have the right idea. They just don't seem to know what the hell to do with it. Kill the homing attack, kill the puzzles, tweak the terrain, and it wouldn't kill 'em to add some originality to the mix. I know we wanted a new Sonic game to be closer to the originals, but this is pushing it.

As it is, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 gets a 5/10

*#1 is Metropolis, and #3 is Carnival Night.

Dead Space (PC)

THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING. I WILL POST THESE IF I INTEND TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT KEY PLOT POINTS IN A GAME. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SUCH THINGS, I INVITE YOU TO CEASE READING IMMEDIATELY.

If you've seen any of my past reviews of "horror" games on my DeviantART journal, you would know by now that I've had some issues with managing to fully enjoy certain aspects of them. Namely, the aspects of them that are supposed to be scary (and therefore actually BE horror games). Before I go into this review of Dead Space, I think it important to define what I personally consider to be scary.

Scary is being all alone with no weapons in a dark room hiding from something that is actively trying to murder you. Scary is hearing that thing moving around and having no idea whether or not it is even near you until you step on its toes.

Scary is NOT being armed to the teeth and surrounded by hideous mutated monsters that make more loud obnoxious screaming sounds than the fangirls at an anime convention.

In short, 90% of Dead Space is what I would call "not scary." This is not to say it is a bad game, though.

We begin with a team of people (including the main character, Isaac Clarke) responding to the sudden mysterious loss of contact with a gigantic ship in an abandoned sector of space. Their ship inexplicably crashes, leaving them stranded inside the aforementioned gigantic ship as they investigate the cause of the aforementioned mysterious loss of contact.

If you have to guess where it goes from here, you have no business being involved in any way with any science fiction stories. Ever.

It turns out the entire ship has been overrun by mutant alien zombies known as "Necromorphs,"  which are basically the Flood from Halo, only louder and less vulnerable to shotgun blasts.

The way you have to deal with these abominations is actually fairly clever, though, despite the cliche factor. You see, conventional anti-zombie warfare teaches us that headshots are the way to go. So no big deal, right? You just blast the head off that Necromorph charging at you and he should drop dead-

OH GOD HE'S STILL CHARGING! 

So you unload the rest of your ammo into the body, BUT IT'S STILL COMING OH CRAP!

That's right. Headshots pretty much don't count for shit in Dead Space. You need to remove individual LIMBS from these freaks to take 'em down. Chop off arms, legs, anything sticking out of the main body because anything fired at that main body isn't gonna do jack. And hey! How convenient! You just happen to be surrounded by high-powered mining tools whose SOLE PURPOSE IS TO CUT THINGS.

So yes. We revisit my main issue with every horror game ever: YOU CAN KILL EVERYTHING THAT WANTS TO EAT YOU, SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

No monster can be scary when all you need to do is blow its arms off. They don't even bother sneaking around or making quiet nerve-wracking noises. They just jump out screaming and start running at you. This is not scary, this is startling until it is done so often you expect it every time you open a fucking door! That decidedly non-human "corpse" on the ground? It's gonna attack you when you get close. Those other human corpses? Stomp them apart before an Infector comes along and brings them back. (Which will happen if there's more than 2 in a given area.)

One thing that does make them a bit interesting is that each type of Necromorph has a special "death scene" if they attack you in a certain way. Some of the enemies will start grappling with you, initiating a  button-mash quicktime event to free yourself. If you succeed, you kill it instantly (sometimes) in a short little scene. If you fail, IT kills YOU instantly in a short little scene. I suggest failing each one at least once for the entertainment value. In a particularly disturbing one, a small tentacle monster decapitates you and implants itself in your neck to take control of your body.

Dead Space's main problem is in its predictability. Anyone with a basic knowledge of horror storylines is going to be able to predict with uncanny accuracy what is going to happen next. Oh, one of your teammates is a badass black soldier guy? Guess who's not gonna make it off the ship? What's that? One of the scientists on the ship has survived and he knows how to stop the Necromorphs before they inevitably consume humanity? "Not if I have anything to say about it," says the plot.

In fact, the main character being an ordinary guy with no military training should clue you in that he's gonna be the only survivor of this incident.

Also, expect a major attack any time you complete a main objective. Do NOT pick up that key card unless you have ammo. They can sense when you've done something plot-relevant.

The only predictable plot twist I actually didn't see coming, but in hindsight really should have, was a certain character's betrayal. Scientist guy gets shot and the ship we were gonna take starts leaving before I even know what's going on. Then...

"Sorry, Isaac."

OH, YOU BITCH!

"Blah blah blah, conspiracy, blah blah, experiment, blah blah can't let you screw it up."

Oh, and Isaac's girlfriend you're supposed to be rescuing was a hallucination the whole time.

But enough about what the plot does wrong. Let's talk about what the game does right.

Dead Space actually has a very nice difficulty curve. You start out tripping over ammunition and facing relatively weak enemies. As the game progresses, you find yourself facing new enemy designs, and lamenting your sudden lack of ammo. This leads to some very intense situations and often barely making it out alive as you limp to the nearest save point.

And now, I fondly recall my most badass moment in Dead Space: One certain type of Necromorph has an explosive sac on its arm that self destructs when it gets close to you. This explosion also damages other enemies in the immediate area. I found myself near the end of the game, having just fought off another massive wave of Necros and considerably light on ammo. Another wave decided to attack, headed by one of these suicide bombers. I dismembered his explosive arm and it rolled over to me. I ran out of ammo and was getting slashed from all directions when I noticed it on the ground. Seeing that I still had a reasonable amount of health, I stomped it. Boom. No more Necros. I like a game that encourages this kind of desperate creativity.

Part of your equipment is the "stasis module" which is basically a toned-down version of the bullet-time effect in F.E.A.R. I think it's actually more useful here, though because it only slows down what you aim it at, rather than everything around you. It's used to slow down malfunctioning machinery, and of course some of the faster Necros.

In addition to the stasis module, you're equipped with the "kinesis module" which is basically the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, or the telekinesis Plasmids from Bioshock. It allows you to pick things up and throw them.

There are also sections of the game that require maneuvering in zero gravity. These are very well designed and fairly disorienting (in a good way.) One boss fight takes place in zero gravity, and is extremely difficult if you forget that fact. You can't outrun massive tentacles, but you can jump to the other side of the room.

Dead Space is an enjoyable action game with decent atmosphere. It's just that the enemies, while somewhat uniquely designed, lack all pretense of subtlety and therefore are incapable of producing anything more than occasional heart-stopping jump scares. The level designs are linear enough to easily figure out where to go, but with enough side paths and alternate routes to have fun exploring. The story is cliched beyond all reason, but it's hard to think about it when your legs are being torn off.

In the future, when mankind is out exploring the galaxy, if we ever "mysteriously lose contact" with a ship, just send in the guy you brought along to fix the comm systems with no weapons. He'll fix everything intentionally or otherwise.

Dead Space gets a 7.5/10

Raskulls (360)

Another interesting game. And I actually meant "interesting" this time. Raskulls is a quirky, cartoony puzzle/platformer in which you navigate various worlds by destroying colored blocks.

The evil space "Pirats" (they're pirate rats. Get it?), in their search for a planet made of cheese, have crashed their ship on a world inhabited by skull-faced characters known as the Raskulls. To repair it, they need the powers of the Shiny Stone, owned by the Raskull King. The story revolves around the Raskulls thwarting the plans of the Pirats.

The gameplay is essentially Super Mario Bros. meets Collapse. As you run and jump through the levels, you will occasionally find your path blocked by...blocks...that you must zap with a wand-like tool to destroy. If multiple blocks of the same color are touching, zapping one will destroy them all. There are also powerups such as the fireball (with which you can dash through and destroy blocks without zapping them), and the lightning (which instantly zaps out several blocks in a row, including the normally hard to break black ones).

Aside from the powerups there are "boosties" that you collect from destroying blocks, and can find in jars lying around. Boosties charge up a frenzy meter. Activating frenzy mode speeds up your character for a short time (unless you're collecting lots of boosties as you go) and allows them to zap blocks much faster, but be careful. Getting smashed by falling blocks will drain the frenzy meter.

Few of the levels are as simple as "get to the end." Every chapter introduces a new spin on the existing game mechanics. For example, you might be required to get to the end with a limited number of zaps. Or you might be required to get objects down to platforms without dropping them too far at a time. Or you might have to do BOTH of these with an insanely unfair time limit.

Some special challenges require you to complete a course without running out of frenzy power, while others require liberal use of frenzy mode to finish in a time limit. Frenzy mode and the powerups are also absolutely vital if you want to complete any of the race levels.


Unfortunately, despite this wide variation in level goals, Raskulls does suffer from one glaring flaw. Most of the levels are far too easy. The ones that aren't too easy? They're controller-snappingly frustrating. I was actually glad when I finally failed a challenge for the first time, assuming that the difficulty curve was finally catching up to me, but this quickly dissolved into annoyance after I failed it several more times before I finally completed it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground in terms of difficulty. Everything is either way too easy, or way too hard. (I'd say about 8 super-easy to every 2 super-hard.) It's great and all that you get a feeling of accomplishment from clearing the hard ones, but you have you ask yourself if it was really worth the headache.

The second and most major problem is that this game is mind blowingly short. It's only 3 chapters long! I mean, sure the later 2 world maps are on the larger side, but I was still able to beat the main story in less than a day. After that, the only things left to do are complete any remaining challenges (which you probably left unfinished for reasons mentioned above) and , if you're the type, go for all the achievements. There's also Xbox Live multiplayer, which I have yet to try, but it looks like it's just more races.

Those complaints aside, though, Raskulls is a fairly entertaining game. It's the kind you play with a friend or two and take turns dying during the hard challenges while you make fun of the guy who screws up the easy ones.

The gameplay is somewhat original, characters are creative, and the dialog and jokes are lighthearted and funny, while maintaining just an occasional very slight hint of dark humor. However, there are spikes in the difficulty and it is an extremely short- although enjoyable- experience.

Raskulls gets an  8/10

Super Meat Boy (PC)

Well, this is certainly is an interesting game.

Wait...did I say "interesting?" My mistake. What I meant to say was, "quite possibly the most sadistic a game can be without being I Wanna Be The Guy." Not sure how I managed to mix up those two things.

The story is quite simple. You control Meat Boy, a speedy little block of meat with arms, legs and a face. Meat Boy's girlfriend Bandage Girl (made of bandages. Don't ask, I have no bloody clue where that came from.) has been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fetus (a fetus in a jar attached to a robot body. Also has an awesome monocle. Again, don't ask.) The goal is to navigate the hazards of each level and reach Bandage Girl, after which she is promptly kidnapped again.  

As I said, a simple storyline. This is forgivable in the case of SMB, as the main focus of the game is in the challenge, and it does not disappoint in that regard. At all.

The thing that keeps Super Meat Boy from becoming I Wanna Be The Guy is that it's actually fair. It gives you a chance to get through each level on the first try, and there will be some that you do. It has no tricks up its sleeve, and none of your deaths will come out of nowhere. The level itself is not going to suddenly decide you need to die inches from the goal. The path is almost always as straightforward as it gets, and all the obstacles are so obvious they may as well be neon-lit. (Tip: If something other than a platform is moving, don't touch it.)

Yet, you will die.

Many. Many. Many. MANY times.

You will jump over that 1-block wide safe platform and into the saws surrounding it 50 times.

Once you master landing on that platform, you will fall short of the next one 100 times, and mess up the first one another 20 times.

Despite all of this, you will feel a surprising lack of urge to throw anything out the nearest window. That's because every single time you die, it will be YOUR OWN FAULT and not the game being a jerk. This is what makes a difficult game actually be fun, rather than draw comparisons to something people are forced to play in a special level of Hell.

At the end of each world is a boss. The basic goal of any given boss level  boils down to "STAY ALIVE AND THE BOSS WILL KILL ITSELF," but each one still manages to be unique and present a different sort of challenge. For example, the first boss chases you through a simple obstacle course, while the second boss is a vertical obstacle course with the boss swimming around beneath you and jumping up occasionally while you collect keys to outrun the rising "water." Similar in most respects if you devote a lot of thought to it, but still different enough to be interesting.

And while we're on that subject, even the levels themselves continue adding new challenges as you progress in the game. It never stops, so you constantly have to adapt your strategy, and, most importantly, IT KEEPS THE GAME INTERESTING. You actually have a reason to keep going on besides saying, "I beat Super Meat Boy." What new terrors does the next world hold? Flying saw blades? Meat-seeking missiles? You haven't seen it all until you've beaten. Every. Level.

Oh, and if you get an A+ on a level by beating a certain time, you unlock the Dark World version of that level. It's the same level, but harder. A lot harder. The addition of one saw can turn the easiest level into a nightmare. These Dark World levels also count toward your completion percentage, so if you want 100% you better either get really good, or be extremely patient.

And sometimes, completing the level itself is the easy part. You see, there are also collectible bandages in some of them. You might finish a level in 5 seconds, but you will die hundreds of times trying to get that one bandage.

"Why bother?" You might ask. Well, there are also other playable characters you can unlock by collecting enough of these bandages. These characters have special abilities, and are from other "indie" games. (Although there is also the Headcrab from the Half Life series who has the extremely useful ability to stick to walls, but is considerably lacking in speed).

More characters can be unlocked by finding the hidden WAAAAARP ZOOOOOOOONES (yes, I do feel the need to type it like that. Thank you for asking.) hidden in some levels similar to the bandages. Entering one triggers a short scene introducing the character you will be attempting to unlock, before giving you 2 or 3 levels to complete by using them. Complete these levels, and you can use the character in the main game. (FYI, unlocking The Kid from IWBTG is a BITCH. Spikes. Spikes everywhere.)

Other WAAAAARP ZOOOOOONES simply contain extra levels rendered in various retro game styles. So far, I've encountered SNES style, original Gameboy style, and Atari style. Although unrelated to the story, these levels often contain more hidden bandages, and offer another layer of challenges for those with a compulsory need to get 100% completion.

It's extremely difficult without being unfair, the characters are bizarre, the cutscenes are amusing, and the game overall is just plain fun to play.

I can think of no reason not to give it a 10/10