Review - Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition (PC)

Retro gaming can be a double-edged sword at times.  I can't count the number of times I've popped in an old NES game only to realize the game that I loved so much as a child has not aged well and is painful to play now 20 years later.  Once the feeling of nostalgia wears off, all you're left with is an inferior game that simply isn't enjoyable to play.  Duke Nukem 3D was and still is a fantastic game, even 17 years later.  I think I may even appreciate it more now that I'm older than I did when I was a tween.

For the past five years or so, the first person shooter market has been dominated by modern military shooters.  Duke Nukem 3D is a first person shooter of an entirely different breed.  Gone are the linear level designs and scripted action sequences, Duke Nukem 3D was innovative nearly 2 decades ago for its open and interactive level design.  These levels still hold up today, with numerous paths you can take and levels littered with secret areas hidden behind cracked walls and access panels.  You can interact with nearly everything in a level, from buttons, light switches, pool tables, strippers and even urinals.  This encourages players to explore every inch of a level.  Surprisingly, for a game this old, it's a breath of fresh air from the majority of shooters on the market today.

At its core, Duke Nukem 3D focuses on its fast and frantic game play   You won't have to pick and choose what weapons you want to bring with you, you can bring them all!  You'll need them too since the gameplay can be brutally hard and unforgiving.  Duke Nukem is a bad-ass and you'll need to play like one if you hope to survive to the end of the level.  All the weapons in the game are a lot of fun to use, from your standard pistol and shotgun to the more outrageous freezethrower that freezes enemies in their tracks and allows you to kick them into pieces.  My favorite weapon is the shrink ray, which can shrink even the most difficult enemies and allows you to squish them under your boot.

The game play and level design in Duke Nukem 3D have held up well over the years, but the graphics definitely look a bit dated.  The 3D in the title is a misnomer, since the game actually employs 2D sprite graphics to emulate a 3D environment.  This is blatantly obvious when you look at objects from above, and the enemies and objects appear to be cardboard cutouts.  The graphics have been touched up slightly and the game runs well on modern PC's in HD, but the original art assets in the game have remained the same for the most part.

Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition is the definitive version of the game.  The main campaign is split up into 4 episodes, with each episode containing multiple levels.   Also bundled with the main campaign are the three expansion packs: Duke It Out in DC, Duke: Nuclear Winter, and Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach.  There is a lot of content to be played here, with each episode taking an hour or two to complete, more if you want to be thorough and find all the secret areas or if you're not a wimp like me and played on a harder difficulty.

Final Score: 8/10

Review - Poker Night 2 (PC)

Poker Night 2 is not a realistic poker simulator; it's a casual poker game that focuses on tie-ins with its video game characters and incentives in the form of in-game unlockables. In addition to Texas Hold'em, you will also be able to play Omaha Hold'em. The simplicity of Poker Night 2 is great for those who are new or inexperienced with the game, since it will let you learn the basics without pressure or fear of monetary loss. Poker veterans though may be put off by the sometimes idiotic AI and the terrible plays they make for seemingly no reason. Like the first game, Poker Night 2 is single player only and your opponents are always the same four characters. The beauty of real Texas Hold'em is that there is so much more to the game than just the cards that are dealt. It's a mind-game that forces you to analyze who you're playing and how previous hands, chip stacks, the way people bet, body language and other such tells all play a part in determining what your opponents are representing that they have in their hand.

I normally play a fairly defensive play-style in real poker, protecting my chips and slow grinding my way to a healthy chip count. Poker Night 2 is fast paced and favors aggressive play. Blinds increase every five hands, forcing players to make moves much earlier than normal. This is reminiscent of a few online poker tournaments that I've participated in, so fans of that style should be well accustomed to the speed of Poker Night 2. The AI in Poker Night 2 is largely predictable, often placing more emphasis on what they're holding in their hand than what's on the board. After a few tournaments I realized that it was quite easy to bully the AI opponents around with moderately large bets.

One of the biggest draws to the first Poker Night at the Inventory game was the 4 unlockable Team Fortress 2 items. Poker Night 2 improves on this by having 10 different items you can unlock, 5 for Team Fortress 2 and 5 for Borderlands 2. In the first game, players will randomly buy in with an item as opposed to with money, and eliminating that player from the tournament will earn you their item. This was incredibly easy to exploit, since you can constantly restart the tournament in the first game until someone bought in with an item, and then attempt to eliminate that one specific player. If he plays, you play, hoping to draw him out into an all-in situation. It only took me 3 hours to unlock every item in the first Poker Night at the Inventory game. In contrast, it took me roughly 7 hours to unlock all the items in Poker Night 2.

Poker Night 2 uses a different system to its unlocks. There are 5 bounty items, each unlocking a Team Fortress 2 and a Borderlands 2 item. In order to get a character to buy in with their bounty item, players must complete 3 random bounty challenges, such as "Stealing a hand at the turn" or "Win a tournament with 25% or higher win percentage." These challenges do not all need to be done in the same tournament and once you complete all three, the next tournament you win will unlock a bounty item. This makes the unlock process much harder to exploit and closer to actual tournament play. In addition to the bounty items, you can also unlock items for use in the game, such as new chips, decks, and tables. These use tokens which are awarded to you after each tournament based on where you place. Get knocked out first and you receive 0 tokens, but if you place second and get knocked out last, you receive 50 tokens.

You will face up against Brock from the Venture Bros, Claptrap from Borderlands, Ash from Army of Darkness, and Max from Sam & Max. Also, GLaDOS from Portal appears as your dealer. Each of these characters are equipped with a wide variety of one-liners that they will occasionally inject into the conversation. While entertaining enough the first few times you hear them, once they begin to repeat, the novelty begins to wear off and it just starts to become stale. At times, you can't make a move until a character has finished speaking, which just ends up delaying the game. It would be much better if the characters simply spoke amongst themselves as they played, keeping the game moving along at a steady pace.

Poker Night 2 may not be the most realistic poker game out there, but it's plenty of fun and entertainment for a very small price. A well-paced and rewarding unlock system will keep you playing for hours, and the AI is considerately better than the first game. There will still be instances where you'll scratch your head at why the opponent made a certain move, but this unpredictability helps switch things up a bit and make it so that you're not constantly reminded that you're playing against computer opponents. My biggest complaint though is that there still is no multiplayer support. In almost every other aspect, Poker Night 2 improves upon its predecessor.

Final Score: 7/10

The Binding of Isaac - Mom's Heart Dead :)

First time playing Cain, first time beating Mom's Heart.  Also got a level 4 Meatboy, that was pretty OP.  If you haven't played The Binding of Isaac, I highly recommend it.  I may do a full write up for the game, but for the time being, I'll bask in the small accomplishment!

Review - To The Moon (PC)

I take a lot of pride in my writing. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily great at it, but I put a lot of effort behind each and every review. With that said, I urge you to stop reading this review. Just go play this game immediately, you will regret every single minute you squandered putting off this incredible experience.

To The Moon is a story-driven point and click adventure game that also incorporates puzzle elements. The gameplay mechanics are simple and incredibly easy to pick up. You won't ever find yourself stumped or frustrated at this game, since the gameplay is used to pace the plot perfectly. Without revealing too many spoilers, at its heart To The Moon is a love story. It's also much more than that, it delves right into topics such as life and death, regrets and even fate. If you're a pessimist, this is a story that will restore your faith in humanity and make you believe in love again. It had just the right amount of humor thrown in, you just can't help but smile at how silly one of the characters can be at times. It plucked on your heartstrings plenty as well, and I'm comfortable enough with my manliness to admit that there were a few moments when I was on the verge of tears, both out of sadness and out of happiness.

The pixel art is beautiful and charming. A lot of care and thought was placed into the art style and I never imagined that 8 bit graphics could be so expressive. The only minor flaw I found with the game, and it's incredibly minor, is that the game runs in a set resolution and there is no option to run the game windowed. It's probably for the best, since running the game windowed can easily break the immersion. It isn't a terribly long game, it took me just under 4 hours to complete. You will want to set aside a healthy chunk of time to dedicate to this game though. I highly recommend playing this through all in one sitting, though if you're anything like me, that won't even be an option. I was so immersed into this game, I don't even think I glanced at my second monitor the last 3 hours of play, let alone get up from my chair. The soundtrack is beautiful, filled with piano arrangements that accompany the story so well. Every aspect of this game has a simple elegance to it that adheres to you at such a fundamental level. This is a game that will stay on your mind long after you've finished playing it.

To The Moon is damn near perfect. It's not often that I play a game where I struggle to point out flaws or things I wished the developers changed. It's not often that I am so entranced by a game, I am glued to my computer chair until the end credits scroll past my screen. Even now, as I'm writing this review, listening to the game's soundtrack, I still feel goosebumps. This game has affected me on a level deeper than any other game ever has. The story in this game easily stands as one of the most beautiful and touching tales I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in ANY form of media. This game is absolutely amazing, and it's one that everybody should try, even non-gamers.

Final Score:
9.5/10

Review - Quantum Conundrum (PC)

Quantum Conundrum is a puzzle platformer set in first person view in which you play the nephew of a brilliant but eccentric professor.  He's managed to trap himself on this visit and it's up to you to turn on the generators in the mansion to unlock him.  He'll provide you with some tips along the way, but it's up to you to figure out how to get past the puzzles he's rigged in his own house.  (Don't ask)

The Dimensions:

Fluffy: The first dimension the game unlocks to you, the fluffy dimension makes everything 10 times lighter than normal.  Your character is that of a 10 year old, and short for your age at that.  Normally, you'd only be able to carry empty cardboard boxes and books, but with the fluffy dimension, you're able to carry couches and safes like a champ.

Heavy: This second dimension is unlocked shortly after Fluffy and mixing the two is essential to clearing through the first wing of the manor.  The Heavy dimension is basically the opposite of the Fluffy dimension, causing objects to weigh 10 times more than they normally do.

Slow: The third dimension unlocked slows down time, if you couldn't have guessed.  This is where the trickier parts of the game starts to emerge, as your reflexes matter more than your puzzle solving abilities on certain stages.  The game still manages to incorporate Slow well into the puzzles, and some of the most memorable gameplay moments occur due to the game's well thought out use of slow.  Outrunning lasers and jumping on a safe that you just threw to sail over an abyss is actually immensely rewarding, if not mostly due to the fact that you will fail, a lot.

Gravity: The last dimension to be unlocked reverses gravity, causing everything in the room to fall towards the ceiling.  If you thought the platforming was frustrating when the game introduced slow, just wait until you unlock gravity.  You'll be forced to use falling safes as elevators, having to switch quickly between dimensions with each jump.  Mistiming the switch or messing up your landing means you have to start back at the beginning, and these sequences aren't exactly short, requiring you to land multiple perfect jumps to clear.

The Puzzles:

The puzzles are simply fantastic.  They're well thought out and require you to really analyze what's in each room and how to use the different dimensions properly in order to pass to the next area.  They start off really simple, introducing you to each dimension by itself, before tossing you into a situation where you have to learn how to use multiple dimensions to solve.  The pacing of the puzzles is great, and they never feel cheap or unfair.  Every time you get stumped, when you finally realize just how to proceed, the solutions are always logical, and you'll have plenty of 'A-Ha!' moments.

The Platforming:

The game starts you off with simple jumping puzzles, jumping from block to block.  The platforming actually seems fun at first, but once you start mixing in the slow and gravity dimensions, the shit hits the fan.  Platforming takes up a bigger chunk of the latter part of the game, and the sequences have very little room for error and are frustrating at best.  I actually had to stop playing the game twice because I died something like 20 times just trying to get past a particular platforming section.  I'd imagine that most players who don't complete Quantum Conundrum will have similar opinions regarding the platforming.  First of all, platforming in first person view is difficult enough as it is, but when you mix in having to switch perfectly from one dimension to the next, while trying to hopscotch your way through across falling safes while avoiding lasers and other such obstacles, it makes you want to tear your hair out.

Overview:

Overall, Quantum Conundrum is a great little puzzler despite its frustrating platforming elements.  It makes use of the different dimensions very well and the quirkiness of the uncle makes for a light hearted and fun playthrough.  I'd recommend people at least try the game for the puzzles, since they really are great.  You do need a good amount of patience and skill at platformers in order to make it all the way through the game, but that's the only negative, though a fairly significant one, about this game in my opinion.

Final Score: 7.5/10

Review - Wanderlust: Rebirth (PC)

Wanderlust: Rebirth is an action adventure game built around co-op play.  You choose one of 4 different classes: Fighter, Elementalist, Cleric and Alchemist.  The classes do play quite differently from one another, and there is a decent amount of depth in terms of speccing your character to excel in different aspects.  I played mostly as an elementalist though I did end up making a character of each class to mess around with and find out just how varied the different classes are.

Gameplay:

The combat is fast paced, with high scoring combos and damage markers flying up all over the screen.  While this sounds nice, it just ends up cluttering your view, and you will often lose your character amidst the chaos.  In addition to that, while you can potentially spec into dozens of abilities, you can only use a few at a time, and the game forces you to open a menu to swap in different abilities.  As an elementalist, this is important because certain monsters are resilient to certain elements, so to maximize your effectiveness, you need to use the correct abilities.  This actually makes changing out the abilities to be a bit of a chore, to the point where I stopped bothering and used two abilities from beginning to end.

Like the combat, the pacing of the game is extremely fast as well.  While you're traversing areas, you start off in a world map type of area, moving from one dot on a map to the next to load the next zone.  However, each zone is extremely small and often only has one group of monsters in it.  So you'll spend 2 minutes fighting, then its back to the world map to go to the next zone.  This wouldn't even be so bad if there were some diversity in where you could go, but throughout the entire campaign, the world map never gives you additional paths, the next zone is the only zone.  This ends up leaving me feeling quite disconnected, like the entire game is just a series of mini-battles followed by a boss fight at the end of each chapter.  There's a decent amount of diversity in the look of the monsters, but not a lot of diversity in how you tackle each fight.  Only bosses seem to require anything other than brute force.

Story:

I hesitate to refer to this game as an RPG, simply because I feel RPG's are characterized by immersion and story.  This game has neither.  The story is unmemorable to say the least, and halfway through the campaign I just started skipping through all the NPC text.  In addition to the weak story, the quests are often rehashes of each other.  For some reason, in a game with only 10 chapters, the game decides that multiple people need water to be fetched for them.  The game is also ridiculously short, with each chapter only taking 15 minutes or so to complete.  It should take the average player 3 hours or so to finish the game.

Solo/Co-op:

As a solo experience, Wanderlust is fairly mediocre.  The game provides you with three AI teammates that do a decent job on the average battles but then fail pretty hard when it comes to boss fights.  I was unable to complete the campaign in single player because my teammates would run in and get killed immediately, forcing me to kite the boss around as an elementalist who should not be tanking hits.  Co-op play redeems the game a bit, and I enjoyed playing the game to some degree when done in a group of friends.  This frankly has more to do with the company you're with than what you're doing, though it is entertaining to compare scores at the end of a chapter and see how you did compared to your friends.

Overview:

Wanderlust is by no means a terrible game.  It is enjoyable enough for the few hours you'll put into it, but there's really not much here to leave a lasting impression, or want you to play more.  The fast paced combat can be comparable to Dungeonland, though in all aspects Dungeonland is a superior game.  The pacing of the battles feels a bit reminiscient of Half Minute Hero, in that every aspect feels like it's on turbo mode.  I could probably list each aspect of the game and then name off a game that simply does what Wanderlust does, but better.  I was quite disappointed since I've had this game on my wishlist for some time and really wanted it to be great.

Final Score: 5/10

Review - Shellshock 2: Blood Trails (PC)

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails is a first person shooter set in the middle of the Vietnam War.  You play a private on the search for your missing brother, Cal, who was the sole survivor from his squad who were deployed on Operation WhiteKnight.  Shellshock 2 attempts to incorporate a zombie outbreak with your typical war shooter.  It's a unique concept, as you'll not only have to fight against enemy soldiers but also the infected.  The story actually starts off interestingly enough, but that's mostly because WhiteKnight is shrouded in mystery.  You begin with very little background information, and the game fills you in with visions through your brother's eyes.  The story takes a dive though once you get towards the middle, and just ends up being ridiculous by the end of the game.

Gameplay

The shooting mechanics in the game are adequate at best.  The issue is that though everything works as it should, you don't ever enjoy the shooting in the game, which is a significant issue in a FPS, key word here is SHOOTER.  The controls feel sluggish, from just navigating around to going through the many shooting galleries.  I can understand in a horror-esque shooter, you'd want people to explore areas slowly and more tactically, but that's no excuse for controls that don't feel as responsive as they should.  The camera bobs wildly while you run and it's extremely nauseating, forcing me to walk throughout the game, which just artificially made the game longer than it actually is.

The game also incorporates quick time events into a number of areas, such as when you get ambushed by an enemy at melee range, or when you have to avoid a trap.  They come off as gimmicky and like most other aspects of the game, not enjoyable.  The enemy AI typically just stands there and shoots at you, or runs towards you while shooting at you.  They don't really bother to try to evade incoming fire, or find good vantage points, or advance in an intelligent manner.  Basically, they don't really behave like humans.  The enemy soldier AI behaves more or less like the zombie AI.  That's a problem.  Perhaps part of the reason why I didn't enjoy the shooting is because the shooting aspects weren't really challenging at all.  The enemy doesn't pressure you enough so combat ends up feeling like you might as well be shooting against practice dummies.

Atmosphere

This is the only part of the game where I actually felt Shellshock 2 was decent.  The game is a bit hit or miss when it comes to setting the tone and mood.  You'll see some pretty disturbing corpses laid about as you work your way through the various levels.  The majority of the game takes place at night, and you'll have to make use of your flashlight to keep areas lit.  Wandering through tight narrow tunnels with only the light from your flashlight, while hearing a creepy sound effect as a shadow runs by your screen was definitely tense.  A lot of other games do this better, but I do have to say there were a few moments in the game where I started to get freaked out.  I never actually got scared though, and that's because Shellshock 2 misses the mark a lot of times when it tries to set a tense mood.  The stars seem to align a few times though throughout the campaign, so in my playthrough, it's the only thing that stands out as remotely memorable.

Technical Issues

This was one of the most frustrating games I've ever tried to get running on my rig.  Before even being able to play the game, it kept returning with an error message stating that I was missing a dll file.  After reinstalling twice, I discovered I needed to download OpenALInstaller just to run the game.  Once I got the game up and running though, the issues didn't stop there.  The game is extremely finicky; it only allows me to run in fullscreen mode, but yet doesn't set borders so while in fullscreen, the game allows me to click outside the screen onto my second monitor.  This wouldn't be quite so bad if not for the fact that the game apparently does not want to play nice while alt-tabbing, and any time you leave the game window, it hangs and ultimately crashes.  I've had to manually force the game to close no less than 6 times, in addition to 2 random game crashes and a complete system crash in the 6 or so hours I played the game.  If it weren't for this review, I honestly wouldn't have bothered after the first hour.

Overview

I'd like to think I have a fairly high threshold for mediocrity, but there's really not much good to say about this game other than the occasional tense moments.  The game is actually fairly short as well, since even with all the technical issues I had with the game, I finished a playthrough in 6 hours.  After you beat the game, there's really no point of playing it again, as there's no co-op or multiplayer.  In fact, the entire experience was so lackluster that it's probably not even worth playing the first time through.  The game is simply not enjoyable.  It's not unplayable, but you won't have fun while playing it either.  There are so many other better first person shooters out there that playing this game is frankly a waste of time for anybody with a backlog.

Final Score:
4/10 (3/10 if including technical issues)

Review - Super House of Dead Ninjas (PC)

Super House of Dead Ninjas is very much a retro game, emphasizing reaction times and reflexes over graphics and story.  The graphics are modeled after old school 16-bit games, and fits the gameplay perfectly.  Then again, I'm a big fan of retro gaming, so take from that what you wish.  There is a story, but if you're like me, you missed it entirely because the story is not mentioned at all throughout the game.  You have to read the in-game comic from the main menu in order to find out anything about the background of the character or why you're fighting your way through a tower filled with traps and enemies.  Pst, do it though, 'cause the game will give you a free upgrade for reading the comic!

You have to fight your way down from the top of a tower, comprised of 350 floors before you even reach the basement.  Don't ask me what's in the basement, since I only know it exists from looking at the achievements for the game.  My best floor thus far has been 0, and I couldn't pass the 2 bosses guarding the entrance to the basement.

The game moves very quickly, with my average game only lasting 4-5 minutes.  A lot of the difficulty in this game is that you're not only fighting against the traps and enemies in the tower, you're also racing against time.  You start off with a 30 second timer and if that counts down to 0, a demon chases you and knocks off one of your health.  You can reset this timer with time power-up drops from enemies or crates, but those, like everything else, are random and can't be relied on.  This game would be far easier if you could take your time clearing past the obstacles, but time is a luxury you simply can't afford. You have a limited amount of health and continues, and once those run out, the game is over.  Think of a typical speed run, and that's roughly how fast this game requires you to go.

The game can be unforgivably difficult as you progress, and the tower itself is randomly generated with each playthrough, so there's no memorizing sequences here.  You'll have to rely on your reflexes if you hope to make it through.  The great thing about this game is that whenever you do take damage, it's often because you were careless in some way.  There's no artificial difficulty being added here, every obstacle in the game can be passed.  The game plays very much like a casual game, in that you can pick it up, play for 15 minutes, see if you can beat your best score, and then put it down.  The gameplay itself is not casual at all though, and my first attempt at the game was so embarrassingly bad, I immediately had to go back and redeem myself.

The game is very easy to pick up and play, as there are only a handful of attacks and moves you can pull off.  Mastering the game will take quite some time though, as the game often forces you to make decisions in a split second.  Just as you hop down to the next floor, you notice the very tip of an enemy hiding in the ground, waiting to pop up and shoot a fireball at you.  Perform a mid-air slash or lose one of your precious health.  The game does make it slightly easier for you, unlocking new weapons or upgrades the more you play the game.  Die a lot and you gain extra health.  Do a better job at surviving for a certain amount of time and the game will upgrade your timer for you.

This game is a lot of fun, but it's not particularly deep.  If you're a completionist or a person that enjoys the sense of achievement from passing an especially difficult challenge, then this may be for you.  That being said I still enjoyed this game a lot, but it's definitely one of those games I have to be in the mood for.  It's entertaining for half an hour to an hour at a time, but I personally found it just a bit too fast paced and stressful to play for much longer than that in a single setting.  The randomly generated tower helps keep each playthrough fresh and exciting.

Final Score - 8/10

Review - The Showdown Effect (PC)

The Showdown Effect is a 2D multiplayer arena shooter/platformer that draws a lot of influence from older Hollywood action movies.  You'll hear snappy one liners thrown around frequently and most, if not all of the characters are modeled after famous actors or the characters they play in their movies.  I personally found the references hilarious, as I'm a fan of those older action movies, though it is definitely gimmicky and at times cheesy.  Thankfully, beneath this gimmicky parody/homage to action flicks lies a solid and entertaining game.

Gameplay:
This is where the game truly shines.  Unlike most shooters, you need to actually aim your reticle over your opponent if you wish to hit him.  This simple mechanic took me quite a while to adjust to, since I'm used to just aiming in the general direction of where I want to shoot, but it's also what makes this game so great.  During the game, you're going to face opponents who slide, jump and dive all over the place, so keeping your reticle trained on a target is easier said than done.  The guns will take some time getting used to, but as you get better at aiming, the more likely you are to win your encounters.

As a beginner to this game, I actually recommend using melee weapons, since they're much easier to wield and use properly.  The majority of the melee weapons will be scattered around the map, and there are a few different types of weapons, each with the own benefits.  Large weapons are extremely powerful, have the longest range, and are able to kill an enemy in one hit, but they take a long time to swing, so you have to preemptively swing a second or so before it actually makes contact.  Medium weapons (like the katana you carry with you normally) are pretty balanced, taking three hits to kill someone and you can swing them quickly.  Light weapons seem almost useless, since while you can attack extremely quickly, the range on them is very short and they don't do a lot of damage.  They're probably best used as a thrown weapon for a small stun before finishing off your opponent with another weapon.

This game really stresses skill over anything else, and while the controls are easy enough to pick up, it takes a long time to master.  Knowing when to switch weapons, when to dodge, when to bandage and heal will all play a part in whether you do well or terribly.  How well you can navigate the map, the precious seconds saved by making a successful wall jump can mean the difference between getting a kill or letting your opponent get away and heal up.  The learning curve can be quite steep, especially since the game's idea of a training mode is a speed course, testing how quickly you can destroy a few immobile practice dummies scattered around the map.  This is mostly useless, since it is not representative of real battle at all.  Expect to die a lot.  Part of the reason this game is great is that the unlocks don't really give you an advantage.  So beginners starting off will be just as strong as they would be if they put 100 hours into the game.  The problem with this is that without an unlock system constantly rewarding the player, players don't have much reason to keep playing, especially if you're having trouble adjusting to the difficulty and die constantly.

There are only 4 maps available at the moment, and though they're fairly different from each other, they can get repetitive at times.   The maps themselves are quite large, which is great in full 8 player games but can also be frustrating when there are only two or three people left in a Last Man Standing scenario.  Servers tend to fill up quite quickly though, and there are a good amount of people playing so finding a game whenever you want shouldn't be too difficult.  I would've loved to have seen a larger variety of maps, some which are better suited for smaller matches and others that fit a full 8 player match perfectly.  Another aspect of the game where I wished for more variety is in the game modes.  There are only 4 different types of matches available, and while they're different enough from each other, 4 game modes in most games nowadays seems painfully low.

Unlock System:

There are 8 different characters available, 2 of which are unlocked at the beginning of the game.  The rest are unlocked through spending AC which you'll earn with each match.  The characters only differ from each other in regards to their unique hero ability, which when mastered can drastically affect playstyles.  My personal favorite is Hailey's rocket boots ability, which quickly propels you upward in the direction you're facing, perfect for getting out of a dangerous situation.

You start off with the AR16 machine gun and the katana for weapons.  There are 6 other weapons unlocked through spending AC: the pistol, the shotgun, the SMG, throwing knives, the RPG, and the shotgun.  Each play out fairly differently from each other, and throwing knives and the RPG are unique in that they only need to be aimed in the general direction of your opponent.  The rest of the unlocks available are purely cosmetic as far as I can tell, even if the item description might suggest otherwise.  There is also a cash shop in the game, which offers different items than the regular unlock store, and only contain costumes or weapon skins.  There are no "pay to win" items in the game, so players who are willing to drop a lot of cash won't have an unfair advantage over others.

Conclusion:
The Showdown Effect has great mechanics, though I was left a bit wanting with the number of characters, maps, and game modes included.  Given the fact that the developers of Showdown Effect are also responsible for Magicka, I think it's a pretty safe bet to expect quite a few DLC's.  Whether this will happen through the in-game store or released separately on Steam is uncertain to me, though I'd hope for the latter since at least then, you could pick them up cheaply during a Steam sale.  The learning curve can be a bit brutal, so beginning players may get discouraged easily, especially with the weak training mode available.  I can say though in the 7 or so hours I put into this game, both in the beta and in the released game, my skill has improved quite a lot and I'm able to at least place in the top half of the scoreboard in most matches.  Overall, it is refreshing to play a game that actually stresses skill over time spent. The primary focus is definitely on its fast and chaotic gameplay, and this game does it well.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Review - From Dust (PC)

From Dust is a strategy game in which you control a tribal deity named the Breath, with the ability to manipulate the environment by absorbing and then releasing certain materials.  Your goal is to help protect the tribe while they set up villages around totems placed throughout the map.  Once you have occupied each village on a level, the entrance to the next area opens and the level ends.

Gameplay:

The Breath has the ability to absorb and release materials such as water, dirt, lava and trees.  You will also gain a new ability for each village your tribe creates.  These abilities include being able to jellify water, put out fires, summon black holes to absorb material without having to release it somewhere, and conjuring earth out of thin air.  Using these abilities, you need to provide paths to all the totems and the exit so that your tribe can actually build the villages to advance in the story as well as to protect your tribe from things such as tsunamis, high tides, volcano eruptions, wildfire and such.

The game started off great, with impressive physics and interesting abilities.  I was very impressed with the way waves crash through the terrain, or watching the lava I placed cool down and create a stone barrier.  The very first time I used the Jellify Water ability, I watched a tsunami wave freeze seconds before washing away my villagers, giving them enough time to walk across before the ability ran out.  The game does a great job introducing these new abilities to you, though like any new toy, once the novelty wore off, so does the fun.  The gameplay eventually became nothing more than moving more and more materials around to build walls or bridges and less about using all the abilities you possess in conjunction with each other.

Controls:

One of the first issues I had with the game was the control scheme.  To pan the map, you can either use WASD or move your cursor towards the edge of the screen.  WASD effectively pans the map while having your cursor stay in the middle of the screen.  The inner box in which you can move your cursor without panning the screen was too small, and you end up having to fight against the panning while you're trying to distribute materials in a specific location.  I ended up having to use a combination of both mouse and keyboard just to control the cursor, which wasn't as intuitive as I would've liked it to be.  WASD is easy enough to use, though it doesn't allow for very precise placement.  Once you start using the mouse, the camera panning is a bit too sensitive, and you easily overdraw your mark or the camera slowly pans while you're struggling to absorb and release materials before your villages are destroyed.  This might seem like a pretty minor gripe, but when 80% of your time is spent moving dirt from one part of the map to another, having to fight with the control constantly becomes more than just a minor annoyance.

Level Design:

Each map in the story mode feels a bit too small.  The game starts off very easily, and your initial tasks involve creating bridges out of dirt to connect islands together so that your tribe can build villages.  As the game progresses and you gain new abilities, the complexity of the tasks increase as well, and by the end of the game, each map will take half an hour to an hour to complete.  This seems like a good thing since the story mode only contains 10 or so maps, but the longer maps usually just mean having to move more materials around.  Instead of building a small bridge to connect two islands that are close together, you'll have to build large valleys that span the entire map so that the lava will flow away from your villages or erect large walls around the island to keep the tides from washing away your villages.  This is very time consuming and tedious.

Despite being an all-powerful deity with the power to change the world around you, you never feel much like a god.  The levels tend to be very restrictive and play out like a puzzle game.  There's not quite as much freedom as you'd like; the developers clearly had a set solution for each level and they want the player to follow that solution to reach the end.  While playing through the story mode, you will unlock maps for the challenge mode, which effectively turns the game even more into a puzzler and less like an open world sim game.  The challenge mode is far less tedious though, and does add a bit of life to the already short game.  Sadly, the one mode I wish they did throw in would be an open world mode, with random environmental catastrophes and a large map to do as you please.

Conclusion:

The game does a great job implementing your abilities, and you'll find lots of moments throughout the game where you can't help but go "WOW! That's pretty cool!"  Unfortunately, I found that once the novelty of being a god wore off, the game stopped being as fun.  The environmental challenges you'll face are preset and scripted, and once you realize the solution, the rest of the map is just moving all the materials into the right place.  I wish the developers embraced more of what makes playing as a god so great, and that's being able to do what you want.  The game has a lot of very unique concepts, though I feel a bit disappointed because there is so much potential there, just a bit lacking in the execution.

Score: 7/10

A Look into Gameplay Mechanics - Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves

Planning:

The planning stage is amazingly complex and can be overwhelming at times. You will have to deal with up to 6 waves of monsters each night, with up to a dozen or more monsters per wave. These monsters can spawn from multiple locations each wave and it is not uncommon for multiple structures to be attacked per wave. You will have to figure out how to deal with each wave individually, planning out which monsters can be killed through the use of automatic traps, which monsters you will need to fight on your own, which structures you realistically have time to travel to and from. You will also need to look at the night as a whole, and ensure that the traps you've laid out won't be accidentally set off from a monster from another wave, leaving you vulnerable. Every monster has its own strengths and weaknesses, with various amount of HP, immunity to certain types of damage, traps and bait, and even its own speed.

Every trap has its own strengths and weaknesses. They also deal different amounts of damage and have different ways of triggering. Some are automatic, and will trigger when a certain amount of monsters run over them. Some require you to arm them before they can be used. Others must be activated, so you have to be in the right location, and sometimes luring the enemies to the right location before you set them off. There are 12 different traps in the game and the game gives you a lot of freedom in how you set up your defenses. You can set up fire walls to change a monster's path, allowing you to converge monsters and make your traps more efficient. You can bait monsters, slowing them down so that you have more time to reach a structure or to give other monsters time to catch up and be caught in the same trap. There is no right way to defend any particular night and players are encouraged to be creative in how they lay down their traps.

In addition to planning out your traps, you will have to account for things such as detection. Any monster that detects you will deviate from their natural path and head to your last detected location or straight for you if you remain detected. This can either be used to your benefit or it can severely ruin your planning if you didn't account for it during the day. I've had to restart plenty of times because I was detected and monsters did not go the path I expected them to, rendering my traps useless and taking up precious time as I was forced to fight them head on when I needed to be elsewhere. You can be detected either through sound or smell. Wind is introduced into the game early on, and changes each night in both intensity and direction. The wind will carry your scent much further than normal and you will need to account for this in planning, knowing which monsters will detect you based on where you expect to be when they spawn. You can also be detected through sound, from the shooting of your rifle to sprinting. You even have a shout that can be used to lower monster's fear factor or to entice monsters to come looking for you.

Even in combat, you will need to strike a balance between several gameplay mechanics. You and every monster has its own fear factor rating. Fear factor determines how likely it is for a monster to attack. When the monster's fear factor meets or exceeds your own, they will attack. You can increase your own fear factor rating through the use of skills, potions, or items. The monster's fear factor rating increasesd if it is fighting in a pack or as time passes and the monster becomes less afraid of you. You can decrease their fear factor rating by dealing damage to them and causing them to back off. Certain monsters also have the ability to enrage itself as well as other members of the pack, causing them to become fearless and attack constantly until killed. Stamina is one of the aspects of the game that you'll have to constantly fight with. You use stamina for everything, from sprinting, attacking, and dodging. You will need to conserve your stamina, attacking only so much as to keep the monsters at bay, throwing in a few rifle shots to give your stamina time to recover, and leaving enough so that you can dodge when needed. You will need to find that balance where you spend just enough stamina to keep a monster's fear factor below yours, while still leaving enough stamina so that you're not just caught exhausted and vulnerable to attack.

Rifles are useful in the game, though they are very situational and can be difficult to utilize properly. Rifles need to be reloaded manually, and this is a time consuming process which you generally cannot afford in the middle of a fight. They're great for setting off traps from a distance, getting in some quick damage before an enemy gets into melee range, or for recovering some stamina when there is enough of a fear factor deficit to afford the opportunity. Melee weapons will be the main source of damage in a fight, and investing skill points and money into melee upgrades will benefit you greatly in the beginning.

Character Customization:

One of the best things about this game is the deep amount of customization available through skill trees and loadouts. You earn experience from completing objectives each night and for each level you gain you also gain a skill point. You will simply not earn enough experience to get everything you want, and from early in the game you will have to make important decisions as to what to spend your skill points on. These skills make a significant impact on how the game plays out, and there is no option to reset your skill points. You do have the option of replaying a certain day, but doing so means you will lose any progress made after that day and have to restart from that point on. If you don't catch your mistake quickly enough, it could mean either sticking it out with an unoptimized skill tree or having to backtrack a considerable amount.

This game uses money brilliantly. You spend money on a number of things, from laying down traps, buying consumables such as potions and bullets, and buying new equipment. You can only earn money from either converting unused Action Points and from killing monsters. This makes planning out your traps each night not only about ensuring your buildings stay intact, but also how you can optimize your strategy so that you spend as little money and Action Points as possible to still be successful so that you can have more money to purchase new equipment. Money becomes slightly less of an issue towards the end of the game, but this may be due to the fact that I obsess over each day's traps, adjusting my layout constantly to try to spend as little Action Points and money as possible. If you aren't as meticulous as I am about your planning, money may be a constant issue for you throughout the entire game.

Your character can only equip a single melee and ranged weapon and 3 passive items with them each night. Monsters will be resistant to all types of damage except for one (holy or silver) and this means you will have to study the waves of monsters, and plan your loadout accordingly. A melee weapon can only either be holy or silver and you will have to figure out which is ideal to bring with you based on that night's waves of monsters. Ranged weapons are more diverse, since the weapon itself isn't enchanted, but rather the bullets so you can always have regular, holy and silver bullets with you each night.

Review - Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves (PC)

I'm going to start off this review with an apology over its length. I feel it is an injustice to this game if I do not go into a more detailed look into what makes the gameplay so deep and rewarding. Since not everyone will care to read it all, I will be splitting up this review into 2 sections, a broad overview of the game as well as an in-depth look at the gameplay mechanics. If this doesn't seem like the type of game that would interest you, you don't need to read the second part that will be posted separately from this review.

Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is a strategy/action game set in a small village in Canada. It is hard to classify this game into a genre, as it pulls in many aspects from action, tower defense, and RPG games. While the game has its fair share of faults, the gameplay is unique, complex and very satisfying. You play as one of two brothers who must defend against an onslaught of various accursed and mystical creatures in order to save your sister, the focal point of the story. Each night, the attacks get worse and worse and you will have to use an arsenal of traps, skills, and items in order to survive.

The combat is split up into 2 phases, day and night. During the day, you will be able to allocate skill points earned from leveling up, head to town to purchase consumables and new equipment, and finally plan out the traps you'll need to defend your structures for the upcoming night. Once night fall hits, waves upon waves of monsters descend upon your structures and it's up to you and your traps to kill them all! The game utilizes some great mechanics that add a lot of depth to the game. Many of the traps in the game need to be activated, requiring you to either be there to set them off (by either lighting a fuse, or shooting the trap) or for you to have armed the trap previously. As you advance in the game, you will have more and more structures to protect and you will need to plan out your strategy so that you will have adequate time to travel between your structures. If even one of your structures are destroyed, you fail the night and must repeat it again.

Proper planning is absolutely essential to doing well and surviving each night. Every aspect has to be considered and accounted for, from the type of monsters, how many of each, where they're heading and the distance between their spawn and the structure they're attacking, the way the wind blows, to the time it will take you to prepare for each new wave. When all of this planning is finally done, night falls and it's time to execute the strategy you poured so much time into. Watching things play out the way you expected them to is not only extremely satisfying, it's also a thing of beauty.

The graphics in the game are a bit of a mixed bag. The cutscenes that push forward the storyline are particularly bad, with weak animations, mediocre dialogue and even worse voice acting. In contrast to that, the developers added in some scenes with a 2D hand drawn backdrop, and these were beautiful and reminded me of old school adventure games. I would have preferred if they used static hand-drawn images for all the cutscenes and just didn't bother with animations or the voice acting. The graphics utilized in the gameplay itself are decent. They did a great job with the environment though I found the character models and animations merely adequate.

The overall plot of the story came off a bit ridiculous at times. You play as one of the two O'Carroll brothers, Jacques and Joseph, and your task is to protect your sick sister Josephine from falling into the hands of the Devil. The sound effects aren't really worth mentioning, though the soundtrack is quite good and the opening song played during the loading screen is great.

Despite all of its flaws, at its heart Sang-Froid is a deep and immensely satisfying strategy/action game. You'll spend most of your time planning out where to lay down your traps, the path you'll need to take, the best loadout to take with you, and then as night falls, executing out your strategy. I had a really difficult time writing out this review since I didn't want to touch upon the game's shortcomings as I didn't want to deter people from playing this game. The flaws in the game are really minor in comparison to the great gameplay and I urge everybody who enjoys a good strategy game to pick this one up.

Final Score:
8/10

Please read the second part of this review if you're at all interested in this game.

Review - Mirror's Edge (PC)

Mirror's Edge is an immersive first person platformer set in a totalitarian city, where the government controls the media and actively suppresses basic freedoms we all take for granted. You play as a runner named Faith whose job is to deliver messages and Intel between various members of the rebellion through unconventional means, by using the rooftops of the city as her means of travel. Soon into the game, your sister is framed for a murder and you set out to rescue her and uncover the truth behind it all. The story is actually really compelling, though much of it isn't explained out in enough detail. You catch a lot of subtle hints throughout the game, especially in the elevator rides where you see a lot of the propaganda spewed out by the media. I thought the addition of these were great as it hints to a much larger story line  Since everything plays out in the eyes of Faith, you only catch a tiny glimpse into the underlying plot of what's happening in the city.

The game play is broken up into two elements, parkour and combat. People who have played other platforming games may already be accustomed to the free running elements; wall running, wall jumps, and zip-lining have been done in many other games though Mirror's Edge is the first to incorporate these as the bulk of its game play  DICE really did a great job capturing the sense of speed and excitement that comes from parkour and the thrill of pulling off a series of stunts is amazing. A major reason for this is how well this game uses acceleration as a game play mechanic. Unlike many other games, Faith does not have a set run speed. Instead, Faith gradually gets faster the longer you are running and failing a jump or stunt causes Faith to stop and lose all that momentum. Many of the jumps require Faith to have already built up some speed, and being able to nail all your stunts consecutively is extremely satisfying.

The combat on the other hand is a bit disappointing. The disarm mechanic is pretty cool, though the gun play is fairly mediocre, which is understandable considering shooting takes up very little of the game play  My biggest complaint about the combat segments is that it broke up the flow of the game. Combat in this game requires you to stop and separate one enemy from the rest so that you can safely disarm. I wish you were able to pull off combat moves while running at full speed, like being able to wall jump into a kick that knocked out your target or leaping onto someone and flipping them over, while still maintaining your speed. I think that would have kept the action more fluid and had made the game more fun. Thankfully though, many of the combat encounters in the first half of the game can simply be avoided. I often just found an alternate route that protected me from some of the gunfire so I could keep going at full speed. As you get further into the game, the enemies become much harder. I was soon faced with snipers and heavy SWAT officers armed with light machine guns. These did far more damage than Faith could handle so I had to stop and take on each enemy slowly and cautiously.

Most chapters have both an indoors and an outdoors segment. The indoors segments were considerably slower, and they played out more like puzzles, in that you need to study your environment to figure out a path. These weren't quite as much fun as the outdoors parkour, mostly because the path isn't always clear and having to stop and study your environment again breaks up the flow. The indoors segments tend to be much smaller so they start feeling cramped in a few places. Also, be prepared to restart, a lot. The game took me roughly 6 hours to complete, but many segments I had to restart multiple times because of a failed jump or taking too much damage. About an hour in (and 2 chapters in) I was curious how far into the story I was and checked the game on Howlongtobeat. The average completion time was 6 hours and 30 minutes, though people were able to speed run the game in less than an hour. That should give you an idea of just how much time you'll spend repeating segments until you can master them in one try. This may seem frustratingly difficult, but it kept me motivated because with each attempt, you get further and further in, and when you do nail that series of jumps just right, it is extremely satisfying.

For an older game, the visuals are simply stunning. The city is beautiful, and the colors are bright and vibrant. Instead of going for hyper realism  DICE chose a contrast between whites and bright primary colors, and as you take more damage, the colors become less saturated and the world looks gray and bleak. The cut scenes employ a cel-shaded animation, which I thought fit in quite well with the overall art style of the game play  The electronic soundtrack is amazing and fits the game play and feel of the game perfectly. The music gets more intense as you enter combat scenarios and helps to portray that sense of urgency and danger.

My biggest issues with the game all deal with continuity and the flow of the game: the combat, the indoor segments feeling a bit too tight and claustrophobic at times, and perhaps not providing enough hints as to which path to take. The game play is fairly linear, and while that's not a bad thing in itself, there's really no reason not to provide clearer indications of where you actually need to go. I would have also loved to have seen a larger and less restrictive city as well, with more alternate paths you could take. Despite its flaws, Mirror's Edge is easily one of the most unique and innovative games I've ever played. Why did I wait so long to play this game? Honestly, after beating this game, I felt like I've been deprived all this time. Get it, get it now.

Final Score: 8.5/10