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Sanctum, A Review

Sanctum is a FPS, tower defense game. Basically, you’re some techno-chick who has the ability to build turrets and shoot stuff. If that sounds really vague, it’s because the game has no story. This game really showed some promise and I was really excited about trying it, but playing just left me disappointed. Let’s talk about why.

The Bad Story - There is no story or lore or anything that I could find. I really don’t need much. How about a name for this awesome looking chick I get to play? Or what are these creatures that are attacking me? Where the hell am I? ANYTHING?! They could have added in just a paragraph of story per level and I would have appreciated it. Pace - It’s a slooooow game. And I mean SLOW. I love tower defense games which don’t always possess the heart-beating excitement you might get from, say, a standard FPS. It takes so long to create your path and upgrade your towers. It takes forever to get around the map despite having teleporters which you’ll use infrequently since you’re chasing down monsters. Controls - There is no sprint. None. Zippo. Nada. What kind of FPS doesn’t have sprint? Other than that the controls are actually fairly okay, but... Sprint is a big deal. The Baddies - There is a rich, well drawn environment with an epic looking main character that is put next to these bad guys that all. look. the same. Why? They spent so much time on the other, but then crapped out and made fat, tall, minuscule, and flying models of the same unit. The Good It has some good aspects like mostly good art and an interesting idea, but I’m not going to go into detail because I feel may of the good parts are purely aesthetic. Instead, let’s talk about some ways it could be improved. The Improvements Story - Just some basic implied story bits would be nice. Shouldn’t be that hard to implement. Pacing/Controls - They could make the teleport boxes static to the map and not buildable, add sprint and double jump (To make it easier to get around this very 3D environment), and adjust the amount of resources you get per level. With the last suggestion, they would probably need to make the difficulty curve on the units steeper. Make less waves, but enemies get harder quicker. The game drags in between waves because getting around is slow. Sprint and double jump would help this, but maybe building traps in Overview Mode might help more? Creatures - Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! I’d suggest the enemies need to have a greater variety in their look. Anyways, I’d suggest this game to anyone who is a die hard tower defense gamer and doesn’t mind a little FPS thrown in. While I think there are several areas that need improvement to make it more universally well-liked, I believe a number of people will still be big fans of this. It’s very casual since it lacks a stronger, smoother gameplay to bring it to the next level, and because of that I’m pretty disappointed with it particularly because it seems they had a high production value.

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Saints Row: The Third Review

Saints Row: The Third brings together hilarious (and fun) over the top action with some self-deprecating humor and a whole lot of mayhem. Let’s just say in one of the first missions you’re parachuting through the air while dodging cars and racing to catch a girl gang member from falling - Oh, and you’re shooting baddies too. Yes, your character is a badass AND you get to customize him/her to look like whatever you want! It’s fun, but let’s get this review off the ground. (ba-dum, tsh)

Saints Row: The Third is at its core a third person action shooter with role-playing elements. It brings all of these together fairly well and if you happen to be a fan of the more mainstream, Grand Theft Auto series, you’ll love this. I’m not one for overly spoiling plot so let’s jump to the breakdown. The Awesome Customization - Why doesn’t every game offer such amazing character customization? I believe MMOs are just starting to understand that gamers want this, but I think it should be standard for almost any game that masquerades as an RPG. Oops back on topic - In addition to some awesome character customization, you can also customize what your gang looks like, what cars they drive, what your car looks like, etc. etc. - Basically a whole helluva lot of customization. Carnage and Mayhem - Some games are just fun because you can do whatever you want. Had a bad day at work? Take it out on some unruly citizens. Your dog left you a smelly present on your bed? It might be time to crash your helicopter into enemy gang territory. Sometimes, destruction can be good. Purple - The Saints colors are purple. That’s the color of nobility, motherfucker, and they don’t mess around. (PS Purple may be my favorite color.) The Debateable The Story - It’s super fun, but it’s also pretty casual. I haven’t beat it yet so there may be some crazy plot twists, backstabs, and other shenanigans involved, but don’t expect to be as invested with the characters as say you were with Megan Fox in Transformers 1. (I’ll come back and edit this section if it changes once I’ve beaten it. The Open World - I’m not a very big fan of open world games. There tends to be too much to do, they get repetitive, and then  you lose the story in the midst of 5 bazillion sidequests. I haven’t gotten bored of this one yet (It helps that I get to drive a car across it instead of trudge), but if you hate open world games, maybe you should pick this up on sale to check out the story. It’s a really solid game for its type. So if you’re at all interested in games like this, check it out and you shouldn’t be disappointed. Here’s a trailer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csTf2Z7xlQ0

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The Border of Borderlands

With the release of Borderlands 2, I think it is a good opportunity to bring up what I feel is good/unique and what is done poorly in Borderlands 1.

Borderlands is an open-world, first person shooter “with role-playing elements”. Borderlands takes place on the land of Pandora, a distant planet where advance alien technology is said to dwell. You start out in Pandora as one of 4 playable characters each with their own unique abilities and combat focuses. You do quests on Pandora, level up your character, and find various gear while you’re at it. Sounds fun, right? Well, it is at first. Let’s talk about my main beefs with Borderlands. The Main Beefs: The Story - The story is really, really simple and is dragged out over a long game (Long because of travel times and side quests). The role playing elements are nice. Who doesn’t like to build their own character? But they also make me wish for the role-playing game story. The Environment - What? Pandora is this awesome place with alien technology and crazy creatures? That’s awesome! Wait. All I see are a bunch of rocks. The environment was really sparse, and I understand that your world is “Tatooine-esque”, but you should really liven it up some more. It got pretty boring. The Multiplayer - Playing with your friends is great, but Borderlands doesn’t cater well as a co-op game. The Multiplayer instigates fighting over loot and possesses very few interactive elements between the characters. It’s fun to play with friends (and I’d suggest it since the story is meh), but it could have been a lot better. Good/Unique Side: The Role-Playing elements - The unique abilities, characters and skill trees are really great for a first person shooter. I like these elements and wish that more developers would involve them in their game. The Artwork - While the environment was lackluster, the artwork was unique and, dare I say, fun? It had this crazy, badass western feel to it and the artwork only amped that up. The characters were all well designed and it was fun to experience. In Borderlands 2, I’m really hoping they’ll push for either a more multiplayer-driven experience or a more story-driven experience. It is hard to do both. Either way on first appearances, I’m a little iffy on the characters for 2 and I’m nervous as from what to expect. Hopefully, I can test drive it soon and see where and if they improved upon the original game.

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Little Rocky and Sammy

Created and submitted by Retrodox (Kim Domingo)

Facebook || deviantArt || Shop

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Puzzled by Puzzle Games

Puzzle Games have long been my least favorite genre, but having played some more of them recently, I've found that they can be a lot of fun. I think, however, that there are a couple of really important qualities for a puzzle game to have.

Unique/Diverse elements

Puzzle Games are all about interacting with what you're given. The more unique or diverse these elements are adds depth to a game and help creates that hook which separates it from more mediocre games. A good example of a unique element is the portal gun from the Portal franchise. It's relatively simplistic, but is such a unique and versatile element for a game that it creates a lot of depth. For diverse elements, Portal has different gels that affect your character in different ways along with more static elements like box dispensers and spring pads.

Relatability

When these elements are or possess qualities of things we already understand, it becomes easier for the user to see how they relate. When we understand the elements, it helps us to make the logical jump to solve the puzzle. I believe this is one reason why physics games have become so popular. We all understand how objects will react to gravity and speed so it's easier for us a wider audience to get into it. Trine 2 did this really well I think. The Assassin's hook/rope, The Knight's sword, and the Mage's box/levitation (I have no idea if those are the actual names of the classes) were all very relatable. We could understand the uses of a box, sword, or rope easily so we weren't confused about what would do what. This made it easier to understand what we could do with these base elements and how they might react to new elements.

Progression

There are two ways to do this: Complicating puzzles with multiple elements, adding new elements, or sometimes both. I tend to go on about this a lot, but a proper game of any sort should scale well. Puzzle games are even more so. If you don't properly understand the elements, the puzzle will be much harder than it needs to and cause frustration instead of that slowly building Eureka moment that makes puzzle games so fun. That self-satisfied Eureka moment is the defining point of puzzle games. I tried out a steam game called World of Goo. It was physics based where you use these connecting goo creatures to build towers to a suction hose. It was an interesting idea to a game, but the elements didn't become more unique or diverse at a good rate. The goo was physics based, but the solutions were either really easy or very hard (Or not obvious enough to allow a logical building to a solution). As I didn't get really far in the game, I can't say whether it improved or not, but the game didn't progress like it should and I didn't feel the unique element (Goo) progressed enough to be relatable. I'll have to do more research on it later (particularly if someone complains loud enough) but until then that is my impression on it. Anyways, that's my general opinion on puzzle games, but I'm not an enthusiast either. I'd love to hear some suggestions on some different puzzle games I could try so feel free to shoot me a message/comment and I'll try to acquire and review it!

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Mists of Pandaria Update Review: First Impressions

Now, I’m not up on all the WoW lore, but Mists of Pandaria centers around a new race, Pandas (Maybe Pandarians, I have no idea.) The intro video was pretty cool despite featuring Pandas, and looks like it could be an interesting direction. Since no specific story or questing content is out for Mists of Pandaria yet which will be released later this month, let me talk about the new talent system that just appeared in the last update.

New Talent System World of Warcraft has had it’s spec/skill tree based system for as long as I’ve played. It got more complex as new levels were added and has been revamped several times, but this new change is a complete overhaul. The new system is simplified to the point where you make less choices, but they have a greater impact and a more important feel than the previous system. The benefits of the old skill tree were broken down and built into each class and spec. The Good Low Level Specializations - You will feel more like your specific spec as soon as you choose it instead of grinding through levels where you’re just a basic class with a few extra passives. Basically, your level ten choice feels more definite and heroic and overall better. More Dramatic Skill Tree - When you choose one of the three options at each section of the skill tree, you’ll know you made it. It will add differences into your play style and feel like you differentiated yourself from others playing the same class. Uniqueness - One of my biggest problems with WoW (Other than my problems with MMOs in general) has always been the lack of customization. I only feel connected with a character that I helped mold and shape. Yes, you get some of this by grinding out 85 levels (90 levels soon), but still I’d like to look differently and play differently than the other classes. This is a step towards that. (A “To Be Fair” note: WoW has been adding features in that help with uniqueness like their system that allows you to reskin your gear to look like different and hopefully cooler gear.) The “I’m-Not-So-Sure” Less Choices - Yes, your choices will have greater impact, but you’ll be making less of them. Will the thrill of new abilities and the occasional choice each level be enough to keep from feeling like leveling is such a grind? Or will it improve the leveling process by giving it more dramatic milestones? Passive Skill Choices - Some of the skill choices you can make are passive or maybe even underwhelming. I think some players might find this disappointing and be put off of what they had to choose. More talent points is better at managing this disappointment as you get one every level. I guess we’ll just have to see what the prevailing opinion is on this. In all, I think it has improved some early game and the rest is just different which will take some getting used to. If I had to decide, I’d say it is an overall improvement. Also as an endnote, you are going to be able to battle vanity pets in Mists of Pandaria a la Pokemon. This sounds really lame, but having seen the UI changes for it, I’m going to have to try it before I completely write it off. Pandas + Pokemon = Possibly a good expansion? The world is a crazy place.

PS Check out the Cinematic Trailer for Mists of Pandaria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64

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Looks like Disney has some competition!

Kirby’s Dreamland 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJGt_cSP8zQ&t=2m49s

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Super Mario Brothers.

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Orcs Must Die! 2 Review

To tag-team with my previous review of Orcs Must Die!, I must review Orcs Must Die! 2! (I feel like their are an excessive amount of exclamations. Oh well.) Orcs Must Die! 2 takes up where the other left off. (Spoiler) After destroying the rifts, the pprentice war mage has become a miner since his skills are no longer sought after. In the mines, new rifts begin opening and the orcs take interest. You team up with the voluptuous enchantress from the first title to defend the newly opening rifts. The orcs are a little pissed about the whole being ‘mind-slaves’ thing. (/Spoiler)

Orcs Must Die! 2 is a third person tower defense game much like the first and takes up where the first one left off in terms of gameplay as well - with gratuitous amounts of orcs to slay. Orcs must die sees upgrades in almost every aspect of play. You get more traps, more weapons, new mechanics, new maps, and more. Not mention playing as the Sorceress is distinctly different with a few different traps and weapons. Let’s do the breakdown -

The Good: Upgrades - So many different ways to augment your experience and things to continue spending skulls on as you progress through the difficulties. This was a great way to improve upon and already solid game. Co-Op - Yes, it’s there. I didn’t get a chance to try it out yet, but I’ve tried out both characters. The Apprentice has everything you’ll love from the first one and the Sorceress is back to her trick of enslaving the orcs! So I’d definitely recommend giving this a shot and letting me know how it is! New Levels and Old Levels -  Orcs Must Die! 2 possesses some great new levels that can be challenging and fun, but it also allows you to play the levels from the first one with all the improvements in their expansion.

The Less-than-Good: Upgrade Menu - The upgrade menu is not as intuitive as the other menus were. I have since figured it out very well, but I feel like it could have been designed better. It left me with a “meh” in my mouth. Hero Upgrade: Weavers - Where are they? Where did they go? I want them to upgrade my heroes capabilities. Hero upgrades in a level specific sense or as a character sense would have improved this game. I like to differentiate myself. Level Progression - With the smoothness of the first one, I always felt it got more difficult, but I rarely felt overwhelmed. In the sequel, it doesn’t do quite as well. There are some levels that are harder than others, but not in a good way in my opinion. Some you don’t have the upgrades or traps unlocked to deal with the horde and in others the layout made it very difficult. DLC - This makes me a sad Panda. Let’s stick to expansions, sequels, and updates please. Downloadable content never seems worth it to me, but maybe you’ll like it.

Don’t get me wrong. This game is fantastic, but it lost some of its solid polish from the first one. Without the levels being sporadic in their difficulty and the quirky new UI features, it could have been much better, but they say there is never a perfect sequel. I’d definitely give it a shot if you like tower defense games and if you liked the first one, but if you’re unsure, play the original first.

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The Binding of Isaac

I’m still working through reviewing all the games I got from the Steam Sale (Yes, the summer one.) I’d love to do a review on Guild Wars 2, but money is tight so maybe I can make friends who have it. Anyways, back to Steam reviews! In the flurry of picking up games, I was recommended a game called “The Binding of Isaac.” This game is more than a little twisted. (Spoiler)You play as Isaac and, if I inferred correctly, he is writing the story you’re playing. If I did so incorrectly, then Isaac’s life sucks. The intro starts and Isaac and his mom love each other. (Insert loving fun scenes) Then Isaac’s mom starts hearing the voice of God, who tells her that Isaac is a sinner and culminates his wishes with a desire for her to kill Isaac. Isaac’s a scared little boy who hides in the basement. In the basement, you find shocking images of dead fetuses, flies, excrement and a whole host of other unpleasant things. Yeah, wow. I know.

The “Binding of Isaac” is essentially a top-down, standard shooter, arcade game. You move with WASD and shoot in a direction with Up-Down-Left-Right (You shoot tears. Which is weird). The gameplay is simple which is nice. The story is disturbing, but it pulled me in. Let’s talk Pros and Cons. Pros: Idea - This is where “The Binding of Isaac” gets most of my praise. It has an interesting base for an idea that appalls, yet, makes you want to see more. This is what we want to see out of Indie games. It pushes the limits where mainstream games can’t. Relatively simple gameplay - Simple controls which become easy to master. However, no in-game help for special items. I still have no idea what “Mom’s bra” does.

Character Artwork - It's crazy but good. It's well made and uniform across the game and helps it keep it's 'creepy' cool. Cons: Story - The intro was so interesting and hinted at such an interesting story, but it stopped. I beat a couple bosses and never got to know who’s, what’s, or why’s. Level Design - The levels are random each time (I died a couple times) but all the ones I played are a ridiculously boring cave with randomly generated encounters. There was no rhyme or reason and it became dull pretty fast. Overall, I’d have to say I don’t like The Binding of Isaac for the main reason that it lacks progression. I’d be okay with the limited story if the gameplay became more interesting. I’d be okay with limited gameplay if the story had led me along a path revealing more about this sick world of Isaac’s. Even without either of those, I might have played it a bit longer if the levels had possessed any variation in look or feel, but I didn’t get any of those. I must say with all the hype from this I was very disappointed.

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Starcraft: GOMtv makes all VODs free for 2 days

Quick Update:

For those of you in the Starcraft community who may have somehow missed this, GOMtv is making all their VODs free to watch for 2 days.

Here's a link to some of the best games: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=365715

And for the lazy (I'm sure there's more of me out there somewhere), the link to GOMtv's website.

http://www.gomtv.net/

Cheers!

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Bastion Review

Bastion is a top-down adventure game where you play as the Kid. The Kid tries to discover more about the Calamity that destroyed much of what he once knew. He meets other people that survived along the way and the plot unravels.

The game is named Bastion because that is the name of your base of operations. At Bastion, you can talk with NPCs and upgrade almost everything. The Good There are so many ways to customize and upgrade your character and play experience that there will be something for everyone. Like being the sniper? Rolling with a Shotgun? Attacking with a Machete? It’s got all of that and each of those weapons can be upgraded to do what you want better. It has passive upgrades, idols to increase the difficulty of your play through, and even an in-game achievement system that rewards money to spend on upgrades. The artwork - Oh man, the artwork. It’s just a gorgeously rendered game. Even without the other positives, I’d suggest getting this game just to explore the artwork. It’s beautiful, ‘nuff said. The Narrative - The story is pretty good. It’s too short to have a complex plot, but it does possess some depth. All this is made easier (and infinitely better) by the smooth voice of the narrator explaining your travels. It’s like having James Earl Jones follow you around and explain your day to you. The Gameplay - The controls are easy to learn and the gameplay is smooth. You don’t have to try and figure out how to play Bastion - you just jump right in. It’s a simplistic game, but in that I feel is the secret. It’s just fun to play. The Other Stuff Normally, this is where I’d say bad things or things that could be improved. I might even be able to think of a few for Bastion if I really wanted to nitpick, but I won’t. It’s a fantastically solid game and you should go play it.

PS Here's a link to the trailer. Check it out! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX48y24t9iU&noredirect=1

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Orcs Must Die! Review

So the Steam Summer Sale happened and I happened to pick up this lovely gem - Orcs Must Die! I happen to be a huge fan of tower defense games, but this one was just an all around great game.

Basically, you're the spunky, not-so-bright apprentice war mage of the defender of rifts. He dies and you inherit his spellbook, power, and duty. Time to get awesome. Orcs start pouring in through doors and trying to enter the rifts to destroy the human world beyond. You defend the rifts with traps, weapons, and spells. Needless to say, you rape a lot of orcs... but not literally, yuck! Reasons I like it: First, it tiers well with the difficulty getting progressively harder and giving you new traps, weapons, and spells. You also get to spend orc skulls to upgrade your traps which always feels awesome. All in all, it has a great progression. Second, the controls are smooth, easy, and intuitive. I’ve played way too many games that I couldn't get into because the controls sucked. It’s as though the game developers had never played a game before. This is not the case with Orcs Must Die, however, as the controls take a backseat to gameplay (as it should be.) Third, the apprentice loves wanton destruction as much as I do. That bastard will taunt the orcs and dance at the end of a level. And yes, I dance with him. Every. Time. If I’m ever defending the realm from terrible monsters, I promise there will be a plethora of un-sportsman-like conduct.

Fourth, It’s very visually appealing. The apprentice. The orcs. The locales. They’re all great and in a fantastic art style. In other words, sometimes it’s a-ok to judge a book by its cover.

Other things (Not necessarily bad): The story - It was light with easily recognizable characters that made me want to continue playing, but it was still a light story so if you’re looking for Final Fantasy... Go play Final Fantasy. The customization -I loved being able to upgrade my traps, but it just left me wanting to upgrade them some more. Maybe even having something to look forward to when going to nightmare. Co-Op -  Or lack there-of. I’m fine with single player games, but I’m sure many gamers lament that they can’t spend all their freetime trapping orcs with a friend. Overall, I think it was a well-made game with great visuals and great fun for a casual or hardcore gamer. There are definitely some things that might be improved upon in the sequel, but there’s nothing that is ‘bad’ about this game. I think even gamers who aren’t fans of tower defense games should try this and if you are a fan, why haven’t you grabbed it already?

PS This review was written before the release of the sequel which is awesome and shall be getting a review soon.