Catherine follows the story of Vincent Brooks, a web programmer who has been in a long-term relationship with his partner Katherine. Despite this, Vincent is unwilling to commit to marrying Katherine despite loving her. One night, Vincent meets another woman at his local bar named Catherine. She represents everything Katherine is not, younger, and carefree without the need for a long-term commitment. Vincent has a one-night stand with Catherine and starts being plagued with nightmares as he wrestles between his love for Katherine and dealing with his feelings for Catherine.

When it first released, critics praised Catherine for dealing with concepts and themes that we often don’t see in games. But several years on I can’t help but feel that it’s all slightly sleazy. I like the idea of a video game dealing with infidelity, especially when I’m playing as the person who does so. But I don’t like that the game boils down its women to the most reductive of stereotypes. You can argue the game has feminist themes with the way it ends, but a late-game twist quickly removes any semblance of this idea.

Despite these sleazy themes, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find Catherine engaging. The situations that Vincent finds himself in are gut-wrenching, and one of his interactions with one of the girls is especially uncomfortable. The writing, no matter how problematic you find it, does an excellent job at establishing Vincent. He is someone you don’t want to root for, and someone I found myself wanting to steer in the right direction. Your mileage might vary, but you’d not be surprised to learn I ended up with Katherine at the end of my first run.

Catherine: Full Body is a complete version of the original game that released for Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2011. It introduces a wealth of new content that appeals to newcomers and veterans themselves. For one, it adds a new girl to pursue. Named Qatherine (yes, I know) she is a more demure option for Vincent. Her story slots in seamlessly to the content that was already here. Also, the entire game can be played in a remix mode, offering a better challenge to players who are familiar with the original game too.

The game splits itself into two distinct phases – one is in the normal world while the other is in Vincent’s nightmares. You’ll play through around seven days with your time as Vincent, with the way you play and behave affecting which path his story takes. The day plays like a pretty standard visual novel, where you’ll interact with characters and discussing events that have just transpired. The nightmare segments are the core of the gameplay and play out like a puzzle game in which Vincent must climb a tower. But more on that later.

When you’re outside of Vincent’s nightmares, you’ll spend your time drinking at the Stray Sheep. It’s here where you make a few decisions about how the story will play out. Vincent can talk to his friends, get their take on events, and respond to text messages from the three girls. Creating the text messages is intuitive and lets you create the message you want to send. Your chosen tone for these messages and the answers you give your friends in conversation affect which of the paths the story will take. You can also drink, and how drunk Vincent gets affects how quickly he moves in the nightmare too.

The nightmare is a dreamscape inhabited by other men, who appear as sheep to Vincent. In the nightmare, you’ll have to climb up giant staircases as they slowly collapse before you. Think of it as Jenga, except instead of removing blocks you move them around to create a path to climb. Vincent can push and pull blocks, as well as drop-down and sidle along the edges of the blocks he moves. The pressure comes from the fact that the level falls away below you, giving you little time to relax as you plan your next move. As such, a lot of the difficulty comes from the pressure placed on you, forcing you to make decisions on-the-fly.

As a puzzle game, Catherine is immaculately paced. You slowly develop your little strategies, formations that best let you climb quickly. Then, the game introduces a new block or a new mechanic that makes you change up your approach. It makes for a game that never really gets boring. As an example, ice blocks mean that Vincent slides across them, changing your approach to a tower completely. Finally, at the end of each nightmare, a macabre boss is waiting for you. Bosses alter the tower or characteristics of the tower to add extra pressure and are creepy to boot.

When it released all those years ago, Catherine was a challenging game. Notoriously difficult. To the point where I know people who didn’t finish it because they found themselves stuck in later levels. Thankfully, Full Body comes equipped with a suite of difficulty adjustments that make Catherine much more approachable. You can undo your last move, as well as play the game on a story-only mode to ease the challenge. Items can be purchased and used to remove some of the more difficult blocks from the area. You can even press a button, and the game will play for you. It’s excellent for those who want to experience the story.

If you choose to skip the puzzles and most of the conversations in the bar, you’ll probably breeze through one of Catherine’s many paths in about six to seven hours. But to get the full experience, a standard path takes about twelve to fifteen hours. Full Body introduces Qatherine and three of her endings, as well as a new conclusion for the other two girls, meaning that this game has nine possible endings. There’s a lot of stories to get through, though I’m not convinced it’s worth it. I managed to get three different paths in my time with the game, and a lot of story does overlap in the opening chapters.

There is a heap of extra modes to jump into outside of the story, though. These appeared in the original have but have been retooled. Babel is a super hard challenge mode that randomises each time you play it. Colosseum allows you to go head to head with another player as you both race to climb a tower. Both modes are now unlocked from the get-go (they could be unlocked in the previous release) and support online play too. In this pre-release period, I could only get two matches, but both performed admirably.

Being the predecessor to Persona 5, you can see the visual roots for that game in Catherine. The game presents as if it was an in-universe television show, which allows it to use ridiculous dramatic camera angles to help sell its story and drama. Everything is bright and vibrant, and the cast here, especially Troy Baker as Vincent, hand in excellent performances that help sell the intensity of their anxieties. The soundtrack is exceptional too, giving a cruisy late-night feel to the scenes where Vincent is at the bar. It’s just a shame the same few tracks are reused so much outside of the Nightmares. If you’re into it, you can play the game in Japanese too.

I’m at an odd crossroads for Catherine: Full Body. On the one hand, it’s easily a better game than its predecessor. It’s one of the most engaging puzzle games I’ve ever played, and for that it deserves credit. On the other, the introduction of a third girl to pursue doesn’t help the game’s undeniably sleazy undertones and presentation, and that’s a bit of a problem.

THE PLAYSTATION 4 VERSION OF THIS GAME WAS PLAYED ON A PLAYSTATION 4 PRO FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW. DIGITAL REVIEW CODE WAS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.

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Ever since Persona 5, I was confident that turn-based RPGs could be fast-paced. Before that, I still enjoyed them, but acknowledged they were kind of slow. To start the year off, Ackk Studios have put out YIIK: A Postmodern RPG. The name speaks for itself, really, but despite not having the ambition or polish of the bigger budget RPGs, YIIK puts in a solid effort to stand tall next to its contemporaries, while delivering a narrative experience like no other.

YIIK (pronounced why-two-kay) is best described as an indie, hipster fueled Earthbound style adventure. You play as Alex, a recent college graduate in the 1990s. He returns to his home town, and, bored with his life eventually witnesses a strange girl get whisked away by a strange otherworldly event. After seeing vision of the incident posted online, Alex obsesses over the missing girl and rallies some friends together to save her.The plot of YIIK is bizarre and you’ll often find yourself wondering what the hell is going on, but there’s still something endearing about it. The surrealism isn’t for everyone, however, and thankfully the goofy cast more than make up for it. They’re an eclectic bunch that fight with musical instruments and hula hoops and the like, but also have great chemistry amongst themselves. It’s both zany and cringeworthy to hear these people interact, but it’s still somehow great.

The game itself is structured like games like Final Fantasy or Earthbound. You’ll control Alex as he moves from town to town, chasing McGuffins and recruiting friends to his party to battle otherworld forces. Battles are turn-based, there’s a large overworld to explore and weird characters to engage with. YIIK looks and feels like a game from the late 90s but at the same time it’s been slightly tweaked to be a little bit more playable than older games.The battle system is my favourite thing about the game, which manages to feel very involving despite being turn-based. You can speed up battles to make grinding a little less of a grind. Every move has its own unique little mini-game attached to it too – some require perfectly timed button presses while others require you to complete a brief game of Pong. It sounds weird and annoying, but it’s not and keeps things interesting even during the grind (though you shouldn’t have to do too much of it).

When you’re not in battle you’ll be able to explore towns and dungeons too, though the game is at it’s best when throwing one of the six dungeons at you. Closer to a Zelda type dungeon than a Final Fantasy one, these are where the game has a bit of fun with your expectations and play off of tropes in other games that you’re accustomed to. You’ll also unlock abilities that’ll enable more exploration – using your long fringe to cut down bushes or your mate’s amp to blow through boulders and wreckage.While these moments are some of the strongest in YIIK, it’s the in-between padding, the interstitial busy work that really brings the pacing of the experience down. I don’t know what it was, but I really struggled to continue playing after completing a dungeon and found little motivation to do so until I got to another dungeon.

Perhaps this is due to the way that YIIK handles its inventory and equipment systems, which quite frankly pale in comparison to its contemporaries and are easily the weakest aspect of the game. All your weaponry, your consumables and everything else are just dumped into a mess of a list to sift through which is quite frankly just nightmarish.Similarly, when buying new equipment, there’s no way to directly compare the stats of what you’ve already got equipped to what you’re about to purchase here. It quite frankly just feels a little bit unfinished and given how important it is to level up your team it can be a chore to have to return to this degree of micromanagement after each battle or dungeon.

As you’d probably have guessed by now, YIIK is a weird looking game. Some may find it just plain ugly, others will find the charm in its so-bad-its-good kind of way. It’s hard to describe just how this game looks and moves, but it’s a very simple artistic direction that gets the job done and despite it’s shortcomings is pretty unique too.I personally liked the lo-fi approach the game was going for, it does a great job at establishing the mood for the setting, but it’s not a looker by any means. It doesn’t help that the enemy design is so bizarrely bland too – you’ll literally fight living poo and garbage cans with traffic cones for hands – but I guess that’s kind of on purpose.

The soundtrack and voice work are also some of the strongest aspects of the whole experience too. While it’d have been easy to lean on some edgy sounding synths, instead YIIK utilises a wide breadth of talent (including Toby Fox of Undertale fame) to deliver a soundtrack that’s kooky but upbeat. Combine this with some strong voicework and you’ve got a pretty decent offering for a game of this caliber from a smaller developer.

THE NINTENDO SWITCH VERSION OF THIS GAME WAS PLAYED FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW. DIGITAL REVIEW CODE WAS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.

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The Digimon franchise never hit the same heights of popularity as its monster collecting contemporaries, but has succeeded in consistently maintaining its own offbeat brand. While Pokemon plays things fairly safe, Digimon games have been a bit more experimental with gameplay and story. When I played Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth a few years ago I found it’s systems to be somewhat opaque and the gameplay repetitive, but I could see the appeal for Digimon fans in collecting and exploring the Digital World. While a great deal of Hacker’s Memory is similar or straight up recycled from the original Cyber Sleuth, this time around I found the story and overall experience to be much more compelling.

It’s best not to think of Hacker’s Memory as a sequel – that might be setting expectations too high. It’s more of a side story – Cyber Sleuth Gaiden, if you will. Taking place alongside the story of Cyber Sleuth, we follow protagonist Keisuke through a story weaving between the real and digital worlds. He’s fairly unassuming as far as player characters go, taking a back seat as the story unfolds around his accompanying cast. This story is told piece by piece as you complete tasks from an online job board. As essentially an internet handyman, you’ll be fighting rival hacker groups, hacking servers to help a client win competitions, and along the way small pieces of story are unveiled. Erika, a character you encounter early in the piece, is central to the game’s plot. She’s reserved, rarely leaves the confines of her small, computer-filled room, and suffers from a rare condition which is kept manageable by uploading and storing her memory in digital form. This idea is used to explore some unexpectedly interesting themes around our real-world and online personas.The ‘Digital World’, or EDEN in the game’s parlance, is a physical representation of the cyber world. People log into this world and physically inhabit the space through advanced VR-style technology. EDEN is inhabited by digital monsters. People understand them simply as computer programs and tools to be used by hackers for their own ends, though this understanding will be questioned as the story progresses. For gameplay purposes though, Digimon are important to the appeal of Hacker’s Memory. When you encounter a Digimon enough in EDEN, you can synthesize your own copy of that monster to train and have fight alongside you.

Collecting and fighting Digimon in Hacker’s Memory will appeal to different people for different reasons. Fights are fairly typical for a Japanese style RPG. – two teams of monsters enter and perform actions back and forth until only one team remians. Domination Battles are a new addition to the series, and involve a light strategy game of capturing and holding map tiles, and defending them in regular Digimon battles. In these regular battles you can directly control each move, however I found the inclusion of an Auto Battle option helped me enjoy the game in a way I didn’t expect. Rather than agonising over each move, or selecting the same sequence of repeatedly once I’d found a working strategy, I tackled battles from a higher level perspective. By building a team appropriate for the challenges ahead, I took joy in watching my team fight on their own. This was useful in most battles, as many of the standard encounters are mind-numbingly easy to deal with, so it was nice to do away with the tedium of actively choosing the same basic moves to deal with basic, grindy encounters. Bosses sometimes took some more thought and care in team composition, but were satisfying to topple with a well crafted team and occasionally my direct control where nuance was necessary.

Basic, grindy battles serve an important function – they’re key to building stats of your Digimon, specifically their Camaraderie stat, which increases with each successful battle. You’ll need to be cognisant of these stats to Digivolve your monsters into more powerful forms, and so in this way it is nice to have an easy way to grind for these stats. It’s unfortunate that the environments you’ll be traversing between these battles are plain uninteresting and random encounters with basic enemies while you’re just trying to walk somewhere to complete a quest can make simple travel through these boring computer worlds feel much more tedious than need be.In the end I just played these sections essentially on auto-pilot, turning on Auto-Battle each time an encounter appeared and just inattentively moving around the world until I got to my destination. It seems like a bit of a cop-out to just say that the game got more enjoyable when I paid less attention, but after a while I did grow to appreciate the way it can be played without full attention. I found it to be an almost calming experience – something you can play to relax and ease your mind (until story events or more difficult encounters demand your attention, of course).

Whether that style of play appeals to you or not will largely dictate whether you’ll enjoy the game as a whole. There is a neat story to be told in this world, despite the world being mostly recycled from the last game, however if you don’t find joy in the grinding and collecting elements you’ll probably find yourself too frustrated with the pace and general gameplay to bother. The game also expects that you’ve played the first Cyber Sleuth – you won’t be completely lost without knowledge of the prior game – but it does throw around references and past characters wildly, so some familiarity helps. There are also some issues worth mentioning with the localisation. One notable concern is that other male characters seem to talk to Erika condescendingly, calling her ‘the little lady’ as though she’s not right there, which seems to cheapen her importance as a character. I was helpfully advised that in the Japanese version of the game the title that characters use to refer to Erika implies respect and endearment, so it seems the way characters originally interacted with Erika has been somewhat lost in translation.

THE PS4 VERSION OF THIS GAME WAS PLAYED FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW. A DIGITAL CODE WAS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.

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In a dystopian future, your life’s direction is decided for you. No longer do humans need to worry about things like their career, every person’s aptitude for different tasks benefiting society is decided by a central computer. This computer is constantly scanning and reassessing people, determining their likelihood to benefit society, or to worsen it. As a computer, it has limited means with which to physically affect the world though, and this is where we take on a role as an inspector or enforcer. Enacting the system’s will for the betterment of society.

Set in the same universe as the popular anime series, Mandatory Happiness joins the visual novel genre, one of niche popularity alongside games like Danganronpa, Zero Escape and Phoenix Wright. Mandatory Happiness sticks much closer to the traditional visual novel formula than those aforementioned series however. There are no logic puzzles, no trials, no action elements whatsoever. Instead, Mandatory Happiness plays much more like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ novel. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but something worth knowing before going in.Told from the point of view of an Inspector or an Enforcer, depending on which character you choose at the outset, Mandatory Happiness delves into some fairly heavy themes during even it’s initial chapters and does so in a way that doesn’t feel cheap or tokenistic. The aforementioned AI system, Sybil, will judge the people you meet, and order that they be allowed to live, be forced into mental rehabilitation if they are not yet lost, or be Eliminated if they are deemed a threat to society and beyond recovery. The morality of offloading life or death decisions to an all-knowing computer is one of the most exciting elements of Psycho Pass’s story and will be familiar to fans of the show.

The game does throw a lot of terminology at players and to a degree assumes some familiarity with the world. It’s not obtuse enough that you won’t be able to make sense of things, but for people entering this world for the first time, a detailed reference is kept in the pause menu which will clarify any topics or entities mentioned during story scenes to make sure you’re not left in the dark.After opening strongly, I was disappointed with how the game’s main story progressed. The opening chapters present some incredibly interesting moral quandaries but the central plot that is revealed a little further in is far more predictable, cliche and shallow in comparison. It’s hard to explain my reasoning without discussing the plot and ruining it for anyone, but I found the major revelations in the storyline utterly predictable and painfully signposted. It might just be because things began in such a thought-provoking manner, but the central theme of ‘mandatory happiness’ just felt sterile.

The bulk of your time will be spent reading, characters interact through sparsely animated dialogue sections and inner monologue. Occasionally during chapters you will be faced with a choice which could possibly have an effect on your story’s direction entirely, or affect how favourable another character will behave towards your character. The game doesn’t force you to make split second decisions like The Walking Dead, but the kinds of decisions you will make feel similarly morally ambiguous. The decisions can lead to an early end though so make sure to save regularly, there are no checkpoints or auto-saves.The game’s dialogue is almost entirely voice acted by the Japanese cast of the anime, which does help the game feel right at home as part of the greater Psycho Pass world. I often found that I read fast enough that I would interrupt voice lines by skipping to the next piece of dialogue. This is mildly jarring, but every character’s dialogue can be turned on or off, or have volume adjusted individually so it’s an issue easily rectified. Dialogue is accompanied by artwork of the characters speaking, but there isn’t much variety in their animations. Most characters have only a few poses and facial reactions throughout the game which really don’t do much to enforce the story they’re part of. Dramatic events can have their impact entirely lost when characters on screen barely react beyond a slight smirk. Characters fade in and out as their lines begin and end, which slows down progress of dialogue. It’s something that like the skipping dialogue you can get used to, but was a mild annoyance throughout the game.

CONCLUSION

There’s a lot of story here for those looking to delve further into the Psycho Pass world. Two characters give two different points of view from which to follow the storyline, and there are a bunch of endings and story directions that can be taken depending on the choices made along the way. I suspect Mandatory Happiness might be more appreciated by someone already immersed in the franchise, who has been eagerly awaiting more perspectives into the authoritarian dystopia of 2112, but as someone only tangentially familiar with the show I found that the story made promises of exploring the social impact of a world dictated by an all knowing computer only to instead focus on an uninspired side story. If you’re interested in the setting the Psycho Pass anime is definitely a better place to start, and for someone looking to play a visual novel style game there are many out there more enjoyable than this. Mandatory Happiness is one for the fans only.

The PlayStation Vita version of this game was primarily used for the purpose of this review. 

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Let’s face it, we all know the story of The Force Awakens by now, but what’s most important about a Lego game is how it handles the events and characters of the story it’s trying to re-tell. In the case of Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there is simply little to nothing negative that can be said about Traveller’s Tales’ charming and incredibly accurate coverage of the events of Episode VII.

Whilst the newest installment of the Lego Star Wars franchise may only cover a single film, this has given the developers at Traveller’s Tales the opportunity to create their most narratively-faithful and charming title to date, combining the events of the film (including the most part, which I won’t spoil) with the charm and humor that we’ve come to expect from the Lego IP. The Force Awakens isn’t just a faithful adaption of the franchise as of yet, but it manages to raise the bar quite a bit for future installments of both the Star Wars and unrelated titles within the Lego IP.The game does compensate at times for the fact that we’re only covering a single film’s worth of material, which mostly comes down to comic relief and smaller character moments, which sometimes work and sometimes they don’t, though most returning players might not be affected too much by it as newcomers would. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens on a narrative front is a charming, fun and faithful experience that won’t just appeal to Star Wars fans, but newcomers and Lego fans alike.

Players have grown to expect the same old song and dance when it comes to the graphical aspects of Lego games, though as of Lego Marvel’s Avengers the attention to detail and faithfulness to the visual representation of the source material has taken a pretty significant leap when it comes to visual fidelity and even cinematography. Scenes like the Millenium Falcon escape and the battle of Starkiller base are presented in incredibly familiar fashions, with some of the cutscenes being basically 1:1 framed recreations of the film itself, which lends a lot to the game in terms of authenticity.Textures and geometry detail in general, are what you’d expect from a Lego game, though the overall product does seem a lot more refined and technically capable than most of its predecessors. Cutscenes and aerial sequences like the Millenium Falcon escape, in particular, are quite stunning to look at considering the graphical formula the brand has been practicing the past few years.

Some of the most notable improvements lay in the lighting and the animations, which have taken a huge step forward. Characters, in particular, look much more alive and traversal looks and feels a lot smoother than we’re accustomed to from previous titles. Facial animations are what you’d expect, though that’s always been part of the charm of the brand. Smaller droids and characters also fill the screen as the recreation of the Star Wars universe truly does feel more alive than it has ever looked before in the Lego dimension (pun intended.)Analyzing the Lego games has always been a particularly hard thing to do, as the core of most of the titles does feel awfully familiar from game to game. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, however, does feel like one of the most renewing and well-forged titles that Traveller’s Tales has produced in the last few waves of their popular adaptions.

The strongest aspect of this newest installment is the fact that the game throws some much-needed diversity into the classic Lego gameplay formula, combining traditional platforming sections with intense dogfights and even shooter sections, which is something entirely new to the brand.The dogfights, in particular, are more well-crafted than you’d initially expect. Recreating iconic sequences such as the Tie-Fighter escape the game either puts you behind the wheel or in the shooting position as the game delves into extended dogfights that often rival the main gameplay sections in terms of gameplay design. Whilst the controls and combat systems are fairly simple in use and design, these levels simply feel like a joy to play as I  piloted the Millenium Falcon in my escape from Jakku.

The second most noteworthy addition, in my opinion, was the inclusion of new Gears of War-like cover sections, which has the players take cover in shooting sections that are used to take care of heavily armed enemies. On paper, it may sound repetitive, but these sections are actually a pretty nice change of pace in some levels as they never really feel out of place , though in some cases the shooting mechanic itself does leave a lot to be desired.
There’s also a good amount of puzzles throughout the game, though some mini-games which include visual passwords and such to move on to the next part of the level do seem to get a bit repetitive after a while.

A lot of the core gameplay remains unchanged, though the formerly noted additions and a good and the puzzles keep the pacing fresh as you move throughout the film, which should take about 6 hours for the main story, with some additional time left to replay levels, find hidden objects and play side-missions that should complete your experience quite nicely.Quite frankly, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens may be the strongest title that Traveller’s Tales has given us as of yet when it comes to adapting popular franchises. Providing fun, renewing and diverse gameplay, the game more than makes up for its length by the fact that what’s there is just so fun to play. If there’s one Lego game you’re picking up this summer, you better make sure it’s The Force Awakens!

The PS4 version of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens  was primarily tested for the purpose of this review.

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Alchemy is the art of taking materials and synthesizing them into something else. This is the story of Sophie, a fledgling alchemist who is continuing in her late grandmother’s footsteps providing alchemical services to the city of Kirchen Bell. Beginning the tale, Sophie is fairly unskilled in her art, but inspired by her admiration of her gran is determined to improve herself so that she may be helpful to the people of the city. The game begins with Sophie discovering a mysterious book (fancy that) in her atelier. Shockingly the book is able to talk, but is also suffering from a horrible case of book-amnesia. Sophie discovers that when she writes alchemy recipes into the book, it begins to recover some of it’s lost memories. We discover that the book’s name is Plachta, and Sophie decides to push forward and expand her alchemy skills so she can help Plachta regain her memories.Exploring the city as well, we encounter some important characters who can help Sophie gather materials for her alchemy or help provide services back in town. There’s plant obsessed Oskar, son of the city’s vegetable seller, the high-class and well studied fencer Monika, along with a bunch of others Sophie meets in her travels. Helping out her fellow townsfolk by using her alchemy skills is an important goal for Sophie, and motivates her as much as her desire to help Plachta regain her memories. Sophie’s story is not of massive scale magical world ending events and life-or-death twists. In contrast to most Japanese RPGs, Sophie’s story sticks close to home. It’s about getting to know the people around you,  and helping them out for nothing but the sake of being helpful.Much like with the story, Sophie eschews grand scale in favour of intricate detail on characters and their individual plights. Each new character that is introduced is beautifully presented. Their clothing, their manner, and their overall designs all combine to define characters and give them their own personality and depth. Most major cutscenes (and even some seemingly minor ones too) are fully voiced which helps further define people as characters more-so than just text on a screen.Areas outside of the city are more basic in their presentation, generally consisting of some randomly distributed gathering points and monsters, but you will find more deliberately constructed areas where their layout is integral to the plot. Even the more basic areas are still pleasant to look at though. Exploring a forest or a quiet beach can be quite relaxing purely thanks to the peaceful visual and aural ambience. It makes for a wonderfully refreshing presentation in contrast to the all-action high-stakes norm in the genre.Atelier Sophie is a relaxing game to play. You are generally pretty free to go about your business in whichever way you want to. You can choose to go out and gather materials for your alchemy, or wander around the city talking to friends and townsfolk. When exploring out of town, you select a location on a world map which takes you to a small, self-contained area with monsters to avoid or fight while you collect materials. Battles are fairly straight-forward turn-based affairs. Basic attacks and special character specific skills can do damage to opponents and help turn the direction of battle in your favour with status effects. Characters can take an offensive or defensive stance and in longer fights when a chain link meter fills up, allowing characters will to do extra attacks or perform guards after they have acted in their turn. In longer fights you can activate Special Guards or Attacks which involve multiple members of the party acting with great strength and this can be ridiculously helpful to defend against heavy attacks or take down strong creatures. Monsters appear on the map and only engage when they catch you. They can usually be avoided if you’re keeping your wits about you. You will of course need to fight occasionally for the sake of developing your party’s skills and abilities but if you just want to go and find a specific kind of leaf and have no desire for fighting that day, that is entirely possible.

Walking around and talking to people in the city will pull you into their personal stories, and give Sophie ways to use her alchemy to help them. You can take requests from the owner of the Café which could involve gathering materials, slaying specific monsters or synthesising specific items. Characters will ask Sophie to synthesise items for them as well which can progress their individual plotlines and often unlock services that these people can provide in return for Sophie’s help.Alchemy is the core of Atelier Sophie. At your atelier, you can combine different categories of materials in your alchemy cauldron, according to fairly lenient recipes. You only need to use a specific category of item in most cases, rather than needing a strict list of ingredients. The game introduces alchemy and it’s complexity very gradually, beginning with the basic combination of ingredients. You later discover that you can imbue the final product with traits derived from its ingredients. Things like stat boosts, higher selling prices and passive skills can be instilled in items which allow dedicated alchemists to fully personalise their equipment to how they want each party member to act in battle. Understanding alchemy is important to success in battle, as well as in progressing the plotlines of each character and the overall story.

The progress of gameplay and story can feel a little directionless at times if you’re used to games pushing you to meet specific quests to push forward a narrative. Atelier Sophie doesn’t tell you what to do, but instead encourages you to just go about collecting, synthesising and talking to people, allowing the story to just happen as you go about your business. You get some general advice on how to trigger the next story event, but often it is vague enough to be of little use. I found this jarring at first, but once settled in to the idea of just going about things at my own pace I realised that events just progressed along. It’s nice not feeling under pressure, letting you discover and progress without the stress of objective arrows and progress bars.

That really sums up my feelings on Atelier Sophie, it’s a Japanese-style RPG at your own pace. It’s a game about being a nice person, forming friendships and strengthening them through helping people with their personal struggles simply because it’s nice to be nice. It’s about always having somewhere comfortable to come home to after you’re done exploring.  If you’re a fan of JRPGs and won’t be put off by the slower pace and smaller scale storyline, there’s a lot to like in the story, characters and deep alchemic systems of Atelier Sophie.

The PS4 version of Atelier Sophie was primarily tested for the purpose of this review

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I gotta hand it to Drinkbox Studios. After the success of Guacamelee, they ought to have been able to produce a game for whoever on whatever, but instead they stuck true to their roots and made Severed, a first-person, touch-based, role-playing dungeon crawler currently exclusive to the PlayStation Vita. It’s clear they had a particular vision in mind and believed it suited to the Vita. They’re taking a gamble, but in terms of game design, it’s a huge pay-off for Vita owners. Severed’s story takes shape as dungeon-crawlers so often do; somethings are missing that need found. The tropes are rather conventional, but done well enough. As an RPG, you become invested in your character and her journey through the overall tone and atmosphere of the game.Story beats are conveyed through comic-like cut-scenes and through pretty significant environmental storytelling. Severed doesn’t entirely rely on hand-feeding you a huge amount of story information, instead allowing to interpret lore and backstory for yourself as you explore the eerie setting.  In this sense, it reminds me of Dark Souls or the like. You’ll come across some pretty messed up environments and enemies, with little explanation as to why they’re so terrifying.

All in all, I was kept intrigued and motivated to progress through the game, an achievement I also attribute a great deal to the game’s stellar presentation.Drinkbox’s art design and presentation is simply stunning. It’s bears some resemblance of Guacamelee with some elements seemingly taking inspiration from Mexico’s Day of the Dead, whilst combining an art style reminiscent of Olly Moss’ work in Firewatch and reminding me of Japanese anime. The game is colourful, but simultaneously sinister.

Despite being heavily stylised the world feels alive and I was often totally immersed into the game. Obviously the sound design contributes greatly in this sense. Enemy design is exceptional, blending the tone and style of the game with its gameplay. Sound here plays an important role again, cueing enemy attacks, powerups and more.

In summary, presentation perfectly blends the game’s story and gameplay. There is a near seamless flow that heavily immersed me in the game much to my surprise, considering it’s traditional obtrusive touch-control approach. It just works so excellently, both conceptually and technically; I never ran into any slowdown on the ageing hardware of my OLED Vita. Think of Severed as a sublime combination of the Legend of Zelda and Fruit Ninja.

I found the game design simply flawless. The dungeon’s are incredibly well designed and laid out. There are secrets and challenges abound, puzzles galore and hidden areas to uncover, but it never becomes overly frustrating or obstructive in terms of the game’s flow. As you gradually develop new powers, the game invites you to retrace your steps and open up new areas. Strange or obscure symbols now have meaning encouraging you to race back to question marked areas on your map in anticipation of what you’ll find next. Every new discovery rewards you and allows you to upgrade your character, where the initially simplistic role-playing elements gradually become deeper. Whilst being a relatively abbreviated RPG, the depth and amount to explore amounts to a very satisfying playthrough.

When it comes to Severed’s gameplay, I was initially doubtful of its touch-controls, but I had no reason to be. As you navigate Severed’s world, you move from node to node, circular areas you can pan around horizontally. On occasional nodes, you’ll run into enemy encounters that will spawn around you in a circle. You attack and parry enemies by swiping the touch screen, with a substantial array of enemies requiring a variety of approaches. All other navigation requires you to use the physical buttons or thumbsticks. The mechanics are handled well, building upon the progress the likes of Infinity Blade have made. The controls were immersive rather than obtrusive; I nearly missed my bus stop as I frantically swiped back on forth.

Typically complaints of touch-based controls persist though. I occasionally felt the touch screen was imprecise at times and having my fingers hovering over the screen sometimes blocked the all important timers for enemy attacks. I’d have also appreciated greater options in terms of controls; as the square, triangle, circle and ‘x’ buttons are treated the same as the directional pad, I had to get used to using left and right to pan around and triangle to move forward. A minor, technical complaint I know. For Vita owners, Severed is a must-play, but if this game eventually gets ported over to mobile platforms or even to console or PC, I’m sure I’d say the same. The game design and presentation alone are reason enough I believe to play this game, let alone the largely well handled touch-controls, story and enemy design. Severed nails dungeon-crawling mechanics, introducing an unconventional camera perspective and controls with tremendous success. I’d argue this is the best Zelda game you can get on PlayStation platform.  Those that wanted Guacamelee 2 ought to be impressed with this release.Drinkbox have really proved themselves with Severed, I eagerly anticipate what they do next.

<em>The Vita version of Severed was primarily tested for the purpose of this review.</em>

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Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth puts you in the shoes of Aiba, a girl (or boy, you choose) who is part of an online forum community that becomes involved with an infamous hacker group. In Cyber Sleuth’s world, people can work and socialise in a digital world called EDEN, which could be described as a massive virtual reality internet. Creatures known as Digimon have been inhabiting EDEN, and are thought to be hacking programs created by humans for nefarious purposes. As our character soon finds out though, this is not quite the whole truth. The story is chiefly told through conversational cut scenes between characters as they discover the truth behind Digimon, the nature of EDEN itself and how it relates to the human world.While the story of Cyber Sleuth eventually does become interesting, the first fifteen to twenty hours will see you tediously progressing through countless mini-stories that are, to put things bluntly, uninteresting. Characters you meet are generally shallow cardboard cutouts, adhering to overdone anime tropes, whose individual concerns seem unrelated to your more interesting main adventure. Their stories really feel like filler designed to make the game last longer but have the unfortunate side effect of delaying the actual interesting story that comes later. Even worse, a lot of these missions essentially boil down to ‘walk to a place and talk to a person, then walk back and turn in the quest’. It becomes very tedious, especially when the same locations are used over and over at times. Push past the initial tedium though and the story starts taking some super enjoyable twists and turns.

You couldn’t accuse Cyber Sleuth of being ugly by any stretch. The game features real world locations like Nakano Broadway and Shinjuku which are a joy to look at. They’re full of little details. Advertisements for in-universe anime and games, as well as showing some real world brands like Tower Records and Sega to lend the places some authenticity. The EDEN worlds are initially quite interesting too, looking all bright blue and appropriately science-fiction like. Over time though, EDEN locations begin to feel very samey. Visiting the same kind of cyberspace blue computer land with different layouts can become pretty tiresome. Some of the most interesting locations are where the real and EDEN worlds intersect. While I won’t say much more for fear of spoiling things, this allows for some intriguing looking locales which evoke an atmosphere similar to those of the TV World locations in Persona 4.The Digimon are the stars of the show here though, and each one looks beautiful. Every single monster I encountered felt like it had been carefully crafted, which is quite a feat when there are this many Digimon to deal with. Everything from the series mainstays like Agumon and Gatomon to more obscure monsters look about as good as I could imagine them looking, it’s really impressive.

The music too is worth noting. While many themes used in battles and common areas can become grating after a while, I found myself a few times sitting back and just enjoying the tunes.
Playing Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, you will split your time between exploring the human and EDEN worlds, battling, and raising your Digimon. Battles are fairly standard fare for a Japanese RPG. They are turn based, with the order of actions displayed in a list on the right of the screen. Digimon each have elements and types that determine the effectiveness of specific kinds of attacks on other types of monster, and they learn new techniques through levelling up. Each time you encounter a type of Digimon a bar will fill, and when this reaches 100% you will be able to create a copy of that Digimon for yourself back at a DigiLab.Raising Digimon is the main hook of the game. If anything will keep you pressing on for just one more hour, it will be the joy of training, raising and Digivolution. The entire process is initially explained in a wall of text and diagrams which for me didn’t quite sink in straight away, but once you’ve got the hang of things it is super easy to sink hours and hours building your team into monstrous companions. There is a lot of grinding involved in training your Digimon which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but definitely something worth noting.

For a game that wears the importance of it’s story on it’s sleeve, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth takes far too long meandering in relatively meaningless events before it’s story becomes interesting. The setting and concept of parallel physical and human worlds does lead to some genuinely enjoyable events later on, but it is a shame that you need to play for so many hours to get there.

That said, once you’ve managed to understand the process of Conversion, Digivolution and devolution, training your Digimon to their Ultimate forms can be incredibly rewarding. Seeing your old favourites in all their modern 3D glory is wonderful. It’s a shame that the story takes so long to become engaging, especially since the title itself places such importance on the story, but if you think you’ll enjoy training Digimon enough to persevere through the initially slow narrative there is a lot of fun to be had with Cyber Sleuth.

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TT Games is back with, you guessed it, another LEGO game! Following 2013’s Lego Marvel Superheroes, this time around it is the Avengers who get their turn with a title based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But how solidly built is this latest outing compared to the previous instalment?

Bridging what is essentially Marvel’s ‘Phase Two’ of superhero movies, the game is a movie tie-in to both The Avengers as well as Avengers: Age of Ultron, with levels thrown in from intertwining movies such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3. Starting with the opening scene of Age of Ultron, the game then throws players back to the first film, to chronologically play through.

Lego Marvel’s Avengers does everything right in terms of how it looks; which is the oddest thing for a Lego game. Environments are all modelled after those seen in the films, but the lighting and detail on the characters and environments makes me think that there is so much more that could have been done with the game itself rather than simply be a movie tie-in. The good thing is that this game shows how far graphic capabilities are coming in terms of console games, which can only mean they’ll get better from here. Other than that, the game itself is practically just another TT Games’ Lego game – the HUD and menus are exactly the same as pretty much every other Lego tie-in.
One of the most entertaining parts, although it does begin to wear thin after awhile, is TT Games’ trademark ability of adding in visual humour to an otherwise serious moment; think Nick Fury drinking a milkshake while delivering lines, chickens on the helicarrier, or the constant appearance of Stan Lee everywhere.

The score is practically just the Avengers OST directly laid over the top, but one of the most grating things is the fact that 90% of dialogue is ripped straight from the movies – background audio included. While this is clearly done to make the game a little more authentic, it is really jarring to not only hear the same quotes over and over again, but the sounds from the movie still embedded in the clip and not scrubbed from it. It almost seems rushed, as though they had a day before release to get it done, and it really takes you out of it.

There really isn’t anything special to be said about the gameplay here; if you’ve played one of TT Games’ Lego incarnations, you’ve practically played them all. Characters are paired up and switchable, each with a power relevant to the level (or relevant to the story being played), and players guide the characters through the level destroying as much as physically possible while solving small puzzles to unlock collectibles and amass a large amount of ‘studs’ (you know, those little pieces that come out when things break).

Although the gameplay is stock-standard for TT Games, they still manage to make it fun; there’s just something about wandering around as a Lego minifigure and smashing everything to find as many studs as possible, and in the process accidentally breaking a civilian or blowing something up and destroying yourself in the process. Tag team attacks are introduced between the two playable characters onscreen to double the damage, which are helpful when in a tight situation. Free play makes the game a little better and more bearable – instead of being shoehorned into the movie tie-in, you can wander Manhattan or a recreation of Asgard as any character you want – but here you’ll note that there are omissions of characters compared to Lego Marvel Superheroes, such as Spider Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic four. Other inclusions from the now Disney-owned empire of Marvel just don’t quite cut it, even though there is a significant roster of playable characters.

Hopefully with the fact that there is set to be a ‘season pass’ (for Lego? Madness, right?) there will be increased content not entirely focused on just the MCU, but other aspects of the universe as well.

There’s no denying that the formula for the game is sound, as with pretty much every TT Games offering. But while it is another fun game to occupy time, Lego Marvel’s Avengers feels like it is dropping the ball a little when it comes to Lego games. Being stuck in a movie tie-in really limits the initial fun that can be had, and with poorly-ripped movie dialogue thrown in whenever they feel like it, the game feels more like a chore than a bout of fun that even die-hard fans might have trouble being entertained by.

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With ‘franchise fatigue’ beginning to take its toll on the long-running series, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India returns to the side-scrolling adventures as seen prior in the last Chronicles instalment, China. Being the first Assassin’s Creed game I’ve jumped into since Revelations (long time, I know!) I wasn’t sure what to expect, diving into this episode. But is this the game to bring the series out of monotony, or does it fall as flat as a Templar thrown off a rooftop?Playing as Arbaaz Mir, an assassin in India, it is your goal to track down the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a Piece of Eden held by the Templars. In the midst of tensions between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company, Arbaaz must fight the Templar Order and protect those valuable to him, including his mentor Hamid, and his secret lover, Princess Pyara Kaur.Unlike the main series, Chronicles is presented as a 2.5D side-scroller; characters and environments are rendered in 3D, but the POV is from the side. This makes the game very different from the main franchise, while still maintaining the AC ‘feel’. Transitioning between foreground and background areas is also included, adding an extra sense of depth to the world, and giving the player more to explore than just left and right. Objective points, item locations and hiding spots are illuminated in the game to make it easier for the player, as are the lines of sight of the enemies, allowing the aspect of stealth to still be a big part of the game.The world of the game itself is vividly painted in orange and red hues, reflecting the game being set in India. The cutscenes also show this, being fluid watercolour-esque images rather than computer generated, with the addition of patterns also reminiscent of the Indian style. The enemies speak in the native tongue, and the music also has an Indian flair, really capturing the essence of the game’s local theme.When I first started playing this game, my initial thoughts harked back to a simpler time, namely the original ‘Prince of Persia’ (That is, the 1989 PC game, for those of you playing at home). The basic running/jumping/climbing aspects are there, coupled with grapples and slides that feel quite fluid in motion. Stealth is, of course, a large part of the game too, but is also quite fun and a lot easier with the fact that the lines of sight from enemies are onscreen visually for players to see. All of Arbaaz’s secondary items are tactical rather than weaponized, and mostly used for distraction or cover during missions, including smoke bombs and noise bombs. Needless to say, combat itself is also very simple and easy to master, with blocking, quick attacks and heavy slashes making it more of a dance than a fight.The biggest issue the game has is the fact that while it feels relatively fun, there is a lot of repetition. Each level follows a very basic principle of “objective, side objective, bonus task” that becomes very bland once it’s been done more than two missions in a row. Add to this the fact that while the gameplay itself is fun, the controls are quite fiddly; the amount of times I went for a takedown and instead started slicing someone with my sword while they alerted others made me frustrated and had me restarting the level again.If this game was itself an Assassin going for a ‘leap of faith’, I can’t help but feel it’d only JUST be landing in the hay cart, maybe breaking an arm or a leg on the way down. At it’s core, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India is a simple-enough fun game that will keep players entertained for a little while, but ultimately it just doesn’t fulfill the potential it shows, nor does it wash out the bad taste that successive years of Assassin’s Creed games has left in our mouths.

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Do you remember that episode of Dragon Ball Z where Goku teamed up with Monkey D. Luffy to defeat the evil Naruto Uzumaki and his counterpart Ichigo Kurosaki? No? What do you mean it never happened? Then it’s time to make it happen!

Chock to the brim full of Shonen Jump’s history, J-Stars Victory VS+ brings together some of the biggest names you know, and mixes them with a heap more you’ve probably never heard of! With a decent roster and some impressive graphics, this all-out battle is sure to keep even the simplest Jump fan entertained.

Characters from all across the many worlds of Shonen Jump have been brought together in ‘Jump World’ to take part in the J-Battle Festival, to determine the strongest Jump character of them all. Summoned by the mystical (and at times quite comical) narrator, the story splits into four character narratives, each focusing on a particular member of the Jump universe and their journey to win the festival and be crowned the strongest Jump warrior of them all.While relatively simple (as expected from a fighting game spanning multiple manga adaptations), the plot does well at attempting to tie together the expanded universe and give them a reason to battle each other, while throwing in various challenges along the way to introduce other characters. J-Stars brings each character to life in a vibrant and vivid way; character models are not only proportioned and recreated in 3D to stunning effect, but on the PS4 the textures are smooth and rounded – really adding that sense of manga brought to life. These faithful recreations of each character don’t just stop at appearance either; the signature special moves for each fighter are also drawn from their respective manga and anime iterations, and as such will have fans jumping for joy when selecting their favourites. The environments don’t quite get the same treatment as the characters though, but when being played at such high speeds details like this can be forgiven; with the majority of obstacles and buildings entirely destructible.

During battles, the imagery tends to move extremely fast, and this is in no way a negative; the game manages to really feel like a three-dimensional anime fight rather than a simple chaotic brawler, with flashing lights and bursts of energy and fire flying left right and centre in the midst of a flurry of punches and kicks. Unlike other releases such as Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z, everything is fast-paced yet still easy to follow, and will not leave players confused.The game switches between text-laden cutscenes akin to an RPG to progress the story, which do begin to get tedious after a while, but these are easily skippable; character images in these are usually relatively general images of each character, and are onscreen for conversational effect. Even the menus are not made boring, with lots of neon and bright colours highlighting the entire game.

Character voices sound authentic, too; but this could purely be from a Westerner’s perspective, as the whole game is dubbed in Japanese. Repetition of moves begins to get annoying from certain characters, but usually the gameplay is too fast and involved to draw your attention to such things. The soundtrack is half-decent at times, a mixture of J-Rock and orchestral music scoring the game and making it really feel like one big adventure. At times the music begins to get repetitive and annoying, but the pace of the game makes up for it and ensures that the player does not linger on the same track for too long.J-Stars allows players multiple game modes, including ‘J-Adventure’, ‘Victory Road’, as well as an arcade mode and cooperative modes as well. None of the modes shy away from the core of the game, which is the combat.

At its base, J-Stars’ combat is relatively simple; buttons are allocated for light and heavy attacks, as well as special attacks and blocking. With 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 modes, the goal is basically to take the opponent down either a certain number of times or before the time runs out. Heavy attacks can break blocks, as can special moves, and attacks can be chained together to keep the enemy subdued and knock them away. Some attacks have knockdown ability, meaning opponents don’t have a chance to counter, however these basic attacks can be dodged with proper timing. Using attacks drains a rechargeable stamina bar which, when depleted, prevents the player from making more attacks until it recharges. Players also have the ability to recharge this, however it makes them vulnerable for the time that they are recharging, leading to the player having to employ tactics to defend.

Players have the ability to choose which enemy they wish to target and attack through the fight, and can switch at any time. This is done with the lock-on system, and ensures that you can follow the opponent no matter where they go. This however does not stop other enemies on the opposing team from attacking you, or your allies from attacking your target, leading to the ability to gang-up on single targets and take them down faster. The gameplay becomes unpredictable chaos, as there is a constant struggle between fighting and getting the upper hand to having every attack thwarted by the enemy team.Through all of the fighting, a ‘burst’ bar begins charging for each team, and the longer the fight goes on the more the bar charges. Once this reaches maximum, teams can activate a ‘Victory Burst’, which engages the character’s ultimate move; this attack can be triggered several times before the burst ends. Unlike most of the other attacks, ‘Victory Burst’ attacks don’t have a chance of being blocked, but for some characters they can’t be deflected; if the enemy moves just outside of the attack’s range, the move fails to hit and it is wasted. It also can only be used when all team members have activated it, otherwise it fails and has to be charged again.Support characters are also a major part of the game; during the match the player can press the L2 button and have their support character attack. Depending on the character, this can add an extra chance to throw the enemy off-guard, as support attacks are usually fast and cannot be blocked. The downside is that once the attack is used, there is a cooldown period until it can be used again, leading to it being saved for strategic attacks.

The combat is relatively easy to get a hold of after a few matches, and becomes extremely fun once the initial stage is past. It is here however that things begin to seem unbalanced; some characters have easier knockdown abilities or faster recharges, or are a lot quicker at attacking than others. The gameplay also does not vary much from battle to battle, so aside from trying out new characters and different attacks, the fighting begins to get stale and repetitive. Different character combinations can make for more fun gameplay but even this grows boring after a while, and especially in modes such as ‘J-Adventure, which focuses on travel and then fighting, it can get tedious.

Even if you have no idea of any of the Shonen Jump manga series or characters, J-Stars Victory VS+ is a relatively refined and balanced fighting game that seeks to allow the player to just have fun. With unlockable characters and items, and a pretty funny storyline that does its best to mash different source materials together, the game is worth a pick-up for fighting fans and manga fans alike.

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Great baseball games are a hard thing to find in today’s market, but the past few years Sony has managed to put out a stable, high quality and authentic experience. But for every new season comes a new game, and does MLB 15: The Show have what it takes to provide players with another strong experience? Not only that, but does Sony’s newest instalment in the franchise change up its strategy, or is The Show playing it to be safe?Last year’s introduction to current generation platforms gave the franchise a pretty significant visually, and much like other games in the genre visual fidelity often remains along a singular line when it comes to quality, but MLB15 manages to perfect the graphical fidelity that last year’s iteration sought out. Starting your first match you’ll quickly be introduced into the vivid and detailed environments that San Diego have crafted. Despite the fact that you won’t be spending time with the stadium itself, the attention to detail to the stands and its inhabitants are quite detailed considering their role in it all. Crowds are well-simulated and well-detailed, adding to the sense of scale and sensation of each match.One of the most important factors in any sports game is the quality and variation in animations, which the game once again excels at.  Movement is incredibly crips for both player-controlled and AI players, reacting realistically to both their surroundings and each other. Due to the nature of the batting and pitching their animations are a delight to watch for graphics enthusiasts up close. One particular moment that caught my eye is when my batter shattered his bat on impact, which resulted in the separate pieces of wood flying away as he promptly stormed off, heading towards first base. For baseball enthusiasts watching a game of MLB15 may quite frankly be as rewarding as watching an actual baseball game.There haven’t really been any high-profile MLB the past few years, but even without a rival the MLB series has provided PlayStation players with well-made and consistent gameplay experiences, and MLB 15 is no exception. Every sport has a level of authenticity, attention and such that needs to be maintained when it comes to the digital representation of its contents, which is where The Show offers a well-developed experience that is suitable for both new and seasoned players. The game offers two main levels of difficulty, which are not only aimed at players new and old to the sport itself, but new and old to gaming and general, offering assistance in order to train yourself in the techniques of the game. Seasoned players are able to take off the training wheels and aim for a more authentic experience, which is easily delivered.

Batter vs pitcher duels can make for some incredibly tense situations, especially when there’s a lot at stake. There’s a real sense of rivalry that hits you wether you’re playing against AI or another player online. The only new feature that doesn’t seem to hold up as well (in my personal opinion, of course) is the new directional hitting system, which in concept allows the player to influence the direction of the pitch in question, which is a cool idea by itself, but in practice it falls flat as you never really get the feeling you’re actually accomplishing something by using the feature.

Franchise mode is of course the big contender that has always been the franchise’s strong point, and MLB15 offers an experience that is just as comprehensive as its predecessors, albeit a bit safe when it comes to changing things up. Mode variation is also a bit stale, providing players with only a small selection of modes. Players are able to continue on from their save from MLB14 from any PlayStation platform and can transfer their progress to either the PSVita to continue their season on the road. This feature remains one of the strongest points of the game, though sometimes save transfers from previous titles can be a bit problematic when it comes to player transfers and retired players, which the game effectively tries to work around in order to create a comprehensive experience.

As history has told us, baseball isn’t for everyone. But for those who have embraced the sport MLB15: The Show offers the essential experience for any baseball fan, providing players with an authentic, well-designed and comprehensive experience that will take fans for a sensational ride.

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Ever since I heard the term in one of my university classes, I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of remediation in a digital age. This refers to the way that the limitations of older-technology lives on through the design decisions they forced developers to make.

La-Mulana, now available on the Vita (courtesy of Pygmy Studio and Rising Star Games) as La-Mulana EX, is a fascinating example of this – using the powerful game design tools of today to capture the spark of yesteryear.Originally developed by Japanese Indie Game outfit Nigoro, La-Mulana EX sees you take on the role of a whip-wielding archeologist named Lemeza Kesugi as he delves into the depths of the titular underground labyrinth.

Though there’s plenty of reading that fleshes out the history (and mystery!) surrounding the ruins, the storytelling in La-Mulana EX is pretty light-handled – though there are some fun characters like Malbruk and the Village Elder Xelpud who lighten the proceedings with some quirky and comical dialogue.Where the original La-Mulana featured a relatively rudimentary visual style, the WiiWare version brought with it a gorgeous graphical overhaul. As the latest rendition of the game, EX stands as the most technically-polished edition with several streamlined sequences that make you wonder where the designers drew the line. It also features a new ‘Bestiary’ function which tracks the enemies you encounter throughout the game – valuable to newcomers like myself (though I used it more infrequently the further I progressed).The soundtrack plays a big role here, helping establishing the tone of each area and evoking a catchy-as-hell retro-vibe that kept me coming back to the game through its most frustrating parts. Yet another non-linear platformer in mould of a Castlevania or Super Metroid, La-Mulana EX distinguishes itself from the rest of the genre by privileging puzzles and exploration over combat. This approach, combined with some truly superb level design, are what makes La-Mulana good – but it’s the ambitious systems that go beyond this mechanical trinity that make La-Mulana great and give it the ‘Dark Souls Meets Castlevania’ label it wears with such pride.

Like its whip-wielding inspiration, the labyrinth of La-Mulana EX is broken into a sprawling labyrinth of individual rooms. Unlike its idol however, La-Mulana EX has been designed in a way where multi-room puzzles are the norm rather than a rarity. Oft-times, you’ll find yourself facing a locked door only backtrack several rooms and read a riddle on a nearby tablet leading you to backtrack yet more screens to the relevant puzzle. It’s a sometimes frustrating process but one that the game employs to help you treat each zone as a single entity. Though early sections of La-Mulana EX sometimes threatens to drown the player in complexity, these relatively short hours of treading water help pave the way for the late-game’s ocean of depth and complexity. It’s an approach that asks a lot of you as a player but it’s one that makes every little trial and tribulation the game throws at you a delight to overcome – even if it does occasionally lead to you missing a critical item more than once.

There’s also a LOT of reading involved. La-Mulana EX is littered with the previously-mentioned tablets and as well as as conveying the clues required to progress from room to room, they act as rosetta stones necessary to deciphering the game’s bigger mysteries. The Vita’s portability is a major asset here, letting you chip away at things one short burst at a time.

Though oft-arcane, there is a something compelling behind the game’s unique brand of logic and methodology. La-Mulana EX is a game that expects a lot from you as a player and bestows high penalties upon those who would attempt to bypass its puzzles and stray towards the path of trial and error. Different areas of the ruins borrow architectural inspiration from various ancient civilizations and offer up different design challenges for the player. One area might play with invisible enemies while another might set you against illusions that throw traditional level design on its head.

Though not the game’s major focus, combat does play a considerable role in La-Mulana EX. Over time, you’ll find different weapons and later even upgrades that make you stronger against specific enemies. There’s a considerable variety in the shape, size and attack patterns that define your foes, and this applies even more to the game’s bosses – even if one or two of them falls too far on the frustrating side of things. That said, it helps that La-Mulana EX manages to strike a great balance between keeping thing constantly challenging and giving you the tools to make things a little easier.I think the key to enjoying La-Mulana EX as a newcomer is to know what you’re getting into and to be willing to seek help if/when you need it. Accept that it’s going to be a 20-40 hour investment of time. Accept that it’s going to be hard-as-nails and seemingly arcane at times, but nonetheless rewarding.
Nigoro are far from the only indie developer caught up in the remediation of gaming’s past, but they are one of the few thus far to have gotten it so very right.

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What do you get when you mix a healthy dose of Starship Troopers, a dash of Mass Effect, a small pinch of Killzone: Liberation, and a nice helping of Starcraft, and lay it down over a four-player co-op system? You get Arrowhead Studios’ latest offering, Helldivers.Super Earth is the future of our planet, and the surrounding galaxy is full of threats from hostile alien races. The only way to fight back and ensure the survival of Super Earth and its people is through spreading ‘managed democracy’ throughout the universe, through the means of the Helldivers; Super Earth’s military combat unit. Tasked with pushing back the enemy forces, retrieving technology and expanding resources for consumption, the Helldivers spread across the galaxy, forcing the democracy of Super Earth to the outer limits of the known universe. Enlist in the corps to provide a future for Super Earth. Join the Helldivers!
Choosing a top-down perspective works wonders for Helldivers, as there is less of a need to focus on minute details with character modeling. Having said that, the game still looks great; every planet is unique and procedurally-generated, and the environments really capture the isolation and expansiveness of each world. The game suffers slightly when comparing from the Vita to the PS4, but even the Vita’s graphics aren’t too shabby, just less detailed. Battles are intensely graphic; bullets illuminate walls, enemy weapons have different effects, blood splatters, and everything feels as though you’re playing a single-player Starcraft campaign. Each of the three species of enemy (Illuminate, Cyborg and Bugs) has multiple detailed units, each with their own forms of attack which are also hightly detailed and awesome to see.The sound design of the game is fantastic as well. The musical score is at times over the top, but always seems to suit what is happening; for instance, the theme on the jumpship is reminiscent of 90s schlock sci-fi, whereas the heavy orchestral themes in the midst of battle manage to get excitement levels up and really immerse the player in the game. Each race has their own unique sounds, from the screeches of the Bugs, the technological zaps of the Illuminate, and the yelling and robotic noises of the Cyborgs, each piece comes together and creates a truly rewarding experience for every battle that takes place. Even the player characters get their chance, yelling one-liners in the heat of the moment (“Say hello to democracy!” and “How about a nice cup of liber-tea!”), when blasting away enemies and striving to survive. The limited voice acting is quite corny, but rather than take away from the game, it adds to it; really placing the player in a game that feels like it has come fresh from the 1980s and 1990s sci-fi genre. This is also clearly referenced in the story; which, while not being too deep, harks back to films such as Starship Troopers and Aliens, with a sense of camaraderie and tongue-in-cheek humour devoid from modern-day science fiction.
Helldivers revolves around a pretty simple mechanic – drop to a planet, complete objectives, and get picked up at the end. This revolves around the simplistic plot of the game – to spread out and push back the other races of the galaxy and to spread Super Earth’s ‘managed democracy’ through means of force. Each mission revolves around multiple objectives, and the more that are completed, the higher a player’s score is at the end of the round. Objectives such as capturing areas, destroying enemy nests/bases, rescuing crash survivors, and deploying ‘truth transmitters’ all tally up, unlocking the final task of activating the extraction beacon to be saved from the planet. These feats are by no means easy – enemy encounters are consistent and they do not let up at any chance, and particular enemies will send out alerts to bring in reinforcements, often swarming the area with targets.

The game employs the use of tactical ‘Stratagems’ – items that can change the flow of a battle in an instant. Additional weapons can be dropped mid-battle, or things such as APCs and artillery mechs can be deployed to aid in the fight. Turrets, strafing runs and bombs are also accessible, and each stratagem can mean the difference between life and death. Each stratagem calls up a signal beacon which raises the likelihood of enemy patrols heading to that specific area, which is quite a unique quirk leading to players actually having to think about their next move before they make it. Most stratagems have a limited usage, and all stratagems have a cooldown period if they can be used more than once.One of the greatest things in Helldivers is the fact that at any time (and provided you have an internet connection), a player can throw out a signal beacon to call down other Helldivers who are either looking for a match or playing a similar campaign, leading to comprehensive four-player mayhem. Friendly fire is always switched on, and it becomes a matter of communication in deciding what to do next. These matches become insanely fun and add layers of unpredictable action and chaos to an already-bustling warzone. Players can also choose to join matches in the multiplayer option of the game, and are returned to a single jumpship after each mission.

All of the game’s progress is saved regardless of online or offline play, so playing between versions on Vita and PS4 was an easy feat, provided that you had the chance to update your character before getting on the go. All efforts add to the global tally, which begin to unlock new worlds, new stratagems, and eventually leading to an all-out assault on the home-worlds of the enemy. If these efforts are not maintained, the enemy can attack Super Earth, and players must strive to rectify the situation.Sometimes the controls can be fiddly and annoying – while the stratagems aren’t meant to be extremely easy to activate, the button-pressing combinations can be annoying as a single misplacement of a finger means starting the sequence over again, which can lead to life or death on the battlefield. Especially on the Vita, where some controls are added to the touchscreens, this can get annoying as some touches do not register, whereas others mistakenly do, leading to the wrong thing happening. As the game focuses on teamwork when playing online, those who seek to ignore it effectively disadvantage their team; respawns in multiplayer mode are dependent on surviving squad members, and once all players have died, the mission must start again.

Another flaw of the overeall game is the repetitiveness of the missions; one can only repeat the same actions so many times before the tedium of the game sets in and becomes boring, and not even a round of multiplayer can save it.Make no mistake; Helldivers is one of the greatest games to hit consoles in recent years. A credit to Arrowhead studios for making something so simple, yet so fun; full of pop-culture references to sci-fi classics such as Aliens and Starship Troopers, as well as mixing in elements of recent popular games and laying it over a play-style we haven’t seen done well in a long time. While the story isn’t exactly amazing, the game itself is solid and well-rounded, and can be played either with your friends, with a bunch of strangers online, or even by yourself, giving you a sense of reward and pride for every mission you complete.

The post Review: Helldivers appeared first on Press Start.

Resident Evil Revelations 2, much like the Revelations game that came before it, takes place between two mainline Resident Evil games. The events of Revelations 2 takes place between Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6. The story follows two separate characters across two separate time periods across the same setting.

Claire Redfield and Moira Burton are abducted by a mysterious “overseer” and taken to an island to participate in gruesome and cruel experiments while they attempt to escape. Barry Burton, Moira’s father and long-time friend of Claire and her brother Chris, heads to the island to save them, but not before meeting up with a strange girl named Natalia who accompanies him along the way.

Despite being an immense fan of the franchise, it’s undeniable that the storyline and the many plot points in the games have degenerated into nothing more than mass produced schlock. But it’s still a guilty pleasure for many fans – and Revelations 2 is no different. The game manages to properly tie itself into the series mythos quite well and as a result is definitely canon candy for fans.

But it’s a pretty middling story overall that sometimes dips into science fiction territory that doesn’t quite frankly feel right in the context of a Resident Evil title. But if you can put this aside you, or if you enjoy the Resident Evil films, you probably will enjoy Revelations 2’s story. Just don’t expect any definitive closure for any of your favourite characters.

Revelations 2 really wears its budget on its sleeve and this is especially obvious from the game’s presentation. There’s heaps of reused assets here and there and generally most of the locales Claire and Barry will explore have a very subdued or “closed in” feel to them. But while this sounds like a bad thing, it really isn’t, because for the most part the team has crafted a creepy world and used various tricks to make the shortcomings of the game less evident.

But make no mistakes, the way the game is presented is very much on a lower scale and budget than other games like Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil 5, but still looks reasonably good. The closer and more claustrophobic level design suits the horror themes rather well. More bizarrely, the game runs at a very smooth framerate of 60 frames per second too, which is a nice bonus.

More controversially, the voice work is rather flat. Ali Hillis, who many might know as having voiced Lightning from Final Fantasy, has replaced series mainstay Alyson Court as the voice of Claire Redfield and it honestly doesn’t sound right. Other characters strike a reasonable balance between seriousness and cheese, like Barry, but on a whole the voice work is more competent than you’d expect for a Resident Evil game, especially one produced on a tighter budget.

The soundtrack is a rather subdued affair however, though this might mean different things for different people. Most of the tracks in the game are more subtle, ambient tracks that are comprised of various noises and subtleties that help build the game’s environments. The result is nothing particularly memorable, but instead music that just blends into the scenes. Some of the remixed techno bangers that play during Raid Mode are sublime, though, even if they are more action orientated.

For the most part, Resident Evil Revelations 2 attempts to balance between the slower and methodically paced exploration segments of older games and the showier, action based set pieces of the newer ones. These attempts are mostly successful, but there are definitely some moments where the game feels like it could be a little bit better paced. Still, the designers’ willingness to allow players to just explore an area without having to shoot everything for long stretches at a time is to be commended in the current industry climate.

The game is split up into episodes, much like its predecessor, but overall does a great job at utilising this format to really keep the player wanting more. Each episode has you playing as Claire and Moira first, and then re-treading familiar (but different) ground as Barry and Natalia. It’s one of the many ways the game manages to get away with reusing some assets here and there, but it’s actually pretty fun to re-explore an area as Barry to see how things have progressed since Claire did the same.

The combat is a little bit more polarising. Throwing away most of the extra functionality that Resident Evil 6 introduced, Revelations 2 plays like a healthy mix of the original Revelations game with elements of Alan Wake or Gears of War sprinkled in. Characters can now move while aiming and shooting, sprint in any given direction at any time and even evade with the press of a button. It’s more restrictive than Resident Evil 6 (which was sometimes too convoluted for its own good) but it’s freer than Resident Evil 5 and 4.

What Revelations 2 attempts to do a little bit differently is by creating asymmetric partners for the player. Moira doesn’t use guns – instead she can use a crowbar to dole out melee damage or her flashlight to blind enemies and open them up to melee attacks. She’s pretty useful, if not overpowered – but only in the hands of a human player who understands the game. Her AI is quite terrible, but thankfully, she has regenerating health so it’s less of a babysitting job.

Natalia is Barry’s partner, and acts more like a support character. She can point out objects hidden in the game and throw bricks to distract or even slightly damage enemies that might be threatening Barry. Her major ability, however, is similar to The Last of Us’ listen mode – where she can see enemies (and their weak spots, in some respects) through walls. It’s a handy ability that opens up some stealth potential in the game, but might be quite boring for someone playing co-operative mode with another person.

There are a few puzzles here and there, but calling them puzzles is a bit of a stretch. Most of them require players to find an item or two, return it to an area and then progress through the game like normal. It certainly leads to some slightly less linear progression, but is by no means a return to form of the riddle based puzzles seen in Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Still, Revelations 2 definitely improves over its predecessors, so it feels like more of a little victory for the classic franchise fan.

When you’re done with the main campaign, which’ll take about eight or so hours to complete depending on how much you stop to explore your surroundings, the game’s endless content becomes open to the player. Two extra episodes, which we haven’t previously talked about, fill in extra story details between Claire’s and Barry’s campaign while employing more experimental gameplay design. They’re by no means absolutely necessary, but they’re a nice touch for people who want to explore the world of Revelations 2 a bit more.

And while there’s multiple endings, weapons, costumes and modes to play around with in the campaign, Revelations 2’s deceptively deep Raid Mode is some great and amazing fun. Giving players control of wide range of characters, it gives you opportunity to run a gauntlet of enemies using custom load outs and abilities. Some abilities are basic, like improving the functionality of different classes of weapons. Others are bit weirder – allowing you to deal damage to enemies by taunting or even turning them against each other for a while. While the Raid Mode takes a while to get going, it’ll easily lead to at least ten to twenty hours more entertainment for most players – and its co-op too!

If you  enjoyed reading our review of the entire Resident Evil Revelations 2 experience, be sure to check out our spoiler free impression pieces on the four individual episodes – Penal Colony, Contemplation, Judgement and Metamorphosis!

The post Review: Resident Evil Revelations 2 appeared first on Press Start.

Note that this is the third in a series of four informal pieces which will detail my experiences with each individual episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2. Following this, a full more “traditional” review will be posted at the end of March to coincide with the game’s retail release. As such, no score will be assigned to the game until all episodes are available to the public.

Of the three episodes of Revelations 2 that I’ve played so far, I’ve got to say that the third episode, called “Judgement”, is possibly my favourite. It’s got a good combination of tension and build-up. Some subtle tinges of horror. Even some action packed encounters that really force you to look at managing your ammo properly rather than just unloading carte blanche. In fact, it’s the first time since Lost In Nightmares that I truly thought the old style of Resident Evil could properly be mixed with the new style. Judgement isn’t a perfect example, mind you, but it’s pretty close.

When we left Claire and Moira in the second episode, she’d just lost sight of Natalia and through some vague messages was told to head to a mysterious tower to confront the overseer. Having lost some of her friends previously, Claire is fuelled by feelings of vengeance more so than ever. But as most of us have learnt, evil is always watching, and the overseer has grander plans for Claire and Moira.

Claire’s scenario feels very close to what Lost In Nightmares was. It throws Claire into a meat processing facility made up of a few different buildings, and lets her explore at her own leisure. Yes, there are enemies here and there, but for the most part the progression in this chapter is fuelled by the players’ completion of puzzles. They’re really simple puzzles, mind you, but at least one of them will have you scratching your head until you realise how obvious the solution was. It’s also a nice opportunity to explore and find files giving backstory to the region and all these buildings, specifically how they ended up so dilapidated.

In typical Resident Evil fashion, the door out of the first factory area is blocked by a ludicrously flamboyant mythological depiction of Prometheus. It’s bizarre and weird, but it reminded me of how much fun it was to approach similar situations in the Spencer Mansion back in the first Resident Evil. The overseer has a penchant for mythology and philosophy, it would seem, although the incessant quoting of Kafka probably eluded to that fact already.

The concluding half of Claire’s scenario is another one of those situations where Revelations 2 seems to seek inspiration from another horror franchise. I’m personally not sure if it was intentional or not, but the meat processing facility reminds me a lot of a scene from SAW III. The puzzle in this area is pretty simple but also pretty gross, and results in an intense arena battle that once again harkens to some of the better ones in the series like the village encounter from Resident Evil 4. After some pretty by-the-numbers cooperative puzzles and an explosive escape, Claire and Moira finally make it to the a boring and confusing sewer segment (seriously, has there ever been a good one) and then to the tower.

This is where the story takes a bit of a weirder turn as yet another major revelation is brought to the surface. We obviously won’t spoil it, but it’s nice to see that the story doesn’t lose steam despite revealing the identity of the overseer at the end of the last episode. Claire’s scenario culminates into something every old-school Resident Evil fan will appreciate. A grotesque mutation and boss battle. One which requires both Claire and Moira to work together. And it’s great!

Which then brings us back to Barry and Natalia. They just discovered who the Overseer is. Natalia was of course less surprised than Barry since she had dealings with her before. But Barry is still confused about the whereabouts of Moira. If you’ve been playing this long – it should be pretty obvious by now – it’s very obvious that there is a six month gap between Claire’s scenario and Barry’s. So the crux of the mystery now is whether or not Claire and Moira are still in the same place as Claire and how things came to be that way in the past. It might sound confusing, but it’s not, I assure you.

Through some idle dialogue between Barry and Natalia, we begin to learn more about why the father and daughter are so estranged now – including the obvious question of why Moira doesn’t use guns or only uses blunt weapons. Personally, I kind of understand why Moira might not after what happened – but at the same time I still can’t see myself being in the same situation as these characters and not being willing to use a gun.

Barry’s scenario for this episode is pretty by the numbers. He explores the same sewer area that Claire did, but taking a different path through. Him and Natalia must navigate what looks like a reservoir looking area using the same typical co-op mechanics you’ve become acquainted with in any game like this. One player must help the other move along a walkway so that they may open a door that the other player can move through. It’s very done to death and a bit of a shame that the characters asymmetrical abilities weren’t utilised a bit better.

Barry’s episode ends in an abandoned quarry which once again provides more backstory to the area and why it’s the way it is. Most of this connects to other stories told in other files elsewhere so it’s great to see the team focusing on building a story for the location and how the overseer eventually moved in and took over the area.

The quarry area is basically an extrapolated area of the battery puzzle from the original Resident Evil – trying to get a power supply to a certain point while opening up an alternative path to make such a thing possible. It’s simple and pretty hard to get wrong, but once again it’s complicated by an intense looming threat.

The boss in this area appears twice and follows the design you’d really expect to find from Resident Evil 5. Lots of long and oozing tendrils and of course, in typical Resident Evil fashion, insta-kill moves too. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too much of a hard battle although towards the end of the chapter resources will definitely be slim and you may only get through it by a hair.

Once again, the developers have done great work at writing and utilising the episodic nature of Revelations 2, ending it on a cliff-hanger that will leave most players wondering what the hell is going on but at the same time ridiculously excited for more. It’s hard to believe we’re going to see the end of it all next week, but be sure to check in next week at the same time for our final review as well as our final recap of the fourth and final episode!

The post Resident Evil Revelations 2: Episode 3 – Judgement appeared first on Press Start.

NOTE: This is the second in a series of four informal pieces which will detail my experiences with each individual episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2. Following this, a full more “traditional” review will be posted at the end of March to coincide with the game’s retail release. As such, no score will be assigned to the game until all episodes are available to the public.

Another week, another Revelations 2 episode and boy was it a doozy. Once again, we follow two separate (yet totally related) stories of both Claire and Barry. Both are still where we last left them. Barry had just discovered that there might be more to his daughters’ disappearance than he initially thought thanks to a creepy vision from Natalia. Claire escaped from the prison with Moira and signalled for help only to discover she was further from home than she thought.

This episode opens with Claire and Moira meeting up with two other members of TerraSave who were abducted from the same party Claire and Moira were at. They’re trying to repair a helicopter to get off the island, but need to collect the appropriate materials to get it running again. Claire, of course, offers to help, but it’s obviously not that simple. Barry, on the other hand, must retrace the steps of Moira when she met up with Natalia on the island previously. As you’d probably be able to guess, this episode shows us exactly how Claire, Moira and Natalia met on the island and shows the subsequent search for Moira by Barry in the second half of the episode.

Claire’s scenario opens with something pretty refreshing – yet another open area to just explore and let yourself get lost in the game’s atmosphere. It’s a seaside town, some areas are dilapidated and others are all locked up but most are accessible. The episode has you searching for parts to assist the other members of TerraSave in repairing the helicopter (and the only way off the prison compound).

It’s rather well paced – this exploratory phase of Claire’s scenario prepares you for an intense moment in the game that manages to mix the best bits of the village and cabin encounters from Resident Evil 4. Following that, you’re treated too some brief exposition as Claire and Moira meet up with Natalia for the first time and explore the city near the prison compound from the first episode. All in all, it’s a pretty well put together scenario for Claire and once again the way the story is drip-fed to you through files and dialogue leaves you wanting more.

I’ve got a feeling that Barry is really going to be playing catch-up for the entirety of the Revelations 2 campaign, given his penchant for revisiting areas Claire and Moira have already been through. It’s during Barry’s part of the chapter that most players will begin to understand how much time has passed between Claire and Moira’s adventures and Barry’s. But while Barry largely retreads Claire’s steps in his part of this episode, he and Natalia manage to find their own way through these areas leading to some nice variety. Most areas Claire found to be locked off will be explored in Barry’s scenario, which is a nice touch. It’s similar to Ada’s Separate Ways campaign from Resident Evil 4, if you will.

This episode introduces a few new enemies, most of which are unfortunately quite frustrating to deal with. One throws rubbish at you that blinds your character. Another launches fireballs and is tall and incredibly well built. Another is completely invisible and must be aimed at blindly. It is frightening on paper, but it’s mostly frustrating. Exclusive to Barry’s scenario, these annoying enemies create a weird distortion effect and can’t be seen. The only way that you can see them is by switching between Natalia or just watching where she points.

It’s a nice idea on paper but the execution is flakey since Natalia isn’t as responsive as she should be. To make matters worse, the game plays a hazy effect whenever controlling Barry and one of these insects is near. I’ll be honest – it’s a creepy idea – but games like The Evil Within did invisible enemies in a much fairer and better capacity. But it’s truly at this point that I was thankful that I managed to upgrade my evasion skills between scenarios.

Which is something I haven’t yet properly talked about. Revelations 2 lets players upgrade skills after each scenario (or even after each death) using points earned during the game. These can bolster the moves of your support characters, or even make them fight back more aggressively whenever you’re not controlling them. Others increase the potency of your healing herbs or the effectiveness of your evade skill. Evading is easily one of the most useful techniques in Revelations 2, as it lets you avoid almost any attack if timed correctly. Upgrade it completely and you’ll be able to evade cancel, that is, interrupt whatever your character is doing to evade for a faster response.

From a presentation standpoint, the second episode of Revelations 2 doesn’t do much to improve upon itself from the first one. You’ll explore a dilapidated coastal town, an abandoned metropolis and some buildings here and there. Once again they’re not anything particularly impressive but they’re just right in terms of lighting to look reasonable. Towards the end of this episode in particular, things start to get a bit more interesting from a presentation standpoint but we’ll have to wait until next week to see if it pays off.

And what a long wait it’ll be! This episode ended on an absolutely vicious cliff-hanger that sheds more light on who the Overseer might be, and why they’re doing what they’re doing to Moira and Claire. I won’t say anymore because the reveal is truly jaw dropping, especially for long-time fans of the series who’ve been paying attention, but it’s definitely not an episode that should be missed.

We’re excited to see where the development of this cliff-hanger takes the series next week, in Episode 3!

The post Resident Evil Revelations 2: Episode 2 – Contemplation appeared first on Press Start.

NOTE: This is the first in a series of four informal pieces which will detail my experiences with each individual episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2. Following this, a full more “traditional” review will be posted at the end of March to coincide with the game’s retail release. As such, no score will be assigned to the game until all episodes are available to the public.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 is a hard game to work out. There’s parts that work really well and parts that don’t work at all. But for the most part, it’s got its heart in the right place. It’s a Resident Evil game that tries it’s hardest to bring the best of both worlds – that is the new and old Resident Evil games – together. The first episode, unimaginatively titled Penal Colony, does a fairly good job at introducing players to the game’s locale and characters while also hooking you on its story.

Just like the original game before it, Revelations 2 is presented episodically. In the original game, this meant you just had to watch a recap between each chapter as it jumped from locale to locale. In Revelations 2, this actually means something. The developers at Capcom and TOSE have crafted a story that has been built from the ground up to be episodic. As a result, every episode ends on an intense hook that leaves you wanting much, much more. Similarly, the story is localised to a single location so everything feels interconnected to a degree much greater than before as well, unlike the original Revelations which used its episodic nature to offer a disjointed experience.

The first episode begins with Claire attending an event for her employer, TerraSave, an NGO dedicated to bringing down corrupt companies like Umbrella and Tricell. Claire meets up with Moira, the daughter of Barry Burton and newest recruit of TerraSave, and they’re both abducted by a mysterious third party known as the overseer. They both wake up in adjoining cells in what seems to be an abandoned prison. Someone is watching them, of course, and also quoting Kafka, because, well, it’s Resident Evil. Claire and Moira make an effort to escape the prison island and reach a radio tower to signal for help.

The second half of the episode follows Barry Burton, who receives the distress signal and heads to the prison locale to find his daughter and Claire. Once he arrives, he is met by a strange little girl dressed in white holding a teddy bear. Her name is Natalia, and she’s seemingly lost on the island following whatever incident has happened there. Natalia has a strange ability that means she can sense where monsters are when Barry can’t. For reasons I’ll never personally understand, Barry decides to take the creepy child with him.

The first thing I realised about Revelations 2 after completing the episode was just how strange the series has become in terms of gameplay. Back in the day, with both the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil was the series that other games used to pull elements from in an attempt to imitate their success. But now, Revelations 2 seems to be doing the imitating with its gameplay. Drawing inspiration from games like Outlast, The Last of Us and even Alan Wake there’s a lot going on here.

The most obvious thing is that this game controls a lot more like Revelations rather than Resident Evil 6. The controls feel tighter, there’s less mobility (although this isn’t necessarily bad) and the weapons feel reasonably powerful enough. There’s no more sliding or aiming while lying down but instead there is a very simple dodge / evade manoeuvre not unlike the one found in Alan Wake. It’s a simple addition that has appeared in Resident Evil games previously but not in such a streamlined and easy to use way. It’s definitely appreciated.

Differing from other Resident Evil titles, Revelations 2 forces another character on the player but this time they’re not the same as the one you play as. Moira and Natalia are both controllable but don’t use guns. Moira uses her crowbar to take down enemies or her flashlight to make them open to a melee attack (similar to wearing away the “shadow” on enemies in Alan Wake). Natalia can throw bricks at enemies to help out Barry in the midst of battle or crouch to detect them (similar to the “Listen” feature of The Last of Us). Neither character can die – their health regenerates – which makes them less of a nuisance even if their AI seems pretty atrocious early on.

The episode itself is paced reasonably well. Claire and Moira must explore the prison for a way out while Barry and Natalia have to reach a key landmark by trudging through a dark and creepy forest. Claire’s half of the campaign is a bit more open ended, with multiple entrances and exits from various areas of the prison. It feels like a poor attempt to recreate the openness of the mansion from the original game, but does the job. The samey-ness of the prison can definitely make it confusing though. Barry’s section of the campaign, surprisingly enough, is better approached from a stealth angle to save ammo as the enemies in his campaign take a lot more damage.

Visually speaking the game is a bit of a mixed bag, although at such a low price this is probably to be expected. Revelations 2 runs at a silky smooth 60fps which is a nice bonus for those more concerned with a games framerate. The visuals themselves are definitely not the best – to the point where Resident Evil 5 probably still looks better than it – but the game is so dark it’s almost always hiding most of it’s low resolution textures here and there. Fans of the series will get a chuckle at just how low the game’s budget is, given that it reuses so many assets from previous games.

Without ruining the entire episode there’s really not a whole lot to say about Episode 1 of Revelations 2. It’s reasonably paced. It gets players really into the mythology of the island (and similarly, gets them hooked on the story with some truly awesome cliff-hangers at the episodes conclusion). But it’ll be interesting to see how the story plays out given what happens in Episode 1. But anyone into horror, Resident Evil, or any of the games that I’ve talked about Revelations 2 taking inspiration from; it’s hard to imagine you wouldn’t enjoy the first episode of this four episode adventure.

But we can’t talk about anymore until next week, so be sure to check back where we’ll have our full impressions for Episode 2 then!

The post Resident Evil Revelations 2: Episode 1 – Penal Colony appeared first on Press Start.

Is Grim Fandango a relic of the past? Or does this post-mortem crime noir hold up for players of this generation? Double Fine takes us on the renewed adventures of Manny Calavera.

Grim Fandango takes us on the journey of Manny Calavera, a deceased soul working as a Reaper in order to work off the sins he supposably committed during his time among the living. When you live a good life, you get the deluxe package to paradise, but if you’re not, you get to work off the scraps and earn your ascension the hard way. When Manny continuously gets the short end of the stick with his clients, he grows suspicious that there may be some shady antics going on at his precinct, and that the souls he helped cross over may have deserved their happily ever after after all.

The fun thing about Grim Fandango is its mix of concepts and ideas, giving a fun look at the afterlife through a noir crime drama featuring brilliantly written characters and a narrative that seems both creative and familiar. Click-and-point adventures are often a hit-or-miss for some players, but Grim keeps the formula interesting thanks to its great pacing and writing. The game is composed as a single linear story, but is still structured with chapters which make it easier to trop in and out throughout its entirety.

The charm of Grim Fandango’s graphics are mostly compromised by the charming character designs, but from a visual perspective the game has surely taken a bit of a hit, which is disappointing considering the fact that this a remaster. Double Fine has taken the route of preserving the original visual presentation of the game, which is presented in a pillarboxed 4:3 aspect ratio with slightly redone static environments, which may not be up to par for some. The thing is, Grim Fandango Remastered keeps the original charm of the game in tact, but it also disappoints due to the fact that there is a lot more that Double Fine could have done to present the world of Grim Fandango.

The world of Grim Fandango is mostly presented through static backgrounds and items, which are basically flat layers, rather than actual 3D objects. The characters and certain items are presented as modelled 3D objects, and considering the style of gameplay this isn’t really a problem, though the imagery of the world certainly has taken a bit of a hit due to the age of the game. Double Fine has remastered these images, and they are definitely displayed at a higher quality than the original release, but other than the improved character/object rendering there isn’t much that can truly make this release of Grim Fandango a complete remaster. Despite this fact, I will admit that this isn’t as much a problem as I would otherwise make of it, considering a lot of the visual flair of the game comes from its classic presentation, which Double Fine more than likely spent more time retaining.

Grim Fandango can be simply summarised as a point-and-click adventure, and in the modern market it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to compare this with Telltale titles, which share a similar structure. The key difference here is that Grim Fandango doesn’t divide its structure in episodes, but in chapters which act more like the acts of a single film, which makes dividing your playthrough in smaller sessions easier. Detective work is the core of gameplay, and the game doesn’t exactly give you the most obvious hints when it comes to certain objective, and actually challenges when player in finding items and confronting characters.

A big issue with modern titles is the fact the difficulty levels often take the intelligence of the player for granted, and lays out everything perfectly for the players to find, but Grim Fandango gives you the breathing room to figure out the works for yourself.  That being said, mechanics-wise the game isn’t exactly that hard to figure out; choose your dialogue options, navigate the areas and find/use the objects you encounter. The thing is, it all works perfectly, but only thanks to the narrative that keeps it all together. Without the great story and characters, the gameplay aspects of Grim Fandango would possibly have their issues holding up. You’d expect differently in a market filled with Telltale’s games, but the lack of decisions and different outcomes in this LucasArts classic make the game a little more tiresome in repeated sessions due to its form factor, but for a singular playthrough Grim Fandango is a delight to experience. You don’t have to be a fan of point and click adventures to enjoy Grim Fandango, though it may help smoothen up the journey a bit for the players themselves.

Playthrough lengths may vary by player and purpose, but at a steady pace the game should last you about 10+ hours, with more or less depending on wether you want to go for a completionist run or not. There are some things that you may miss in your sessions, though many of these are limited to small fun things to uncover, rather than actual story-relevant information, unless you’re choosing to skip out on certain dialogue options.

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Taking Batman and Co’s adventures beyond the streets of Gotham. The Justice League are forced to from an uneasy alliance as they defend Earth from the menacing Brainaic. A world consuming being that has now set his sights on our world and will stop at nothing to achieve this goal.

Lego Batman in all honesty hasn’t made any huge improvements since it’s original conception but at all costs do not let that weigh you down. The tried and true method of “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” applies to this beyond all measure. The amount of detail in each Lego brick is fantastic and the way the levels are built is magical sure to inspire any child. Particular note has to be made of the exemplary space segments.

Cutscenes are crisply rendered and outrageously humorous, with some stellar voice acting from stars such as Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Nolan North, Conan O’Brien and even Adam West, the original Batman for a lot of people. Beyond Gotham boasts an outstanding soundtrack that has taken snippets from the wonderful Tim Burton Batman film’s of the early 90’s and incorporated them wonderfully.

One particular gripe I had with the games choice of presentation was during the local couch co-op portions where wandering too far from your partner would force the screen to split dynamically. This rotating nightmare was disorientating beyond description, sure it could be counter acted to a fixed vertical split screen which then cut your viewing space down to almost nothing. Perhaps I am showing my age but I really believe good old fashioned horizontal split screen is the answer to this but it might of just been something that was over looked in development.

Being a Lego character the bricked world is at your finger tips to destroy and create as needs be to further your progress. Just about any object can be bludgeoned to reveal collectible Lego points which accumulate to reveal a sense of progress throughout each level. Ultimately it hasn’t changed a lot from previous games but the same principle I gave in Presentation applies. I do have to mention the outstanding array of DC cast members that are made available throughout this game: Batman, Superman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern and that is only naming the more major characters. Looking past those bigger names there is still an abundance of characters to play as, in the 100s!

Once characters are unlocked you can take them back to previously completed sections to unlock or collect things that were otherwise unobtainable the first time through, increasing the replay value immensely. I must say it was excellent to see the various sizes of characters coming into play such as Lex’s Battle suit, Martian Man hunters natural form and Killer Croc just to name a few.

Not too far into the game players are given a huge treat in terms of game play. A small segment out in space opens up for some epic intergalactic battling. Reminiscent of the PS4’s launch game Resogun, this twin stick shooter segment was a great addition and a fantastic break in game play. That’s not too say I needed the break in game play but it certainly was welcome.

Abundance of fun aside and exceptional variations in game play aside. I felt that at a few times the methods to progress in the game were a bit vague. I don’t need hand holding but for an adult, sorry two adults playing this game. There were segments where we were both stumped, perhaps our Lego imagination wasn’t up to scratch but these examples surely did ruin the immersion we shared in this game.

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In a part of Tokyo there exists a town that is a haven for otaku (person with obsessive interests) and pop-culture enthusiasts alike. Enter Akihabara, or Electric Town as it is affectionately known. Nanashi, a young otaku who lives and breathes Akihabara, applies for a job that pays in out-of-print or rare figurines. One day Nanashi awakens in a basement; tied to a table, and told that he has been transformed into a “Synthister”, a man-made vampire whose job it is to feed on social energy and vitality, by the very company he applied for. But a girl named Shizuku comes to his rescue, and together along with Nanashi’s friends throughout Akihabara, turn against the evil corporation and defeat the evil Synthister regime.

Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed opens similarly to other adventure games localized from Japan, with an anime FMV sequence which is both ominous in storytelling but overly vibrant at the same time, accompanied by a J-Pop song. This sets the tone for the entire game; bright and detailed anime combined with synth-laden dance and rock music.

Cutscenes are also vibrant and rendered in two ways – a brief interlude of game-rendered models, leading into text-based conversations with anime midshots of characters as they talk. The gameplay models are faithful to their anime counterparts, but adopting the 3D-rendered anime style seen before in games such as Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z.

Characters are voiced by both Japanese and English voice actors, and upon starting the game there is an option to decide between the two. Each dialogue cutscene is fully voiced bar the playable character (as the character is generic and selectable as male or female). The dialogue is actually well-thought and at times quite hilarious, and does not feel generic or forced in any way. The music is catchy but can sometimes get a bit annoying; different songs play in different areas, such as a funky jazz tune for the ‘Akiba Freedom Fighters’ base where most of the missions come from, to different upbeat dance tracks when fighting Synthisters on the streets.

One of the most notable things is that the developers of Akiba’s Trip have faithfully recreated Akihabara within the game, right down to locations of stores and all. Having been to the real town myself in recent years I was blown away by the level of detail within the game, with notable stores and attractions being represented truly. The same goes for street vendors and the like; the street vendors, promotion people and even the coin-operated capsule machines were all present. It truly feels like Akihabara.

While Akiba’s Trip plays like a stock-standard beat-em-up, it has a large twist that changes the tone of the game drastically. In order for the character and their allies to defeat Synthisters, their aim is to use weapons and fighting styles to strip the enemy’s clothes off.

Yes, you read that right.

As the Synthesters are man-made vampires, the ‘only known way’ to defeat them is by exposing them to full sunlight. Triangle, Circle and X are reserved for high, medium and low attacks respectively, and each attack targets a specific item of clothing. Once the clothing is weakened, holding the button strips the enemy of their clothes, and once all but the enemy’s underwear has been stripped, the enemy is defeated. Combos can be achieved by chaining attacks and countering moves, and strip chains can be triggered when multiple enemy clothes are weak. When fighting with allies, massive tag attacks can be activated by filling a teamwork bar, which results in an enemy being completely stripped and any surrounding enemies being stunned. The R trigger is used for blocking and dodging, and also allows the player to counter attacks and chain combos. The L trigger (when held) restores the player’s clothing back to normal, and when simply pressed activates or ends battle mode.

While combat already sounds crazy enough, it occasionally gets clunky and annoying. Hits fail to register, camera angles change when evading, and battles can get downright frustrating when you are unable to block attacks or land any blows. This is amplified by the number of enemies on-screen at one time, and the environment that is being fought in as well. Battles can be lost easily when the player is surrounded by enemy units, and sometimes escape is near-impossible from the group. Playing on the PS Vita I often found that the controls were too small for my liking. While the Vita itself is a comfortable unit, the button-mashing battles managed to make the game uncomfortable and annoying. Some of the button functions did not work correctly, and half of the time I was putting my weapon away mid-battle, or trying to rip off clothing instead of attacking.

The majority of the game is accessible through the character’s smartphone (through the START button), where missions, character customization and communication can be selected at ease. Through the map application, fast-travel is available, saving the player from having to continuously run through zones to get to their destination. This is extremely useful as some of the loading times for the game are excessive, especially when traversing through smaller areas.

Side quests can also be activated through the smart phone, but the game suffers from an inability to display more than one quest; the primary mission is always displayed, and side quests become easily forgettable and difficult to find because of this. This becomes annoying as side quests are a major source of in-game currency, and forgetting to undertake them can lead to shortages of funds when buying and upgrading equipment. Thankfully salvaged gear can be sold to nearly anyone, allowing you to slowly replenish your funds as you play.

Even though the game’s story makes up for it, one of the biggest problems the game has is being too repetitive. With rarely any variation in gameplay, Akiba’s Trip revolves around hitting the streets and fighting Synthisters, returning to the team base, and repeating again. Occasionally this is interspersed with a training mission to keep the player’s skills current, but otherwise the game grows repetitive really fast.

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In a mystical medieval-inspired world, the substance known as Pluton is a rare and valuable mineral that is the source of all magical power. Humanity has fallen back to a single city, known as Feste, which is the last stronghold against the terrors of the land. In order to seek out more Pluton, the explorers of the city, known as Bergmans, hire bodyguards to delve into mines scattered throughout the wilderness in order to seek out more of the precious ore and maintain and power the city. Following the adventures of Geoff and Vasily, a pair of bodyguards hired to protect the Bergman Anka, players are cast out into the land to seek out Pluton and stop the rising evil from the mines below.

Keeping to the standard that is common with most JRPGs, the characters and environments in NAtURAL DOCtRINE (yes, that is how it is spelled) are represented on two levels; rendered anime screens and 3D textured models. However for this game it becomes an issue and adds a disconnection between the two. Characters are vibrant and detailed in images, yet the character models almost barely match their anime counterparts. The characters themselves come off almost like figurines, with permanent expressions plastered on their faces, and clothing and armour that seems mapped to their model rather than independent. The design also looks like it may have been ripped straight from Fire Emblem or a Final Fantasy game, as there is seemingly nothing unique about them. When fighting enemies in-game such as orcs, goblins and knights, there is little variation between the character models and ends up looking like an army of clones, which can get confusing when fighting multiple units at once.

Similarly, the world map and imagery of locations are vivid and colourful, but the 3D environments are dull and generic. From the tutorial level it appears something is amiss; gameplay areas are isolated and do not feel like part of a larger world. Some wall textures were noticeably pixelated and low quality. It really did not feel like a next-gen game when playing it on the PS4, and I found that the game looked a lot more at home on the PS Vita via Remote Play.

The HUD during the game becomes extremely cluttered at times; with the turn order occupying the top of the screen, a scrolling information and help bar occupying the bottom of the screen (with no option to turn it off either), as well as information on the left of the screen during attacking or defending actions. Accompany this with an at times awful camera and things begin to get extremely confusing, with just too much on screen at one time.

The soundtrack does not aid in alleviating any visual issues; tracks are recycled through each battlefield and get repetitive and annoying, especially with the speed of gameplay. Character voices begin to get annoying and each character has a limited quote range, leading to consistently grating comments that will have you reaching for the mute button.

NAtURAL DOCtRINE’s core mechanics shift away from a general turn-based strategy game, and it is here that things get very complex. While the game retains the general principle of being able to move about the map and attack adjacent enemies during your team’s turn, it also adds the ability for your team to skip the queue and attack as one. Certain actions of your units (titled “initiative) allows nearby units the ability to simultaneously attack, performing a ‘tactical link’ that can be used to greatly increase attacking power. The brief tutorial level throws you straight into it, and for most of the game it is up to the player to work out what they are doing.

Now here is where it gets even more complex; depeding on particular allies and their abilities, the distance between linked units raises the attack bonuses between them – for instance, four units in a square at each corner would yield a maximum attack bonus. Ranged units add critical hit bonuses, and can also be used to add attack power. Through careful planning and a mess of coloured bars, a single ‘tactical link’ move can exterminate a group of enemies in one fell swoop. Through this you can also eliminate the enemies that are next in line on the turn bar, preventing them from even making a scratch on your team. When this happens it is extremely rewarding; characters level up faster and levels progress quicker, and the game begins to become slightly more addictive. Risks and rewards begin to pay off. The downside to this is that one wrong move can lead to your team being defeated in a single turn by the enemy; one wrong character placement or maneuver and a member of my team would be killed in an instant. That isn’t to say that the difficulty level is high (ashamedly I started on easy), but the complexity of the tactics that need to be considered is sometimes just too much.

Targeting enemies is quite annoying, as it requires either a double-tap of the Triangle button to target the nearest enemy, or the right analogue stick to target a specific enemy. Multiple times I found myself targeting the wrong enemy and putting myself into a dangerous situation all because I hit the wrong thing. Advanced tactics are taught in the first gameplay level, but considering it takes a while to understand the basic mechanics, I still did not manage to employ many of them. With the amount there is to learn, the game could benefit from a prologue to introduce the story and characters, and a series of tutorial levels rather than a tutorial level that includes lumping the story in.

The biggest issue with the game’s turn-based system is that the developer Kadokawa Games seemingly tried to craft something good, but instead fell just short of the mark, leaving a system that takes a long time to get used to. Three days in and I was still making errors due to the amount of options I had to go through to complete a turn. It doesn’t help that turns can be extremely slow, and cutscenes are nearly unskippable, leading to lengthy rounds that leave you wondering why you got into it in the first place.

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Murasaki Baby is every small child’s worst fear. A small girl is abruptly awoken from her sleep only to learn that her mother isn’t there to comfort her. As the small child ventures further to find her mother she soon realises that her mother is no where to be found. The child sets out to find her with her favourite balloon in hand for safety as she over comes terrifying obstacles that are sure to frighten any small child.

As soon as I booted this game up it was clear to me that a strong inspiration was drawn from director Tim Burton’s art style. In particular the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas” with particular attention to the dark, grim and gothic persona it creates. There was also a hint of South Park involved with the characters, large round cartoonish heads for example.

There is no real voice acting or even an exceptionally strong soundtrack, but I found that Murasaki goes off the foundations that ‘A little goes a long way’. Small cries for Mummy from the small girl, shrieks of terror and even subtle accompanying melodies all set the grim tone perfectly.

Sitting perfectly in this game are some absolutely brilliantly utilised vibrant colours. Each theme as I mentioned above is solely one vibrant colour with black sketching of the gothic themed mentioned earlier and these moving art pieces are absolutely fantastic but are unjustly ruined by the excessive touchscreen interaction the game requires. It is a true shame really as there are some wonderful environments mixed with the wonderful colours to be taken in.

Being solely developed for the Vita, Murasaki Baby takes full (or even too much) advantage of the Vita’s touch pad panels, front and back. You navigate this small child through the world by essentially holding her hand. Applying pressure to the front touch pad around the small child’s hand and dragging it in your desired direction, don’t drag it too aggressively however as it may cause the small child to trip (Yes, you feel like an absolute bully if you do make her trip and it feels horrible). The same concept applies for your balloon, acting essentially as your health you need to direct the balloon out of harms way. Sometimes it can pop instantly when colliding with obstacles or when something startles the child. I found the health system to be a fun and a unique exercise that fit the tone of the game perfectly.

As you navigate the short, roughly 4-5 hour experience you encounter differing circumstances that require your interaction to progress. One instance for example is when you need to extinguish a small fire so you can pass through so you swipe the rear touch pad of the Vita until you find the required background setting and touch tap to initiate the function. Similar situations occur when you need to distract a monster or even flood gullies to raft across. It is a good feature that generates some wonderful artwork but can become quickly confusing or even disorientating when you need to make quick and accurate decisions.

All in all, the touch screen mechanics worked quite well and there was enough variety to keep you invested. Unfortunately there were a few crucial times where I found the hand holding gestures be quite inaccurate which forced a few restarts. Thankfully this game is exceptionally generous in its checkpoints. There are a few obstacle manoeuvres or interactions that require the touchscreen to be used at all times which keeps you invested, but overall I felt that the game was too reliant on the excessive movements of the touchscreen which pulls you away from the wonderful aesthetics of the game as your hands flail about to progress the game.

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Hohokum tells the tale of a multicoloured serpent setting out to find his friends. After a brief gathering with them in your home (hub) world, they all disappear and it is up to you to explore the various interconnected worlds to find them. Basically it’s a wonderfully colourful game of hide and go seek with your serpentine friends across a multitude of fascinating and intriguing 2-D planes.

There isn’t much of a story set up or premise to compel the player to find their friends, the compulsion, however, comes from the adventurous nature of the gamer as they explore and immerse themselves in the artistically constructed world.

I was instantly mesmerised by this games artistic brilliance. It is such a simple design and concept but it is pulled off perfectly. The vibrant colours pop out at you from all spectres of the rainbow. The various worlds are bursting at the seems with their own unique charm and individuality. Underwater themed worlds where you interact with the fish is just one of my favourites along with others such as a brief space adventure as you explore the stars.

But that music – Wow, that music! I think it was the introductory stage of the game where you are left at your own whim to figure the game out; which is fine, it just emphasizes the point of its exploratory nature and that you actually have to think for yourself!. A bass line starts strumming, inflicting emotion like it was plucking the strings to my soul and right there was when the game got me, sunk its claws in and didn’t let go. That soundtrack is a definite side purchase.

As a genre this game is described as an art game. Like all art it is received and interpreted by the individual, some may like it, some wont; both perfectly acceptable opinions but I absolutely loved this game. It feels humble, emotive and courageous all wrapped up in a wonderful cross buy opportunity; but that is just my take on things.

Hohokum is exceptionally simple. You can steer your serpent like creature with one of the analogue sticks or the shoulder buttons depending on your preference, zoom in and out with the other stick, and control your speed and agility by pressing X for faster less controlled movement or O for the polar opposite, slow and precise. The controls make Hohokum extremely accessible for any gamer of any age or experience level.

This game solely focuses on its exploration features. The entire world is opened up to you from the start, it is simply just a matter of finding your way to free your friends. Each friend is unique boasting a different face and colour – slightly reminiscent of “Thomas was Alone” at least to me anyway. Only this time, however, there isn’t character unique or specific traits that really aid in your gameplay.

The puzzles involved in finding your friends are not very challenging, in fact you can complete this game in under an hour if you really wanted (there is even a trophy for it). The true fun comes from immersing yourself and taking the time to appreciate the experience. Some of the best moments i had were shared with my partner as I tried to write words on the screen with my character and she had to guess them. The Dualshock 4’s light bar changes colour with your serpent creature as it enters different ‘worlds’ or grows longer, which was a nice treat but one that I only noticed when it was my partners turn to play.

As I said before this is an art game, a differing experience for each individual some may appreciate it and others wont. The story isn’t fleshed out but that is part of the fun of Hohokum, and the whole point of creating your own experience. Throughout my time with this game I kept getting the feeling that this game would be perfect for a form of co op – whether it be couch based or online, something or someone to share the experience with.

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Everything about The Swapper is minimalistic, and that includes the way it delivers its story to the player. The game takes place in a universe where humanity has exhausted their natural resources, establishing outposts in the deep space to synthesise useful materials to send back to earth. Without divulging too much more information – humans develop “The Swapper”, a device that creates clones of the user, which is quickly shunned by the experts stationed on the outposts who claim it’s dangerous and unethical. You play as an unnamed character who has been dropped into this world, who eventually finds a “Swapper” and must explore an abandoned space station to discover just what happened on the station and find his own way out of the station.

It’s important to highlight how interesting The Swapper is in terms of it’s blurring of the genres. It’s a game that could easily be interpreted as a puzzle game, in similar vein to titles like Portal. But it could easily be interpreted as a horror title given how thick the atmosphere is. But thankfully, there’s no jump-scares, no pursuers, but only words that convey the horror. This works great for two reasons – first of all, those who are frightened of the genre can easily skip all of the text and play through the game as if it were an interesting puzzle game, taking in the very well-crafted atmosphere and wrapping themselves up in the mystery and isolationist viewpoint. But second of all, those who want a truly chilling story with a very unnerving finale can easily read into the audio logs and other text collectibles strewn throughout the game world to put the story together and come to the horrifying conclusion themselves.

It speaks testament to the games atmosphere that, while the story on its own isn’t particularly unique, the way it’s presented still makes it feel like something fresh and new. This isn’t just another one of those pretentious indie titles – but the game’s content is mature and much more cerebral than your typical video game narrative. But it is a fantastic ride that shouldn’t be missed that will keep most players intrigued, or for those not following the story, engrossed from beginning to end.

The Swapper is a very strange looking game that uses a very strange looking art style. But that’s apparently because it’s been modeled in clay, digitised and then animated. While it sounds like a recipe for disaster and that it might look like a poor man’s Wallace and Gromit impersonation. And in screenshots, it really does. But in motion, the game looks fantastic. Lighting manages to perfectly show off these unique and solid, if not slightly chunky, character models in the best light possible (literally). It’s a strange style that’s not been seen in a video game for a long time now and one that sounds a bit weird, but once you’re aware of the fact it’s clay then it becomes exceedingly apparent. And honestly, it looks great – to the point where it manages to capture that sense of isolation that games like Metroid have been so successful in doing in the past.

The sound design is similarly crafted in a way to ensure that the game draws the player into the world rather than play with their emotions as a result of what happens in the world. There’s little to no music – there are some sombre piano pieces here and there, but for the most part the sounds that players will be hearing in The Swapper will be the sounds made by the environment or pieces that emphasise the alone and overwhelming loneliness of an abandoned space station. The voice work on show here is minimal, but serviceable too, but really is so rare that it makes up little to none of the game.

The Swapper borrows elements from titles like Castlevania and Metroid but doesn’t in any way attempt to be them. Mixing these elements of backtracking and character progression with Portal-esque puzzle progression works particularly well. The player must travel through the space station, which is conveniently modulated, and collect special orbs. Each area will require a certain amount of orbs to progress through – so players who want to get by on the bare minimum can do so but those who want to explore will be able to find everything the game has to offer. There is some backtracking, but it’s nowhere near as excessive as other games in this genre.

As you might have expected, the crux of the game’s puzzles comes from the Swapper tool. The tool allows players to create up to four clones as well as to swap control between them at any given time. Clones themselves move with the player, unless interrupted by an obstacle like a wall or a crate. This is where the brunt of the challenge comes from in The Swapper – attempting to find the optimal setup to get all the clones to hit all switches simultaneously in a room or to get through a series of doors unscratched are just some of the challenges the player will encounter.

The Swapper attempts to change things up as the player progresses by introducing different lighting systems within the ship itself. These lights have varying effects on The Swapper and its clones – blue lights, for example, will prevent clones from being created in the area they illuminate. Red lights can block The Swapper from “Swapping” control between clones of those standing in red light, while purple lights block both. Towards the end of the game, The Swapper also plays with gravity to make puzzles much more difficult. And they are particularly difficult – but incredibly satisfying upon solving them. The pacing and the difficulty of the puzzles, thankfully, feels just about right although there is bound to be some players who will have to resort to a guide, and I wouldn’t fault them for doing so either. The Swapper can get tough during its later levels.

While it might seem like playing on a console would be less enjoyable than playing on a PC with a mouse, the console versions of The Swapper feature a surprisingly intuitive control system. While the cursor affects where created clones will appear, the game slows down time to allow for players to place their clones strategically without flustering about with poorly designed controls. Even better – this design choice allows the developers to incorporate some very interesting puzzles designs, where the player and their character can create clones and swap to them in order to climb large vertical space. Opening the exploration up to a vertical level gives The Swapper another edge to its exploration when compared to other games in the genre, although it’s rather macabre to see three clones just fall to their death after you’ve successfully climbed an area.

The Swapper itself will probably be over for most players within five to six hours, though to find absolutely everything the experience could probably last anywhere between six to ten. The trophies themselves are assigned to finding secret terminals throughout the game, which elaborate on the game world and what went down on the space station – which means most players will be able to easily complete the game without unlocking a single trophy. These collectibles are easily the most elusive, but as with the puzzles, will be especially rewarding if players set out to find the all – although most of them are hidden through what feels like unfair means at times.

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The original Ratchet and Clank trilogy from the PS2 has made its way over to the PS3 and PS Vita. The original trilogy (Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet and Clank: Locked and Loaded, Ratchet and Clank 3) follows the titular heroes as they protect various galaxies from regular foe Dr Nefarious and a few other nemesis with more than sinister intentions. Each game tackles a different story and are wildly imaginative and humorous.

The age of the games definitely shows visually, 2002 was the launch of the original Ratchet and Clank nearly 14 years ago to be exact but don’t let that deter you. There has still been a significant amount of work done to polish up and smooth the majority of the textures in game, as well as adding some more depth and layers to the back ground of the game.

The voices have been transferred without skipping a beat and from my unshakable memory they are just as accurate from the first time I played these games right through. Solid voice work mixed with the classic Ratchet and Clank sounds means an excellent HD port.

Focusing directly on the PS Vita iteration and considering this is a port from a much older system, I couldn’t be more impressed! Taking into account other ports of that era cannot consistently hold a solid frame rate, the Ratchet and Clank ports suffer from absolutely no drops that I encountered during my gametime. Sticking around the 30 frame per second mark is certainly a great feat.

The way the controller was ported over was basically flawless, following a smooth transition with great response time, unfortunately at times the game can feel a fraction clunky which is in no fault of the developers but the true age of the games showing itself. Mass Media made a conscious decision to eliminate any real need to use the awkward touch screen on the back, allocating it to the crouch button and a few menu movements was a brilliant move.

The main playable character is Ratchet, whom is controlled via third person, though a first person mode to view the player’s surroundings is available. The player traverses different environments with a large collection of unusual comic gadgets and weapons, using them to defeat enemies and pass obstacles. A staple of what made Ratchet and Clank so remarkable were the diverse environments, tight controls and sheer fun of third person shooting and platforming. Setting the bar for future action/adventure games, Insomniac implemented an XP system for both characters and for weapons, something that was carried on to Insomniac’s other IP’s. 

Trophy hunters will be pleased to know that there is a specific trophy list for each game, opening up an abundance of challenges for those who are so inclined. Purchases of this game on the PSN store are also gifted with a cross buy opportunity allowing them to play the entirety of these games on their PS3 and PS Vita. Unfortunately there was no cross-save feature that I found, which seems quite odd considering that the trophy list is shared between the consoles.

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The story of Demon Gaze is a structurally familiar one. You are an amnesiac protagonist (yes, another one) who wakes up in a cold, dark dungeon. After a brief of series of events, you find out that you are a demon gazer, a being who is able to quell the rage of demons, capture them, and use them in battle. Not only that, but you’re are a demon gazer with unprecedented potential! (Hello, “chosen one” trope.) As such you are given a roof over your head, and a job with the Dragon Princess Inn to capture demons and help wherever it may be needed while you try to recollect your past.

You may have noticed in that rough synopsis that I pointed out some tropes that the game follows. Unfortunately, those aren’t the only ones. Demon Gaze’s story is filled to the brim with JRPG tropes, predictable plot twists, and a narrative pace that can slow down to a patience-testing crawl. Despite the story itself not being all that memorable, I did find something I really enjoyed; that being the bunch of misfits that inhabit the Dragon Princess inn. They are by no means your stereotypical heroic archetypes. A jaded elf, a perverted cat lady and a money grubbing innkeeper are just some of the characters that often get into comic mischief that I looked forward to seeing after turning in some quests and barely making it out of a dungeon alive.

Note: In terms of its presentation, Demon Gaze is aptly named, this game is partially developed by Kadokawa, a studio becoming somewhat notorious with its sexual imagery, for better or worse. In other words, wink wink, nudge nudge, there’s a lot of fan service. I’m not going to go into the whole ‘fan service being bad, sexist, objectifying sexes, etc.’ I say, to each their own, live and let live. Personally I don’t mind it, but if this is an issue for you, at least you’re aware it’s in the game now.

Demon Gaze’s presentation is a mixed ordeal. First person dungeon crawlers aren’t particularly famous for their visuals and Demon Gaze is definitely not going to change that. Monster re-colours, constant reuse of tile assets couldn’t be more apparent, and even then the 3D environmental art itself lacks any kind of impressive detail. It looks like all the textures have a Gaussian blur applied to it. It sounds harsh, but it looks something from the end of the PSP era. All that being said, the 2D art used for non-playable party members and monsters are all impressive; but otherwise archaic. NPCs share the common anime-esque art style, while monsters feel like they were ripped from straight from an Emily Rodda book. If anything, I appreciate what they did to make up for the lack of animation. Both in battle and in events the portraits of characters and monsters can slide around, zoom in an out have small flourishes surrounding the portraits. It may not sound like much, but it saves the game from being akin to a boring visual novel.

The audio work overall for Demon Gaze is superb. I honestly wasn’t expecting much from the English voice acting, to my surprise I ended up sticking with it through out the entire game. The soundtrack does a fantastic job both of setting a scene whether it be somber piano compositions or a jaunty sunny day tune. The same is true with the battle music, though it’s comprised of J-pop and J-rock, as well as heavy use of what sounds like Vocaloids (synthesised singers). At first I thought adding vocals was a somewhat risky choice, seeing as battle themes have a high risk of becoming tiresome and utterly unbearable due to the frequent nature of them. Thankfully it never got to that point, battles have a tense atmosphere thanks to their difficulty and the music didn’t diminish that. I call that a job well done.

Demon Gaze falls into the dungeon crawler genre, and it plays much like its ancestors Wizardry, or to use a more recent comparison, Etrian Odyssey. It has many of the genre’s conventions, from choosing what classes comprise your party  to the brutal difficulty that usually comes with the genre’s territory. Demon Gaze does add a few of its own tricks to the tried and true formula, which does manage to set it apart from the rest. The most notable of which makes use of your gazer skills, the ability to use demons. While in battle demons use a resource called the Demon Gauge, whether you are just using a demon skill or summoning the demons as an uncontrollable extra party member, this resource is depleted accordingly. If the Demon Gauge reaches zero while a demon is still summoned they will go berserk, which will result in massive damage to friend and foe. So the use of demons in battle is not something which you can just recklessly use. Thankfully they also have passive benefits ranging from additional defense, to not taking damage from environmental hazards while exploring. What it all sums up to, is that you have more ways to shore up your party’s odds of survival and offensive capability, which, in this type of RPG, is invaluable. The Demon Gauge prevents you from using demons haphazardly, so the extra help doesn’t feel like it’s sacrificing the genre’s conventional difficulty. That being said, for those who just want to enjoy the game’s story and world, they offer an easy mode for anyone seeking that.

The other noteworthy tweak they have bought to the table is in the loot system. Along side your gold and other equipment items, you will also gain gems. These gems are used at Demon Circles, set points of conflict you have to conquer to progress through the game. Gems are placed on the circle before the conflict and if you succeed, you get the corresponding loot tied to that gem (e.g. three hat gems equals three hats dropped at the end of the encounter). The rarity and value of the equipment is still randomised, it’s just a small tweak that circumvents the frustration of never getting the gear you want; which makes things a lot less frustrating when leveling and gearing  a new party member.

Which leads to my only real gripe with the gameplay itself, getting a new party member feels much more a hassle than the exciting prospect it should be. Since you have to pay rent at the Dragon Princess Inn, there is a small degree of money management involved. Buying a new room to acquire a new party member gets expensive quickly, and then you need to level and gear them up from scratch. Everything else about the gameplay itself makes for a really well put together dungeon crawler.

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At a time where first-party Vita games are almost non-existent, it really shocked gamers that this is the type of game that Sony are offering up. In the handheld space, the Vita is not seen as a casual gamers device at all so the announcement of PlayStation Vita Pets was out of left field.

Believe it or not, PlayStation Vita Pets has a story. The game takes place in the kingdom of Castlewood. Once ruled by a king and his loyal dog, chaotic invaders overtook the kingdom. As a new resident of Castlewood, it is your goal to recover the king’s treasures. Whilst the story is quite lame and basic, it’s good to see that there is an overall purpose to the game. This is something that games like Nintendogs have lacked.

PlayStation Vita Pets is full of colour and vibrancy and this is what makes the game a mild success.

The stunning environments and pet models really give the game character and allow you to fall in love with your pet to a certain extent. Animations are smooth and believable however the voice-overs are extremely creepy and the game would’ve been better off had they been left out.

The game commences almost identically to that of Nintendogs. You are presented with a choice of four different puppy breeds. Your choice of dog will reflect the gender and voice of your furry little pooch. As mentioned above, your dog talks and I found this to be a huge deal breaker in the game. In a game that’s all about simulation, I found it hard to relate to a virtual animal that has an incredibly annoying voice. I really felt that this almost broke the immersion completely from the get-go.

It’s not at first clear what the overall goal of the game is. Upon reaching your home you can partake in activities such as bathing and feeding your pup. It’s not until you start buying items that you can partake in more complex activities like Frisbee throwing and obstacle courses.

Skills such as tug, digging and fetch can be trained at three different levels and are vital to progressing through the game. Leaving your house will present you with two doors. One leads to outside and the other leads to the Frisbee area. As with Nintendogs, you can teach your dog tricks. Doing things with your pup in the game will earn you buddy points, which you can use to unlock your tricks. Tricks are performed with the Vita’s microphone and work quite well.

Later in the game are puzzles, which you need to get through in order to find the king’s treasure. Puzzles vary in difficulty and involve a range of things such as traversing mazes and sitting down on stones in a particular order. They go hand-in-hand with your skills and what levels you can partake in are based off how skillful your pet is.

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Entwined is a tale of two souls that are hopelessly in love but can never be together. One soul is a fish, whilst the other is a bird; these two souls always co-exist throughout multiple points in time and space.

This games presentation is easily the strongest aspect. As you continuously move down the lifetimes’ seemingly endless cylinders you will absorb shimmering aspects of the location that each is set in. For example, one may be a suburban environment or a desert landscape. The variations to the levels and their puzzles are great. Each level has a rhythmic tone that is perfectly suited to the level and to each beat of the puzzles.

Entwined takes great inspiration from thatgamecompany’s Flower, taking great measure to make your experience as tranquil as possible. It certainly delivers.

In terms of graphical presentation, characters and elements are comprised primarily of squares, rectangles and a few triangles. Obviously in today’s graphical standard it doesn’t sound like much but it does an absolutely brilliant job of igniting your imagination and adding to the enormous amount of tranquility this game already boasts.

Each soul is controlled by an individual analog stick on the controller. The fish, identified by the colour orange, is on the left and the bird, blue in colour, is on the right. Your goal as a player is to simultaneously guide these two souls through various colour coded zones ranging in size and movement as you continuously travel down a cylindrical tunnel. Collecting the respective coloured orbs in between these colour coded rings brings you closer to unifying these two souls.

Each soul is only allowed to rotate in their own hemisphere, making things a lot easier than what it could have been if it were the whole 360 degrees. Don’t let that fool you though as you progress through the many lifetimes (read: levels) of the game the complexity rises and excels beyond what I initially expected. Counteractive to that though, as bad as I was at certain lifetimes, I never actually failed, I just kept delaying these two souls from becoming one.

Collecting the aforementioned orbs is the key to progression. Collect enough for both sides and you enter a fusion (fu-sion, ha!) segment. It becomes critical during this moment that you do not miss any of the colour coded zone movements as the slightest error can knock you out of the fusion and leave you looking for more orbs.

Once the fusion is complete, you are certainly in for a treat.

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Lemmings is a long running puzzle series. The aim of the game is to get the Lemmings from point A to B whilst navigating obstacles and deterrents across a variety of different worlds.

This game certainly isn’t going to be pushing the powerful handheld to its max but it does have a solid looking foundation and decent soundtrack. Perhaps the best part of the soundtrack is the little grunts and nudges that Lemmings give you when you sit your Vita in idle too long for their liking.

As you progress through your game the backdrop of your levels change; here you will see the intricate details that go into the game and give it the majority of its charm. Themed worlds like Egypt that have hieroglyphic etchings on pillars and sandstone decay on bricks, to the flames and skulls that decorate of the Hell stages make up this aesthetically beautiful game.

Utilising the touch screen capabilities of the Vita perfectly, the Lemmings series has received a great entry to the handheld. A fluent and responsive touch system is at the heart of this game.

Lemmings mindlessly wander ever closer toward their goal (or demise) and it is up to the player to get them there safely. Drag your finger across the screen to pan and get a quick overview of the obstacles ahead. Tap to select a particular Lemming and command him to do a particular task. It may be to build a staircase over a small wall, while another Lemming can be commanded to block the others paths to stop them falling to their doom before the said staircase is completed. There are countless combinations and varying obstacles that require precise timing and lots of planning if you wish to get these little fellas home.

Scores are gained and points are accumulated for completing levels under a set amount of time whilst sparing the lives of as many of the Lemmings as you can.

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LEGO The Hobbit tells the story of the first two Hobbit movies. The story sees Bilbo Baggins team up with a group of Dwarves as they try to claim back their homeland from the evil Smaug. The only argument that I have is that they could’ve waited until the third movie was released in order to release a completed package. As it stands, the game ends quite suddenly and feels like an incomplete story. The developers have done quite well in bringing a bit of humor to quite a dry story.

I played LEGO The Hobbit on the PlayStation 4 and was pleasantly surprised with the game’s visuals. The recreation of Middle-earth is full of colour and personality. The game looks much better than the previous LEGO Lord of the Rings games. The developers have hit a good balance of LEGO-like graphics and semi-realistic graphics. As expected, the character models and animation are incredibly solid and also do well to capture the essence of Middle-earth.

The voice acting is pulled directly from the film sequences. It creates a faithful representation but can also fall quite flat in terms of a unified experience. It felt to not fit in with the overall presentation at times.

Coming from The LEGO Movie Videogame, LEGO The Hobbit is quite a disappointment. It reverts straight back to the formula of the LEGO games that you’re used to. It’s the rinse and repeat formula of repetitive combat mixed with unlocking new characters. Its only saving grace is when playing the game with another person. The LEGO games were made for co-op play and it’s always their redeeming gameplay feature. It’s one of the only games that let you sit down with another person and hash it out with a bit of old-school local multiplayer.

One of the biggest issues with the game are the boss fights which are comprised of QTE events and frantic platforming sections which can still be frustrating due to the camera angles.

LEGO The Hobbit retains the blueprint formula that was introduced in The LEGO Movie Videogame. This was a new gameplay mechanic that required you to find a bunch of missing parts in order to build something new to advance to the next section. This does well in breaking up the repetitive gameplay, but it is now quickly becoming something that is overused and being relied on to break up pacing. Another new addition are buddy attacks. You’re able to get together with another character to unleash a more powerful attack that can be used to take down larger enemies. It’s a good addition, I just wish that more new gameplay mechanics were introduced.

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MLB: The Show has been the standalone baseball series in the last few years. It’s obviously never taken off in Australia but has always been held in high regard overseas. The game is developed by SCE San Diego who are primarily known for their work on sporting titles.

On the PS3, MLB 14 isn’t a huge step up from last year’s iteration. The visuals of the players are pushing the limits of the PlayStation 3, however the crowds still look significantly worse than in other sports games. Animations are as great as ever and the lighting makes the stadiums look realistic and true to their real-life counterparts.

The Vita version holds up surprisingly well. Players are still recognisable and stadiums still look brilliant. There are a few oddities here and there, but SCE San Diego should be commended for their ability to keep the experience consistent.

On the PS4, the game really shines. The player models are much more detailed and the stadiums are even more true-to-life. Lighting changes based on weather and time of day and the crowd looks more lively than ever. A bunch of new camera techniques have been introduced to really emphasise the enhanced visuals. Unfortunately, commentary hasn’t seen a huge overhaul and is still quite repetitive on all consoles.

Ultimately, it’s a nice graphical overhaul but still a transitional one.

Two of the most noticeable additions to The Show this season are Player Lock and Quick Counts. It’s not hyperbole to trumpet Player Lock as a visionary new way to experience a sports game; the ability to step into the cleats of individual players at any point in any game in every standard mode introduces a staggering amount of possibilities. Feel like being your franchise’s star slugger for a week? Go for it–then switch over to your closer for the final three outs in every key game. Want to play Opening Day as the entire team then see what it’s like to be your second baseman for the next month? Simple. Player Lock powers a fundamental, spectacular new way to play The Show.

The first thing that I’ll say about MLB: The Show 14 is that it’s totally worth owning at least the Vita version and one of console versions. The game syncs your data better than any other sports game so it’s an absolute treat for baseball fans.

So while Player Lock lets you take control over individual players, Quick Counts makes for quicker matches. You can now play a full nine-inning game in around thirty minutes. Previously it would take nearly an hour to get through a full game. I found that it didn’t lower the realism of the game in any way, it simply took away a lot of the unnecessary filler content and made for a much more tense match-up.

Road to the Show has seen a few new additions. Rookie Showcase lets you alter your position in the draft process and the attributes system has been rebuilt to eliminate the multi-tiered rankings that have confused gamers in previous years. It’s still a great mode with a lot of depth however it’s now less confusing in the way that it presents information. The menu is still quite boring to get around but I’d expect that’ll be the next thing to be revamped.

The biggest let down of the game is its online system. The developers stated that it was built from the ground up to fix connection problems that the series has been criticised for. Unfortunately, lag is still a huge issue and makes the game almost unplayable online. This is obviously a huge issue for a game that is based solely around perfect timing. I admire the developers for being so ambitious in the Online Franchise mode however the online infrastructure means that it just doesn’t work to its full potential.

The overall gameplay is generally the same which is a good thing. MLB: The Show has always been regarded as the most realistic baseball game so we’re glad that not much has been changed with the fundamentals. Ultimately it’s a better experience than in years passed and definitely a solid one.

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Football Manager has long been a star performer for PC, but will it impress at its new club – the Vita, or will it fall out of favour like a certain short-lived Manchester United manager? As the name suggests, the Vita version features only the pared down classic mode. Online, instant results and some more in depth features may be missing in action but they’re not missed when playing on a handheld. Most impressive is the cross-save feature that enables you to continue your career when you’re away from the computer. The one drawback being you’ll never give up that Football Manager addiction now. Balls.

There is no specific storyline as is often the case with sports games. Instead, Football Manager Classic 2014 is rich with your own emergent squeaky bum times as you guide your team to cup finals, out of relegation zones and you take over national sides. For the less committed managers, the challenge mode has you taking on specific situations like a club amidst an injury crisis, go a season unbeaten or win silverware with a core of youth players. These are shorter, more intense affairs where you can forget about the club’s long term goals and just concentrate on the football.

Everything that is Football Manager is here, all present and correct. Careers spanning multiple years, negotiable contracts and scouts that can be deployed worldwide. About the only thing you can’t do is appear on TV as a pundit. The names of players, teams and leagues are all clickable, revealing enough stats to keep even budding Mourinhos happy. It’s an authentic Football Manager experience, but on Vita.

Manager is controlled through the touch screen with your fingers acting as the mouse pointer. In theory, this is far better than navigating with the analogue stick or D-pad. Unfortunately, like many of my own game plans, it all goes out the window as soon as the game starts. The Vita’s screen size of five inches is nowhere near as big as your PC or laptop display and the result is reminiscent of viewing full websites on a smartphone. Not good. To alleviate this, the top menu bar can be hidden with a tap of the right shoulder button but text can be smaller than the fine print on a money lender’s advert and to make things worse, you’ll need fingers smaller than the Mariners transfer budget to click them.

The on-pitch action is shown through the 3D match engine which, bar the odd drop in frame rate, makes the transfer to Vita superbly. At first glance the players may appear to be moonwalking robots simulating a game of football, yet it still provides a valuable visual reference of how your team is performing. It’s a definite improvement over the days of yore, where you’d stare into a matrix of text and numerical data. It may not look like FIFA, and it never will, but it has proved good enough for me to keep it turned on, even if limited to key events.

Football Manager games are famed for being huge time sinks where seasons pass by over days and whole careers are lived in weeks. But that simply isn’t possible on this Vita version due to excruciatingly slow load times. Instead of speeding through seasons like Gareth Bale past defenders, you bumble along like Emile Heskey, waiting minutes to load a match and many more to play them. A lot of my time was also consumed by the undo button. I constantly selected the wrong buttons I didn’t mean to press, going back and forth between menus until it finally registered my desired input. I never felt I was ever in complete control. Football Manager Classic 2014 should be a perfect fit for the Vita as you can dip in and out with ease, but the long load times and clumsy interface mean you’ll barely complete one match in a commute.

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The LEGO Movie Videogame tells the exact same story as The LEGO Movie. Emmet Brickowski is your average construction worker in LEGO Land. An unfortunate series of events leads him to being the ‘chosen one’ that has to save the world by defeating Evil Lord Business and ‘The Kragle’. As with the movie, the game’s story is hilarious, however I’d highly recommend not playing this game before watching the movie, if you have any interest in seeing the movie that is. The game spoils the best lines from the movie and whilst they’re just as enjoyable the second time around, the movie will be almost pointless to you if you’ve already played the game.

The LEGO Movie Videogame looks almost as good as the LEGO Marvel Superheroes. The biggest graphical change is the fact that the environments are now all made out of LEGO, where in previous times they LEGO was limited to some of the characters and parts of the environment. I really enjoyed the change, as the game was able to separate itself from a series that has become quite stale.

The cut scenes in the game mostly consist of original sections from the movie. They look slightly more compressed and less visually impressive but that’s to be expected. The sound in the game does a perfect job of making you feel like you’re in The Lego Movie. It’s not out of this world, but it’s enough to put you in a believable environment.

The LEGO Movie Videogame differs slightly from previous games in the LEGO universe. It tries to add more variations of gameplay through the use of mini-games and interesting character missions. For instance, the game kicks off almost instantly with a Dance Dance Revolution type mini-game to the ridiculously catchy theme song “Everything Is Awesome”.

The game also introduces a new play set mechanic in which Emmet must build large city items using instructions from a play set. They usually involve finding specific bricks that are missing from your collection in order to build the item required to advance. The game also features Master Builders, which can create structures using blocks without instructions, as you’d expect from previous games (and the movie). Unfortunately this gets repetitive fairly quickly and the game feels like it relegates back to the standard formula of previous LEGO games.

In fact, this is the thing that disappointed me most about the game. The game starts out as the most innovate LEGO game to date but quickly morphs into a repetitive game that screams rushed, clearly in an attempt to coincide with the release date of the movie. It’s still a ton better than the majority of movie tie-in games, but it still falls a little short.

Thankfully, The LEGO Movie Videogame introduces a stellar roster of characters. Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman and even Gandalf are all unlockable and provide an exciting burst of gameplay for a brief amount of time. As always, the game is better played with a buddy. It’s easy enough for anybody to pickup and is great in short spurts. Unfortunately, for older players there is almost no challenge in the gameplay, but this means that it’s completely achievable to beat for its target audience.

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Fez features the ever lovable Gomez who lives in a peaceful, two-dimensional world. He one day awakens and watches the break-up of a giant, golden Hexahedron which tears the dimensional fabric apart. He quickly receives a red fez hat which provides the revelation that his world has three dimensions.

The story in Fez is minimal but absolutely endearing. It has so much personality without actually saying much.

Fez is one of the most unique games that I have ever played. Its pixel art style is quite unique and really makes you feel apart of a brand new world. It’s extremely minimalist in its design and that really helps the world be the hero of the game. The reminiscent chiptune soundtrack in the game is extremely catchy and makes the game all the more lovable. On the PS4, the game runs at 1080p with a full 60FPS and it looks better than ever.

The Vita iteration is no slouch either, making great use of that vibrant OLED.

Fez is all about rotating a flat, 2D world at 90° rotations to reveal a 3D world. The player can move left or right in order to essentially reveal four sides of a cube. It’s your challenge to interact with ladders and broken plates by switching the world around to complete broken sections of the level. You traverse through the world in the name of collecting cubes.

Gomez can steadily jump between platforms in order to make up the rest of the platforming mechanics. There are no foes or bosses within the game, which will turn some players away, but I felt that this allowed me to enjoy the game and play it at my own pace. It allowed me to be able to enjoy the world to the fullest and really experience the game in the way that I wanted to.

Fez has bought quite a few features onto the PS4 and Vita. On the latter, you can use the touch screen in order to manipulate the world, which works exceptionally well. On the PS4, the light bar is used in order to replicate the colourings of the world. This is a great use of the feature and really makes you immersed within the world, as gimmicky as it sounds. The touchpad on the PS4 can be flicked in order to spin the world, which is quite a helpful feature. The game supports cross-save and cross-buy within all three PlayStation consoles so you’ll only have to buy the game once and be able to continue on any of the three platforms, if that’s your sort of thing.

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Originally created for the PS2 back in 2002 by the well-known Sucker Punch studios. Sly Cooper is set in a real world environment that is populated by anthropomorphic animals. Sly Cooper himself is a young adult raccoon and a descendant in a line of master thieves. Sly uses the ‘Thievius Raccoonus’ to learn his family’s secrets and tricks. Sly places a great value on his friendships with the beloved Bentley and Murray who help him in all of his mischievous doings.

The game saw a huge graphical boost on it’s re release on the PS3 and i’m glad to say that the HD graphics have transferred onto the beautiful Vita OLED screen flawlessly. The game almost looks as good as last year’s Thieves in Time which was built for the Vita. I didn’t notice any noticeable slow-down which made me incredibly happy, considering the game chugged quite a lot on the PS3. As far as I can tell, the game is split into 2 different applications. Sly Cooper 1 and 2 are bunched together and Sly Cooper 3 is singled out on it’s own. This wasn’t an issue for me but some people might find it relevant. Cutscenes don’t utilise the entire display but I didn’t feel that this lowered the experience.

In the original game, you are tasked with tracking down the hidden pages of the family heirloom. These pages have been scattered across the world and it’s your choice how to find them. In true Sly Cooper style, you’re based within a central hub of operations with different doors leading to levels. Each world is styled differently and you have to collect a certain number of keys before you can progress to the next world. The first game does extremely well to vary up the gameplay, for instance, you can take part in a standard platforming level and then be thrust into a twin-stick shooter.

In Sly 2, the world is much more expansive and Sucker Punch really aimed to fix a lot of the problems that people found in the first game. The game features improved and less clunky combat mechanics and a more forgiving health-bar. The game also put a greater emphasis on actually having to sneak past your enemy, rather than being forced to fight them.

Sly 3: Honour Among Thieves doesn’t add much to the already solid formula. It does however look quite a bit better than the first two games and also offers up more exciting enemy varieties than the first two games. It really caps off an amazing trilogy with it’s incredibly solid gameplay and well developed storyline.

The Sly Cooper Trilogy on Vita is largely the same experience as it was on the PS3. In my opinion I found that the game felt a lot better on a handheld console. The original trilogy really lends itself to short bursts of play so it feels right at home on the Vita. The front touch screen is used to activate zoom mode and the rear touch pad has been used in order to locate waypoints. Mini games have made a comeback and now utilise the touch screen as well. The trilogy will take you around 15 hours to complete and it’s well worth it for those that haven’t experienced the full trilogy.

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Luftrausers doesn’t portray much of a story, therefore I won’t give it an official score but I will use it as an opportunity to explain the premise of sorts. Basically you are an Air Force pilot who is based on a submarine. As each battle begins you are launched from the sub onto a horizontal view on a 2-D plain over a vast ocean, with the ocean and skies as your only barriers. You are then tasked to destroy the enemies you encounter during your round. Enemies come at you from all directions, large and small, by sea and by air.

First of all you may have noticed that Devolver Digital published this game. Prior to my knowledge of this, I had already associated the games strong soundtrack with the engaging and invigorating styles of Hotline Miami (a game also published by Devolver Digital), so clearly there was a very positive influence from the publishers. For Luftrausers’ soundtrack nothing changes, each song is a strong, powerful motivating force with a hint of techno/light dub-step. Overall I feel the soundtrack was a great accompanying feature to the game, heightening the experience.

Visually, a basic colour palette of browns, blacks, creams and white make up this vastly detailed pixelated game. This was an absolute pleasure to look at.

When I first picked up Luftrausers, I naively expected it to play out like a twin-stick shooter, naivety at its finest. Controlling your aircraft is used only with the left thumb-stick, which steers and rotates as you command it; it also has a speed boost that engages when you press the thumb-stick in the direction you are already travelling. On paper it may sound like a simple mechanic but really it has quite a steep learning curve, that once mastered becomes a fluent joyful process to destroy the opposition.

This game is extremely lenient to the players, offering a world of opportunity and chances to create your own luck. As I mentioned before in the story section, the skies and seas are your boundaries, but only to an extent; your plane is able to take a quick dip into the ocean or soar into the clouds to inflict some damage on a resting enemy or just to simply use it as a sharp turning circle; although at the expense of health.

Accumulating points is the sole means of progression and unlocking upgrades. Points come in bountiful amounts provided you can keep your points multiplier alive; one multiplier point per enemy destroyed then maxing out at 20 (each unique enemy destroyed earns you the various points to be multiplied). The difficulty in this stems from the fact that your aircraft can receive copious amounts of damage but can only recover when you are not firing, so it becomes a sort of balancing act between increasing/maintaining your multiplier and keeping your health up.

Earning points rewards the player with new variations to the aircraft, weapons, body frame and engine. There are multiple variants across all three categories including laser beams, a frame that is a nuke and explodes destroying all your adversaries when you die and a water resistant engine, for example. Each variant in their respective category open up increasingly difficult challenges to earn more points and unlock further forms of aircraft.

The beauty of this and the real testament to “create(ing) your own luck” is that you can change any of the three variants to overcome said challenges. For example, let’s say you have the laser beam wielding, water resistant, nuke combination I mentioned earlier and you are challenged with destroying 20 airborne enemies in 30 seconds. Inevitably the direct focused beam of the slow moving nuke isn’t going to cut it for that, changing those two variables to a wider spread shotgun sort of weapon and a lighter quick and nimble frame increases your ability to complete the task. Many combinations can be created to succeed in the challenges thrown at you.

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A young red-haired man suffering from amnesia awakes in the town of Casnan. It’s not long until he meets a burley information dealer named Duren. It turns out that they have actually met before and Duren tells him his name – Adol Christin. After a few beers (usually the cause of my memory loss), Duren offers to assist Adol in exploring the forest of Celceta to find out the cause of his forgetfulness.

At first, Adol is charged with charting a map of Celceta and it doesn’t take long for him to discover dungeons and other towns. Entering these can be tense as you’re never quite sure how they will receive Adol. He may have forgotten the past but the inhabitants most certainly have not and you can guarantee they’ve encountered Adol before. The plot is predominantly told through the JRPG staple of blue dialogue boxes, of which there are far too many. They’re particularly frustrating when you power up your Vita to slay a few monsters on the bus and haven’t got time to read a novel. A few hundred pages of dialogue could have easily been cut without ruining the story, which is uninspired at best. The more interesting narrative was my own in uncovering the forest and discovering new areas and monsters to stab in the face. This is what kept my attention.

The Vita may not sport the power of home consoles but Memories of Celceta still falls short of the visual benchmarks set by the likes of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Killzone: Mercenary and Tearaway. Shoddy textures, fixed camera angles, repetitive music and basic character models with limited animations all contribute to the sensation that you’re playing a classic from yesteryear. Quite appropriate when you consider it’s a reimagining of Super Nintendo title Ys IV. The visuals wouldn’t look quite so ropy were it not for the crisp anime slides that are interspersed throughout. These make you wish the gameplay was rendered in that same beautiful art style. Sadly, the retro theme continues with the soundtrack; containing a few overused tracks, standard sound effects and minimal voice dialogue.

The forest itself is variegated nicely with numerous environments including the obligatory snow section. Unfortunately, this isn’t a large sprawling open world with distant horizons to run towards. Rather, it’s a series of corridors branching out into multiple paths, all tediously separated by loading screens. Yet you’re still compelled to explore the forest because of a constantly rising percentage as you uncover the map. It’s a neat touch that gives you a sense of progression often missing from other RPGs. It eggs you on to discover more.

Combat is oversimplified too with just one attack button. Special moves can be unlocked and equipped to four commands but they can’t be chained together to form combos. Some variance does come from block and evade moves, which when timed correctly, can be used to unleash critical hits or to slow down targets. Whilst the hits are satisfying and movement is slick, it doesn’t stop Memories of Celceta from being a

rudimentary and repetitive hack and slash. It means you spend most of your time wandering through the forest mashing square until you get to the next dungeon or town where you mash square again to skip through the dialogue, stop to feed dogs Chito nuts and then move on to the next quest.

The controllable cast of characters that join your party do offer some variation. Sporting weapons with different attack types from Duren’s strike to Karna’s pierce as well as their own special moves. Unfortunately, their “Unique abilities” are nothing more than a new method of opening up previously inaccessible parts of the map. There is a hint of Metroidvania to this but usually they are just required to progress rather than tracking back to unlock old areas.

The upgrade system is intriguing as weapons and armour can be reinforced with items mined from resources located in the forest. These can improve or impair statistics forcing you to play around and find the right combination of materials. This is all rendered redundant though thanks to the expensive cost of upgrading. It makes more economic sense to just sell the minerals to buy better weapons, armour and items instead. They’re also easily obtained from quests and numerous treasure chests. It’s a crying shame as interesting weapons could be forged but there simply isn’t any need to.

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Both of the Final Fantasy X games take place within the world of Spira – a world that has gone thorugh a golden age of industrialism, brought about by a mysterious advanced civilisation and their own creations, the machinery known simple as the machine. However, to ensure that civilisation does not rely too much on its progression, a colossal and malevolent entity known as Sin is conjured to the land every thousand or so years to destroy everything. Only the grand summoner can take down Sin, and Tidus, a man who survived a Sin attack, accompanies Yuna on an adventure to awaken her true power as a summoner.

Final Fantasy X-2 takes place roughly two years after the conclusion to the original game, and sees Yuna adapting a new persona and a new role within society as a bounty hunter of sorts. But when she sees someone looking like Tidus, who she has since fallen out of contact with, she enlists her most trusted femme fatales, Rikku and Paine, on an adventure to discover the truth behind this mysterious apparition and the forces that may be related to it.

The story in both the Final Fantasy X games are surprisingly rather good for a Japanese RPG. They aren’t unnecessarily convoluted like earlier 3D Final Fantasy games and they tend to touch upon stories and issues that might occur in real life – such as the use of religion to exploit the fears of the masses or the ramifications of over-reliance on technology. Combine this exploration of themes with some genuinely likeable characters and Final Fantasy X’s narrative still stands up today. It’s biggest downfall, however, is just how cliché it is.

HD Remaster’s primary drawcard is that it sports a fresh new look for games that are over thirteen years old now. The backgrounds have been revamped to provide a greater degree of clarity to its standard definition counterparts as well as add detail. Most of this detail in the environments thankfully steers away from anachronism – providing a fresh new look while retaining elements that made the origins so fantastic.

What doesn’t feel the same is easily the character models themselves, which have been completely upgraded to the point where it seems as if they have been rebuilt from the ground and up. The supporting cast are fine – but the main characters (namely Tidus and Yuna) themselves appear to be “over-stylised”. That is, they look so ridiculously smooth that they look almost comical and less realistic. To make matters worse, the new models seem to have trouble syncing their speech to speech animations and it results in a notably worse lip syncing performance throughout the entire game. It was bad in the original version due to the syncing to an originally Japanese voice track, but it’s even worse here in HD Remaster. It’s not all bad news, however, as the full motion video cutscenes, which rarely survive the transition to HD without some kind of degradation of visual quality, have made the move in one piece and still look fantastic.

Besides these issues (that are entirely subjective based on personal tastes, by the way), on a visual level, both Final Fantasy X and X-2 both look fantastic. These aren’t full blown remakes to the point where they are unrecognisable – but every meticulous detail (besides what has been explained above) has been recreated to look fantastic on any modern television set. Even smaller details have been added in to give life to the game – including a completely revamped GUI for the option and battle menus, as well as pulsating animations for paths along the sphere grid and certain weapons. All in all, a lot of care has gone into the little details to make things look more alive within the game world.

It’s quite rare that a remaster of this caliber would receive the full treatment and feature a remastered score too, but several of the tracks in both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 have been remastered to give them a lot more depth and impact. Considering how well constructed the soundtrack of the game was all those years ago, it’s astounding that the team has managed to expand on these tracks to help give them more impact to the games scenes and set pieces. Voice work is still quite cheesy but generally speaking the cast all give good performances (especially considering the material they have to work with). The HD remaster is alleged to feature improved audio for the voice work too.

For the most part, both Final Fantasy X and X-2 play similarly to how they played all those years ago. And despite the time that has passed, they still play quite well. However, it may be to player preference as to whether a turn based battle system still is enjoyable today (especially after the advent of games like Kingdom Hearts). If players aren’t fans of this style of battle, neither X or X-2 will win them over. Despite the limitations of a turn-based battle system, both games manage to feel fast paced.

X is a rather pedestrian affair – allowing players to input commands and watch them play out in order, though it is one of the only turn-based games where a higher speed stat means that a player will be able to act more than once in one turn (given the right circumstance). X-2, on the other hand, is much faster paced and rewards players who input their commands faster (and even simultaneously) rather than waiting around. The game also feels a lot more active – requiring input during certain moves to maximise damage. This kind of “active” way of battling, that is, requiring input from the player after they’ve chosen their initial commands, helps the game feel less monotonous and would later be implemented into many role playing games. Both systems still stand the test of time, and are especially enjoyable.

Character progression in X is handled via the Sphere Grid – a giant board game of sorts where players unlock the ability to move spaces as they level up. Using a “sphere” on a space will unlock the characteristics of that sphere (Ie. “Learn Ability: Fire” or “Attack +2”). Two versions of this board are available – the traditional one which gears each character towards a specific role, and a new schema (new for PAL region players, called “Expert Mode”) where players can craft each team member individually as they see fit on a separate board. The Sphere Grid is an interesting way to implement the traditional “levelling up” mechanic in a role playing game, and to this day it still feels just as unique as it did previously upon its original release. The Sphere Grid consists of hundreds of different nodes too, as players who are keen enough can experiment with different builds on repeat plays.

Progression in X-2 is a completely different system that harkens back to the traditional, job-based Final Fantasy games. Each of the three player girls can equip “Dresspheres”, costumes which grant unique powers depending on which one is equipped at any given time. Each of the playable characters can take up to six dresspheres at a time into battle and switch between them at will – effectively allowing players to adjust their strategy mid-battle to adjust to their enemies. The Dressphere system allows players to earn new abilities simply by using each of them in battle, which encourages players to experiment to unlock a worthwhile slew of abilities to use. To add an extra layer of strategy to the battle, changing dresspheres in specific orders during battle can grant the player extra benefits or buffs.

There’s heaps to see and do in Spira between main quests too, with both games featuring a veritable plethora of side quests and mini-games to indulge in. Both games will take roughly forty to fifty hours to complete on just a simple, story based run with a few distractions – while completionists will easily get at least sixty hours out of each. Combined, that’s a lot of game to play and even better – none of it really gets too old or droning. X-2, in particular, features a mission based system that removes filler content (like wandering vast landscapes endlessly) and provides a more open-ended experience.

Most recent remasters improve the visuals and little else, offering no reason for players of the original to return besides fleeting nostalgia. X and X-2 HD Remaster includes a treasure trove of new content for the player, assuming they haven’t imported international versions back when the games released. Besides the two main games, HD Remaster also includes “Eternal Calm”, a fifteen minute bridge between X and X-2. It also includes “Last Mission”, a rogue-like follow-up to X-2 which sees the girls reuniting to tackle a multi-story tower. It’s a nice idea, but its ending is ultimately depressing and quite uncharacteristic for a game as happy-go-lucky as X-2. Completely new to the HD Remaster is “-Will-“, a thirty minute audio drama that details the fate of the major characters in Spira. All this content is great, and for those who are returning it’s all selectable from the beginning too.

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With visual novels experiencing something of a resurgence thanks to lovingly localised imports from Japan, more and more publishers are willing to reach out and experiment with niche products – especially if they already have a built-in audience. Dangan Ronpa found relative internet popularity thanks to fan-translated Let’s Plays on influential website SomethingAwful, and it seems likely NIS America have decided to port over this 2010 PSP title on the strength of that reputation. And we’re bloody glad they have, because it’s one hell of a ride.

Here’s the setup: a group of ‘ultimate’ students are trapped in the prestigious Hope’s Point Academy by someone controlling a sociopathic teddie bear and are forced into a deadly game of life and death. The only way to exit the game is to murder one of your competitors – and, crucially, to get away with it by surviving a ‘class trial’ without being correctly accused and declared guilty. If the class gets it right, only the murderer is executed; if they get it wrong, the villain walks and everybody else gets killed instead. Dangan Ronpa therefore splits the difference between Ace Attorney and Zero Escape, taking the pervasive fear and oppression of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward and mashing it with the evidence-taking, contradiction-spotting legal shenanigans of Phoenix Wright. It works beautifully.

As a visual novel, Dangan Ronpa obviously lives or dies on the strength of its characters and story, and credit has to be given to the writer – and localiser – for turning something that appears on its surface to be a mishmash of anime clichés and tropes into an intense, gripping experience. Characters that initially appear one-note reveal hidden depths and secrets, and questions of trust and intention rear their ugly heads as you struggle to determine who is guilty or innocent or some weird grey area in between. More to the point, once you start playing you’ll find it very difficult to stop, because you’ll always be wondering: what happens next? Who’s next on the chopping block?

Unfortunately, Dangan Ronpa’s overall story is not as intricately plotted as the big-picture narratives of the Zero Escape series and in a sense relies a little too much on elements explained in further side-story materials. Nor does the ultimate conclusion of the game feel as cathartic as the best that the Ace Attorney series has to offer, for the most part. Nonetheless, it’s definitely no slouch in story terms, with shocking twists and turns throughout and a pleasing variety of deadly murder mysteries to solve.

Dangan Ronpa features probably some of the slickest visual and audio presentation we’ve seen in a visual novel to date. Think of it like a dark, twisted version of Persona 4 Golden; the game oozes a disturbing, creepy, but always straight-up cool sense of style. From the razor-sharp UI or the neon-pink blood, to the flat paper-cut-out characters and the pervasive, vaguely deformed, semi-painted artstyle, to the way a room loads as if it were an animated gif for Aperture Science or the willingness to suddenly deep-dive into an 8-bit world. Everything about Dangan Ronpa just exudes a weirdly compelling, slightly unearthly charm, especially its incredibly intense execution scenes that do a lot with very little ‘real’ animation.

The game’s soundtrack is likewise extremely strong, with a heavy emphasis on beat-heavy jazzy or electronic elements and vocal samples to bring a maniacal flare to the game’s soundtrack of despair. Songs range from edgy high-tension electronica to intense dance/trance/trip-hop to bright, cheerful futuristic music all the way to haunting ambient soundscapes. Oddly catchy, often intensely suspenseful and always well-utilised, Masafumi Takada’s offerings do much to enhance an already incredibly stressful experience.

For purists, Dangan Ronpa offers a choice between the original Japanese or English voice actors. As is standard, not every line is voiced –  short vocal barks that can get repetitive is the order of the day for the majority of the game – but those that are voiced are generally well done in both languages, especially as characters begin to break down throughout the deadly class trials.

There’s a few phases to Dangan Ronpa, but you’ll be spending the majority of your time in visual novel mode, pressing a button to scroll through pages of text – hey, that’s what you signed up for.

Free time is spent social linking with fellow students, levelling up relationships to reveal backstories and unlock abilities to use during the other phases of the game; Investigation phases are your standard click-on-nodes-on-the-map-to-gather-evidence kind of thing. Where differences kick in is during the class trials, which consist of a number of minigames that represent the ebb and flow of a deadly debate.

These minigames differentiate the series significantly from the calmer, more cerebral Ace Attorney style of argument, with a time limit and reaction-time requirements putting pressure on the player. However, they can also be intense irritants when you, as a player, have already realised the solution to a puzzle but can’t determine what the game logic requires of you in order to express it. Probably the best minigame is the closing statement, which tasks you with recreating a comic-book version of a series of events to sum up a case; however, even here, a complete lack of labelling indicating what is happening in any given panel can annoy.

Perhaps as a consequence of this higher-tension climax, Dangan Ronpa’s cases feel perhaps a tad too easy to solve; it’s very likely that observant players may determine whodunit before even beginning the trial phase. To compound this weakness, various characters have a tendency to laboriously hint at solutions throughout, robbing players of the pure satisfaction of coming to an insane but plausible conclusion themselves. It doesn’t ruin the experience, but it certainly doesn’t accentuate it either. Nonetheless, on the whole, it still proves enjoyable to work out precisely really what’s happened.

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Olli Olli doesn’t have any set story as such, what it does contain is a variety of different stages located in a variety of different levels. You must achieve set goals to progress to more levels and open up increasingly more difficult challenges on that same level.

In one complete sentence I could easily describe Olli Olli as a 2d side scrolling 8bit skater, however, simply resting on a bleak sentence like that doesn’t do it any justice. As I alluded earlier there are multiple locations in which you skate through ranging from junkyards, urban settings and a sea side port just to name a few. What is truly remarkable about the design of it’s presentation is that no matter what terrifying speed you gain as you front side shove-it and nollie grind a rail, the background never looses its integrity; never falling victim to any form of motion blur. Perhaps some of the more humorous moments to be had in the game is when you “stack it”; coming off your board at high speeds, resulting in your character being hurled helplessly, bouncing off obstacles, stairs and rails until you come to a bloody stop.

The portrayal of colors in the game is brilliant, not only as the individual locations tote their palette but also as your combos are judged and scored. Olli Olli takes an interesting approach to it’s soundtrack, offering a selection of tracks ranging in genres from some heavy dub step to slower dance tracks, which all cohere to form a great upbeat and modern skating experience for your ears.

Olli Olli takes a page out of a lot of genres in the gaming industry. It has small traces of the endless runner formula mixed with goal accomplishing arcade traits, making for a unique and addictive experience. It also comes equipped with one of the most simplistic yet deep controller systems I have ever used. Utilizing two buttons and one analog stick; things couldn’t get any much simpler. You can use either of the shoulder buttons to direct your spinning momentum whilst in the air while the left stick ignites a variety of tricks and grinds by flicking or holding and then rotating in various directions. The most important of the few buttons is the “x” or “cross” button. Think of this button as a brace button; pressing it too early as you land and you’ll be too rigid, causing a “sloppy” landing. Pressing it right before landing and you are rewarded with a “perfect” landing and a point multiplier. Essentially, to succeed in this game, you’re going to have to develop a strong sense of timing. Along with developing a sense of timing, gelling tricks and grinds together to build a score is vital, thankfully, this is a fluent and pleasant experience even on the slightly cramped layout of the vita.

Each level consists of 5 stages and each stage yields 5 challenges to complete. To progress you don’t have to complete an entire stage just accomplishing enough challenges to unlock the next stage is all that’s required. For the completionist’s however, succeeding in fulfilling those 5 tasks on a stage unlocks a more challenging variation of the stage titled “Pro”; then again, fulfilling those requirements unlocks you the “rad” mode. Olli Olli features an interesting take on online mode, offering players “the daily grind” a 24-hour challenge of a random level. You can practice it as many times as you like but you’re provided with only one chance to lodge a recordable attempt. My practices always seemed to go better than my actual attempt. Aside from this there is a worldwide ranking system on each stage, being ranked on your score is how you are registered, but this system feels impersonal as Olli Olli doesn’t offer you any way to compare scores with members of your PSN friends list.

Unfortunately, from my experience, I was exposed to a plethora of game ending bugs/crashes consistently within a gaming period. I found the only way to reconcile the issue was to actually power off my vita and boot it up again. Don’t let that deter you though from experiencing a remarkably enjoyable game though.

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Eufloria takes a strong influence from the “Dyson Tree Hypothesis” by Freeman Dyson. A genetically engineered plant (in Eufloria’s case a tree) may have the potential to grow inside a comet, producing its own liveable atmosphere on a comet for sustenance, as well as photosynthesizing energy from the sun. Whilst this is the premise and underlying inspiration for the game, there is much more to discover.

At the beginning, you are in control of one lonely seed orbiting an asteroid, guided by the Mother Tree’s wisdom. She instructs you and educates you on the intricate details of your journey to bring back the creators of the universe which are known as Growers. Quite quickly you discover the greys, an opposing colony which is eventually revealed to be driven mad by a form of disease. Later you find another colony infected the greys at the risk of destroying themselves and now  they must over power all opposing colonies.

Upon booting up Eufloria you are exposed to an audio and visual sensation. Instantly taking in the brilliantly used watercolour aesthetic of the game, which, according to the developers, was mixed with inspirations from nature and Japanese art. They couldn’t have nailed this statement any more accurately. Even though the created world consisting of round asteroids, sticks, and dots circling around them doesn’t appear like much when you are zoomed out, zooming in reveals a world of wonders. The different sized asteroids become balls of an amazing colour, filled with life right from their very core. Reaching out are the Dyson trees, with deep roots borrowed to the base of the earth, a strong trunk emerging from the ground and branches stretching outward.  Seedlings swarm the asteroids you occupy until commanded otherwise. To me they look like insects, yet they resemble spaceships, especially when in battle. Shooting a beam of some sort to decimate the Grey or other opposition that populate your next conquest only further supports my claim. The art style behind Eufloria is remarkably unique and needs to be seen to gauge a complete concept of it.

The music is a soothing, pleasurable experience. Calming the soul and suitably accompanying the idea of growth and exploration. Just like the visuals, the music is unique for its own reasons. These two great aspects mould together very well and, complete the overall formula for the appropriate mood of the game. It makes it difficult to remember that Eufloria is actually a real time strategy that requires your utmost attention, because in some instances, I found myself charmed and enchanted by this wonderful display of aesthetics.

Utilizing the Vitas touchscreen functionality is perhaps the most brilliant feature of this port. You, the player, are introduced to each level, controlling a small asteroid with one tree. You then build stores of seedlings through the naturally occurring germination cycle, then choose to better your current asteroid by planting more Dyson trees (which requires 10 seedlings) or to move on. Moving on to the next asteroid can prove to be quite easy or disastrous depending on what lurks on the next asteroid, sending out a single seedling scout to discover the potential dangers the uncharted asteroid may contain is always the safest bet.

Whenever an asteroid gets populated with enemies, you must ensure you have the sufficient numbers to eradicate the enemy from that area. Once the seedlings have defeated the opposition they burrow to the core and sap the energy from the asteroid claiming it for your own. It is then up to you to either grow more Dyson trees, Defence trees or a combination of both (both requiring 10 seedlings for each growth). Building your force of seedlings to conquer asteroids and achieving the required task will see the level complete.

As you progress you can eventually add flowers to either tree which provides its own unique benefits, attack flowers and defense flowers for the appropriate tree. As each asteroid you plant a Dyson tree on produces seedlings, it can become quite tedious, continually sending seedlings to your most recently captured asteroid to advance, thankfully, there is a beacon that can send all your seedlings to a desired location; making that long trek across the space of a level so much easier.

If you feel the pacing is too slow or too frantic for you at any one time, there is a speed selection in the upper left hand of the screen. Simply tap for a more comfortable speed and there you go. I found this particularly useful when I was building up my stock of seedlings, then proceeded to slow it down again as I watched the zoomed in battles for the asteroids (which is explained in presentation).

There can be sudden bumps in the A.I which keep the levels interesting and quite challenging. At times I had to restart a few levels after realizing the ideal tactic to success, which is the trademark of a great strategy game. For the players who aren’t quite up to the challenge, there is the excellent option of selecting a more relaxed play style. Given the charming beauty of this game I found the “relaxed” setting to be much more enjoyable and provided me with a greater opportunity to fully immerse myself and enjoy the beauty and wonder that is Eufloria.

Each level is randomly generated to a certain extent; this mainly includes aspects of the surrounding asteroids, like their size, layout and growing/producing abilities. There are other values such as speed, strength and energy which influence how fast the seedlings can produce and their abilities.

The story modes’ 25 levels serve as a good introduction to the game, preparing the player for the unlockable skirmish and dark matter modes. Skirmish mode is a standalone mission set, utilizing your previously acquired skills, While Dark Matter mode is basically the story with much harder enemies.

I went into Eufloria considerably blind, not knowing a great deal about it other than it had seen a few releases in its history. Getting a hold of it has been nothing but a sheer pleasure. Whilst the concept is the same and can be said of all real time strategy games. There is something much more intriguing to behold in this game, right from the moment you pick it up. The organic and deeply inspired visuals to the soothing sounds of the music accompanying your gameplay are unique and charming. This new release introduces Eufloria to the PS Vita and the touchscreen use of the Vita couldn’t come more natural, perfectly fusing the already natural aesthetics and soundtrack. A great opportunity for hardcore or casual players with the appropriate play settings (challenged and relaxed respectively) is to be had. Unfortunately, there was no multiplayer option available, a feature which I feel this game could have great success in. Apart from that, I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Eufloria for anyone to play. It is a delightful experience that should not be missed.

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Lego Marvel Super Heroes brings a brand new story to the table which will absolutely please fans of the brand. The game starts off with Silver Surfer being chased by S.H.I.E.L.D. Soon after Iron Man is knocked out of the sky by Doctor Doom. After Doctor Doom falls onto earth, Doom forges an alliance with Loki to make the Ray of Doom. It’s an extremely interesting story that throws a bunch of Marvel characters into a situation that couldn’t happen otherwise.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes doesn’t really stray too far from what we’ve come to know from previous games in the series. On the PS3 it wasn’t visually any more impressive than the last game. It’s always great to see a new lineup of characters be turned into LEGO form however and the game is as bright and colourful as always.

What we’re really intrigued about is the next gen version. Loading times have been dramatically improved and the amount of LEGO blocks on screen is said to be almost doubled from what current gen can handle. Lighting is also dramatically improved. This is just what the series needs after a bunch of releases that haven’t really progressed on current gen.

Firstly we’re going to say that LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is pretty much what you’d expect from a LEGO branded game. There aren’t really any advancements made in the series which is the biggest disappointment to us. If you’re a Marvel fan then you’re going to eat this game up and enjoy every single second. There are over 100 characters that make their grand appearances from start to finish which keeps things feeling fresh and interesting.

It’s the lack of progression in mission structure and AI that really disappoint. We can’t help but feel that they’re becoming simply reskinned games. After playing through LEGO City Undercover on the Wii U we’ve really struggled to enjoy any LEGO game fully since. The varied mission structure in that game was absolutely phenomenal and it’s hard to stay interested in LEGO Marvel Superheroes when the gameplay itself feels so repetitive.

As always there’s always fun to be had in local multiplayer. I could sit there for hours on end playing this with my nephew and to see him sitting next to me in pure joy was enough to keep me going. If i’m being honest it’s a little disappointing that online co-op hasn’t been included in the game. It feels like it’d fit the game perfectly. Hopefully this is something that the developer looks to add in the next-gen versions.

The real highlights of the game are in the boss battles. Whilst these are all similar in nature, it’s really awesome to see you going against teams of popular bad guys in order to overcome evil. They all have amazing visual set pieces that really make these memorable and an absolute joy to play through. Exploring a LEGO version of New York City is another special moment that will be enjoyed by anyone.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is a must have for any gamers who have even a remote interest in the Marvel series. It’s a fun time for those who aren’t feeling tired of the LEGO series. The game looks as colourful as ever and will take up about as much as your time collecting all of those characters as any other game.

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Taking place roughly 3 months after Batman Arkham: Origins (still in Batman’s early years of crime fighting) a mysterious explosion at Blackgate prison has allowed for three master criminals Penguin, Black Mask and The Joker to each claim a portion of the penitentiary for themselves as they begin their uprising against the opposing crime bosses and those who put them there. Although it seems something much more stranger is at work here.

Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate is a funny game in terms of aesthetics, from a distance this game looks brilliant but come too close and its finer flaws are clearly visible. The trade-off however is that whilst running this game is completely smooth, no frame rate issues or hiccups, which makes perfect sense to me. The story portions of this game are presented in still hand drawn images with the appropriate voices to accompany them. The voices provided are the same actors who have also portrayed their respective characters in Arkham Origins. Roger Craig Smith as Batman and Troy Baker as Joker just to name a few, which goes without saying that the calibre of the talent is sensational and the voice acting is certainly a strong suit of the game.

Developers Armature are an exceptionally tightknit company with great accomplishments and achievements in Nintendo’s Metroid franchise and boy have they transferred their previous games’ mechanics over. Blackgate takes an interesting approach to exploration by introducing a 2.5 Dimensional plain as you apprehend criminals, seeing as this game has only been released on portable consoles it’s the perfect idea to fully capture the hostile environment that is Blackgate prison. Unfortunately this method made it quite difficult for me to navigate the maps to find points of interest, which usually wouldn’t be too bad, but this game requires quite a large amount of backtracking to various locations once certain tools have been unlocked or tasked accomplished.

Another significant difference between its console entries is that rather than utilising an experience points system to level up the Dark Knight, Armature have imported their exploration/discovery method of finding Bat-gadgets and Bat-Upgrades. This is a breath of fresh air to the series and forces the player to keep a sharp eye for anything out of place that may lead to an upgrade, such as armour or parts of a new bat suit.

Controls play out quite well, utilising aspects of the Vitas touchscreen and gyroscope for detective mode and hacking respectively. Although fans of the series coming directly from the console counter parts may find that in terms of button presses there is a bit of latency or unrecognised presses that can hinder your progress momentarily. Predator rooms are once again present and offer you the opportunity to intimidate and instil fear into your prey by means on tactful take down. Although not as many gadgets are available in Blackgate as fans may be used to, the essentials are still there. You can snare enemies from gargoyles, bat claw enemies off ledges, batarangs to distract and silent takedowns. All said tools serve at maximum performance. Armature have also bought over free flow combat which to describe accurately I would say is on par with Arkham Asylum, no multiple counters can be performed and this is where a brief moment in control responses fails in the counters and stuns, apart from that chaining together hits and building combos as you evade attacks is fluid and fun.

Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate is essentially a smooth transfer from its console counterparts, bar a few instances such as button latency and simple A.I during the free flow combat. The backtracking and confusing navigating can at time become frustrating but apart from these minor hiccups Armature have bought an admirable entry of the Arkham Series to the portable front. The exploration reward system is impressive and utilises tools that certainly do make you become the world’s greatest detective. Blackgate improves on Batman’s and Captain Gordon’s developing relationship and the tutorial segment sees Batman introduced to Cat woman with their relationship being portrayed very similar to comic book lore.

Like I said an admirable entry from Armature Studios, they have handled their job well introducing the Arkham series to handhelds but unfortunately I think this game will only appeal to those who are already involved with Batman via means of comics, movies or games.

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First of all to get this out of the way, there is no story to Proteus and no plot line what so ever and that is perfectly fine. This choice has been the subject of controversy as to whether it makes it a game or not but I will let you be the judge.

As the player, you explore a world in the first person perspective. What is extremely interesting about this world is that it is procedurally-generated. Meaning no two visits will ever be the same. You can explore an island and fully immerse yourself in this uniquely charming world that boasts a quaint melodic soundtrack that is performed based on your own movements. The seasons play a vital role in progression and offer an immense diversity in details; particular note goes to the finer aspects. Though this game is primarily an exploration game there are a handful of immensely charming and at first glance quite mystifying mysteries that scream out to be solved.

Quite simply your goal is exploration and Proteus has absolutely nailed this concept. Presenting itself in an 8-bit form, believe me when I say that every little bit of detail has been extensively and thoroughly accounted for. The amount of finer details for this title is unprecedented for any indie title that I have had the pleasure of participating in. I said earlier you will be exploring throughout the seasons. Proteus shines as it depicts it’s seasons in it’s pixelated world. In spring, you experience trees coming into blossom and animals in the wild. Even the finer details such as puffy sun shower clouds that play an incredibly addictive melodic tune when you get near. Summer the sun is out and brighter than ever with waves of heat blaring from it and a glare on the screen that isn’t present in any other season. Autumn gives you a barrage of oranges and browns as leaves cover the ground and a thin fog begins to cover the land. The final season, Winter brings you a quite desolate feeling, all the animals have gone into hibernation, snow has covered every square inch of the world and the thin fog from autumn has become a thick blanket covering the majority of the world.

Like I said each season has its own unique traits with an amazingly charming attention to detail that I wish I could do justice with this review. However, we briefly mentioned the audio aspects to Proteus. The music to this game responds to your movements. For example, when you walk into a patch of flowers a bright tune will play and the flowers will disappear. Each recording has been pre-made and allocated to an object in the world so that you could walk from a patch of flowers, then startle a wild animal then turn your focus onto a rock. All of these will play their individual tunes. There is a huge amount of variety to objects that produce the tunes. The real magic behind this is that no matter what order you interact with or disturb the environment everything is so cohesive and feels right. Take my earlier example and add that to being in a downpour of rain and it will still feel natural. This just shows an amazing development from the two creators.

Beginning your journey off shore you are given no instructions but to “explore” and this is what you will do for roughly the 40-45 minutes it will take to conclude your first play through. Even though this is your first play through I could nearly guarantee it won’t be your last. That first step is completely magical; to describe it accurately I would say it was like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Entering a strange new world where through discovery not everything is as it seems.

Although released on PC a little while ago the cross buy opportunity on the PSN store has a few more options available to purchasers. The Vita can allow you to use the motion controls to steer your point of view after activation and after a certain point the use of the back touchscreen becomes enabled interaction in the worlds. Along with these, the playable maps have the ability to generate on your current location. The PlayStation 3 along with the Vita can also generate specific maps based on the date and time set to your console. Trophy support is featured of course with some very cryptic explanations behind them which only help to deepen the mysteries that lurk within Proteus. The game also lets you take any in screen screenshot and turn it into a postcard. This is a lot more addictive than it sounds as this world is a place that you will want to capture and remember.

Proteus is a breath of fresh air. With no tasks, no bosses, no levels or challenges. The only task is to explore and immerse yourself in an immensely beautiful world. This is so refreshing, not only from a change in gameplay but also to the individual. After initially playing I felt so soothed and relaxed from enjoying this game that after my initial play through I had one of the best naps I have ever had. With its amazing attention to detail that to me is unprecedented in an 8-bit game and an interactive musical score that is enchanting from beginning to end. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this humble indie game to anyone to experience. The game is $16.60 which may scare potential buyers off but i’d still recommend it with Cross-Buy. Hopefully it will lower in price soon to get even more attention.

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Game: Dragon’s Crown Developer: Vanillaware Publisher: Atlis, NIS America
Release Date: Out Now Available On: PS3/Vita Version Played: PS3

Looking for treasure and adventure you begin one of the grandest adventures of all, explore labyrinths and dungeons all in search for the Dragon’s Crown. You are tasked with selecting one of 6 characters each with their individual strenghts and flaws that will make the player adapt a certain path to success for this game. The characters include a Fighter who has a strong defence, but is only able to wield a one handed weapon, the Amazon with the ability to wield a larger two handed weapon however, leaving their defences exposed, the Wizard possesses extremely strong magical abilities but is unable to fend off monsters physically, an Elf who has pin point accuracy with a bow but doesn’t like to be engaged up close, the Dwarf who yields amazing strength carrying double handled weapons and the ability to pick up nearly any of his adversaries and lastly the Sorceress who has immense magical powers but doesn’t hold up well in physical battles.

Once you are finished selecting your character you are tasked with locating the legendary Dragons Crown which has the power to tame and control mystic dragons. Hydeland’s king has become obsessed with finding the crown and has not yet returned from his latest attempt to locate it, which opens the plot for a power struggle with the throne.

Instantly you are drawn into the amazing artwork of the 2D hand drawn characters of this world (both during cut-scene’s and gameplay) that include allies, NPC’s and enemies all of which is complimented perfectly with a vibrantly colourful world that is extraordinary in design and details from is clear flowing waters to rusted out jail cells of a dungeon. Without a shadow of a doubt an exceptionally large amount of time has gone into fusing these two art concepts and it has been an amazing success for Dragons Crown. Every breath during cut-scene has been captured perfectly and during gameplay every movement for the hand drawn characters is fluid and seamless as they interact with the beautiful world that surrounds them.

Sound wise the game holds strong, capturing the theme of the medieval setting with an excellent sound track that contains a strong harp presence as well as some royal trumpets sounding at various times. Upon selecting your dungeon to conquer, you ears are treated to an enchanting vocal piece that is easily the bench mark of the score for this game. In battle clanks and clunks of swords and armour are captured perfectly as are the noises and cries of the living world which includes characters to the wild and mystical creatures that are present in Dragons Crown.

A presentational concern I did find with Dragon’s Crown however is the depiction of its female characters. While female characters do play a strong role in this game they have been drawn as having obscenely large breasts. Where my issue lies is that they have barely been covered up, some times only a strap of leather across the chest is what hides their nipples. Some people may find this as an exploitation of females or even in some cases sexist.

From the beginning you are instantly drawn into a world full of customisation; whatever character you select you are opted to select a colour scheme and a few phrases that will apply to your multiplayer gaming experience but I will touch on the multiplayer a bit later.

The opening tutorial takes you through perhaps the greatest part of this game. As a classic homage of 90’s beat em’ ups such as Golden Axe, I was instantly taken back to my childhood, tracking up and down the area back and forth swinging weapons, catching anything that was in the attack radius. This battle mechanic allows the player for an insane amount of fun and in today’s gaming, somewhat of a unique experience. Accompanying you in this excellent homage is the ability for your adventures to be shared with up to four players computer controlled or even online multiplayer across the PS3 and PS Vita

There is a fantastic amount of quests and side quests that will have you adventuring for hours as you conquer dungeons and labyrinths. As you do this, you gain experience that is used to level up boosting your various abilities. Treasures can be found throughout the dungeons and later appraised or sold, appraising can reveal much more powerful weapons or shields and even items used for various ability boosts or magic. All which are trait examples of the RPG that Dragons Crown has captured very well. These are just a small and brief overview of all the points you need to keep your eye on to successfully complete this game.

Controlling the character is a simple and enjoyable experience. Controls transfer perfectly to the Vita as well as your game saves to take this game anywhere and everywhere including online matching.

Whilst the story may not be anything exceptional or amazing it still does fail to stimulate your imagination although it does provide a foundation to get your adventure rolling. As you conquer the beautifully artistic and detailed worlds you cannot help but to be drawn into Dragon’s Crown whether it be by the excellent retro gaming feel of the action or the dungeon conquering and loot collecting, or the abundance of RPG elements that help to immerse your game even further.

The four characters on screen leads to non-stop action on screen with what seems like a million things going on but equates to a bucketful of fun online or locally. Dragon’s Crown for me has come out of nowhere and aside from a couple of issues certainly is a strong game that gamers can find themselves spending hours on.

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Game: Lone Survivor Developer: Curve Studios  Publisher: Superflat Games
Release Date: Out Now  Available On: PS3/Vita/Mac/PC  Version Played: PS3/Vita

Designer Jasper Byrne brings the world this intensely suspenseful 8-bit 2D survival horror hit that is sure to leave the player pondering well after the credits roll.

Taking control of a nameless character only referred to as “You” the player awakens in what appears to be a post pandemic world. Ravaged and plagued by destruction and infection. Waking from a dream the player finally finds the courage to venture outside the security of his adopted apartment and find out if he really is a lone survivor. You must successfully survive and navigate a small section of a city to make your escape and fully comprehend the disastrous severity of this world. It all sounds pretty straight forward, until the players sanity is thrown into the equation, unsure if this is real or just a projection of the players’ increasingly fragile state of mind.

8-bit graphic design probably won’t inspire a lot of fear from just pure visual exposure. The fear inspired from this game comes from what the graphics don’t show you, your imagination plays an extremely daunting part of this game and affects your confidence in your ability to progress but also in what is real in this disturbing world.

Upon boot up, you are guided through a basic introduction which outlines the ins and outs of how to get the most of this game. Take particular note of the audio and gamma settings. Music plays a fabulous part of this game, tugging at your fears and amplifying them when it seems trouble is lurking near or even when it isn’t. There are a few magical moments involved in this game where the music really connects you with the player and creates a sort of empathy for his precarious predicament.

Visually presented in 8-bit form Lone Survivor really does a fantastic job of highlighting the mass destruction and degrading gore splattered environments surrounding you. I’m talking beating hearts and fleshy holes in the wall that at one point is a thoroughfare, but where the 8-bit really shines is the fading static moments where your mind can’t help but to wonder what horrific encounter is just around the corner. Monsters come in a few various shapes and sizes but all represent a pale figure of their former human self, almost appearing to be turned inside out.

Moving away from the infected setting, there are brief glimpses of a brighter world and it is showcased enchantingly, but what really stands out for this game are the sections of the players fragile mental state of mind where lines of reality are blurred and brought into serious question, visual and audio cues throughout these small but intense segments are unique and do a sensational job of really drawing the player into the instability of the character’s mentality.

The 2D template makes exploration quite confusing, but luckily there is a handy map to be referred to if need be. When viewing the map or even inspecting your inventory the game doesn’t pause and leaves you open to the dangers of the world. Expect to be doing a lot of map referencing and backtracking as you discover paths that are blocked and rooms to be explored.

There is an abundance of side quests to accomplish throughout this game which will ultimately affect your end result. The final outcome of this game is influenced by a number of factors throughout your game play which will be revealed to you at the end of your game.

Navigating this dark, danger infested world can be difficult which is lucky that you have a flash light. Given the horror setting and post pandemic word, supplies are scarce and must be scavenged. You can scavenge food to satisfy your hunger, batteries to recharge your flashlight, bullets for your trusty handgun, rotting meat and flares to distract the mindless zombies and finally pills which affect your mental health.

Surviving in this world is extremely tricky. There are the monsters which you can outwit by luring them in to feast on some rotting meat as you stealth past safely in the shadows, you could try disorientating them with flares or simply shoot them. Shooting them includes three aiming methods; high, medium and low, but unfortunately ammunition is scarce and the gun shots attract other enemies. Apart from surviving these undead horrors the player also needs to manage his human needs, hunger levels play crucial as you must find the right balance of a healthy diet to maintain energy and to heal the player. Sleep is just as important, adequate rest is required not only to save your game progress but to maintain a stable mental state. Whilst these factors are vital for survival there are also the various coloured pill, which result in various effects on your game, your inventory, your state of mind and ultimately your survival.

I reviewed this game primarily on the Vita and I couldn’t have selected a better console to fully immerse myself into this game with the lights off and headphones on. I found that each time things got a little bit creepy I would push the console away as a feeble means of protection or closer to become a part of some of the games much more magical moments. This game being a cross buy opportunity on the PlayStation store I could not recommend it more. For those people who originally experienced this game on PC you may not feel like a repurchase but for those who haven’t I highly recommend it.

Lone Survivor does an amazing job of making you feel alone. The horror elements are not insanely brutal during game play it is the imagination and mentality of the player where the real horror lies which is very smart development. The controls are basic and easily accessible. Music is creepy when it needs to be and enchanting when called upon. Lone Survivor is a game I had trouble putting down, a few playthroughs are time well invested and with its gripping story and multiple endings I couldn’t recommend it more strongly.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Killzone Mercenary” developers=”Guerrilla Cambridge” publishers=”Sony” platforms=”Vita” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”Vita”]

Killzone Mercenary places you in the shoes of Arran Danner. Arran is an Ex-UCN solider who is now fighting for Commander Anders’s Phantom Talon Mercenary company. Through the course of the campaigns you’ll fight for both sides of the war. Whilst the story is solid and provides good explanation for guiding you through the campaign, it is nothing ground breaking and nowhere near as good as the console Killzone games.

Killzone Mercenary is the best looking portable game that I’ve ever played hands down. It is running on the Killzone 3 engine and this is clear from the first moment. The game almost looks as good as the console counterparts which is also due to the beautiful OLED screen that the Vita possesses. It runs incredibly well and only slows down on a few set pieces. It is truly remarkable for just how great the game looks and the amount of explosions and enemies on screen at any given time.

The sound in the game is incredible. Gunshots actually have a lot of depth and weight to them and make you feel as if you’re in the middle of a war zone. When using the right headphones, Killzone Mercenary puts you right in the moment with its incredible presentation. Menus are an absolute joy to navigate through using the extremely capable touch screen interface of the vita.

The main campaign in Killzone Mercenary is quite different from the console counterparts. It takes place over 9 different missions, which are all around 40 minutes in length. Your goal as a mercenary is to kill anything that you see in order to make money. Landing head shots and multiple kills will get you extra money which can all be spent across weaponry and armory in both single player and multiplayer.

I think that this mechanic lends perfectly to a handheld First Person Shooter. The missions and arcadey play style lend perfectly to the Vita’s portability. The game controls as you’d expect with the gyroscope used in order to gain accuracy when your scope is raised. Back touch pad is used for running and the touch screen can be used for melee attacks and changing your weapons. The good thing about this is that it’s completely optional. I found that it makes controlling a lot easier and feels extremely natural for the few instances that you have to use the touch screen.

The gunplay in Killzone Mercenary is perfectly weighted and aiming feels as good as it does on a Dualshock 3. There are a huge amount of different guns and armory at your disposal, which keeps the game from getting old. If this wasn’t enough you can also equip a number of Van-Guards. These are expensive pieces of kit that give you that extra bit of firepower when you need it most. An example of this is a rocket system that uses the touch screen in order to take people out or droid that flys with you and takes people out as you pass them. These are activated as you build up your kill streak in multiplayer.

Multiplayer offers three modes and 6 maps. Warzone was by far my favourite multiplayer mode of any portable FPS that I’ve ever played. It is set over a series of 5 minute missions. These range from melee kills, collecting valor tags or setting off communication towers. Warzone is an absolute breath of fresh air in a sea of generic FPS multiplayer modes. It was so nice to see people actually trying to complete missions strategically rather than just seeing people jump around like crazy going for head shots.

Guerilla Warfare is a team death match mode where two teams of 4 go against eachother. The first team to get to forty kills is the ultimate victor. Mercenary Warfare is a free for all battle between 8 players. The top 3 payers after ten minutes are rewarded with Vektan Dollars. Whilst the Two Warfare modes are a great time, it is the Warzone mode that will keep you coming back again and again. I could easily play 3-4 matches without noticing that 2 hours had passed. Whilst there are a few balance issues, it didn’t take away from the fun that is to be had.

Killzone Mercenary is the ultimate portable First Person Shooter. With a decent single player campaign and an even better multiplayer mode I’d recommend anyone with a Vita to pick this game up. It is extremely fun and will absolutely delight you with its graphic capability. This is hopefully the first of many great First Party Vita games to come over the next year.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Rayman Legends” developers=”Ubisoft Montpellier” publishers=”Ubisoft” platforms=”Wii U/360/PS3/Vita/PC” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”Wii U”]

Rayman Legends doesn’t tell much of a story but that’s ok because the game is enough fun that it doesn’t need one. It does however provide a small cut scene at the start to set the game up for those who are interested. Rayman, Globox and the Teensies have been sleeping for a century since Rayman Origins. During their extended nap, The Bubble Dreamer’s nightmares grew in strength and numbers and so has the magician. Rayman and his friends are waken up by side kick Murfy who alarms them about the bad news.

Rayman is the best looking game that I’ve played on Wii U. It outputs natively in 1080p on the Wii U and it looks absolutely gorgeous. The backdrops are so varied in design and the hand-drawn art shines on the big screen. Character design has also been given a huge amount of love. There is a massive variety of character costumes and each one is just as detailed as the last.

The sound effects in Rayman Legends have also been given a lot of love. The constant ‘oohs and ahhs’ when you find a special passage or the ‘thump’ from smacking a friend or foe never gets old.  I was really surprised with the variety of music included for a game that has SO many levels.

The overall Presentation in Rayman Legends is one of the best i’ve seen. The games hub places you in a museum where every piece of hanging artwork represents a level. Jumping into the artwork then takes you to the said level. This really made me want to keep playing as I constantly went back and checked which levels I had completed 100% and which I still needed to go back to. This was a huge step up from the map that featured in Rayman Origins.

Rayman Legends is a side-scrolling platformer which has a huge emphasis on speed. What starts out as a walk in the park soon becomes a game of speed, skill and a lot of trial and error. What Rayman Legends does really well is it’s gradual increase in difficulty and throwing new things at you. I never felt that I was comfortable or that the game was getting too easy because as soon as you get used to one mechanic, it throws a new one at you.

The amazing thing about Rayman Legends is that it’s the simplicity in gameplay that makes it such a successful game. The gameplay only really consists of running, jumping and whacking enemies so anytime you die only comes down to your own mistiming rather than feeling cheap. The sheer variety of enemies in the game is something that amazed me. In almost every level the design is changed up with the use of new enemies which all behave in different ways.

In each world there are a number of levels to complete. These vary from simple platforming levels where you have to get from the start to end, touch-screen based levels where you control a character named Murphy on the touch pad in order to get your AI controlled player through obstacles, boss fights, time based invasions levels and a special musical level at the end of each world which are some of the most creative levels that i’ve ever seen in a platformer.

Each level features a number of Lums that must be collected in order to 100% that level. These go towards unlocking new characters and unlocking a lucky ticket for each level. This lucky ticket can unlock creatures which give you extra Lums, a random sum of Lums and Back To Origins levels which are recreated levels from Rayman Origins.

The game also includes four-player, drop in and drop out cooperative play which makes things a whole lot more enjoyable. Playing through these levels with friends makes the game even more frantic than before and provided some of the biggest laughs that i’ve had with a game in a long while. The touch screen based levels are also a lot more enjoyable with another person. I played a lot of these levels with my nephew controlling the touch screen whilst I quickly navigated through the levels. The amount of puzzles that the game throws at you are so varied and over the top that it never got old.

I must admit, playing through these levels by myself was a bit of a drag. When playing by yourself, you’re relegated to the touch screen whilst an AI player navigates through the level. It seemed to take away from the overall speed and pace that the other levels required. I would definitely grab the Wii U version for this reason as well as I couldn’t imagine them being any better on the PS3/360. Thankfully you can skip these if you’re by yourself and wait until you’re in the company of a second player.

The variety in level design will keep you happily playing until you complete the game but you’ll still feel a huge need to go and collect every single Lum and Teensy from each level. The game also features a challenge mode with updated daily and weekly challenges which will provide you with a reason to come back for weeks after you’ve finished the main campaign. There is also a soccer mode called Kung-Foot which uses a great combination of action, skill and timing in order to get a soccer ball in a goal.

Rayman Legends is a must buy on any console. I’d recommend the Wii U or the Vita version as the game clearly was built around touch screen mechanics. It’s beautiful artwork and amazing level design makes it one of the best side-scrolling platformers i’ve ever played and does everything to better itself from Rayman Origins.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”PixelJunk: Monsters Ultimate HD” developers=”Double Eleven” publishers=”Double Eleven” platforms=”PC/Vita” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”PC/Vita”]

Can the Tikiman save his tribe, or is he doomed to end up lonely in his forest as the monsters run over his little hut?

Before I begin, I would like to point out that I have not played Pixeljunk: Monsters in any way, shape or form before, so this review will be from that point of view: from someone who is completely new to the game.
Monsters Ultimate began making a sensation on the PSN, first as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, and then because of its success, finding its way to the other portable handhelds by Sony as well. The game has always had a good reception, so it was about time that it made its way to the PC, all thanks to steam!
The premise of the game is simple, you are the Tikiman, defender of the forest, and it’s up to you to defend your forest dominion of the nasty monsters that creep their way in to kill your offspring. Unfortunately, you have not the strength to defend them on your own, but you do however, possess the power to modify the trees in your dominion into watchful defence towers. So you must be strategic, make the proper defences, and defend your children! AIM FOR THE RAINBOW!

The game has a quite a simple and friendly design to it. Everything looks approachable and cartoony, from the monster design, to the various maps in the game. Even though the game is called monsters, you won’t find any scares here; it’s all just light hearted fun for all the family. The design of maps here is very important, because they play a huge role in the gameplay, but most of them are great and accomplish their purpose. I will add more to this in gameplay.
Similar to my previously reviewed Skulls of The Shogun game, the sound design is quite good. Unfortunately though, the music gets quite irritating at times. Most of the music pieces in the game are very short and loop endlessly, which got to be quite distracting and annoying after the fifth wave of monsters, but it can be turned off, so it’s not that much trouble. Sound effects and monsters sounds are better though, they respond nicely and are in proper sync with the general feel of the game.

A tower defence game through and through. In this game, you control one unit called the Tikiman. The Tikiman’s role is to do everything in his power to defend his children, and to do that, you must use his powers to modify trees in your dominion into watchful defence towers.

At the beginning of each level, you start with a set amount of gold, which is the currency used to build a tower in a tree.Every level has a set number of trees that are scattered around the map, and it is your role to decide how you want to transform these trees into defensive towers, taking into account how monsters approach that certain area around the tree, and if the range is adequate enough for the tower that you want to place in that tree. It’s all very straight forward and simple, but you will find that as you progress through each level, it will start to get more and more difficult: placing even one wrong tower at an inadequate location at a crucial time, could easily cost you the game.

Every time your towers defeat a monster, they will drop more coins for you to build more towers, and in more rare occasions, they will drop green orbs. The green orbs are used to unlock more tower types in your base hut, or to upgrade your existing towers with improved power and range. If you do not have enough orbs, your towers upgrade by themselves as they land more hits, or you can speed up the process by standing inside them, doing a little Tiki dance that gives them experience.

The real difficulty in the game comes of managing how you use your Tikiman. Every decision you make will cost you time, for example, if you want to pick up the gold that fallen monsters have dropped, you will have to go there and pick up every coin and orb that was there before they disappear, but doing so means that you don’t have time to dance in one of your towers to upgrade, or time to put one more tower in that crucial edge where new monsters are coming from! The gameplay gets very involved as you progress through the game, with the difficulty becoming more and more challenging. The real skill comes in knowing what to do with the Tikiman in crucial moments in these encounters. Some instances will have multiple paths toward your hut, and the monsters will sometimes do “feints” toward them, but then turn back, at times, making it a stressful experience to guess if they are going to take a certain route or not.

After you have successfully survived to all the normal waves in the game, a final boss wave will challenge you. This wave consists of an extra strong monster that takes time to move, but is extremely resilient. At times like this, it is best to sell all the towers that are useless against that boss monster and quickly build ones to dish out more damage. After defeating the boss monster, the level is over.

The challenge mode is for those who are looking for a real nightmarish encounter. Found in the Tiki hut, medal challenges are repeats of old completed levels that can be re-played with a new specific condition to be cleared, for example, not upgrading any of your towers, having a certain number of gems, or not going into a certain area of the map. These are completely optional, and should only be attempted by people who really love a challenge, because I failed miserably when I tried them. I’m just not cut out for tower defence games, it seems.

Having had absolutely no experience with a tower defence game before, I think this game was a fun experience. The game mechanics were simple and intuitive, and the whole theme of the game was a warm, fun, and welcoming one. Very challenging despite its appearance, I recommend this to anyone who is new to the Tower Defence type of games, or just for anyone who happens to enjoy them, because Pixeljunk: Monsters Ultimate is definitely a solid experience.

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After being about 10 minutes late, the Sony press conference finally started.  Boy did they have a lot to cover. The Vita and it”s expensive proprietary memory cards got a price cut. They announced so many exclusive debuts for both the Vita and PS4, that I no longer know which way is up.

They also covered the long awaited release date of the Playstation 4, which will be arriving in Australia and Europe on November 29th, as confirmed by the retail listings on EB Games shortly after.

But instead of reading through Paragraph after Paragraph of what was announced, here is a handy dandy Bullet point list.

• Tons of Indie Games coming to the PS4 and Vita
  (Such As Hotline Miami 2, N , The Binding of Issac: Rebirth and more. Full list )
• Borderlands 2 Is heading to the Vita
• Minecraft is coming to PS4
• 12GB PS3″s received a Price drop to $269.95
• ArrowHead Studios (The developers of Magicka) Is back with Helldivers
• Vita received a price cut to $269.95
• Shadow of the Beast is announced, Re-imagining of an Omega Game
• Everybody”s gone to Rapture announced, Made by the Chinese room, developers of Dear Esther and Partly responsible for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.
• Those who buy CoD: Ghosts, Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, and Watch Dogs on the ps3, can get a PS4 version for a significantly reduced price. YAY SAVINGS!
• It seems that Twitch is replacing UStream as PS4″s Streaming service of choice.
• Grand Turismo 6 will be released worldwide on December 12th 2013, It”s about damn time right?

So there you have it! I suggest watching the full stream on youtube or elsewhere. Sony backed up the fact that they have a lot coming for the PS4. Today”s an exciting time for video games folks. Can”t wait to hear more from Microsoft.

The post Sony Gamescom Press Conference Recap appeared first on Press Start.

[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Stealth Inc: A Clone In The Dark” developers=”Curve Studios” publishers=”Curve Studios” platforms=”OSX / Windows / Linux / PS3 / Vita / Android” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”PS3″]

Taking control of a nameless clone you are tasked with escaping 80 levels of puzzling fun. Taking them head on you must successfully navigate a string of increasingly difficult puzzles. Ducking and dodging lasers, turrets and enemies. Only the shadows can help you and provide your only protection from this dangerous world.

Graphically Stealth INC doesn’t offer anything amazing or spectacular but it gets the job done without any dramas. What I found performed really well graphically are the gruesome deaths of your clones and trust me there will be plenty of them. A string of fantastically intricate pieces of music set the mood for your puzzling experience; working towards building suspense, confusion and pressure, adding to a well formed atmosphere.

Part of the presentation in the level designs are messages from the game to the player, sometimes offering advice but more often than not giving the player sarcastic comments, which at times degrade your gaming in a humorous way. A feature which I found offered a bit of relief from the strain of consistent challenging puzzles.

Like any puzzle game it takes you through the motions to find your footing and introducing different elements to the game which is all paced along quite well. I found the difficulty peaked around the higher 60’s of level count. Although some puzzle games have difficulty finding a perfect balance of challenging tasks, some become too easy and others beyond completion. Curve Studios have struck that perfect balance to their credit. I found the challenges to be smart, smarter than me but not so smart beyond my skills that I couldn’t solve the puzzles, to my own personal satisfaction.

Logic and precision are your tools to survival for Stealth INC. Shadows provide your cover from the thousands of dangers and a very smart feature that indicates your visibility to enemy sensors are in fact your clone’s goggles. Not a huge in game tool but charming none the less.

Whilst 80 levels might not sound like a lot, with the average level taking roughly 2 to 3 minutes. I found myself spending a lot more time than I had originally estimated. Mostly through trial and error to get a perfect error free run to cement my position on the leader boards. Leader boards are something you will painfully see a lot of during your game, appearing at the end of each successful level completion. It got to the point where I wasn’t even bothered with waiting for the leader board to show.

The one and only real problem I encountered with this game though was the level creator. The opportunity to inflict some puzzling punishment on other gamers but unfortunately could not be fulfilled. Perhaps it was due to my lack of imagination or inexperience in creating levels. An introduction could have been a real game changer for me on this aspect.

The story behind this game certainly isn’t its strong point but there is so much more behind this game. Yes the puzzles do need precise movements. Yes you will have to restart a few levels to get that successful level run but when you get that successful completion. All your thoughts and precision all coming together to show a successful path to the goal, all on your own independence. Giving the gamer that revered “Ah-Hah!” moment.

Curve Studios have created that perfect balance of challenging puzzles with the right amount of stealth and platforming aspects to challenge gamers and also provide lots of variety. This certainly is a product they should be proud of.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”LEGO Legends Of Chima: Laval’s Journey” developers=”TT Games” publishers=”Warnerbros” platforms=”3DS/Vita” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”3DS”]

Chima is a land where anthropomorphic animals lived in peace with one another until a conflict caused a civil war with the eight animal tribes: Lion, Eagle, Raven, Wolf, Gorilla, Rhino, Bear, and Crocodile. The members of the factions fiercely battle over a powerful natural resource called Chi, which could allow its possessor to create or destroy. Once a pristine, natural paradise, CHIMA has become a battle ground for eight animal tribes. Best friends are now enemies. The animals fight for control of a natural resource called CHI, a powerful element that is both a source of life and potential destruction. Only a few brave heroes in CHIMA understand the true nature of CHI, and the possible downfall of CHIMA that will result from its misuse. Their stories, and the stories of those who seek to destroy them, are known as the legends of CHIMA.

LEGO Legends Of Chima runs quite well on the 3DS. Colours are extremely vibrant and the graphics are extremely enjoyable. The 3D effect is extremely subtle but works well and the framerate holds up despite the game taking place in an open world environment. I did have quite a few graphical glitches however. I constantly found myself falling through walls and off ledges. The sound is average as it is with most 3DS games however not much more can be expected in a children’s adventure. The story is told through pre rendered cut scenes which look quote well for a 3DS. The graphics really help Lego Chima feel like a real world.

The gameplay in Lego Legends of Chima is not too different from what we’ve come to expect over the past few years. I did notice quite a more streamlined game though. You go through the game mission by mission unlocking different animal tribes. Unlocking these animal tribes allow you to access parts of the game that were not available to you before. Each of these tribes vary greatly in their ability and moveset. The different animals didn’t just feel like reskinned characters as has happened with recent LEGO games. I think that the novelty of playing in a theme movie world definitely takes some of the fun away but it’s there’s enough depth there with the animal tribes to keep children and even some adults interested for the whole way through.

I definitely felt like the combat could’ve used a bit of an overhaul. I was disappointed to see that the animals still fought like lego humans. I really wish they took advantage of the fact that they had all of these awesome characters and made them feel more like animals rather than people.

One of the biggest problems in Lego Chima is without doubt the loading times. I was extremely surprised to find that the game has a huge open world with a ton of shops. To get into each of these shops you’re looking at a 30 second load screen and the same when you’re finished looking. It’s just unacceptable for a game today.. especially one that runs on a cartridge.

Whilst the puzzles in the game were extremely enjoyable due to their difficulty, the platforming made them unenjoyable at times. I constantly found myself missing jumps or rolling through the world for no reason of my own. This is extremely frustrating and definitely something that happened on multiple occasions. It instantly pulled me out of the experience.

There is a bunch of items to complete after collecting the game which makes the game last around 10-15 hours in total. You can also link with the LEGO website to gain some stuff as well as street pass other players to unlock new items.

LEGO Legends Of Chima: Laval’s Journey is a decent game for the young ones. I found myself enjoying it for the first hour or so but soon figured out that the game was plagued by graphical glitches and long load times. Apparently a patch is on the way to fix some of these issues which will definitely help improve the game but we can’t help but feel that this was rushed to release or just not given the usual love and care that go into normal LEGO games. At a budget price we’d recommend it for your kids. They’ll instantly fall in love with the characters and story.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Epic Mickey 2″ developers=”Disney” publishers=”Sony” platforms=”Vita/Wii U/360/PS3″ genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”Vita”]

Like its predecessor, Epic Mickey 2 takes place in a world based on classic and retired Disney characters and attractions. The story begins sometime after the conclusion of the original Epic Mickey, with Oswald and the other Wasteland characters starting to rebuild their world. A series of earthquakes threaten to undo the work, but the Mad Doctor appears and convinces Oswald to join forces and combat the new menace. So Gus, the leader of the Gremlins, and Ortensia, Oswald’s girlfriend/wife, contact Mickey Mouse and bring him into the world. Mickey and Oswald team up to save the forgotten world.

Epic Mickey 2 will please Disney fans in one area. The presentation in Epic Mickey 2 is incredible. The use of hand drawn cut scenes that are wonderfully created really bring the story to life. Character design is true to their originals and really make playing through the story enjoyable. All the favourites from the Mickey universe are all here and are all represented faithfully to their original. The voice acting is superb and will instantly put a smile on your face. The Disney atmosphere is created wonderfully and I was taken back to my childhood instantly when booting up the game.

The game didn’t really have the most amazing graphics in the original and this Vita port is also in the same category. What makes the graphics pop is Vita’s OLED screen. Whilst there some jagged edges around the place, they can be forgiven by the beautifulness that the screen brings to the game. The framerate slows down in some areas but nothing to the point that made the game unplayable.

Epic Mickey 2 feels like an old school platform from the first second. I feel however that it tries to achieve too much that lets it down. Early in the game Mickey gains access to a paintbrush that can either draw or erase objects in the game world. An example of this is if there are rocks missing and you need to get to the other side, the drawing brush can make those rocks appear with blue paint. Green paint has the opposite effect, if you need something removed from the game world then the green thinning paint is how you go about it.

Mickey doesn’t have any form of attack to kill his enemies. Instead he uses his paint in order to turn the enemies good. He has a paralysing spin attack that gets them down but the only way to get rid of the enemy is to paint it. This works well to create an interesting mechanic as some enemies also have armour in which you have to use the green paint in order to weaken their defences.

Unfortunately this is where the fun ends. The Vita controls don’t add a whole lot. Whilst the touch controls were a nice addition, I still much preferred using the analog sticks to aim. There are also a few other times where you use the Vita’s gyroscope in order to steer Mickey around in vehicles. Whilst these don’t hurt the game at all, they don’t really add anything either.

One of the best features of Epic Mickey 2 on the home consoles was playing in Co-Op. this was one of the redeeming features on the original and unfortunately it isn’t available here outside of Ad-Hoc mode which means that you’ll need another Vita as well as another copy of the game. The reason that this hurts the game so much is that the co-op AI sucks. You will constantly find Oswald being out of position and it being more of a chore to get him to do stuff. I would’ve much rathered the ability to swap in and out like the Lego series allows you to.

Epic Mickey 2 is a great game in theory. Unfortunately the co-op nature and wonky gaming mechanics let it down. What helps it is the nostalgia from all the Disney lore and the interesting paint brush mechanics. It’s only $22 on the Vita which makes it hard to resist if you’re a Disney fan.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Jak And Daxter Trilogy” developers=”Naughty Dog” publishers=”Sony” platforms=”Vita/PS3″ genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”Vita/PS3″]

Jak and Daxter came to life on the PS2 in the form or 3 games. The games are considered story-based platformers, which include many puzzles and platform elements, in conjunction with avoiding enemies and other obstacles, as well as using an array of different weapons and vehicles. Set on an unnamed planet, the games follow the two protagonists, Jak and Daxter, as they try to unlock the secrets of their world, and discover the mysteries left behind by the Precursors. The series consists of many differing and unique locations both in the future world and past, which include jungles, deserts, mountainous terrains, villages and metropolitan cities.

Unfortunately this great series is let down by it’s presentation on the Vita. The collection ran at 60fps on the PS3 and unfortunately this is not the case here. The framerate ranges from acceptable to almost unplayable. It’s completely dependent on which game you’re playing and at what location. You will still be able to get through the games in all their glory but not without your fair share of graphical hiccups.

The Jak and Daxter series is my favourite series of all time. The 3 games are so incredibly different whilst still maintaining their greatness which is an extremely hard thing to do in a video game series. Jak 1 is geared towards traditional platforming. Jak 2 (My favourite game of all time) incorporates an open world, a wide range of guns and vehicles whilst Jak 3 focuses more on exploration and vehicle use.

The trilogy still holds up greatly to this day. The story, characters and gameplay work together across all 3 games in order to provide a gaming experience that never gets stale. Even playing all three games in a row again on the Vita still kept me entertained from start to finish.

The controls on the Vita are smooth however the familiar issue arises where the back touch pad takes the place of R3 and L3. This works well but still feels clunky. In a difficult trilogy where you’re in for a lot of tense spots, controls are everything. There are a few touch based mini games which don’t add much to the gameplay but are nice to have. 1000’s of collectables and a bunch of trophies will ensure that you’ll be playing this for a long time to come.

Jak and Daxter is a trilogy that must be experienced. We’d be recommend picking it up on the Vita as it gives you cross-buy access to the PS3 version as well. Whilst the Vita version has its downfalls, its still great for gameplay on the go. We’d recommend playing majority of the trilogy on the PS3 though. The port is extremely good and makes the games play smoother than ever.

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[youtube id=”qTWca-N6IBI” width=”600″ height=”350″]

[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Hotline Miami” developers=”Dennation Games” publishers=”Devolver Digital” platforms=”PS3/VITA/PC” genres=”” release_date=”Out Now” version_played=”Vita/PS3″]

Taking place in building’s basking in the 1980’s Miami ‘neon glow’. You play as an anonymous character, which gaming lore has named “Jacket”. Waking up in your apartment you receive mysterious messages on your phone with the underlying task of killing everyone at the named location. Once the area is cleared of enemies, this unnamed killer then travels to one of a variety of locations, be it a bar, video store or pizza shop. Where time after time, he is met by the same attendant (no matter the store) who then offers some insight to the horrific mass murders that are occurring. (As well as free products from that particular store)

This independent developer presents a game with courageous style, illustrates a very basic story but is explored wonderfully through the use of locations and conversation between different characters.

Upon start up for the Vita entry it is advised to wear headphones. This is easily the best advice given throughout the game. The soundtrack to Hotline Miami is amazing! The music sets the atmosphere to this game amazingly, from the frantic shootouts to the relaxed tone of your apartment. Being a top down game, graphics are presented in a pixelated form and done superbly with the colors that seem to pop out of the screen. For a top down 2D perspective there is an incredible amount of detail to the various locations and characters. Particularly in the form of bullets firing, the damage they cause and the chaos of the kills, bucket loads of blood and dismembered body parts lying across the floor.

This game is fun, addictive and incredibly hard to put down, so much fun in fact I had to get my Vita back from my girlfriend to complete this review.

But getting back to business, before beginning your mission you will be given the option of selecting from a variety of masks to not only protect your identity but also provide various advantages throughout your mission. Once inside you will find a variety of different weapons ranging from close combat tools such as glass bottles, shivs even samurai swords and then much longer ranged weapons like rifles, shotguns and pistols. More weapons and masks will be unlocked upon your score for chaining together kills, timing, etc.

Controls are fluent and movement is smooth creating the perfect environment to manoeuvre accordingly when over whelmed by enemies who are just a killable as yourself, one hit kills apply to enemies and for the player. Which is counteracted by the awesome function of being able to restart the instant you die. Giving you the opportunity to play, then make adjustments to your killing spree as needs be to complete your mission.

Plenty of fun is to be had in this vastly colourful world, with the soundtrack setting the atmosphere and frantic addictive gameplay in amongst the blood soaked buildings. Adding to the fact that this is a Cross-buy opportunity on the Playstation store is a perfect reason to take a break and indulge yourself in this fantastic world created by independent Dennation Games, they have truly set a high bar for themselves and I cannot wait to see what their sequel will hold.

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[gameinfo title=”Game Info” game_name=”Soul Sacrifice” developers=”Sony Japan” publishers=”Sony” platforms=”Vita” genres=”Action RPG” release_date=”2nd Of May”]

Soul Sacrifice throws you feet first into a dark world mysterious world, all you know is that you’re a prisoner to an evil Sorcerer, and you quickly acquire a talking book known as Libroom which claims to hold the secret to defeating him and earning your freedom, all you have to do is read the book and live out the stories contained.

Soul Sacrifice’ greatest strength is in it’s presentation. Not only is everything artistically unique and interesting. The places you go, the monsters you fight and even the other sorcerers you encounter has a reason for being there, all of it has it’s own story you can read before you partake in a mission, and I couldn’t recommend that more. Reading the lore of something and then immediately experiencing it in game, is a very surreal feeling.

As cool as all the lore and back story in the game can be. Soul Sacrifice’s presentation has a glaring issue. The English voice acting, sure this could be easily fixed by downloading the Japanese voice pack from PSN, (If you bought it digitally you were lucky enough to get it for free) but for someone who bought it retail, like me. Had to deal with and get used to, the English voice acting seeing as the voice pack wasn’t actually on PSN the time I have spent playing the game.

Corny voices, and long awkward pauses are pretty prevalent throughout the game. Matter of fact, there is such a big gap between lines of dialogue, that several times I thought my game had froze. It just feels rushed. Tip: If you intend on buying the game, get it digitally off the PSN, you may save some money on buying the optional languages.

Soul Sacrifice is rather simple on the surface, yet maintains the complexity you’re looking for in an RPG of it’s type. However don’t go expecting adventuring in an open world to hunt down your foes. The main brunt of the gameplay undergoes in small arena type maps to participate in various types of missions to exterminate the threat gaining giving you the chance to get XP in one of two areas depending on whether you sacrifice or save you’re enemy.

Once you finish the mission, depending on how well you did, you get rewarded in abilities called “Offerings” These can be equipped outside of missions in a loadout type system of six, they can be fused together, making new abilities all together or simply boosted. Giving you plenty to experiment with to find whats right for your play style and for what the mission demands. This only begins on the customization offered in the game. Self sacrificial super movies called black rights and, passive stat bonuses in a rune board type system called sigals are in the game and depending on you affiliation levels allows different sigals to be equipped.

While all this does give the combat some diversity, you should still expect to do the same thing over and over. Areas get re-used often, enemy re-skins quickly coming into play and at times it just feels just like a big grind to get from one section to the next, leaving it up to the boss encounters of the game to spice things up. While the boss battles do feel epic and they actually feel really rewarding when you finally take them down, the experience is just ruined by stupid AI.

Running head on into bosses, not healing themselves, and even their abilities sometimes send you flying around the map, More often then not into the boss. just to get smacked around and die shortly after, only to watch the AI try over and over to revive you next the boss until the mission fails.

Soul Sacrifice is a great game, the emphasis on trying diversify itself from typical RPG tropes and even the effort behind it’s story make it an experience any RPG fan should try out. Unfortunately it has really poor AI, small enemy variety and bad English voice acting that feels rushed to say the least. These things stop it from being something truly special.

The post Soul Sacrifice Review appeared first on Press Start.

Guacamelee / Version Played: PS3-Vita
DrinkBox Studios / PS3-Vita / April 10th / RRP $18.45(Cross Buy)

Guacamelee! sees you taking control of Juan Aguacate. As Juan Aguacate, you’re objective is to save the El Presidente’s daughter from the Evil Carlos Calaca. The game is primarily set in a small village in Mexico where there are a wealth of characters with their own quirky personalities.

Guacamelee is a very clean and crisp looking game. Everything on the Vita extremely pops. There are so many different variations in scenery to the breakup of worlds that you will never get tired of looking at the game. On the PS3 everything is so much more detailed and the art style is something that will stay with you days after finishing. The game is silky smooth and runs at 60FPS at all times.

The soundtrack is stunning. Every level in the game has its own theme song, so you never get sick of the music. The tunes are catchy, and a joy to listen to. It’s going to be one of those sound tracks that you’ve got stuck in your heads hours after putting the controller down. I really enjoyed all of the visual cues that gamers will love throughout the game. It has DrinkBox’s creativeness throughout the entire game.

At heart Guacamelee! is a Metroidvania style game that encourages exploration. The game has you searching through a different number of worlds looking to rescue a princess. At the end of each of these worlds is a boss fight who fits into the world that you’ve just explored through. The whole game is extremely clever in its mechanics. Every so often you break a statue that gives you a core skill. These core skills are colour matched to certain blocks which will only let you through once you’ve learnt the corresponding move. I really found this clever as it always kept you on the right track, never guessing if you could go into a certain area, or if you were heading in the right direction.

The game features a beat-em-up style fighting mechanic which fits the game brilliantly. You are awarded coins based on how big your combo is. These coins are then used at the shop to buy health, stamina and new moves. The game gets clever with incorporating coloured shields which have to be matched with the corresponding move I spoke about earlier, which really makes the action get more complicated as the game goes on as it prevents button matching. I really liked this idea rather than making the enemies themselves harder.

The main difficulty comes in the form of the ability to change worlds. Not only does this completely change the look of the world on the fly with a press of a button, it also makes for some intense platforming that really requires a lot of skill to pull off. This was easily my favourite mechanic in the game and made working out how to get through each level extremely satisfying.

The game features Cross platform Coop in the sense that one can use their Vita to play as the second player with the person who is playing on PS3. The game only needs to be bought one for both platforms and also features cross save which works brilliantly like always. The main campaign is quite short at 5-6 hours but I felt like it was the perfect. I enjoyed every minute of gameplay without ever feeling like I had to push myself through.

Guacamelee! doesn’t really do anything outside of the box however It does execute a lot of gaming mechanics perfectly to create a game that is entertaining from start to finish. There is something in this game for everbody, whether it be the great artstyle, amazing platforming, addictive action or just the down right silly story.

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Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time / Version Played: PS3-Vita
Sony / Sanzaru / PS3-Vita / March 26th / RRP$49(PS3)-$39(Vita)RRP

Thieves in Time follows from the conclusion of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves; Sly is faking amnesia to be with Carmelita, Murray is racing with the team van, and Bentley and Penelope are constructing a time machine. However, the words began vanishing from the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, along with Penelope, so Bentley reforms the gang to repair the damage to the Coopers’ history and find out who is responsible. Meanwhile, Carmelita discovers Sly’s deception after she catches him robbing an art museum, and wants to permanently get her hands on him for lying to her. The story is told in little animated comic strips which really keeps it enjoyable throughout. The game also does extremely well in getting you up to speed if you’ve missed the first three games.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in time features a cell shaded graphic style. The style really works for the game and looks it incredibly beautiful throughout. The game has a variety of locations and all of these are really well portrayed using this graphic style. I’m extremely glad that Sanzaru kept this style from the previous Sly games and didn’t go for a more realistic style.

The graphics are even more of a feat on the Vita. The edges are a bit rough but I never felt like I was experiencing a huge visual downgrade when I would swap from the PS3 to the Vita. The OLED display of the Vita helps the game out as well. Colours are more vibrant and everything seems to pop that little bit more in your hands.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is laid in different time periods. You start in a central hub where you choose your character based on jobs available. I felt like this really suited to the strengths of the Vita. Being able to play shorts missions at a time really suited to me being able to play on a small train trip or in between tasks. I like the fact that the game gives you clear points to have a rest and to me it felt like the perfect portable game. Cross Saving from the PS3 + Vita works a charm as always and really made the experience so much nicer, knowing that I could continue my game on the go.

The game as a whole was a breath of fresh air. Especially when playing on my PS3, it really took me back to the platforming days of PS1/PS2. The game keeps you interested the whole way along through a bunch of completely different characters and skill sets. Pairing this with more than 5 completely different worlds kept the game interesting the whole way through. There is also a bunch of mini games to keep you occupied which is a nice touch when you feel like you need a break from the main game.

In typical old school platforming fashion, the game has a bunch of collectables in each world. You’ll be climbing across rooftops and trying to jump to hard to reach spots for hours trying to collect that last treasure. I feel like the main issue that Sly has is loading times. Escpecially on the Vita, everything takes a good 30 seconds to load. From leaving the hub, to starting your mission to entering a new area. It makes the whole experience feel a little disjointed however I can see why the Vita needs so much time to load this game so it’s still hard to flaw it. I didn’t notice this on the PS3 as much.

I would absolutely recommend this game to anybody who owns a Vita or PS3. At a budget price of $49, you’re getting both the PS3 + Vita version and a flawless cross saving experience. If you haven’t played the first 3 Sly Cooper games then don’t let that deter you from what is an absolute classic platformer and a breath of fresh air in the current market.

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