Review: Gone Home

"Dear Katie, I'm sorry I can't be there to see you. I'm... I'm just sorry. But please, please, whatever you 

    might find... don't tell mom and dad."


      There's been a lot of controversy in the industry lately about what constitutes a game. About whether it needs combat, puzzles, or asinine button prompts mid-cutscene. Gone Home has none of these, but manages to so expertly tell a mysterious, eerie, and strangely heartwarming tale that I wasn't bothered by the lack of conventional "game-y-ness".

     Gone Home has you take the role of Katie Greenbriar on the night on June 7th, 1995. After studying for a year abroad you return home to find it seemingly empty. What follows next are 2 hours of the most engaging storytelling in gaming. You'll explore the house from head to toe, opening every drawer, closet and letter you find to learn just what happened to everyone, what's up with all those creaking noises, and just what's waiting for you behind the next locked door.  Upon discovery of anything plot relevant, you'll be treated to a reading of a journal entry from your younger sister Sam. The game is chock full of these, and as you progress through the game, you begin to realize that the plot is focused much more on her than anything else. However, Gone Home manages to give every character involved their share of depth. You might find a 20 year old box of unsold books written by your father, a pulp writer with a fixation on the JFK assassination of 1963, a torn page full of Street Fighter combo inputs, or a TV Guide with the X-Files slot highlighted. The game lures you in with an impeccable 90's charm, warmly transmitting pop cultural references into your brain in without making it feel like a cheap, biding its time for the main plot get into gear.. By the time things started to come together, I was already in love with the game. Not to mention that the experience is accompanied by an incredible ambient score courtesy of one Chris Remo. In addition to that, there are several of the era 'Riot grrrl' tracks that help to tell the story in some interesting ways.

     One gripe most frequently brought up in regards to Gone Home is the price of admission. If you're picking this up without a sale it's $20 for a couple hours of gameplay. While this might seem outrageous at first, consider that instead of buying your next overpriced Blu-Ray and/or Laserdisc, you could just pick this up instead, and with a new developer commentary track available for any subsequent playthroughs, there's just as much incentive as a movie purchase. The game is so dripping with a deliciously spooky, touchy-feely atmosphere and the kind of absence that one'd feel after returning home from abroad is represented perfectly, and the lovingly drawn, written and voiced artifacts of the missing days of your family make this one of the most relatable experiences you'll ever find. All I've got to say is this- call it a game, call it a movie, call it a fucking radio drama, but put aside any preconceived notions you might have about the experience and just do it. I'd go as far as to say that if you ingest only game, hell, one piece of media this year, make it Gone Home. You'll be so profoundly stirred by this beautiful and personal tale that when the game fades to credits you'll never forget it.  Gone Home shows us that even in the most cynical era of human history, something can subvert any expectations of its own identity and give us something that we'll keep in our hearts forever.
                                                                           10/10
   

   

Actually I don't like it when that happens in space

          So it's that time of year again, that magical time of year when the annual release storm descends upon my precious video town. We've got our new Ass Cred gamuwa, which has whales and... some whales, I think? New Call of Duty, which I learned something about yesterday that made me stop for a second. And that's that astronauts shoot guns in space. Because that happens in that goddamned game. Astronauts. They come out with their guns and they shoot at other astronauts. And there you go. There's the franchise with about as much capacity to be entertaining as John Cena's Fast Lane. The quickest darn lane I ever did see. With next gen shit coming out in a matter or weeks, I feel like the annualized stuff just can't adapt quickly enough during one release cycle to really bring out the "Wow" factor that a lot of this next gen shit is eliciting from schlubs like me. Schlub town.

Another Bug Hunt

     So that one game that the boners were over for the next console generation's launch, Watch Dogs, has been delayed to Spring 2014, further proving to the world that the sale for those boxes should be in goddamn stasis until next year. Unless, y'know, you wanna play car game. If you wanna play car game, go spend money to play car game. Sega, after a massive failure with Aliens: Colonial Marines, is apparently testing the waters again next generation with Alien: Isolation.  The game is rumored to star Ripley's daughter and only have one xenomorph, so maybe it'd be kinda tense and cool if it wasn't going to be kinda cool and then awful. Pokemon X and Y have sold more than 4 million copies, making them the fastest selling 3DS thing to date. So there you go. Couple that with the Wind Waker HD Wii-U bundle and Nintendo's kicking the dicks right now. Kicking the dicks.

Carry on, my Watch Dogs son

Movie Game But Without Movie- McDonald's Edition

    So these last few weeks have been a wacky time for the gamuwas, with GTA Online releasing, it's apparently busted so uh, for shame. Rockstar is, however, releasing some sort of a stimulus package for all the poor schlubs afflicted. French-o developer David Cage and his team over at Quantic Dream in Paris just released their new game a few hours ago starring Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page titled Beyond: Two Souls. The Walking Dead and Back to the Future adventure game devs Telltale's next comic undertaking, and adaptation of Fables has had its embargo lifted and it's apparently not shit, so that's cool. The newest Pokemon shit is coming out so PETA made some more literal shit for your eyes to take in- in the form of another shitty flash game. Cool. This time it's even edgier, because they lambaste the fine folks at Game Freak for releasing two versions of each of their games! (Woooooo) That noise, right? The wooo one? That was the phantom of me caring about PETA games.

Who's that guy? Fucking Grimace? Aw shucks. 

Video Games: Not Even Once.

     Video game guy died, you know that Hunt for Red Video Game Book Man Tom Clancy. A well known name in gaming, he's attached to tens of titles- none of which I've played, which will continue to be produced way after he dies. The Last of Us DLC was teased again, and Persona 5 is apparently getting some info dropped next month. Persona's found a niche for itself over here with its past two numbered releases, and as we see other games in that same umbrella find popularity in the US, the more likely it'll be that Atlus doesn't go under or something. Community supported indie baby Mighty No 9 capped its kickstarter off at around 4 million dollars, making it one of the most successful games on the site thus far. This means it's coming to everything, so 3DS, Vita, Next Gen consoles, etc. Which is kinda cool. Also GTAV Online came out and people are mad because people are mad. Who cares.

RIP Tom Clancy I didn't know you well

More like Blowan Atkinson

     So that one video game, right? Yup. I've been playing the most hyped game everyone is playing right now, that all the cool guys on the street are chatting about online and off- Castlevania's PS2 debut from 2003. This is my life now. I play alright Devil May Cry clones. Despite the exciting nature of this mediocre video game, people have decided that they wanna play GTA V... y'know, for some reason. This shit has been blowing up the airwaves now that news has been coming out that this is the most expensive game to develop in the history of ever ($265 million is a lot of money when you aren't even factoring in advertising. You could buy like, a houseboat with money. Or three houseboats. Or even nine.) And that the game's become the fastest selling IP ever, too, doing that Avengers Billion Dollar thing in its first couple of days. It goes to show that, I don't know, people like a Stevie Wonder-infused soundtrack more than they do Chris Hemsworth doing his jumpy thing and hitting the Hulkman. Also GTA V has a Wham song. The best Wham song. Not that one, though. The one that isn't the other two. George Michael sings a song. The Last of Us DLC has been announced this week and Steam announced its next grab for the universe with SteamOS, a Steam based operating system (Get it?) allowing users to stream their games from a metal bauble to their televisions because televisions are for PC gaming now. Sony has shown a new model of their newer shot at the handheld, the PSVita. It's smaller. There you go.

Review- Killer is Dead

      Here we are. Again. Another year, again a game Suda is like, what Executive Director on at this point? This time, from 2012 to 2013, it's sorta better and then sorta not. Kinda like 2012 to 2013.

"But on the real, we do it big in the club, gettin' all the groupie love." - Video game

       Killer is Dead is another game by Grasshopper Manufacture, the folks behind stuff like Killer7, Shadows of the Damned and most recently Lollipop Chainsaw. All around cool guy Goichi Suda returns to write the script this time around, and we get to see a guy try to direct a Suda 51 game without the guy actually being Suda 51. It follows amnesiac assassin Mondo Zappa, whose only defining characteristics are that he likes soft boiled eggs and has a robot arm, as he kinda does contracts. Maybe a couple, but mostly goes to the moon because this game has like nine missions that aren't two minutes long and he goes to the moon. Twice. The game does see you carrying out some more interesting contracts in the second half, however short lived they might be. There's an evil train, a yakuza with a ghost tiger, and a blue guy who wants to steal music. Or something. One of the bigger issues this game has is padding for length, which it shouldn't need considering how short it is. About a quarter of the game is spent in Mondo's dream sequences, which just dish out exposition to you on a heaping platter. For a fast paced action titles like this, a break in the action can be a breath of fresh air, but by the third time I started to wonder if this yearly release schedule Grasshopper is on really lends itself well to super fleshed out action games. (Note- it doesn't.)

This should've happened more instead of flashbacks. Probably. 

                    

      So I'm making it sound like I really thought this game was schlock, but that was actually just a clever tactic I was employing called get-the-worst-shit-out-of-the-way-first. The first thing to give this game props for is that it's a kinda orgasmic sensory overload in a pretty major way. The harsh shadows mixed in with vibrant colors calls back to Killer7, one of the most visually amazing games in the past fifteen years. It's stuff like this that really shows how art design trumps graphical power any day of the week. The game falls into the trap of occasionally making you fight in a pretty boring, grey area, but it's smaller touches like a view of the snowy mountaintops from on top of a train or the purple and red sheen from your opponents that really brings the scenes together. Although it is pretty perplexing that the most visually interesting area in the entire game, an apartment turned MC Escher-style candy house, is the first major area of the game, instead of being saved up for later. The other issue with Killer is Dead's visuals apart from some sometimes boring scenery is that the game suffers from some pretty serious screen tearing, which is very apparent whether you're in combat or not. Ex-Silent Hill composer and now in-house Grasshopper go-to music guy Akira Yamaoka really delivers this time around with an  interestingly eclectic mix of catchy electronic tunes occasionally infused with some strong bass, frantic drums or warbly lyrics. It's something I've never really seen him branch out into, usually staying with more traditional instrumental work, and it's exciting to see. The music in Killer is Dead stirs old memories of Grasshopper's previous, and just as talented composer Masafumi Takada, which is always a good thing.

The game's antagonist David is like a glitzier version of Prince.
 Assless chaps actually included.

     The core gameplay of Killer is Dead is pretty standard hack and slash fare. You have one main button for all sword strikes and one button for fist attacks, which are usually used to break an opponent's guard. There are very few moves available in the game so it instead relies on a simple albeit fun combination of timed parries and dodges for any sort of combat depth. There are a few sub weapons (hint- they're all some kind of gun, unless they're a drill), but they can't be strung into your combos as they could in say, Bayonetta. This renders them mostly useless barring a few enemies which your sword can't reach, and it makes you wonder if it was too much trouble to implement these weapons better into the combo driven gameplay, for the sake of variety if anything. This game actually includes a cancelled feature from Shadows of the Damned, the 2011 Grasshopper release, called Gigolo missions. These have been stirring up some controversy online, but lemme give you the rundown. You have drinks with a girl and you give her presents and you get a trinket to help you in game. These barely factor into the game at all and it seems strange that they'd play such a large part in the marketing of the game, except in an attempt to break out of the niche Grasshopper has in the market and into a much wider(?) audience of people who buy videogames because they want to see ladies.

     Killer is Dead is an odd duck. In an industry mostly conscious of Grasshopper's games, it seems like this game was being marketed on oddity alone, like Suda51's name plastered on the marketing should count as a brand. Previous games such as Killer7 and No More Heroes have thrived on their own type of weird that I think a lot of us can respect. They don't try to prove anything to anyone, and they certainly don't flaunt it on the box. Killer is Dead's story comes off as trying really hard to capture that "Suda style" without understanding the core ideas of it, the underdog appeal that breaks through the mold of this saturated-to-hell market. As the credits slammed onto screen after a strangely standard ending as a punk song blazed through the speakers, I couldn't help but miss Shadows of the Damned's more subdued, quietly weird closer, with a song by the actual group The Damned. It's a real sign of how quick the industry changes when you can wish for something from just two years ago, but that's the nature of games in general. But at Killer is Dead's heart is a team of people that really care, and when everything comes together, it shows you can still catch that Grasshopper lightning in a bottle one last time, no matter how fleeting it may be.

                                                                    7.5/10

Check Your Privilege- But With Video Games This Time!

     So this was kind of a lax week for actual industry news. Next gen console release dates are in November and the XBONE can hook eight controllers up to itself at once. Which is really great-- if you want to split your goddamn TV into eight separate tiny squares while you play. So I did have something I want to talk about, because I've been trying to rush through Killer is Dead for a review and finding it longer than I'd expected. An issue has come up with some people online about a few games recently, before said games had even come out, Killer is Dead being one of them. I don't really enjoy arguing about any kind of -ism whatever, but when White Knighting is pushing its way through into my game deal, then I figure it's an alright topic. Sexism accusations have been cast on Skullgirls and the visually striking watercolor game Dragon's Dogma pretty recently, but I want to focus this more on Goichi Suda/Grasshopper Manufacture's games, because I feel like that's something I really know about and can more easily cite examples.

     All the way back to No More Heroes, Suda has been getting flak from bloggers saying that his games feature unfair portrayals of women and should be taken of the market. No More Heroes is a game about a loser guy meeting a contact to the Assassin Underworld by the name of Sylvia Christel, who changes his life dramatically, for better or for worse. She's shown to be incredibly competent in an industry widely populated by men (Albeit a honking murder industry) and her seemingly hoity attitude and untouchable doesn't define her character, but rather her ability to deal with angsty yet charming goon and pivotal guy Travis Touchdown as she starts to become more of a character. (Starting to see the parallels with the game industry?)
                                                                 

Sylvia doesn't take any shit yet doesn't come off as pandering

     Shadows of the Damned, the next game by Suda's development team, Grasshopper Manufacture, was a huge twist on the damsel in distress trope, and Lollipop Chainsaw, which I reviewed a year ago, had you in the role of cheerleader Juliet Starling, a character who the industry was sold on before the game even dropped, a rarity for a new IP. There was no clear division of importance between the sexes, and the game focuses entirely on the interaction between her and her decapitated head boyfriend Nick, instead of poking fun at her with typical degrading cheerleader jokes. Killer is Dead's sexist claims come from the game's "Gigolo Mode" in which you take girls out for drinks and ogle them, but the reality is the actual content in the game is far from objectifying women. It's still the same varied and interesting cast Grasshopper games have been known for. I'm not trying to discount the argument against sexism in gaming, because like every hugely popular entertainment medium, there are definitely less women featured, but in this specific instance, it's like voice actress Erin Fitzgerald said, the real sexism in the industry can be found in titles with "Hundreds of male characters and a pittance of female characters."

      Suda's games may be childish at times, but it's more to appeal to the youth in all of us than to discriminate, and the joke is never on a specific demographic. I'd like to offer up the opposite argument, and put it out there that Grasshopper Manufacture's varied casts are helping to push the industry forward much more than they're getting credit for. No More Heroes is one of the few games to feature a black female main character, and while it might seem like a no brainer to feature racially diverse women protagonists in games, it's something that's rarely done, instead going for the white, male protagonist. (Who is usually bald. And has a gruff voice. Usually.) So with this post firmly planted in my history, I'm never touching anything like this again. I just had to shoot out my thoughts on this. Without white knighting. Working through Killer is Dead to review it, and I'm pretty excited about getting to that. My bones are aching to review. My bones. I have like 200.

Cool Dude New City

     So for my first post back I might, y'know, make a list of the best games of 2013 thus far or review 2005's Killer7 in honor of Killer is Dead releasing on the 27th, I've really been meaning to do that-- Oh, wait, I'm being told right now that Nintendo did something. They did a very bad thing.

That one right there, officer, that's the one who threw my common sense out the window

   I would like, for a moment to just think, because I feel like there is a possibility that Nintendo already has a 2D handheld platform on the market (That being a the DS and its many, many iterations). Oh! But they do have a 3D machine. Oh gosh, what if I don't want to play a game in 3D? There couldn't possibly be a slider on the side of the screen that can remove the 3D? Oh, wait, there is? Huh. Well, maybe someone just really want a handheld device that looks vaguely like a slice of cake. Or something. So Nintendo might still have 100 billion in the bank to do crazy stuff like release a system that doesn't actually close, but I have to stay strong in my own heart and not actually get involved with it, because right now it's reminiscent of a handheld game you would get at a Burger King in 2006. As for all the iterations of the 3DS, this is a lot like the Gameboy Micro, which was probably the size of the palm of your hand. Except the Gameboy Advance didn't have a slider on the side that turned it tinier. So I've come to the conclusion that this is for kids. That a flat-ish, hingeless thing could only serve as a pricedropped device an eight year old could try to persuade their parent into getting them. So there's that. Alright. Alright.

    So forgetting that for a moment, this has actually been a huge month for games. Pretty much right off the bat we had Dragon's Crown, Vanillaware's handpainted brawler, then Saint's Row 4, Volition's DLC turned full game, which apparently turned out all right. I've actually been able to spend some time with Killer is Dead, and while I'm not super into a developer- especially one I really like, doing an annual release schedule, it actually seems like it turned out pretty alright so far. Not a lot in the way of games in September, really, besides GTA V, which is seeming more and more like it's going to be worth the five year wait after GTA IV. Plus it has a song from Drive in it. I mean, what's not to love, right? 

Goldbumania

      So the XBox One requires a daily sign in to the shitty online service for single played games. Cool. So the final add-on for Borderlands 2 was announced, hopping on the crazy DLC train with an in game D&D campaign type thing (Sorta). So at E3 2011 the fine folks at Insomniac Games (The people behind Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, etc.) put out a CG trailer for Overstrike, what would be a whacky tale of four dysfunctional secret agents doing secret stuff. There wasn't much news on it until recently. but it was reborn as FUSE, and this week it came out. Guess what it sucks. The original Insomniac humour was apparently removed for a wider audience third person shooter. Because shooters with funny, irreverent heroes never do well. Like Uncharted. What a failure, right? Now a moment of silence to mourn the fallen project. Which had The Hives on the soundtrack.

I call it Lost Wages

     So Microsoft has revealed their new console that's going to push them into the next generation after what has been possibly the longest console generation in history.  Apparently they're taking it as a joke because they've marketed the damn thing as the 'XBOX One'. You'll be able to play great games like... Halo 5. And Call of Duty Ghosts... Y'know, that thing that also comes out on every other platform every single year. A constant connection to the motion controlled Kinect is required, which essentially means you might need a ten foot space between you and your TV to even use the console. All games are installed from disc, after which all subsequent users of the disc must pay a fee to install and use it, essentially killing a portion of the used games market. What a world. But oh, don't worry. You get a dog in Call of Duty. Unless any major changes or announcements are made about this thing soon, I can't see things looking good for Microsoft. But y'know.
                   

For everyone who wanted to play games on a VCR

Diego Brando

     So the next game in the Shin Megami Tensei series is coming out after ten years, as Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS. The folks in charge of that, Atlus, have had their budget kinda cut so here's hoping that does alright. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon and Deadly Premonition Director's Cut were released to some(?) fanfare. New trailers for GTA V and Call of Duty hit the masses. Here's a hint, one of those games looks good and it doesn't start with a C and end with 'all of Duty'. Dead Space 3 has officially failed, according to EA. No surprise here considering mass market appeal and actually entertaining gameplay don't always go hand in hand when it comes to survival horror. What I'm saying is Dead Space 3 is Arnie's Commando with space zombies and that's schlocky. So yeah.

Hip crews only.

Diamandis is not Crash

    Surprise a new Call of Duty was announced, who cares. Moving on. So the fine-ish folks at Konami are releasing eight Metal Gear Solid games as a collection later this year, because they really had to stick it to everyone who bought the previous collection they released a bit over a year ago with half that. Nintendo will apparently not be making an appearance at the next E3, which doesn't sound very assuring of their future. The trailer for the next Bethesda-published-but-not-Bethesda-developed-game, The Evil Within is out, and it's just maybe a little bit unconventional. It's the next game from the exiled creator of the Resident Evil franchise, and here's hoping it's... y'know, better than Resident Evil tends to be lately. Also some next Microsoft console announcement on May 21st okay yeah great.

Sheer Heart Attack

     So according to a listing in the Australian ratings board, Bethesda, the guys behind stuff like Fallout 3 and Skyrim, have registered a new game. No exact confirmation on what it is yet, but if it's more Fallout then I'd be okay with that. Dead Island Riptide, the next game in the Dead Island series of 60$ ideas, has come out. Also it's less than mediocre. What a surprise. The release of Deadly Premonition: Director's Cut is pretty much upon us, and this'll be the first time the misunderstood campy Japanese Twin Peaks survival horror deal is gonna be available on PS3 in America. So that's handy, especially considering the thin releases in April.

Kristen Schaal.mp3

     So Dark Souls 2 had its first REAL footage released like the other day, and it... wasn't awful looking. Despite all the fear about it being trash, it sorta just looks like a shinier Dark Souls.With big goofy metal guts that sit on you. Yet there's still no release date. Because every good thing ever can't have a release date until people stop being excited about it. Far Cry 3 had a nifty piece of stand-alone DLC announced in the form of Blood Dragon, which is a neon soaked vision of the futuristic year of 2007. It's an entire new campaign with all the shiny trinkets people like to pay money for, so here's to that. Far Cry 3 wasn't particularly inspiring, but it was open world gameplay done really really right and this DLC has neon Godzillas so y'know. Yeah.

Video games

Sex in the Arkham City

     So Batman: Arkham Origins has been announced for thiiiis.... Octooooober? I think. It's the next game in the popular Batman: Arkham Noun series. It apparently takes place years before the previous two games, and sets up many of the prominent villains in the series. For example, you've got yeh fuggin Black Masks and yah pre-Penguin Chester Cobblepots and what have you. Oh, and Deathstroke, which I guess is to capitalize on the whole Deadpool craze Marvel has seen in recent months what with Marvel VS Capcom 3 and the announcement of the High Moon Studios Deadpool game. The kinda worrying thing about Arkham Origins is that Rocksteady, the guys behind the first two games, aren't returning to develop it. Because video games are a business and Warner Bros wanted their own guys on the case. We're gonna be seeing a lot of this game in the months leading up to its release, so y'know, hopefully it isn't a cop-out starring Bruce Willis. 

Nolan North says words sometimes.

Stop the planet of the developers I want to get off

     I interrupt my regularly scheduled schlock (shu-lok) to remember a legend. No, not Ebert, but he picked a pretty shitty time to die. I'm talking about LucasArts. Y'know, the fantastic folks behind Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and about eight thousand Star Wars games. Even the terrible-est ones. Like Force Unleashed. But yeah the people who made Day of the Tentacle and a few other adventure game gems have been re purposed by Disney as a dev they can mold into whatever notsogreat licensed game they want. (Great). I know that for all intents and purposes they were way past their prime, I mean, they DID make Kinect Star Wars, but the next project they would be working on, 1313, had some folks pretty excited nonetheless. It's just weird, I guess, to see an industry constant like LucasArts die so suddenly. It's basically worse than 9/11.

Or something

You Wa Shock Infinite

   

     So lemme fuggin tell ya about vidya. Recently having finished Bioshock Infinite, I'm twerking on a review and absolutely love that game. I've been playing the sequel to 999 and the whole idea of flippity flopping around different timelines to get things to assist you in subsequent playthroughs (I don't even know) deal is actually really great, especially since that game has 24 endings. I decided to jump on the 2008 train and finally play Persona 4 with my recently resuscitated PS2, and all the good things people say about that game are justified. It's absolutely incredible, in terms of sound design, characters, and just story in general. From what I hear it's around 90 hours long so I'm eager to get back into it and continue. On top of that vidya mash I ordered Ni No Kuni, the Studio Ghibli RPG the day before Miyazaki retired from the company, so I'll be very excited to test that out. Bioshock review forthcoming.

This shit's popping off soon. 

Skullgoys

     So lemme say something about the Skullgirls kickstarter with only a week left on the timer. What started out as a funding plea for one character has basically turned into a whole big thing, with a possible four in all to fund. In an effort I guess, to reach out to a wider audience, the Skullgirls team, Lab Zero, announced that if they reached 725,000 dollars, they'd give out the Skullgirls engine au gratis to the Mane 6 dev team, who's Friendship is Magic fanmade fighter was cancelled by Hasbro, but recruited cartoonist Lauren Faust to make them original characters for their own use, to power their new fighter. So there's that. The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts is a new thing now, released with some amount of fanfare (The Activision FPS, not the y'know, actual inventive cool Telltale adventure game series.) And apparently it's nightmarishly terrible, surprising absolutely nobody. Who'da thunk it.

Big Band, saxaphone cyborg and the latest thing to come out of the Skullgirls Kickstarter.

Heston wasn't in Apes 2

     So Assassin's Creed 4 was announced recently, and as far as I can tell, it's taking all the worst parts of the third installment, and making a whole game out of it. It takes place during the Golden Age of Pirates, and from the small amount of info I've received., a dongload of it's gonna take place on a ship. Which is bad, because Ubisoft didn't really pull it off last time around. Hopefully this'll see a return to form for the series, but I doubt it, do to the fact that pirates are the least stealthy folks... pretty much ever. Like, maybe the vikings. Assassin's Creed 3 was almost devoid of its namesake, and I don't think 4's gonna be much different. On the flipside of next generation Ubisoft games, Watch Dogs, the futuristic open world game in which you control the city, from subway trains to traffic lights, through your phone, looks absolutely fantastic. This is the perfect way to show off a new console, and from what I hear it's already got folks hankering for a PS4. So there's that.

Shiny

Karl Edward Diamonds

     Sooooo I guess the new Tomb Raider came out this week? Or something? I remember everyone was all up in arms about it because of the rape-y connotations, but then, lo and behold it was written by a lady and every said "Okay, that's cool." because people. I don't actually know if it's good or not. Or anything. But I do know that it took waaaay too long to come out. So I don't care. At least Bioshock Infinite comes out this month. Right? Right? Right? I don't even know anymore. I haven't actually played any vidya lately. Or at all. For like. Months. So y'know. I don't even know how Revengeance was received, but it had a col soundtrack, I'll give it that. Skullgirls, the super-rad indie-ish fully animated fighter that came out last April is finally getting an update, in the form of an awesome kickstarter to add new stages, tracks and characters. The goal was reached in only a day, but with 22 days left, they've pulled back the curtain and gone for full funding of 2 more characters, including ones meant to be spread out over the course of three entire games. So there's that. Also the DLC's gonna be free. Hip.

So much vidya

     So I pretty much wanted to take this post to talk about the next generation of consoles, which we've already got one foot in with the release of the Wii-U. The Xbox 360's successor is soon to have a press conference showing off it's stuff and Sony's already wowed some folks last week with it's PS4 announcement show. Among some of the most impressive stuff shown was Watch Dogs, which is a future-y Deus Ex-y game, but everything seems completely dynamic and the game looks great in motion. This was shown last E3, like most of the announced PS4 titles, but some more gameplay footage and a launch day announcement is always welcome. Bungie, the guys behind every main Halo game except for the most recent one, have signed a ten year contract with Activision to make the Destiny trilogy, which is supposed to wow everyone and be a really deep space gun game, but I'm not so into it. What I am into though, is David Cage, creator of Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rains' next pseudo game- Beyond: Two Souls. Which is that Ellen Page game where she has a weird spirit or something that kills police. Or something. No idea. But it'll be good. 

Indie LAAAMES

     So this previous week I finally purchased Edmund McMillen's Basement Collection, which came out about half a year ago. He's the guy who got real famous a couple years back with Super Meat Boy selling a million copies/ being an indie game, and then went on to release The Binding of Isaac. Which also did really well, of course. So the Basement Collection is pretty much every game he did before Super Meat Boy, complete with his concept art, some behind the scenes stuff, soundtracks and Q&A's. Also, a couple of the games are actually playable, so that's nice. I've also been checking out the Thief series which was the inspiration for stuff like Dishonored and Assassin's Creed. Now I can begin my descent into terrible proto PC game controls. Next time- PS4 stuff. Exciting whoooooo~~~~~~~. Watch Dogs is an impressive game and Beyond: Two Souls starring Ellen Page is coming out on the next generation of consoles as well, which is pretty hip.

Shatners of the Durned

    So in a few hours the Playstation 4 details are gonna be fully released to the world in a big, dramatic, fancy reveal. There's a new controller that kinda looks like a shittier PS2 controller and that's all we really know. That and all the horrifying no used games rumors. Three days ago Microsoft tried to undermine it with their big Destiny announcement, which I guess is their new, next gen Halo (basically). Mostly because it's a timed exclusive trilogy for the next Microsoft console that has spacemen and guns/ is being developed by Bungie. I don't know. The next console generation is a spooky deal. The Wii-U isn't, I guess, but as a poor urchin I have no means to purchase these things at launch anyways. And I don't think I'd want to, all things considered. I'm still playing Shadows of the Damned. Like 800 years after it came out.

2many 2hu

     So Dead Space 3 came out and I don't think people hate it. I... have no idea. Like a scorned lover, I find myself crawling back to modern survival horror, even after being burned so many times, hoping to recapture that special feeling I got when I first popped  in Silent Hill 2. However, I've been met with mostly explosive shooters with a vague facade of terror kept up for the first 5 minutes before detonating in my face. Dead Space 3 looked like Uncharted, like Indiana Jones. I dunno. Dead Space 2 is one of the better games of the last 8 years, and that really counts, considering how many games come out nowadays. So I'll try it. I guess. Hoping for something, and that I can still have fun with it like I (sometimes) did with Resident Evil 6. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance comes out like right now, too, and I just... want that. Platinum, I have said many times before, have never burned me, and they never will. They have my complete and utter confidence in all of their future endeavors. But for now my broke self is gonna play some more bullet hell Touhou-y Jamestown stuff. Money.

Hey Kids, Disco!

     So I haven't played too much vidya lately, but there's been some kooky stuff in terms of rumor lately. With the next generation of consoles finally being ushered in, there are some spooky rumors of Microsoft's next shot at gaming. Supposedly used games are going to be a no-go, and a constant online connection is going to be required. These rumors are kinda drastic, but from what I read they come packaged with a "Guaranteed Super True" sticker, but I'll hold out for the official announcement. Also, new Assassin's Creed coming out in the next fiscal year (of course). So maybe Ass Cred 3'd be worth writing about while it's still relevant. That, or Far Cry 3. Or Anarchy Reigns. Those are all video games. Yup.

Review- Lone Survivor

     Video Games- You play them, you accomplish a goal, and you watch the credits. Survival Horror- They try to get in your head, silently marking down all your actions as you play. Indie Games- In this case, the unrestricted creativity of one Jasper Byrne delivering one of the finest 2D experiences a single guy can deliver. Lone Survivor isn't just a 2D survival horror game, it's a beautiful spiral of soft, lush sprites, incredible music, and a hopeless desire to keep playing that'll draw your eyes in for hours on end.

     Lone Survivor tells the story of "You", a nameless protagonist who has survived an apocalypse by unknown means in an apartment that isn't his. No other information is given, and the game sends you off on your own, to discover the twisted halls of the apartment complex you've found yourself trapped in. Before you venture outside of your room, you can take a tour of the kitchen, complete with a gas-less stove and a fridge full of rotten meat, or the bathroom, with a sink full of strange pills, Red, Blue and Green, which you can take, of course. This is the kind of ambiguity that makes LS special. You find a scrap of paper that tell you the controls, and the game decides never to explain anything again. It's a game of experimentation, and unlucky players will find that their choices have brought "You" to the depths of madness. You're expected to eat, rest and find ways to take your mind off of the apocalypse as your situation gets bleaker and bleaker. Saying too much would spoil the game's 4 hour story, but suffice to say that it goes to incredibly weird places, while still staying on a relatively small scale.

          Even though zombies(?) are most of what you're going to see in Lone Survivor, there are still a handful of strange characters you'll meet along the way. About half of them are seen in the strong hallucinations and dreams you have over the course of the game. The game makes you really wonder whether or not the people you meet are actually real, or if they ever even were, and I'm itching to go through the game again to see if I can pick anything up on some of the more prominent characters. The player character isn't always the most interesting, but he makes all of his thoughts known to you, and a little bit of backstory is one of the main drives to playing the game. He'll sometimes say things that'll make you stop for a second and question his mental well being, but that's the point. Being attacked by monsters, not sleeping and generally taking poor care of him lowers his sanity for some subtle effects. There are 3 endings to LS which are determined both by your sanity and actions throughout the game. Actions that may seem unimportant are being out on an invisible checklist as you play, which is revealed to you after the credits. It's a good incentive to keep playing and it encourages you to mix up what you do on subsequent playthroughs, instead of just going through the motions. There are tons of paths and items to take during your exploration of the apartments and (eventually) the city streets, and the strange nature of what you might find in any number of side paths'll make you scratch your head.

     The gameplay is a mix of shooting and stealth, with plenty of opportunities to creep past the enemies unnoticed. Ammo is shockingly scare in LS, more so than in almost any other game I've played to date, and considering the resilient nature of your foes, alternate routes in search of supplies or another way out are highly suggested. Jasper Byrne, the man who made the game, also composed the entire OST. It's a mix of the usual survival horror ambiance with some smooth tracks that might have you tapping your feet. Byrne recently scored a few tracks for the Hotline Miami soundtrack as well, and the LS soundtrack can be heard here. Like the game itself, some of the tracks bring back misty eyed memories of Akira Yamoaka's work on the Silent Hill franchise, which goes great with the game's mysterious vibe.

     Lone Survivor really is the perfect "Indie" experience. Like listening to an album only you and your friends know about on a Saturday night, you feel an attachment to it, both in its simplicity and yet, how it can make you feel real emotion in a small amount of time. This game has to be played to be understood, but everyone is going to understand it in their own way. That's the beauty of the mystery of Lone Survivor.

                                                                         9/10

Camel Clutch

     I'd like to take this time to say that Demon's Souls is fantastic. I, like a lot of other people played Dark Souls first, and expected a very similar game. And it is, in a lot of ways, with the sort of heavy, weighty combat that the games are known for and the same graphical style and whatnot. The game really has its own distinct feel from the spiritual sequel. The entire game is literally shrouded in fog and the areas are split into smaller chunks instead of Dark Soul's giant, interconnected areas. I'd actually say Demon's Souls is more challenging than the notorious sequel, it does a stellar job of making you pay for every small trinket on your person. Wearing basically any armor greatly impedes your movement, yet you've gotta do it to stay alive. And of course the same incredible, melancholy soundtrack you'd expect from a game about dead knights kicking the shit out of each other. Or something. I don't think it's actually about that. Next time- Platinum Games (Ooooooh, exciting!)

                                             

                   

Gotta get the cash, gotta get the dough

     So January's been a kinda great month for America, gamewise. Not only did we finally get Anarchy Reigns after half a year of it being just out of reach, but still fully translated for some reason, but Ni No Kuni, the Studio Ghibli/ Level 5 RPG came out. Studio Ghibli of course are the folks behind Spirited Away, Ponyo, Laputa, and all that other good stuff, and the game somehow manages to maintain the visual style of the films with 3D graphics, which better get it some merit at the end of the year when everyone's deciding on the most impressive game released in 2013. In terms of other important stuff coming out this year, the roided out Dead Space 3 comes out next month, featuring zero horror and tension, plus a mandatory AI partner, so that'll be... something. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is finally shipping in February after its revival by Platinum games due to the gross incompetence of Hideo Kojima's team for some reason. It looks strangely a lot better, but I think that's mostly because Platinum's just the team to make a game about a crazy cyborg ninja future. Bioshock Infinite's coming out in March after being stuck in development hell with multiple delays and the removal of the multiplayer, but from what I hear the final product is just like the game that wowed everyone two years ago with those ten minutes of game footage. In terms of later releases, not much has been announced, save for the new Suda game- Killer is Dead. It has the same beautiful cel-shaded look of Killer 7, even though it's an unrelated game, apparently. This is probably the most exciting announcement this year, so I'll keep an eye out for stuff on that as it happens, surely.

#Radshit

Super High School Level Swerver

    So on the note of really kinda fantastic 999-y Japanese adventure games, Dangan Ronpa is totally a thing. It's another 2010 mystery game like 999, but it's a lot crazier. 15 high school students ranging from a star teen idol to a super wrestler girl get trapped in their new school by a weird bear... robot... thing. It's got some pretty interesting tunes and instead of 999's smaller, more valuable cast, you know pretty much everything about all the characters to begin with. There's a lot to learn, obviously, but the point of the game is that to escape the school the students must kill each other without being found out, so it's more of a murder mystery and characters are put down at a higher rate. All of the characters are very simple archetypes at a glance, but the game does some really interesting stuff with them and subverts a lot of tropes in some shocking ways. It's just a kinda cool thing. Also, it's exclusive to Japan, so there's that.

Plus all the character designs are by this sculptor guy, so they go beyond the expected anime style. 

Review- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

     Once in a while all of us have a moment like this. A moment when we have to take a chance on something we aren't 100% sure about. A moment when every fiber of our being wants to just freeze up, but we have to make a choice. That was my experience with 999. In a lot of ways that was my experience purchasing the game as well. The prospect of a Phoenix Wright sort of game which is more of a light novel than a video game can be a risky proposition, but anyone who picks this one up is going to wonder why they ever doubted it.

     999 is an oddity, not just in its text heavy gameplay, as I stated before, but in the fact that it's an M rated DS game. Rarely is a mature title seen on a portable system period, let alone Nintendo's machine. This actually contributes greatly to the game however, as it allows the player to go on as twisted of a ride as they want. From an early perspective, the game's premise seems very simple. 9 people wake up on a sinking ship with bombs inside theme and are told the have 9 hours to escape, and that in order to do so they must plat the Nonary Game and "Seek a door that carries a 9." But then the questions begin to arise. Who is Zero, the man who put you all here? What do all these people have in common? Why these people in particular? What would make Zero want to do this? Is it just a sick game, or is there a bigger plan in store? These are just some of the countless questions you'll ask over the course of 999, and as answers are given, even more questions will be asked, and you can see the credits without having learned anything at all, based on your choices throughout the game.

The player character Junpei is a 21 year old college student with zero apparent links to the Nonary Game

     And that brings up the biggest part of 999, the choices. During the game you'll have to decide how to act around certain characters and which doors to enter, which then lead to puzzles. These might seem like small choices, but they drastically effect the gameplay. In fact, on a first playthrough of 999, you'll probably see less than a third of the puzzles the game has to offer, let alone all the dialogue, important story points and twists. The puzzles in 999 can range from making a dry ice bomb to solving math problems, most involving digital roots. Some of the late game puzzles can actually prove very challenging, and the game really requires you to dig in and think about most of these puzzles if you want to continue. There are 6 endings to 999, but each of them is required to get the full experience, and while there is only one true ending, there's a surprising amount of effort put into the other endings as well, and after a possibly unsatisfactory ending, players will want to head right back into the game from the beginning and find a different conclusion.

     Another interesting thing is the use of the soundtrack. The game will go on for long periods of time without any music, so when a track actually plays, you really feel something. The game's music fits very well with the suspenseful story, usually giving you the feeling that something is wrong. The music is used to stress the disturbing nature of the Nonary Game perfectly and can seamlessly blend from a hopeless scene to something far more tender without breaking your immersion.

     I'd really like to give 999 a perfect score. It's the best at what it does, and what it does is tell an interesting and suspenseful story in a way that most games can't.

                                                                          10/10