Dark Souls Review: X360

There are some things that only videogames can do. For me, Dark Souls' predecessor Demon's Souls was emblematic of all of them. Where most games do their best to be something else – to tell a story like a novel, to impress with cinematic techniques like a film – Demon's Souls is pure game, a complete and darkly fascinating vision that makes no concessions to the modern conception of how games should be. Instead, it was an exploration of how games could be; how bleak, how twisted, how focused and – most famously – how challenging. Most developers take pains to protect you from failure. FROM Software turns it into an artform.

Dark Souls is the next step along that path. Like Demon's Souls, it is a brutal and demanding third-person action-RPG set in a world full of monstrous, disturbing things that are trying their hardest to end your life as quickly as possible. Using whatever weapons and armor you can scavenge, buy or forge, the challenge is to inch your way through this damned and deadly place, now and then coming across gigantic bosses that take especial valor and tenacity to kill. The eventual aim is to make it out alive, but there are about 50-60 hours of creative cruelty between you and that goal.

You will die, a lot. You will die on the end of a sword, on the edge of an axe, crushed by a boulder, impaled on fangs; you will be poisoned, eaten, stabbed, assassinated and pushed off cliffs. Death is everything in Dark Souls. It's education, it's progress, it's the recurring stylistic and thematic motif that runs through all of its spectacularly varied, decaying and depraved environments. The first thing that you have to understand about this game is that survival is in itself a tremendous accomplishment. It can be punishing, cruel, sadistic and uncompromising. It can also be the purest, most thrilling adrenaline rush in gaming – it can take over your life and reward you like nothing else can. Exactly because your chances of success are so slim, each victory feels monumental.

The open-world structure is the biggest change since Demon's Souls. Beginning in a rotting asylum for the undead, you move through a vast, connected world comprised of fetid swamps, grandly dilapidated towns and castles, magma-carved caves and tunnels deep within the earth, trap-filled dungeons and much else. Some are reminiscent of Demon's Souls' environments, like the rickety, swampy, disease-ridden Blighttown, whilst others are entirely new; austere marble palaces, murky forests, ashen lakes.

The further you get in Demon's Souls, the more hideous and creative the monsters and environments become. Thirty hours in, stuck in an underground poisonous swamp, you'll feel like you'd give anything to see the sun again. Dark Souls' design is so consistently twisted that it actually starts to encroach on your mental well-being after extended play – it never wavers for a second from its singular stylistic vision.

There's no central hub, no safe haven for you to run back to and recuperate. Instead, there are bonfires strategically placed around the world. Bonfires are your checkpoints, the place where you can hunker down to replenish your health flasks, spend the souls of vanquished enemies on leveling up, repair your equipment, and meditate on your doomed existence. Resting at a bonfire ensures that you'll spawn there the next time you're dispatched, but resting also respawns all the enemies in an area (except bosses). Deciding when and where to rest, then, becomes a major part of your strategy. You can go through the same areas again and again, collecting souls and learning enemy attack patterns to make yourself stronger, or you can push onwards towards the next bonfire, risking the unknown.

Online, you'll frequently see the ghosts of other players huddled around the bonfires, giving you a sense of togetherness and camaraderie in situations that would otherwise feel depressingly hopeless. Dark Souls' world is (for the most part) exquisitely designed around these checkpoints – shortcuts and secret passages open up that let you access more and more of the map from a single resting point, so making your way around a world that at first seems intimidatingly huge quickly becomes second nature.

When you die in Dark Souls, you become Hollowed, and lose any souls that you've collected. Make it back to your bloodstain before dying again, and you can get them back – but you usually run straight into the clawed arms of whatever horrendous thing dispatched you the first time. Souls can be spent on leveling yourself up, buying an extra sliver of health or stamina or magical capability. Humanity, on the other hand, is much more precious resource; you can only get it from items or by beating bosses, whether in your own game or as a helpful Phantom in someone else's. It can be used to kindle bonfires, giving yourself extra health flasks, and to revive yourself to Human, which lets you summon other players to help you in your game.

The combat system is the beating black heart at the center of Dark Souls. Given the sheer variety of demons after your blood – serpent-warriors, evil butchers, skinless undead, cat-alligators, skeletal swordsmen and much, much else – your survival depends greatly on how you adapt to changing situations. You can switch between armored tank and nimble thief just by switching around your weapons and armor. To be a mage or a healer, all you need to do is find a sorcerer's catalyst or a talisman. The game never forces you into a certain playstyle. There's no limit to what you can carry, for instance, so you can hold on to any dagger or bow or interesting spell in case it comes in handy hours later.

The way that magic works has changed since Demon's Souls, making it much more difficult to rely on it as an easy way out and forcing you to engage with the heart-in-mouth, up-close melee combat. Instead of a magic bar, you get a certain number of casts for each spell each time you rest at a bonfire – powerful Pyromancy or life-saving Miracles will usually be limited to just a few uses. Magic is as relevant to the game as ever, but it's no longer a cheap-and-easy, rechargeable long-range option. Sooner or later, especially in the boss battles, you're going to have to wade on in there with an axe and risk your hide up close.

This is one of many reasons that Dark Souls is considerably harder than Demon's Souls. (For context, I played through Demon's Souls about four times, and nothing in that game gave me the same trouble – and the same rush – as some of Dark Souls' crueler moments.) It appears to be FROM's mission to send you into harrowing spirals of despondency and self-pity at every opportunity. Levels and enemies alike are designed to be especially lethal. Like its predecessor, the game starts off borderline impossible and becomes more manageable the longer you play as you get together some half-decent equipment and build up your stats, but Dark Souls discourages grinding.

There's a slightly uneven, discouraging distribution of souls throughout most of the game, where extremely strong enemies reward you with only a few hundred souls. It evens out later; as the going gets tougher, the game design seems to acknowledge that you'll need to build up your level through repeating sections that you already know, and litters them with soul-rich enemies to farm. But overall, it's time-consuming and impractical to progress through grinding alone. Instead, Dark Souls' difficulty pushes you towards its forward-thinking online features.

Dark Souls is tightly designed around its community and co-operative aspects, far more so than Demon's. Because the game doesn't bother to explain itself to you at all, you will rely on other players to build up your knowledge, sharing strategies, directions to secret areas and tips on where to find rare weapons and items, piecing together a collective understanding of arcane arts like weapons forging. This community aspect is the most extraordinary thing about Dark Souls – you're all in it together, and the knowledge that there are others sharing your experience is what turns Dark Souls from a depressing solo journey into a breathtaking collective achievement.

As you wander the parapets of the Undead Burg, you'll occasionally hear the tolling of the bell at the top of the gargoyle tower, signifying someone else's triumph over a boss. You'll feel spurred on to success yourself, reassured that it's not impossible, or you'll smile at the memory of your own victory if you're already further on. The shadows of other players move through the world, showing you snatches of someone else's game. Bloodstains splatter across the flagstones where people have died, replaying the final seconds of their life when you touch them. By offering yourself up as a phantom to assist in someone else's game, you can not only earn souls and Humanity, but you can learn new things, gaining experience from others. The absence of voice chat and matchmaking is integral to this sense of collective suffering and achievement. Your rescuer will always be a stranger.

It is impossible to overstate how crucial online play is to the Dark Souls experience. Without it, it's half a game (and about four times as difficult, too, which is really not what you want from a game that's already difficult enough to sap your will to live). Multiplayer is your get-out clause, the thing that stops Dark Souls from ever being straightforwardly impossible, no matter what your skill level. There are points in the game where you actually need help; FROM's tacit admission of this comes in the form of NPC summon signs that appear outside certain boss battles, letting you summon help even if you're playing the game offline. Run out of Humanity, though, and this option is closed to you, leaving you with the choice between hours of grinding or hours of fruitless attempts at battles that are incredibly difficult on your own.

Like everything in the game, though, the multiplayer has its dark side. Players can invade your world if you're in Human form and assassinate you. But this is a much less frequent occurrence than it was in Demon's Souls. In order to invade other players at will, you actually have to join an in-game covenant – otherwise you have to rely on limited-use items. There's also an indictment system where you can report someone who assassinates you, which enters their name into a giant, publicly-accessible Book of the Guilty. The emphasis this time around is very firmly upon helping other players, rather than hurting them.

The difficulty is central to Dark Souls' ethos, and shouldn't be considered a fault. Without it, it wouldn't be the game that it is, it wouldn't require the same ingenuity and persistence from you, and its rewards would not be so sweet. There are times, though, when Dark Souls crosses the line from thrillingly challenging to straightforwardly sadistic. There are frog-like sewer-dwelling creatures that can Curse you with their attacks, instantly reducing your health bar to half its former size; the only way to get cured is to visit a healer hidden deep within a dangerous ghost-populated area that's a long, long journey away (or to buy an item from a vendor, if you've got enough souls).

Making your way through Dark Souls' death-trap world with half a health bar is hard enough, but the Curse effect stacks – so if you get caught again, you'll be down to a quarter of a health bar. A third time, you'll be down to an eighth. I know one Dark Souls player who lost something like 10 hours trying to make it to a healer when everything in the world could kill him with one hit. There's punishing, and then there's unfair.

One of the mid-game bosses, meanwhile, emits corrosive bile that swiftly degrades your equipment if you get stuck in its flow, potentially leaving you standing naked in front of a hideous dragon with a broken sword. There's no way to repair weapons and armor once they've been completely destroyed, so it's possible to lose all your best gear in this battle. Similarly, there are areas in the mid-section of the game where the main challenge isn't overcoming the skinless poisonous demons that live there, but struggling not to get knocked off narrow, precarious ledges by their attacks.

Without wanting to spoil the plot, Dark Souls sends you deeper into the earth with every victory, becoming extraordinarily imaginative in its sadism. Dark Souls' story is subtly and sparsely told, leaving you to write your own mythology, giving you only cryptic, unsettling verses of vague exposition to go on. The world speaks for itself.

But there are, despite its bleakness, real moments of beauty in Dark Souls – like the moment where you round a corner after one of the game's early bosses and see the sun for the first time, shining down through a break in the clouds, or the moment when you're standing at the top of a belltower looking out at the sprawling land below, trying to decide where to go next whilst you bask in the afterglow of a boss defeat. It's these moments, not the hours spent butting your head up against the same boss without success, that you'll remember about Dark Souls: the improbable, hard-fought victories, the game-changing discoveries, and the moments where a kind stranger lifted you out of a ditch you couldn't escape on your own.

Closing Comments
The reviewer's job is difficult when it comes to a game like Dark Souls. I simply can't unreservedly recommend that you buy it. It's not a game that you play to relax. It doesn't care in the slightest about whether you're enjoying yourself, and it doesn't give a fig for your notions of entertainment or your mental well-being. If you just play games for fun, this isn't for you, and no amount of insistence on my part is going to change that. But if you're interested in the limits of the videogame form – to see just how focused, how pure and how uncompromising in its vision a game can be – Dark Souls is unmissable. If you take the time get into Dark Souls' mindset, to begin to understand the twisted way in which it operates and taste the rewards behind its cruellest challenges, this is one of the most thrilling, most fascinating and most completely absorbing experiences in gaming.

by Keza MacDonald

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Bastion: X360

Bastion is one of the best downloadable games this year, but I didn't believe it right away. From the first time I saw it, I knew that the game was witty -- as evident from the narrator who literally narrates just about everything you do as you do it -- but Bastion was still just an action role-playing game. I moved through an area with my two weapons, shield, and special attack. No big deal. However, then Bastion started revealing itself to me, and I couldn't stop playing.

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In Bastion, something called the "Great Calamity" has rolled in and taken out your entire civilization. You awaken as "the Kid," and set off to restore the Bastion -- a spot where everyone was supposed to meet if bad stuff went down. To do this, you'll need to dive into levels, best foes, and collect shards. Like I said, not that different from your average RPG, and it never hooked me. By the time it reached the branching ending, I didn't have strong enough feelings to really care one way or another about the outcome.

Still -- and this is the rare occasion I say this about a story -- it didn't matter. Bastion is just too damn good. The graphics are amazing; I can only describe the scenes as a watercolor painting with stained glass influences. The sound immersed me in the game. The narrator is entertaining as he announced what I was doing and why it mattered, but his sultry tones also kept me company. Bastion's a single-player game, but the narrator was my companion through thick and thin. Toss in some fantastic music and sound effects, and Bastion is a blast to experience.

However, those are just the accoutrements. Bastion's gameplay is the main event. I hacked and slashed my way through these levels, but I got to choose my loadouts before I set out. As I played, I unlocked new weapons like a six shooter and a machete, I found new elixirs that increased the damage of my attacks, and I even unlocked idols that made levels tougher -- made enemies unable to be beaten by normal attacks but that gave me greater rewards. All of this made me want to keep playing -- and play in different ways. Was my loadout the best? How hard could I make a level and still have it be fun? What loot would the next seemingly dead end yield? I loved coming back to answer these questions.

These variations on the gameplay, these carrots at the end of the stick only become available the deeper you get. As I was playing, I was unlocking a new twist to my hub world (the Bastion) with each level my character achieved. I had an in-game achievement center that rewarded me with XP for completing tasks, a store, a crazy pipe to hit and fall into an XP farm, and so on. Hell, even after I beat the game, there was a new game plus that kept my progress, started over, and made reference to the fact that I was playing through the story again.

The best thing Bastion has going for it is that I was always surprised by what came next. The levels, the enemies, the crazy weapon-testing mini-games -- there's always something up this game's sleeve.

Closing Comments
When I beat Bastion for the first time, I reloaded my save and played through for the second ending. When that was done, I started my new game plus. I'm not the repeat type of gamer, but Bastion's leveling, weapon upgrades, and difficulty tweaks are just too gosh-darn addictive. The story could've been better, but it doesn't matter. This game is amazing and you owe it to yourself to download it.

by: Greg Miller

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Darkspore: PC

From SimCity through the development of the best-selling The Sims, Maxis has been a hugely influential development studio and has owned the simulation genre. In 2008, the company released Spore, which was the studio's most ambitious simulation to date, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Rather than play it safe and continue in the genre it knows best,

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Maxis has moved in a whole new direction with its latest release, Darkspore. Though it has "spore" in the title, Darkspore has very little in common with Maxis' last release. Instead, Darkspore is a Diablo-style hack and slash that's a laudable first effort in a new genre for Maxis, but there are areas where you can tell the developer is out of its element.

In Darkspore, you are a Crogenitor, a master of DNA who is able to manipulate the genetic makeup of living beings. Years ago, some extremist Crogenitors got their hands on enhanced DNA (E-DNA) and attempted to make more powerful beings. Unfortunately, those Crogenitors didn't quite know how to stabilize the E-DNA, and the result was the Darkspore. These super-powerful creatures turned on their creators and eventually spread across the galaxy, wiping out all other life forms and all but a few Crogenitors, who were placed in a cryogenic sleep and sent off to remote parts of the galaxy where the Darkspore couldn't find them. The campaign mode starts with you waking up from your long sleep, and with the help of the AI in your ship, you must create powerful creatures to battle the Darkspore.

As far as story goes, Darkspore doesn't get much more interesting than that. Most of the time, your AI is telling you the backstory, giving brief snippets about the planets you'll explore and recalling the events that led to the current situation. Since this is all done in exposition, it's not very engaging. You don't interact with the AI or any of your creatures, so the story doesn't feel like much more than window dressing that's used to move you along to the next planet and more Darkspore battles.

Gameplay is thankfully better than the story. Darkspore's major feature is the ability to unlock and customize 25 different genetic heroes, each of which have four variations. This is where the "spore" element comes in. Darkspore uses a version of the Spore Creature Creator for the customization. While you can't create beings from scratch, you can change how they look by adding or removing different items or changing their color and markings. Like in Spore, different body parts change your hero's stats. In addition there are weapons and armor to equip as well. The use of the existing tech for the Creature Creator makes the customization of heroes simple and intuitive.

You only control one hero at a time, though you can take three of them into and switch between them at any time. Each of your heroes has one of five genesis types, and one of three classes. Darkspore of the same genesis type as your hero will do twice the damage, so you have to strategize the type of heroes you take into each level. In addition to the type and class, each hero also has four unique abilities it can use in a fight. This is a fairly simple system compared to other games in the genre, making it easy for players of any level to understand.

The large variety of heroes and the customization element really are Darkspore's strongest points. There are both melee and ranged heroes in each of the types and classes, meaning you can easily put together a squad that matches your play style. It takes some trial and error to find out how you like each hero's unique abilities, but the sheer variety of options keeps the gameplay interesting for a long time.

Behind the Scenes

How did we review Darkspore? Head over to Nicole Tanner's blog for a breakdown of how much we played, which level we reached and more.
Other aspects about Darkspore I enjoyed were the inclusion of optional objectives and the ability to chain levels in order to up your chances at rare items. After completing each level, you're given the option to get your item and return to your ship to further modify heroes, or move directly into the next level in order to gain more medals. This encourages you to challenge yourself with the reward being a greater probability for a powerful item.

Doing well at Darkspore is all about the items, which are dropped in generous amounts throughout the campaign. Your heroes don't level up themselves. Instead the various items you get throughout the game have levels, and your hero's level is determined by the items you have equipped. As a Crogenitor, you level up, and gradually unlock more heroes and purchase overall upgrades for your heroes. While this system works fine, I would have liked to see some level progression on the individual heroes in order to have something to show for a hero you've used multiple times.

Even though Darkspore's tone is a fairly serious, there are elements of Maxis' trademark sense of humor. Your heroes make noises as they battle. While most of these are grunts or computer sounds, some of the heroes actually say things like "Sue Me" and "Crybaby." This was a nice touch that added an appropriate amount of flair, and any more would have altered the tone too much.


But even with all of these features, Darkspore could use some improvement. While some areas of the game look really pretty in an Avatar-like way, others are just bland and boring. Additionally, your heroes look a bit out of place in some of the environments that enhance a black outline around them. This makes them look more like stickers placed on a background rather than characters in a cohesive world.

Maxis has said the game was designed to be played cooperatively, and they weren't kidding. The campaign gets very difficult very quickly if you're going it alone. I found myself forced to go back and replay previous levels multiple times, chaining them as much as possible in order to get more items and experience so I could get through the later levels. I fully expected to need to do this a little bit, but the amount of level-grinding is excessive.

Another area Darkspore falls short in is the competitive multiplayer. Darkspore does not include ranked multiplayer. Without ranking the competitive multiplayer is a catastrophe. I found myself either against an opponent who was way too easy to beat, or one that was a significantly higher level who wiped me out in a matter of seconds. That's just not fun, and it seems like a pretty obvious thing to overlook. I was told there is some "balancing" in terms of the level of damage done, but it wasn't apparent from my experience playing it. This is something Maxis needs to rectify or there's no real point in playing the competitive multiplayer at all.

Closing Comments
There are some really great things about Darkspore. The vast amount of customization options and the simple but fun battle system kept me interested enough to overlook the poor execution of story. However, a broken competitive multiplayer system and a single-player experience that forces you to excessively replay level after level in order to get powerful enough to continue make it obvious Maxis needs a little more practice developing games that aren’t simulations.

by: Nicole Tanner

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Hunted: The Demon's Forge

When I started playing Hunted: The Demon's Forge, I was surprised at how much fun I was having. At first glance the dated visuals, awkward animations and cumbersome menus make Hunted look like bargain bin fodder, but there are some fantastic ideas here. It combines the melee action of a hack 'n' slash with the intensity and skill of a cover-based shooter, supported by role-playing game (RPG) elements. I encountered some serious annoyances here or there, but for the most part I was smiling along the way. Until my partner wasted 20 minutes of my life, that is.

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Hunted: The Demon's Forge is a co-op game at heart. It's meant to be played with a friend, and it's at its best when you do so. But playing by yourself is a drag. As my character lay dying , clawing at the ground for a revitalizing potion, my AI partner stood next to me (ample potions at his hip), happily shooting his crossbow. I guess the sight of a beautiful Elven huntress dying at his feet wasn't enough to stir his compassionate side. Eventually I died and was forced to restart from my last checkpoint.

This is just one of the many examples of how Hunted stumbles when it could have leapt forward with seemingly simple fixes. It's not a bad game, but one that confronted me time and time again with frustration.

In Hunted: The Demon's Forge, you play as Caddoc or E'lara. These mercenaries are an amusing pair, with Caddoc providing most of the melee power and E'lara supporting her companion with a bow. A simple job for our unlikely heroes sends them on a quest that was generations in the making, and that's where you come in. Did you really think you wouldn't be saving the world?

One of the best things about Hunted is the relationship between Caddoc and E'lara. Appearances can be deceiving, because big, bad Caddoc is the coolheaded member of the team, while the lovely E'lara is brash and hasty. Their banter is enjoyable, albeit silly, and comes to life with some solid voice acting.

As I usually gravitate towards agile, long-range characters or support-class heroes, I played E'lara for most of the ride. This meant quite a bit of shooting, which I enjoyed. It's uncommon to see cover-based shooters rock the fantasy setting, so I was having way too much fun scoring headshots with my bow and arrow.

When playing with a friend, coordinating your attacks is rewarding, especially when using special abilities. Caddoc and E'lara share a set of three spells, but each hero also has a unique set of three weapon-based abilities that play off the other character. Caddoc, for example, can lift enemies up in the air with a mini-tempest for E'lara to finish off. Alternatively, E'lara can freeze a bad guy which Caddoc can smash to bits.

It's a shame that this cooperative dynamic breaks down when you're paired up with the computer, though I will admit that cyber-Caddoc did save my bacon on a number of occasions (including a near death during the final boss). But for those of you rocking out with this adventure solo, you're missing out on a lot of what makes Hunted fun. The A.I. partner just isn't good enough to make a suitable replacement for another player. You might be stuck with it, too, because the current online communities seem limited. I was able to find random partners on the PS3 and 360 versions, but nothing on the PC.

For a game built around cooperative play, Hunted lacks a number of features I would have thought obvious. There's no drop-in, drop-out options, which means every multiplayer session has to be intentional and a friend can't join in mid-quest. Also odd are the character-changing obelisks that must be used if you want to switch your hero during a session. These are set throughout each chapter in the campaign. As a mostly solo player, I would have loved to hop back and forth between the characters to set up better combo attacks.

There are other things too, like the lack of a map and a poor inventory system, but they're not as critical to the experience. All you need to know is that for every time Hunted does something right, chances are something goes wrong elsewhere. Poor AI, environmental glitches, and a host of other nasty business interfere with an otherwise enjoyable quest.

Closing Comments
People have been asking me about Hunted: The Demon's Forge a lot. It's odd blend of cover-based shooting, a fantasy setting, and hot co-op action make it an eyebrow-raiser, but the execution is flawed. If you're desperate to play something with an equally desperate friend, Hunted: The Demon's Forge might surprise you. But there are better multiplayer games out there, and some of them have just as many elves and dragons as this one.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Venetica PC

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Venetica -- it doesn't look good, character interactions are unintentionally humorous, the map is a total mess, the artificial intelligence is inconsistent at best, and the combat system is repetitive. Yet despite all these less-than-stellar qualities, I found myself having a good time messing around in the Southern coast of Italy as a girl named Scarlett.

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She's supposedly native to the region, but she speaks with a British accent. This is one of those games that falls under the "so bad it's sort of good" category.

On the highest settings, the PC version of Venetica is a lot nicer looking than its console counterparts and has a better framerate. If you drop down to medium settings though, it looks about the same as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 iterations. But great graphics don't equal a great game, or vice versa, and that's the case here.

This is one dorky title and it can get pretty melodramatic -- in the opening sequence Scarlett appears to fall off a bridge over a cliff, only for her to roll onto a house roof five feet underneath -- but I ended up appreciating the goofiness of it all.

The premise is also a little odd. You play as an orphan with no blood-related family who turns out to be Death's secret daughter. Except, you do have direct family: a half-brother named Leon that isn't really explained, just shoved into the situation. Also, when it's revealed that Death is Scarlett's father, she barely bats an eye. If I found out that information I'd be stunned, confused, and in denial. She accepts it in stride and never admits how strange the whole scenario is. I guess she's just better at coping than I am.

Still, Venetica is really about the relationship between the mortal world and the twilight world, and it's cleverly incorporated into the gameplay. There are certain enemies you can only kill if you switch to the twilight world, and you'll need to solve quests by using twilight powers you gain along your journey. For example, in most games, skeletons are scattered about for atmosphere. While the same is true in Venetica, as you progress through the game you can eventually interact with them, which is really cool. The way Venetica handles lock picking is also clever, and although it's essentially just a memory mini-game, it's skinned in an interesting manner.

Venetica's other saving grace is that the story is told in an interesting way. The game incorporates both morality and branching storylines, which may not be fully original features anymore but are still welcome additions. When you reach Venice there are three guilds you can choose to join, one that's focused on melee and technically the "dishonorable" choice, one that's based on necromancy and the "honorable" choice, and a third that's not associated with any morality or particular skill set. You can only choose one and based on your decision the story will unfold differently.

Throughout my time in Venice the worst thing I encountered was map inaccuracies. If you're someone who relies heavily on following a game for advice on where to go next, you'll end up really frustrated here. Just navigating the map in general is a pain, but at times the tracking dot will be in a completely wrong spot. For example, it showed that someone's house was in the middle of the Venetian waterways. Call me crazy, but I don't think anybody builds their house in the middle of a canal. After wandering around the outer city for a while I finally found the correct building -- on land -- but it took time and a lot of trial and error. I also had quest givers tell me the wrong place to go, or became frustrated because I didn't realize I lacked the proper twilight powers to complete a certain quest.

Despite these issues, this delightfully average role-playing game does offer plenty of quests; I clocked in a little less than 30 hours and still had a few quests I had yet to finish. Though they're standard fetch and puzzle quests, they're still fun to complete. The XP you receive levels Scarlett up and grants you points to increase her strength or mental prowess, as well as pick some new powers or melee moves.

Killing creatures and people is supposed to be an enjoyable element in a role-playing game, but the combat in Venetica is almost too straightforward. You can chain physical attacks with your melee weapon by properly timing your button presses, but it's just hitting the left mouse button over and over. I know it might sound bizarre, but the relatively mindless combat system didn't really bother me until almost 25 hours in when I was continually being mobbed. When you get attacked by groups it's almost a guaranteed death sentence.

Thankfully, when you die in Venetica you don't always kick the bucket. As the daughter of Death you have some privileges, and one of those is the ability to resurrect yourself after getting struck down if you have enough twilight energy. The only way to charge up your twilight energy though is to use a specific weapon (the Moonblade), so the game basically discourages you from using other types of armaments, which is a bummer. The game also does a poor job of explaining that you can actually upgrade the Moonblade, so I almost went into the final boss battle with a weapon that only had 16 damage points. That's not very much.

You'll also use an action bar to assign twilight powers (magic attacks) or blocks. One thing I found irritating was that there are different "block" abilities for each individual weapon, so if you start using a hammer but equipped the sword block, you have to go back into the menu system and replace it with the hammer block skill. It's cumbersome, so I mostly rolled around on the floor to get away from enemies instead of blocking at all.

I think my favorite part of playing Venetica was seeing bugs -- swords are randomly hovering in the air with no owner and gondola oars can be found sticking straight up out of the water with no ship in sight. The AI pathing is pretty hilarious, too. A little boy offered to show me the way through the large city of Venice, but he kept turning around in circles and wandering off the correct pathway. Animations add to the humor, as people move stiffly and lip-synching is poor. Also On: PS3, X 360

Closing Comments
If you don’t expect much from it, you’ll have a pretty good time with Venetica. However, without the patience to figure out quests and gameplay elements on your own, you’ll end up incredibly frustrated. If you don’t need a game to hold your hand, or mind that it’s not up to snuff in the graphics or combat departments, you’ll find that questing around Venice is a good time.

by: Kristine Steimer

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Chrono Trigger

It feels like we've come to the end of an era. It's been over four and a half years since the Wii's Virtual Console first went live. In that time, we've seen the re-release of nearly four hundred different retro titles – some masterpieces, some duds and lots of in-between, average "classics" of yesteryear drawn from the back catalogs of the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64 and several other old-school consoles.

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It's been an interesting journey, with some of us reliving bits and pieces of our childhoods and others discovering these titles for the very first time. And now, with Chrono Trigger, it feels like the journey's come to an end.

Chrono Trigger is one of the best video games ever made. A universally cherished role-playing game, it was originally released for the Super Nintendo in 1995. Its creation is the stuff of legend, as it was developed by a dream team of the most talented RPG makers of the 16-bit era, all coming together to work on this one epic project. And though it would be easy to write pages upon pages to explain its appeal, I'll attempt just three key points to sum up what makes it so timeless.

The first, appropriately enough, is time travel.

Crono is the name of our silent protagonist in Chrono Trigger. A wide-eyed, wild-haired boy living in the year 1000 A.D., he becomes thrust into a quest to save the world when a mysterious portal in time opens up and swallows his friend Marle. He boldly jumps in after her, setting in motion a story that has you following his adventures back in time to the past, forward in time to the distant future and every other point in-between – as what begins as a rescue mission for one young girl escalates into a battle for the fate of the planet.

The time-traveling concept set Chrono Trigger apart from other RPGs, as its many different eras of time are expertly interwoven and your actions in the past accurately influence the future. Other games of the SNES era began to explore the idea of alternate worlds or parallel dimensions, but here in Chrono Trigger you see the entire existence of a planet play out from the dawn of mankind all the way to beyond the apocalypse. That alone would have made Chrono Trigger a hit – but time travel was just the first of its many special qualities.

The battle system is second, as it was, and still is, wonderfully unique. You control a party of up to three heroes at a time, fighting foes right where you encounter them in the environment. There's no visual cut-away to some separate battlefield screen like in so many other RPGs – here, you see a baddie and you attack it right there.

What's more, the battle mechanics present an incredible variety of opportunities for teamwork. Every character has a basic Attack command, and can use Items too. Standard stuff. But the third option – "Tech" – is where it gets interesting. Selecting Tech lets you unleash more damaging assaults, magic spells and support maneuvers with individual heroes, but you can also combine more than one characters' moves together to create even more powerful combos.

Crono's a skilled swordsman who can leap and slash up enemies alone, for instance, while Marle's more magically gifted with the innate element of Water. Put the two of them together, though, and Marle can freeze Crono's sword mid-air so that his strike hits with the impact of an icy glacier – or Crono can spin his blade in circles while Marle casts a healing spell, to disperse the curative aura over every ally in the battle.

The interplay between the game's half-dozen or so different playable characters is wonderfully satisfying, as each one is developed with a distinctive personality and individual sidequests that reinforce who they are and really get you to like them. And the fact that there are more than three characters to choose from, while you can only use three at a time, helps fuel the game's third key point of appeal – replayability.

Chrono Trigger innovated the concept of a "New Game +" in which, after completing the story and seeing the credits roll, you could choose to restart the adventure with your powered-up, experience-pumped characters intact. It was a great idea, as it made things speedier on subsequent playthroughs as you attempted to achieve a different ending the second, third or ninth time through – because Chrono Trigger also innovated in offering tons of different ending sequences you could earn, depending on the choices you made while playing.

All of this time-jumping, three-hero tag-team battling and powered-up questing for more and more different story conclusions all came together to create one incredible masterpiece of a game, wrapped up with the most beautiful artwork and the greatest soundtrack any SNES title had ever seen. It should go without saying that Chrono Trigger is still worth your time and money today, and that it comes with my highest recommendation for 800 of your Wii Points.

Some naysayers will offer their opinions opposing such a purchase, pointing out that this same game has been recently re-released on the Nintendo DS in an edition that includes a couple of new dungeons and a retranslated script. I hold nothing against that version, or even the PlayStation 1 port that added anime-style cutscenes to the story 10 years ago. But this is the original. This is the game as it was – as it first existed, as American SNES owners first experienced it on the SNES in 1995. And spending just eight bucks to reclaim that same experience – old poorly translated enemy names and all – is, to me, the best of what the Virtual Console has always been about.

Closing Comments
There will still be more Virtual Console titles released after this. The Wii's service isn't over quite yet. But we're just days away from the launch of the Nintendo 3DS eShop and its new, second-edition version of the VC concept. So here, with this re-release of a title still rightly argued as perhaps the very best video game ever made, it feels right to call this chapter closed. So whether it continues to offer dozens more classics from yesteryear going forward, or if it really is winding down to its final conclusion, support the original Virtual Console with a purchase of this gaming great – it's a download service that has sometimes been frustrating to deal with, but at the end of it all it really has let us travel back through time.

by: Lucas M. Thomas

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy: PSP

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (also known as Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy) is a rich hybrid of role-playing and fighting games. It adds a colossal amount of content to the original Dissidia Final Fantasy, which was already a total blast to play. Like many Final Fantasy spinoffs before it, Duodecim is not without faults. There's a definite learning curve to overcome here. But for those patient enough to invest some time in learning Duodecim's ins and outs, the reward is incredible.

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If you're coming to the party way past last call, I'm happy to catch you up. Duodecim is the prequel to the original PSP game that launched in 2009. In the Dissidia universe, two gods are warring with each other: Cosmos, Goddess of Harmony, and Chaos, God of Discord. These deities have summoned warriors from different worlds to wage battle in aclassic clash of light and darkness.

As it turns out, this conflict has been cyclical. Duodecim describes the cycle before the cycle in the original Dissidia. In Duodecim, players are introduced to six new Final Fantasy heroes that star in this story. They're struggling to come to terms with this concept of "endless battle" and trying do something about it.

Because I froth at the mouth for melodrama, I'm a fan of the whole "light versus darkness" shtick. The story itself is weak and lacks emotional focus, but it's much better than your average fighting game plot. When certain characters are on the screen and acting awesome (I'm in love with Golbez; dude knows how to monologue), I'm content.

Most of the gameplay in Duodecim is similar to what you experienced in the original Dissidia. Combat takes place in large, open stages and two fighters battle one-on-one. The entire roster is composed of classic heroes and villains from the Final Fantasy series. When engaged in combat, each character has a bravery value and hit points. Characters use normal attacks to raise their bravery value and HP attacks to deal damage to those hit points.

At its core, Duodecim feels more like Smash Bros. than Street Fighter. Moves are much simpler to execute but you still need to worry about timing, character placement, and reading an opponent's next move. There's plenty of strategy here, but you're not required to perform 30-button combos to succeed.

But even if you have an easy time getting into the basics of battle, the rest of Duodecim is perched atop a steep learning curve. When I passed the game to IGN's Hilary Goldstein and Ryan Geddes, I believe their reactions were a mix of confusion and eye explosions. But if you stick with it through the beginning, you'll start to see how much Duodecim has to offer.

Some of those offerings are new to this prequel. There are new characters to experiment with and the returning fighters have more moves. There are also a number of new stages, including ones built in the Final Fantasy XIII universe. But one of the biggest changes to Dissidia's battle system is the inclusion of assist attacks. A game with lots of strategy just got deeper. Now, when the time is right, you can use your assist gauge to call another character into the field to provide some support.

The battle system is unique and fun to master, but the real joy of Duodecim is seeing how varied the roster is. If you played the original Dissidia, you'll know the developers tried to mix things up, like giving Cecil two different forms and building a character that relies entirely on counters (see: Exdeath). But the team outdid itself this time. All the new characters are varied and make phenomenal additions to the cast.

If the kickass roster isn't enough to hook you, the role-playing game elements should do the trick. Every character can be powered up to level 100 and they learn new abilities along the way. Duodecim constantly rewards you after every battle; there's no match that doesn't level up your character in some way.

For those that want to take advantage of everything Duodecim has to offer, there's also a fairly robust replay editor that allows camera edits and more. Or, if you're feeling creative, a quest editor allows you to set up original dialogues and battles that can be then shared with other players. I'm not usually interested in user-created content, but knowing that it's there gives me warm, fuzzy feelings inside.

Of course, no fighting game would be complete without multiplayer support. Duodecim features ad hoc multiplayer and it works well. Competing against a human player is always the best way to get the most thrills, but Duodecim does slow down if special effects start dominating the screen. The most notable slowdown I saw was when my friend Mike and I both used assist attacks at one time. Dissidia didn't like that, no sir. But most of our matches ran smoothly enough to be entertaining.

The biggest shocker in Duodecim came to me after completing the main campaign. Following the final battle, I was amazed to discover that the entire campaign from the original Dissidia is unlocked and it boasts all the improvements introduced through Duodecim. So you have no reason to go buy the original -- you're getting two games in one here.

Read more details regarding how this game was reviewed.

Closing Comments

Playing Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy is like learning a foreign language. It's intimidating and difficult at first, but the end result is always worth the effort. If you're the patient sort that doesn't mind experimenting, Duodecim is hugely rewarding and could be one of the best additions to your PSP library. The story mode should be taken with a grain of salt, but everything else you'll find here is well worth the price of admission. I sank more than 100 hours into the original Dissidia, and it's not hard to imagine I'll do the same for Duodecim.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Borderlands: X360

It's that undeniable impulse that pokes at the pleasure centers of the brain when you're looking at that sleek and impossibly flat television at the front of the electronics store. How much better and brighter would life be if only you could bring it home? You consider what's in your wallet, what kind of space rests between credit balance and limit, maybe for a second what your family might think, and perhaps more importantly how jealous your friends would be. It's what drives economies that thrive on consumerism, and that urge to snatch up glittering new toys is what keeps the action energized in Gearbox's Borderlands, a first-person shooter title that caters to the thief, hero, and adventurer lurking in all of us.

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For the uninitiated, this is a loot hunting game like Blizzard's Diablo. The action begins and you're flung out into an open world with a handful of quests and legions of baddies who'll do whatever they can to prevent you from killing their leaders, wiping out an arbitrary number of their compatriots, opening drain valves in their hideouts, snatching up important artifacts and documents, or collecting a large number of shiny objects. There's a tale of a secret vault and advanced technology and a snowy image of a female face that pops onscreen when important things are about to happen, nudging you forward and providing additional narrative context, but this isn't a choice and consequence game with morality systems and labyrinthine quest strings. It's the loot that's the real motivator here.

You'll start out with rusty weapons that look as though they've spent a better part of their existence at the bottom of a bog and it won't be long until you find new weapons that not only look better but have improved functionality. As you progress through the game you'll find shotguns, sniper rifles, submachine guns, handguns, and rocket launchers that glow with elemental effects like fire and lightning and can eat enemies alive with corrosive effects or hit with such an impact that it pulps a target into a gruesome mess. There are even more bizarre and powerful alien weapons towards the later stages. Moreover, as you use a weapon, you'll become more proficient with it, further enhancing the sense that your character is gradually but inevitably becoming a ferocious fighter who can shoot, shatter, and burn all obstacles in the way.

As you level and progress through the story you'll be frequently swapping out gear so you're always outfitted with the best, and feel a surge of jittery anticipation every time an enemy explodes into a cloud of candy colored loot. The character class skill trees, however, which are packed with an abundance of passive abilities, are less interesting. Each class gets one and only one primary action skill, which you'll be using frequently throughout the course of the game. The Hunter class tosses out a bird to attack from afar, the Berserker charges forward and smashes foes with his fists, the Siren enters a temporary invisible state, and the Soldier can drop down a sentry turret to help out in a fight.

As you level you'll earn points that can be allocated into skill trees, which can change up how much damage you do, how much damage you can take, and make your action skill a deadlier ability. The Siren, for instance, can add shock damage to her Phasewalk skill, dramatically shorten its cooldown period, and turn into a contagious inferno after every kill. Yet even with all these options for customization, many skills are percentage bonuses to damage or shields that are more difficult to notice during gameplay. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but a greater number of action skills per class and a larger degree of distinction between some of the skill choices would make the tree progression more exciting. While the skills in Borderlands unquestionably do affect how you fight and deal damage, it seems like there was room to do more here. If you do decide you want to switch up how your skill points are spread out across a skill tree, you can easily pay with in-game money to reset it and redistribute points however you see fit.

The large variety of weapons does make up for a few forgettable skill options to a degree. Since the game feels, moves, and plays like a first-person shooter and most of what you'll be doing is firing weapons and engaging in fast-paced gameplay, perhaps that's the reason Gearbox chose to build in so many possibilities for passive percentage upgrades, so as not to slow things down too much. Perhaps that's also the reason there's no collection of armor pieces or anything else of that sort. Character customization, aside from the guns, skills and handful of accessories, is limited to choosing a name and clothing colors. That's not meant as a criticism -- I think the streamlined character customization works well with the game overall -- but it's something you should be aware of before picking this up. Many players will have their hands full juggling guns, class, grenade, and shield mods, to care, but more hardcore gamers looking for more options for bolstering stats might feel something's missing.

Hopefully that gives you a sufficient overview of the types of methods of customization in the game, and has properly prepared you for what kind of experience this is. If you're rolling your eyes at all this information, think it's boring and inconsequential, and just waiting for me to get to the part where I say if the game is any fun or not, then your heart probably isn't in the right place. That's not to say you'll hate the game, but a frenzied, drooling desire to kill, upgrade, kill and repeat is required to really get the most out of this experience. Were this a typical action-RPG loot-driven kill-fest, such a warning wouldn't be necessary, but considering this game is actually a first-person shooter, perhaps not all prospective buyers might be familiar with how it works.

A real danger for this type of game is having all these items, all these methods of customization, and all this content, and then giving you nothing interesting to shoot at. That's not the case with Borderlands. Amongst your enemies, you'll start off against basic bandits who shuffle between cover spots and fire back at you. Some larger bruisers are more aggressive and carry bigger weapons, and others charge directly at you, sometimes while on fire, to hit you with sharp, rusty weapons. Smaller bandits carry shotguns and get thrown onto their backs whenever they fire, some snipe from a distance, some have shields and others don't, and the way they all move around as fights progress keeps the action fluid, frantic and exciting. Occasionally you'll wind up in absurd situations where you're unloading a string of headshots while standing toe-to-toe with foes and still not bringing them down, but such is the nature of games that favor health bars over realism.

Aside from humans, you fight spiky dog-like skags that spit, jump, slash, and generally make your life hell. Winged Pitch Black-like creatures soar across the terrain before tearing down to eye level with malicious intentions. Worms burrow through underground passages and armored insects launch projectiles and spin wheel-like with deadly momentum across the terrain. Factor in some of the more advanced human soldiers who use deployable turrets, shields, and higher quality armor, as well as the more bizarre creatures I won't mention for fear or spoiling things, and there's a nice mix of enemy types and behavior. They also frequently attack in large numbers, which makes the action supremely satisfying if you're powerful enough and able to wipe them all out in one headlong charge, firing and flipping between weapon types and activating action skills in wonderfully violent concert.

From time to time you'll come up against absolutely monstrous bosses, from a fire-spitting flying behemoth to a titanic lumbering quadruped that serve as a welcome change of pace from the standard battles, and some drop unique loot that can't be found elsewhere. Most of these bosses are found in Borderlands' dungeons away from the main hub areas, separated by a load time. The rest of the world consists of large open spaces, beginning with dry and dusty rock formations and ending in snow-capped mountainous terrain.

While it may feel like you're often moving through places that look vaguely similar, eventually you'll come upon swamps and dockyards and more clustered urban expanses that add more of a sense of variety. Within the various dungeons, you'll also be treated to some fantastic views, particularly when entering boss arenas with sunsets illuminating a patchwork of cliffside dwellings bristling with foes or glowing curvilinear designs etched into alien stone. Mixed in with a convenient transportation system with quick-spawn vehicles or a fast-travel mechanic, it makes for days and nights in a detailed, ramshackle world that feels lived-in and that rewards exploration. On the subject of vehicles, though they're in the game, they're in not particularly integral. They do greatly speed up travel, and can be spawned with rocket or machine gun turrets to help vanquish pesky foes, though just ramming things is a far more effective way to kill whatever's in front of you. Up to two can hop onto a vehicle with one in the driver's seat and one on the turret, which leads into one of the game's biggest features, that that's the multiplayer.

It's entirely possible to have fun by yourself exploring the world, taking on quests, and powering up, but it's a far more entertaining and challenging experience with others around. As people join your game, which can happen at any time, enemies will get more powerful and drop more valuable loot. This means you'll want to bring others in for a chance at getting better stuff, and thankfully Gearbox built its multiplayer system so all your character progress, inventory items, and quests completed in someone else's game is carried back into your game. Assuming you and those you're playing with are at the same point in the main story it's possible to quest together, and then when you decide to play again on your own, you can continue on without missing a beat.

Up to four players can venture together, and it's highly recommended that you try this out because of how chaotic and addictive it can be, especially with a mix of character classes at a moderately high level and good equipment. And for console gamers, it's also possible for two players to explore Pandora in split-screen mode. One thing I'll also recommend is that you're going to want to play with people you know. There are no looting rules in Borderlands, so if an item drops to the ground, anyone can snatch it. Should you bring in some random person to your game and they see a neat purple item drop that's just perfect for you, it's well within their ability to grab it and duck out. While it's better if you play with others, it's best if you play with those you can trust.

Assuming you are able to get a four-person game together, there's always the question of who's going to get the loot. Sure, one class may have a particular skill build that makes them better with SMGs, but what if a nice shotgun drops and everyone in the party has been building their shotgun proficiency? Here the user interface saves the day. When you look at an item sitting on the ground within a certain proximity, a giant item statistic readout pane pops up onscreen that displays all the stats and special effects and how they compare to what you're holding. Switch weapons and its comparison arrows indicating better or worse quality will adjust accordingly. After everyone takes a look and someone decides to pick it up, you can then easily match it up against all the other items sitting in your inventory, letting you know which might be best to use. Anything you don't want could then be sold at any of the game's vending machines, or dropped back onto the ground to allow others to look at its statistical popup and see if it could be useful. This kind of ease of sharing and user-friendliness goes a long way in making quick pickup games far less of a hassle, pulling off the equivalent of World of Warcraft-style item linking in a handy, accessible manner.

There's also the question of replay value, which Gearbox took into account. After you're finished with one playthrough and have completed all the quests in the game world, you'll likely be somewhere in your mid-30s out of a total 50 character levels. The game lets you start over using the same character, bringing along all your experience, skill setups, items, unlocked inventory space -- everything but your quest progress. The good news is upon restarting the world powers up around you, meaning starting level enemies are right near your level and the items they drop are given a boost. This should be a familiar concept to anyone who's been gaming long enough, but it's nice to see it included here, letting friends progress to the cap with their characters by recycling and giving a jolt of strength to the existing content. Even the elite versions of monsters, called Badass in the first playthrough, are upgraded to BadMutha in the second, and bosses will drop the same but more powerful versions of their first playthrough items.

Perhaps after you're all done with that and everyone's maxed at 50, it's time to see who could win in a fight? Well, the game gives you the option to do that as well. At any time you can melee a teammate to try and initiate a duel, and beyond that it's possible to head to special dungeons for some arena player versus player combat. This is a mode purely for fun, but it's nice to see it included since it gives you more of a sense of what all your equipment can do against a human opponent instead of the legions of AI-driven foes you've been melting and dismembering all game long.

In case you've read this far and are still scared off by the game's complexities, it's a surprisingly accessible experience considering all its varying elements. Someone unfamiliar with loot drop styles of games will still have to spend a little while getting acquainted with the game's systems, but overall it's easy to get in to and isn't a game that revels in player punishment. For instance, dying on the field of battle can be circumvented by killing an enemy while in a bleed-out state, and if you're playing with others they can just walk over and revive you with no required special skills. If you do miss the revive window and actually die, the game respawns you at a conveniently located waypoint and only subtracts a percentage of your cash -- you don't lose experience, items, or anything else. Though you do have to keep track of inventory space and ammunition counts, nothing like weapon or item durability ever enters into the equation, minimizing the amount of micromanaging necessary while restocking in town before heading out again into the field, keeping the focus on action.

Through all of this, Borderlands also manages to maintain a strong degree of personality thanks to its sharp, stylized visuals. On consoles the framerate can be a bit jittery in large-scale fights, but otherwise the game's a pleasure to behold, with enemies that actually respond to being pegged with bullets, snapping back their heads, sending them reeling, and occasionally triggering special elemental deaths. It's got nicely detailed open environments, a huge range of weapon models, and though a little more enemy variety would have been appreciated, there's still plenty to take in and admire.

While visuals are one thing, what may surprise some is the game's sense of humor. The few recurring characters are quite funny, mostly due to some solid voiceovers delivering witty, snappy dialogue. The Wall-E-like Claptrap robots, with their penchant for dancing and personalities that draw from seemingly bottomless wells of enthusiasm, consistently serve as a source of comic relief, and you're guaranteed to laugh at the self-deprecating style of Tanis' audio logs. Over the years we've seen so very many action-RPGs lose their sense of mood and character under an avalanche of statistics and magic effects, but that can't be said about Borderlands. It stands out because of its visuals, entertains thanks to its well-designed gameplay, and frequently tickles your sense of humor as foes squeal in pain as lighting shoots from their disintegrating foreheads while your character class jeers and taunts and moves on to the next target. A thumping soundtrack kicks into gear during battles, the game's overworld music tracks lock in well with the tone of the world, and everything in Gearbox's virtual space feels like it fits. Also on: PC, PS3

Closing Comments
Gearbox's Borderlands is without a doubt a slick, satisfying hybrid title for those who know what to expect. If you're a shooter fan curious what the world of Pandora is all about, then you should know that this is a product built on a foundation of statistical progression, character customization, and one that holds item acquisition high above interesting quest structure and narrative. At the same time, it plays like a shooter, requiring twitch skills to dominate the droves of enemies that stand in between you and your search for a mysterious vault. With the opportunity for up to four to join together for co-operative play, four character classes, a dizzying array of firearms, around 20 or so hours of content for a single playthrough and the option to restart with stronger enemies and loot, there's plenty of content here. It's a thoroughly enjoyable journey that offers a steady stream of rewards that remains convenient and accessible. It's something action role-playing game fans looking for an experience more up-close and brutal than genre entries of the third-person variety should have a blast with, and one of the more memorable products of 2009.

by:Charles Onyett

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Posted in: Action Rpg

DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue: PS3

It's only been a couple months since the release of the first DeathSpank and we're lucky enough to already have a sequel. The Diablo-style action RPG from the mind of Ron Gilbert (Secret of Monkey Island) proved to be one of the most addictive games of the year, so a second visit from the Hero to the Downtrodden is quite welcome. DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue is more of the same -- same gameplay, same music, same sense of humor. But that won't be a bad thing for anyone who enjoyed the first romp.

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DeathSpank is a hero's hero; a champion so intent on doing good that he can't help but assist every last poor soul that crosses his path. From rich aristocrats to redneck hicks, everyone has a quest for DeathSpank and he cannot say "no." That's what these games are all about: running errand after errand after errand for people. One minute you're recovering stolen feminine products for a damsel in distress and the next you're convincing a drunken pirate to give up the keys to his pirate ship. I happen to love the formula and find myself compelled to complete every last quest and sidequest. Along the way you'll gain experience, level up, and collect hundreds and hundreds of weapons and items to equip. However, you can get lost in all the loot.

Thongs of Virtue picks up a while after DeathSpank left off, with the hero having defeated who he thought was his arch nemesis -- only to learn there are others in the circle of evil that need be brought to justice. While this sequel does feel very much like the original and sends you on the same sorts of quests, you will be travelling to quite different locales. Gone are the mostly fantasy areas of DeathSpank. Here you'll be visiting battlefields that recall World War II, the Old West, and robot factories. You can play with a bunch of fun new weapons and battle new enemies.

The new ranged weapons are a significant improvement to your arsenal. I don't know about you, but I found the crossbows pretty ineffectual in the first game and ended up ignoring them. In Thongs of Virtue you have access to machine guns, bazookas, and lasers -- really fun stuff. They're effective at taking out enemies from a distance and provide many more strategic possibilities in battle. You also have a variety of explosives at your disposal such as poison and ice grenades.

Some of the sidequests are plucked straight from the first game. Remember the spelunker who was afraid to do his own spelunking and the Thongoloth researcher who wanted you to take readings for him? There is more of that business to do here. Even though I'd done this stuff before, though, I really didn't mind -- DeathSpank is just that much fun.

The first game allowed a second player to join in at any time and control DeathSpank's sidekick Sparkles the Wizard. Sparkles is back in Thongs of Virtue, but a second secondary hero has been added: Steve! Steve was raised by ninjas and rides a miniature unicorn, instantly making him one of the coolest videogame characters around. Unfortunately, two-player mode still leaves something to be desired as both players share a health bar and player two can't use any sweet loot. I prefer to do my DeathSpank questing on my own.

Don't worry if you haven't played the first game -- the episodes are self-contained and the storyline is ridiculous nonsense anyway. Handy in-game tutorials have been added that will explain the ins and outs of heroism as you make your way towards the fabled thongs. There is also a clever hint system where you find fortune cookies lying around that can be eaten for a nudge in the right direction. Also on: X360, PC, Mac

Closing Comments
If you enjoyed the first DeathSpank, you're gonna love Thongs of Virtue. It's just as addictive, just as pretty, and I dare say it's even a little funnier. Fans of quests and, more importantly, sidequests will find more missions here than they know what to do with. Hopefully there are more episodes on the way.

by: Daemon Hatfield

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: PSP

Long before I started my career here at IGN, I distinctly remember sitting with my friend and fiercely debating the pros and cons of purchasing the original Kingdom Hearts (we weren't made of money, after all). On the one hand, the game had sweet Final Fantasy cameos and awesome character designs. But on the other hand, it had all these Disney characters I didn't have any interest in. We eventually decided that the purchase was a wise decision after discovering that Tinker Bell was a summon spell. How could we go wrong with pixie power?

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Almost ten years later, I'm here reviewing the latest in Square Enix's fantastic series: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, a PSP-exclusive prequel that illuminates some plot points leading up to the original Kingdom Hearts. I'm always incredibly eager to try my hand at the Kingdom Hearts games because I have a personal attachment to the story, but I'm also the first one to point out the game's enduring problems. While Birth by Sleep does continue to suffer from some of the issues that have plagued it since the original, the latest in the series also boasts one of the best Kingdom Hearts battle systems to date, and is easily the most ambitious in its design.

So breathe easy, my friends: Birth by Sleep is definitely worth your money.

Let's start with the basics for all you newcomers out there. Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing game that combines Final Fantasy-style aesthetics with recognizable Disney worlds. Birth by Sleep is set before the events of the original Kingdom Hearts, so while you don't necessarily need to know what happened in the other games, your experience will be infinitely richer if you do.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep follows three separate storylines. At the beginning, players choose between three different characters: Terra, Ventus and Aqua. These three Keyblade wielders (and close friends) are tasked with defeating the recent uprising of creatures known as the Unversed. Along the way, they'll encounter some familiar faces and a few new threats.

These play sessions exist on separate save files, so once you start the story, you won't be jumping between them while you play. You can opt to start up a game and then quit out to a different campaign, but I found it very satisfying to play one character's story from start to finish. And as you might expect, you'll be rewarded for completing all three campaigns (the game keeps track of completed save files in order to unlock some yummy secrets).

Like the original Kingdom Hearts games, your hero in Birth by Sleep travels from world to world solving smaller problems and working towards one ultimate goal. While on a world, players move through the environments, collecting treasure and doing a small amount of exploring. The real draw, however, is the battle system, as enemies materialize around the player as he or she explores.

Fighting in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is awesome. Players can find, purchase or earn special commands that can be customized from the main menu. These commands can be selected with the d-pad during battle and executed with the triangle button. Once a command has been executed, the deck automatically cycles to the next command and the previous command enters a cool down period.

This system keeps the action fast and user-friendly, but also lets players customize their abilities at will. Commands can also be leveled up and melded to form new ones, so there's a mind-numbing amount of tweaking players have at their fingertips.

But commands are just one element in the formula. As you build up combos, a meter fills up on the side of the screen. If you use special commands to build up that meter, your character might enter a special "command style" which gives them a temporary but tremendous boost in ability. If, for example, Ventus were to cast a few thunder spells while filling the command meter, he would enter the Thunderbolt command style and his moves would be electrically charged.

If that wasn't enough depth for you, each hero also has access to attacks called Shotlocks, which are designed to help deal with large groups of enemies. These attacks take some skill to use effectively but the results are devastating.

But that's not all! Each hero also forges Dimension Links, or D-Links, with characters they meet as they travel. By activating a D-Link, your hero temporarily gains the abilities of that character. More commands means more variety when it comes to fighting, and that's a good thing.

This battle system is not only deep, but it also requires skill. This is one of the rare times when I'd actually encourage players to tackle the game on Proud difficulty mode (one step above Normal). Here, you need to dodge constantly, study enemy attack patterns, counter and even use commands like Stop and Poison to best basic opponents. The experience is much more enjoyable this way.

One of the complaints with past Kingdom Hearts games was that the mini-games included just weren't fun. Fortunately, most of the mini-games in Birth by Sleep are not only fun but are also tied in brilliantly with the main story (Except Rumble Racing. That mini-game does not control well). There's a full board available where your commands are used as playing pieces and those pieces level up when in use. So even though you're relaxing and taking a break from saving the universe, you're still developing your character in the process.

There's also a surprisingly robust multiplayer component to Birth by Sleep that goes down in a separate world, the Mirage Arena. Here, players can compete against each other or fight special arena battles that feature multiple waves of enemies. They can even play the Command Board mini-game together. Although there's definitely some framerate problems during arena matches, playing with two people is smooth enough and it's fun to tackle boss fights cooperatively. There are even special commands designed for multiplayer use, which is a great touch.

But one of the most impressive aspects of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is the fact that there are three whole stories being told. Although there's bound to be some weariness in seeing the same worlds multiple times, Square Enix did a respectable job in varying the challenges each hero faces on those similar worlds. These concurrent plots also encourage players to beat the game multiple times.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is not without issues. Just like its predecessors, the environments are painfully bare and have very little life to them. This stands in direct conflict with the otherwise eye-catching character models and particle effects, which never cease to impress. It would have been great to see the same care given to the worlds themselves, as they continue to feel static and hollow.

The stories in these worlds are also imperfect, as some of them lack the same punch as the overarching plotline of the Keyblade wielders and the Unversed. This is, of course, due to the fact that the heroes spend such a short time in each world so there isn't much room for character development, but it's still a shame that there are some boring spots to an otherwise intriguing tale.

But the most problematic issue in Birth by Sleep is the camera/lock-on system. The triggers work well most of the time to keep things under control, but in tight spaces the camera can freak out and it's tough to keep track of the action. Also frustrating is when the game decides to lock on to a nearby pot instead of the Unversed that's pummeling your face. I'll never understand why there wasn't a better priority system in place to keep that from happening.

Lastly, the load times can be a bit lengthy, especially when opening the main menu. These aren't "go make a sandwich" loads, but they're still a hassle.

Don't let these issues dissuade you from trying Birth by Sleep -- this is one seriously enjoyable adventure. There's plenty to do and the battle system is top notch. The developers even included options to alter the color depth and CPU speed of your game, which gives you control over how smoothly it runs.

Closing Comments
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has the best battle system in the series and one of the most ambitious storytelling devices yet; the game's few issues aren't enough to spoil the fun. With three characters to choose from, plenty of fun mini-games and a rich combat experience, Birth by Sleep comes highly recommended.
IGN Ratings for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

 

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Action Rpg

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Venetica -- it doesn't look good, character interactions are unintentionally humorous, the map is a total mess, the artificial intelligence is inconsistent at best, and the combat system is repetitive. Yet despite all these less-than-stellar qualities, I found myself having a good time messing around in the Southern coast of Italy as a girl named Scarlett.She's supposedly native to the region, but she speaks with a British accent. This is one of those games that falls under the "so bad it's sort of good" category.

On the highest settings, the PC version of Venetica is a lot nicer looking than its console counterparts and has a better framerate. If you drop down to medium settings though, it looks about the same as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 iterations. But great graphics don't equal a great game, or vice versa, and that's the case here.

This is one dorky title and it can get pretty melodramatic -- in the opening sequence Scarlett appears to fall off a bridge over a cliff, only for her to roll onto a house roof five feet underneath -- but I ended up appreciating the goofiness of it all.

The premise is also a little odd. You play as an orphan with no blood-related family who turns out to be Death's secret daughter. Except, you do have direct family: a half-brother named Leon that isn't really explained, just shoved into the situation. Also, when it's revealed that Death is Scarlett's father, she barely bats an eye. If I found out that information I'd be stunned, confused, and in denial. She accepts it in stride and never admits how strange the whole scenario is. I guess she's just better at coping than I am.

Still, Venetica is really about the relationship between the mortal world and the twilight world, and it's cleverly incorporated into the gameplay. There are certain enemies you can only kill if you switch to the twilight world, and you'll need to solve quests by using twilight powers you gain along your journey. For example, in most games, skeletons are scattered about for atmosphere. While the same is true in Venetica, as you progress through the game you can eventually interact with them, which is really cool. The way Venetica handles lock picking is also clever, and although it's essentially just a memory mini-game, it's skinned in an interesting manner.

Venetica's other saving grace is that the story is told in an interesting way. The game incorporates both morality and branching storylines, which may not be fully original features anymore but are still welcome additions. When you reach Venice there are three guilds you can choose to join, one that's focused on melee and technically the "dishonorable" choice, one that's based on necromancy and the "honorable" choice, and a third that's not associated with any morality or particular skill set. You can only choose one and based on your decision the story will unfold differently.

Throughout my time in Venice the worst thing I encountered was map inaccuracies. If you're someone who relies heavily on following a game for advice on where to go next, you'll end up really frustrated here. Just navigating the map in general is a pain, but at times the tracking dot will be in a completely wrong spot. For example, it showed that someone's house was in the middle of the Venetian waterways. Call me crazy, but I don't think anybody builds their house in the middle of a canal. After wandering around the outer city for a while I finally found the correct building -- on land -- but it took time and a lot of trial and error. I also had quest givers tell me the wrong place to go, or became frustrated because I didn't realize I lacked the proper twilight powers to complete a certain quest.

Despite these issues, this delightfully average role-playing game does offer plenty of quests; I clocked in a little less than 30 hours and still had a few quests I had yet to finish. Though they're standard fetch and puzzle quests, they're still fun to complete. The XP you receive levels Scarlett up and grants you points to increase her strength or mental prowess, as well as pick some new powers or melee moves.

Killing creatures and people is supposed to be an enjoyable element in a role-playing game, but the combat in Venetica is almost too straightforward. You can chain physical attacks with your melee weapon by properly timing your button presses, but it's just hitting the left mouse button over and over. I know it might sound bizarre, but the relatively mindless combat system didn't really bother me until almost 25 hours in when I was continually being mobbed. When you get attacked by groups it's almost a guaranteed death sentence.

Thankfully, when you die in Venetica you don't always kick the bucket. As the daughter of Death you have some privileges, and one of those is the ability to resurrect yourself after getting struck down if you have enough twilight energy. The only way to charge up your twilight energy though is to use a specific weapon (the Moonblade), so the game basically discourages you from using other types of armaments, which is a bummer. The game also does a poor job of explaining that you can actually upgrade the Moonblade, so I almost went into the final boss battle with a weapon that only had 16 damage points. That's not very much.

You'll also use an action bar to assign twilight powers (magic attacks) or blocks. One thing I found irritating was that there are different "block" abilities for each individual weapon, so if you start using a hammer but equipped the sword block, you have to go back into the menu system and replace it with the hammer block skill. It's cumbersome, so I mostly rolled around on the floor to get away from enemies instead of blocking at all.

I think my favorite part of playing Venetica was seeing bugs -- swords are randomly hovering in the air with no owner and gondola oars can be found sticking straight up out of the water with no ship in sight. The AI pathing is pretty hilarious, too. A little boy offered to show me the way through the large city of Venice, but he kept turning around in circles and wandering off the correct pathway. Animations add to the humor, as people move stiffly and lip-synching is poor. Also On: PS3, X 360

Closing Comments
If you don’t expect much from it, you’ll have a pretty good time with Venetica. However, without the patience to figure out quests and gameplay elements on your own, you’ll end up incredibly frustrated. If you don’t need a game to hold your hand, or mind that it’s not up to snuff in the graphics or combat departments, you’ll find that questing around Venice is a good time.

by: Kristine Steimer

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Posted in: Action Rpg

Moon Diver

Some games only appeal to a very specific niche of gamers. In the case of Moon Diver, the new downloadable title from studio Feel Plus, its appeal will rest solely with old-school gamers who want something new, yet familiar. Once known as Necromachina during its development cycle, Moon Diver looks and feels a bit like a new-age Strider title, and for good reason. After all, Moon Diver is the brainchild of Strider creator Koichi Yotsui.
Moon Diver is largely a 2D side scrolling action game just like Strider, but it also digs deeper with some light RPG elements. As you begin your adventure, you'll be able to choose from one of four playable characters. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and defeating enemies grants experience points that you can use to change attributes like health, power or magical abilities. This is what's most intriguing: Moon Diver isn't a static title, but instead one where you can tailor a character to your liking.

Character development isn't the only way you can customize your Moon Diver experience. There are magic spells strewn throughout all of the game's stages that, once found, can help strengthen your character's offensive or defensive abilities, or even grant you special skills. All of the stages are fairly lengthy, and most have secret rooms that can be explored as well. For those the game is catered toward, there's a lot to like about Moon Diver.

But something struck me few levels into my trek through the game's twelve stages. Moon Diver is hard. I'm a bona-fide old-school gamer, and I have plenty of experience with the outrageously hard games of the past. So I was struck not only by Moon Diver's inherent difficulty, but how much it spikes as you get further and further into it. It reminded me most of games like Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden, where the further you get, the more damage you end up taking from the same enemies you met in earlier stages This didn't ruin the experience for me (and in fact was an expectation with games from the era of titles Moon Diver is inspired by), but it's something you should be keenly aware of going in.

Thankfully, Moon Diver isn't quite as sadistic as Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden (at least in terms of enemy damage), but let this act as a word of warning for those who can't stomach a significant challenge. If you didn't grow up in an era of games like Moon Diver, or don't have much experience with them, chances are that Moon Diver will eat you alive. If you're more used to today's games that essentially want you to beat them, giving you quaint mid-level checkpoints and the like, Moon Diver will drive you up a wall. Why? Well just look at it this way. When you die on a stage during a solo playthrough, it's game over, forcing you to try the stage again from the very beginning. This is true whether you're a third of the way through the stage, or fighting the stage's boss. I don't have a problem with this, though, as this helps Moon Diver keep pace with the old-school vibe it's going for. But unfortunately, getting booted out to the main menu each time you die makes the whole process less palatable.

It's this very design that's going to turn off many gamers, especially those who are too young to have played older games. Moon Diver is the antithesis of today's games. I had to work hard to get through some of the game's later stages, and even dropped the difficulty down a notch just so I could see all twelve levels. Part of this no doubt has to do with the fact that Moon Diver is meant to be a multiplayer-centric game. But if you're playing primarily single-player like I did, get ready to grind some levels to make your character-of-choice more capable of taking on harder tasks. When coupled with severe difficulty arcs, the end result is either an experience that will delight you or frustrate you. It all depends on what you're looking for.

Considering how difficult Moon Diver is when playing solo, you would think multiplayer would be Moon Diver's strength. But you'd be wrong. When I jumped into an online game with some random players on PSN and played through a couple of stages with them it quickly got frustrating. Four characters is too much to keep track of (especially since each player could opt to use the same character), and with the sheer amount of enemies that appear on-screen at once, online play quickly turns into a mess. You can play with up to four players locally, too, though that will be equally as muddled. I found that the best way to play multiplayer in Moon Diver is with one other person, which allows you to follow your own character without getting lost in the action.

Moon Diver's multiplayer isn't its only downfall. Its overall presentation is inconsistent. Graphically, the game looks good sometimes, and subpar at others. The musical tracks are awesome, but the sound effects quickly become over-used and redundant. A lot of the in-game text also looks outright awful, and Moon Diver's story is utterly nonsensical. But then again, it isn't exactly Moon Diver's plot that should draw you into the experience. Indeed, if you can look past some of its flaws and are looking for a single-player experience, Moon Diver can be a lot of fun.
Closing Comments
Moon Diver is a good game for the niche of gamers it’s aimed at, but it’s also inconsistent and flawed. Many old-schoolers like myself will prefer to play it solo, but will find the difficulty arc is so extreme at times that it will require some level-grinding to get through. And there are many better alternatives for multiplayer fans that provide a less muddled and confusing experience. Yet, Moon Diver has an undeniable appeal. Its smooth gameplay harkens back to an early time in gaming, and apart from that, there are a lot of stages to explore, magical spells to find, and characters to upgrade and strengthen. Old-school players should jump in with few reservations, but everybody else should think twice before subjecting themselves to Moon Diver’s delightfully archaic take on gaming. On: PS3 also on X 360
Colin Moriarty

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Posted in: Action Rpg