Bastion is a beautiful 2D fantasy game with a unique storytelling method of an ever present voice narrating the story as it happens. The voice’s register hovers somewhere in the vicinity of Sam Elliott and Ron Perlman and serves as a constant companion that elegantly toes the line between pure exposition but also a character in the game itself. In addition to this unique conceit, the game itself is a fun action-RPG with great weapons, upgrade systems and a lot of well thought out gameplay design.

The story follows The Kid who is a white-haired chibi style character and a survivor of a recent catastrophic event known only as The Calamity. During the course of the game’s 8-10 hours you’ll learn more about the world of The Bastion, the different races of people and cities surrounding it. In many ways, the story of Bastion literally unfolds as you play it. The world first appears empty until the ground literally pops up from under your feet and the narrator tells the story like a parent telling a bedtime story.

This is the smallest level in the game... I'm just foolin'

You’ll meet a few characters on your journey, but for the most part the narrator is the only voice that you’ll be hearing during the game. Reportedly they recorded over 3000 lines of dialogue for the entire game. Somewhere out there exists a spreadsheet all the different scenarios they decided should have accompanying narration. Most of it is for story, but an impressive amount is contextual. Sometimes it directly relates to actions you take in the game like destroying environmental objects or even your choice of weapons that you use in each level.

It might sound like a gimmick which it totally is, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. It’s easy to see how this idea could’ve gone horribly wrong, but it’s implemented incredibly well and never feels unnatural. While playing you can tell that special care was taken to prevent the narrator from repeating himself or to have anything interrupt the narration, whether it’s a pause screen or when story and contextual narration have to happen one after another. Also some narration is reserved entirely for the New Game Plus second play through which extends its replayability. As of the writing of this review I’ve beat the game twice, and I’m still convinced that there’s a lot of narration I still haven’t heard.

Just about everything there is destructible. This game takes much longer if you're OCD.

Okay so the narration is really cool, but how does it play? The game is seen from an isometric perspective and The Kid will be shooting and hacking away at enemies large and small. The Bastion itself serves as a hub world from which you’ll fly to each new world discovered. It’s essentially entirely linear, but you have the option of going to training levels or taking other challenges to increase your skill before moving on. Bastion is a tad Diablo/Deathspank style with its damage numbers and critical hits, but not a straight up button masher especially at the higher difficulties. In addition to hitting and shooting, you can roll out of the way and counter using your shield. The control is precise and responsive which makes things like dodging and evading very easy.

What really separates Bastion from Diablo style action RPGs are the variety of weapons and their properties. The Kid has at his disposal a choice of two weapons and one special skill. There are eleven weapons total which you gradually discover and also a large number of special skills to unlock as well. Having played with all the weapons it’s surprisingly tough to pick favorites. Each one has very different properties, uses and scenarios where they work best. They boil down to melee and projectile weapons, but all handle quite differently in terms of range, strength, speed, area of effect and accuracy. I was skeptical of the variety at first because usually there are clear favorites, but the game really lets you customize your arsenal to your play style. I would encourage you to change things up every now and then in order to play the game differently.

Rifle vs Pick Axe.

When you destroy objects and kill enemies you receive experience points and currency which can be used to purchase weapon upgrades. Each weapon has five levels of upgrades with a choice of two on each level. One nice touch is that upgrades can be swapped at any time after purchase which adds even more variety to each weapon. Another passive upgrade come in the form of “tonics” which are different buffs that The Kid can equip that affect things like health, percent chance of critical hits, damage and a number of other properties. The higher your level, the more tonics you can equip at one time making your character even stronger.

Another way to further your weapon skills come in “Proving Grounds” one of which exists for each weapon. These are like training areas where you must accomplish a specific goal using a particular weapon and based on your performance you’ll receive rewards. At the highest reward you’ll receive a new special attack for that weapon, but very few of these can be achieved without an upgraded weapon. There’re also in-game achievements for which you receive money that you can put towards more upgrades.

Your mission should you choose to accept it. Smash everything here. Oh and do it in 25 seconds.

With all these upgrades it sounds like you’ll hit a wall where you’re just too powerful for everything around you which is why they added a special way of increasing the difficulty of the game. There is no Easy, Medium and Hard mode in Bastion. Instead there’s a shrine where you can invoke idols of certain gods in order to increase the challenge and receive more experience points as a reward. There are ten gods in total and even invoking only a few of them can dramatically change your experience. Some modifications include: faster enemies, stronger enemies, regenerating enemies, damage from touching enemies, enemies that randomly deflect attacks and exploding enemies and more. If you’re not quick on your feet you can find yourself dying very quickly the more idols you invoke.

The art in Bastion is gorgeously realized with a broad color palette and beautiful painterly strokes for everything from the characters to the random boxes you’ll smash in a level. The paint style recalls Braid, but there’s much more detail and variety to be found. The saturation of color really makes everything pop out of the screen. It’s a nice and rare treat nowadays to have a 2D game that makes you want to stop to appreciate its artwork. Even more impressive is that it’s all the work of only one person out of the very small team.

Awww who's a beautifully colored little... OH GOD! HEALTH POTION NOW!

Plenty has been said about the narration, but it’s still worth noting just how seamless it works into the game. There are times when the next bit of narration won’t happen until you finish a battle, but somehow the pacing always seems to work. I wish I were more versed in music so that I would have the vocabulary to describe the music from Bastion, but it’s a great soundtrack and complements the game wonderfully. Sometimes it’s the slow leisurely strumming of a guitar and others it’s the urgent stringing of violins. It’s a short enough game that the music never gets repetitive, but even if it were longer I still don’t think I would’ve minded. There were even some musical beats that I wasn’t expecting to find in such an indie developed game, but worked great for the story.

If there were one criticism I would make about Bastion it would be the sound effects. I’m not sure if it could simply be a matter of mixing the weapon and impact sounds up a bit more, but I felt like they could’ve had more punch. Even though I loved using all the weapons in the game, they didn’t feel as satisfying as I wanted them to be when either the shot of a rifle went off or the slash of the machete hit an enemy. The impacts, shots and slashes are pretty understated and I wished felt more tactile than they did. I’m sure it’s tough finding just the right sound especially when it’s something that will be heard thousands of times in quick succession, but I found it a little bit lacking. Another minor quibble is that there are a lot of loading screens, but there are a lot of contextual story bits put there which make them less annoying.

Ewwww, cleanup on aisle 4!

Any complaints I have are only minor nitpicks, because Bastion is still a great game that should be played by anyone with an Xbox (and later PC). The gameplay is really well designed with several small considerations that streamline the experience. For example, when you equip a new weapon, that weapon’s special skill is automatically sorted to the top of the list. Another nice touch is that in the game’s version of wave based challenge rooms they make the experience less monotonous by having story narration in between waves. A lot of thought has been put in to make the game inclusive to all manner of players. From the most casual to the hardcore in search of a bigger challenge.

There’s a lot to do in Bastion and it’s well worth the 1200 MS points (or $15). As of the writing of this review is not yet available on PC but will be later in 2011. It’s a unique and fun experience and well worth your while. Highly recommended!

Hey guys, can I grab a lift?

Historically I haven’t been a multiplayer focused sort of person, but Uncharted 2 was the first game that I got really addicted to its multiplayer and played the heck out of it. Understandably I had been looking forward to the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta ever since I heard the announcement. Thanks to Sony getting hacked I was able to play that first week only for Playstation Plus members (and really, anyone who wanted to play this beta just had to wait before cashing in that membership, so there’s no excuse for not getting in).

Naughty Dog has said that they want this to be the definitive multiplayer experience on the Playstation 3, and that they’re in this to compete with the other major multiplayer games. They’ve made a significant number of improvements that give more variety, incentives to play and excitement to the experience. The thing that separated Uncharted from other games is its third-person perspective and also how much traversal plays a part in the game’s maps. Nathan Drake has more upper body strength than anyone in the world and this means that he can do a heck of a lot of climbing. This translates into maps with a lot of verticality, so you’re constantly having to keep your eyes above and below you for possible targets.

Pretty lighting.

Right now there are two maps: Airstrip and The Chateau. If you’re playing Team Deathmatch, The Airstrip starts on a commercial plane taking off and being chased by trucks. Depending on which team you’re on you’ll be defending or storming the plane. This is pretty amazing and has a unique Uncharted level of excitement to it. How balanced this map is remains to be seen, but it’s still really cool. The Chateau is more of a closer quarters kind of map with a lot of verticality and small rooms with big gun fights. This map and the second phase of The Airstrip both have scripted events like a floor collapsing or a plane flying overhead shooting or blowing stuff up. These sort of things existed in UC2, but they’re still fun to experience.

In the beta there are five modes: team death match, free for all, three team deathmatch, hardcore and co-op. These are actually almost all new additions except for TDM and aspects of co-op. Team Deathmatch are two teams of 5 trying to get 50 kills. This mode has all the bells and whistles of the new gameplay additions in the game. The biggest addition are Power Plays which are intended to balance out the score when one team is dominating by at least 5-6 kills. In those situations the losing team gets a bonus like “Marked Man” where a specific player on the opposing team has an icon visible from anywhere on the map and their death now counts for 3. This causes the defenders to go crazy and the attackers to drop what they’re doing and seek this guy out.

Jumping from one moving vehicle to another? Yep, this is an Uncharted game.

The other Power Plays include abilities like seeing all enemies’ arrows through walls and double damage. If you’re not ahead by the time all three have gone off then you’re on your own. These Power Plays really bring some excitement to the game and sometimes they’ll work so well that you’ll find yourself on the other side of the Power Play. In most of the games I’ve played in this mode the games end up very close in the end. If by the end of the round a team is only winning by 1 then it goes into a one minute sudden death mode. If the score is still tied after sudden death, everyone’s arrows become visible and everyone has only one life.

Power Plays and boosters also work in Free for All and Three Team Deathmatch which consists of three teams of two. For those who don’t want all the boosters, power plays and extra abilities there’s a hardcore mode for those who want everything to be purely skill based.

Co-op mode teams you up with two additional players. This is ten rounds of three game types. There’s survival which is just waves and waves of enemies until the timer goes down. There’s Siege which requires you all to be in one specific region in order for your points to count, and then there’s Gold Rush where you have to take treasure from one part of the map to another. One addition in that mode is that you can now shoot your pistol while holding the treasure. In UC2 you were at the mercy of your teammates if the bullets started flying.

The first stealth kill I got I said "OH SNAP!" The medal for stealth kills is "Oh Snap!" Naughty Dog, you understand me too well.

There are a lot of other small gameplay additions too. There’s a new buddy system where if you’re not playing with friends you’re assigned a buddy, and you can respawn near them after getting killed provided they’re not currently under direct fire. If they’re shooting at someone then you can spawn in and help out. Also, kills which you accomplish together give a D-pad down prompt which can let you high five or fist bump your buddy which is a lot of fun and gives you a medal. I hope Naughty Dog adds some more of these.

Now there’s also a sprint ability you can activate by clicking in the left thumbstick. This is great for people like me who enjoy sneaking up on guys who aren’t sprinting. In UC2 if I wanted to sneak up on someone I had to hope that eventually they paused or took a break if I wanted to overtake them. Also there are Treasures which appear randomly in designated treasure boxes or when you kill an enemy. There are quite a few of them in dozens of sets. These unlock different outfits for your characters and just add another thing to do while playing. Treasure chests either hold new treasures or special one-time paid boosters. Either way you receive a medal for collecting treasure, but you’ll never have to worry about getting the same treasure over and over again which is good for collectors.

No he's not shooting the plane, but dammit that would be amazing.

Some other tweaks are that a quick tap of the triangle button can let you throw grenades back at people if you do it in time. Also you find yourself hanging from a ledge next to someone else also on the same ledge, you can kick them down. There are a few new stealth kill animations, but some look smoother than others, another thing that is hopefully smoothed out for the full release.

Boosters have received a nice overhaul that make them more relevant and also provide more incentives. There are a number of booster abilities like: faster respawn, ability to see power weapons, quieter traversal, ammo for taunting or being able to see the arrow of the last guy who killed you. There are many more in the beta, and sure to be more in the full release. Like in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, these abilities can be leveled up for improved versions of them. To level up the boosters involves winning certain medals like medals for stealth killing, killing with power weapons, running around a lot or collecting treasure. There are also co-op specific boosters which can be even more powerful, but since they’re intended for use vs AI opponents then it’s not game breaking.

No no guys, we want to go IN the plane. IN!

There are also paid boosters which you can purchase before matches. These are powerful one-match boosters like an additional grenade slot, short range radar and stronger bullets. Early on these aren’t really much bang for your buck because it’s in your better interest to buy permanent boosters. Lastly, the big ability addition are kickbacks. These are special skills you can use once you’ve attained the required number of medals. For example 12 medals could get you an instant RPG, or 7 medals lets you move very quickly, or my personal favorite 10 medals gives you a cluster grenade that blows up into several other grenades. In higher level play these will make matches very interesting indeed.

That’s an overview of the biggest game changers, but they’ve also made some very small cosmetic tweaks that I really enjoyed. For one thing the guns all sound differently now. They were almost all different in the original, but the pistols used to sound exactly the same, but now they’re all completely distinct. They also added a sound effect for bullets hitting your target which is nice because then you know you’re hitting your mark. Previously you’d have to look closely for the blood splatter, but sometimes at a distance it was more difficult.

Drake vs three pirates. Poor pirates.

Another cosmetic addition are emblems. You can customize an emblem for yourself, and if you do well enough during the match it’ll appear on certain landmarks which doesn’t affect gameplay but it’s kind of cool to see your emblem on a huge wall or on ammo crates.

So far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself in the UC3 Multiplayer beta, and I can’t wait to see all the other stuff that is in the full version. I think they’ve made smart decisions that make the game more exciting and dozens of medal rewards keep that positive reinforcement pleasure button running while you play. My only complaint is that my co-op teammates keep on acting like total morons during survival mode. I mean come on, why go to an open space when there’s so much cover around you???

If you know anything about the game Darksiders, you know that it’s earned its reputation for being a darker “mature” version of Legend of Zelda. After playing the game I have no problem saying that the comparison is entirely apt, and what parts of the game aren’t from Zelda are from God of War or Devil May Cry. In addition there are a few pepperings of Panzer Dragoon and even some Portal. But you know what? Lack of originality in those regards doesn’t really matter all that much because the combination of these inspirations still make Darksiders a fun game.

The story centers around War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The universe is governed by The Council, a neutral party that keeps Heaven and Hell in check. It’s decided that at the time of the Apocalypse, Heaven, Hell and the Kingdom of Man will battle and the ultimate victor will be decided. Turns out, someone couldn’t wait for the Apocalypse and it starts prematurely, but for some reason only War is summoned with the other three nowhere in sight. Thus it’s assumed that War jumped the gun and caused all this chaos, and The Council seeks to punish him, but allows War to return to Earth in order to find out who was really responsible. When he gets back to Earth a century has passed, and the world has been fallen into ruin with nothing but demons roaming the streets. War is accompanied by The Watcher (voiced by Mark Hamill) who is kind of like a demonic Navi from Ocarina of Time.

Look, I'm not Link. He wears green, I wear red. Totally opposite.

Because of its inspirations (calling it a ripoff or homage is strictly up to you) Darksiders is simultaneously difficult and quite easy to talk about. On one hand it’s easy because if I tell you the things it takes from other games you’ll know right away what playing the game is like. By the same token it’s kind of difficult to talk about because there doesn’t seem much left to talk about after explaining what it plays like.

All right, to simplify let’s go through everything that Darksiders takes from Legend of Zelda. The game centers around going to a number of different dungeons, each of which will give you a new item that you’re going to use to defeat the boss with after hitting him three times. That item then opens up other regions of the world where you couldn’t go to before. When you solve puzzles there’s a music cue, but in the form of an all men’s choir. In combat you hold the left trigger to target specific enemies which also letterboxes the window. You push blocks, ride a horse, throw boomerangs, use a hookshot, use bomb plants, collect four pieces of each new health container and see into a shadow world. When you fall into a pit, you respawn with some life depleted. All of these things from Zelda exist in Darksiders, except they’re, you know… darker.

Would Link do this???

What Darksiders doesn’t take from Zelda is inspired by the God of War and Devil May Cry games. It’s not terribly difficult to button mash your way through the game, and with all combos using only the X button it’s not even as deep as God of War. The combat system comes with a few weapons, upgrades, special abilities and magic. When you kill enemies you receive souls which you use to buy health items, new combos, magic skills and other upgrades. A ”Rage” meter slowly fills up while fighting and can be used to do some high powered cleanup. The game mostly draws the line at quick time events, but enemies can be finished off with a B-button prompt once they’re weak enough.

This isn't your daddy's wussy boomerang. It's a veritable self quadra-bladed shredder of doom!

The game is mostly combat focused, but the dungeons break up the pacing with long sections of puzzle solving. The puzzles are more involved than you’d find in God of War, but I didn’t always have the moments of immense satisfaction usually associated with solving complicated puzzles like in a Zelda game. Usually my moments of confusion during the game were related to where to go to next. The camera would often show me the way when I didn’t want to know what to do next, and when I was confused there was no help at all.

When you're this big, do you really need to resort to throwing cars to hurt people?

The art style is very spikey with a good variety of hideous creatures and environments. War himself is incredibly wide and has numerous attachments added to his very spikey gauntlets. The settings are befitting of a post apocalyptic urban environment, and most of the boss battles are quite huge and epic in scope. Some bosses more than others echo Shadow of the Colossus, but in all fairness, Link has been fighting monsters many times his size for a while.

While the art does a good job of realizing the world, I had trouble any of it too seriously, and the game does take itself very seriously. Just about every voice in the game is a deep baritone if not lower and sometimes, but not always involves some voice processing to make it even more rumbly. Items have very silly names like “Chaoseater”, “Tremor Gauntlet” and “Armageddon Blade.” There are some fleeting moments when the game reveals a sense of humor, but they’re usually unrelated to the main storyline which is always deathly serious. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but it might be that a game with this art style and tone is very difficult to take.

Without a doubt, the most fabulous demon in hell.

The collection system is fun because there are rewards for everything that you collect. Items you collect will increase your health, magic, give you money and also reward you with the special “Abyssal Armor.” Thankfully the game has several items that reveal the location of collectible items, so getting 100% of all the items is mostly painless. The only frustration I had while doing my collecting was the game’s save system didn’t seem to always save my collecting progress. While games like Assassin’s Creed quicksave after every collectible, Darksiders for some reason doesn’t save everything even after a hard save. As a result one artifact I was sure I collected had been lost in a save. I’m not sure what the 100% reliable way of saving was, but just in case I would go past several checkpoints in hopes the multiple save points would work.

Angel statue boobage.

There are a few technical hitches in the game. When there are a lot of enemies and a lot of fire effects the framerate can choke, but they’re not game breaking. There’re very few load screens in the game because the game disguises its loading with transitional stages that you have to walk through in between regions. Every now and then the game will freeze for a moment when going from one area to another, but again nothing that really affects gameplay.

I enjoyed Darksiders despite my misgivings about the tone and problems I had sometimes understanding the story. Like Zelda it’s much more gameplay focused of a game with infrequent cutscenes that usually come at the beginning and end of dungeon areas. Because of this it doesn’t make the most entertaining game to watch someone play, but the mix of combat and puzzle solving still made it a fun game. Right now Darksiders is $20 or less so if you’re looking for a 16-20 hour adventure game then Darksiders should work for you.

Contrary to the “Grand Theft Noir” vibe that it gives, L.A. Noire is more of a modern take on old school slow and methodical adventure games than a GTA open world action game. Using cutting edge technology the game requires you to read the facial expressions of characters you interrogate in order to determine whether or not they’re telling the truth or not. Fitting somewhere in between a straight linear adventure game narrative and open world game, L.A. Noire is probably not going to completely satisfy fans of either. If you’re a fan of fast paced modern Call of Duty games or GTA then it’s very likely you’re going to be disappointed by this style of gameplay and I’d recommend you rent it. If however you like point and click adventure games, the chase scenes and especially driving portions of the game might frustrate you. That said, L.A. Noire is much friendlier for the less action focused gamer and at times even goes out of its way to accomodate gamers who would rather advance the plot than try a twitch reflex action sequence over and over again.

Story is king in L.A. Noire so it’s fortunate that for the most part everything is excellently plotted. You play as Cole Phelps, a war veteran starting as a beat cop for the LAPD. The game covers his rise through the ranks as he quickly distinguishes himself amongst his peers and proves himself an excellent detective no matter what department. You’ll investigate cases from fraud up through homicide, drugs and arson. The structure of the game starts very episodic, but gradually cases start to interconnect and build up a bigger story. In addition to the main plotline there are a few other story threads including flashbacks to Cole in the war and also collectible newspapers reveal another story arc destined to collide with Cole’s story. There are a few plot holes here and there, but they’re the exception to the rule in what is a very engaging approximately 20 hour game.

I'm sorry, what did you say again?

When you boil down the tasks you have in the game it sounds monotonous and repetitive. It is repetitive, but if you’re absorbed into the story it’s certainly not monotonous. After you receive a case you go to the crime scene to start your investigation by looking for evidence. As you walk around, the controller will vibrate and you’ll hear a piano chime indicating you’re nearby evidence. Some will be relevant and some will be completely incidental. Some pieces of evidence allow for additional interaction like flipping through books, fitting pieces together, reading brand names, serial numbers and other things that will give Cole his next lead. Relevant evidence is then sorted into Cole’s notebook. After finding all the evidence there’s a brass music cue that indicates all evidence has been found.

Aside from the evidence, the most prominent feature by far are the interrogation sequences. New motion capture technology allowed the developers to translate the actors’ facial expressions and put them onto the game characters. The results are the most realistic facial movements ever seen in a video game. Every forehead wrinkle, crease of the mouth, and eyeball movement is perfectly put onto the screen. As you interrogate you’ll be given the option to decide whether they’re telling the truth, lying or lying about something in direct contradiction your evidence. Just like old adventure games there is only one right answer per question, which may frustrate players looking to get all the achievements.

Don't be surprised if you recognize actors.

Depending on how well you do, the interrogation can go a number of different ways. If you do well then you’ll usually be better equipped to make the right decision in the investigation. I played through some cases multiple times and was often surprised how just one wrong answer could reveal a piece of information that would make the difference between convicting the right and wrong person. The first cases have characters who sweat like a pig when they’re lying, but by the end of the game you’ll be dealing with less savory characters who are much more capable liars. If there’s no evidence to work off of, it’s usually best to trust your gut instincts.  This is by far the most interesting thing about L.A. Noire because the subtle shades of gray make the investigative work feel very authentic. Many times a character will be lying about something not because they’re guilty of the crime you’re investigating, but something else they don’t want to reveal for entirely different reasons. It’s these ulterior motivations and agendas that really flesh out even the smallest of characters and makes them feel like real people.

As simple and repetitive as the core gameplay can seem, it’s a fantastic way of giving the player control over how the story is slowly revealed. I’m not one of those people who figure out the killer from the first ten minutes of the movie, so I hung on every piece of evidence and dialogue as the story unfolded. No matter what you do, the story will go on and even though your game will end the same way as everyone else, the process by which you get there is likely to have a lot of different turns from someone else’s game.

Woops no gloves, guess I'm the suspect now.

There’s a light experience system built in. For each correct question you get experience points and as you rank up you’re rewarded with hidden cars, outfits and “intuition points.” These points can be stored for a maximum of 5. If you’re stumped on a question you can use a point to eliminate question options or use the PSN “ask the community” option to see what other people chose (though this isn’t always correct). Intuition points can also reveal the location of all evidence in a crime scene. It’s best to use them only when you’re really stuck since there level 20 is the maximum rank. Experience is also gained from street crimes and landmarks you find around the city.

The other parts of the game are the ones more GTA-like.. Your mileage may vary depending on how much you enjoy those games. The city of Los Angeles has been painstakingly recreated and is quite vast. Reportedly it’s the largest city ever to be in a Rockstar game. There’re dozens of cars to drive, and many different items to collect. There aren’t side missions or factions like in GTA, but instead there are some very quick and short street crimes that you can answer the call of when they come over your police radio. There are 40 of these in total, but most of them can be finished in a few minutes.

It's called "aim assist" beatch!

Usually they boil down to chasing targets down, shootouts and car chases. The gunplay is very simplified in this game with no HUD for your weapons, ammo counters or arsenals. The default gun settings have an aim assist mode that basically guarantees when you come out of cover you’re already aiming at an enemy. This expedites action sequences and is probably something action game fans will find wholly unsatisfying. But for someone more focused on the story, it’s a welcome decision. Cars handle much like in a GTA game and were by far my least favorite part of the game because of the learning curve for driving and the fact that I almost never ever wanted to look behind my car when reversing, but the game is designed to reverse camera angles then. If you so choose you can let your partner drive to all locations which brings you there instantly. If there’s some dialogue, the game will let it play out before transporting you to your designated location.

At the end of each case you’re given a rating from 1-5 stars based on how many questions you judged correctly, how much evidence you gathered and the property damage you caused while on the case. Seeing as you’re a cop it’s not the kind of game where you go around willfully destroying everything (though there is an achievement for doing that). In fact, the pedestrians are very resilient and I’m pretty sure won’t die no matter what, but I never tested the limits of how many times I could hit one guy.

Finished cases can be easily replayed via the main menu if you want to improve your rating or go back and do more street missions.The game helps you out with notifications for street crime you’ve finished and also newspapers you’ve found, but for other items you’re collecting there’s no easily accessible list of what you have which means I won’t be going back in without a map and a FAQ. It would’ve been nice if they had a reward which was a map of collectibles like in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

50 film reels in the biggest video game city ever made? Yep, using a FAQ map.

L.A. Noire is a great looking game, but it’s not without its flaws. The facial motion capture is a victim of its own success because by comparison the body animation can look quite stilted and awkward at times. At worst, the characters look like stuntmen in movies who have had their faces replaced with the actors’ face. When it happens, the visual disconnect really breaks the illusion. But if you focus primarily on the faces it’s very impressive to look at. From what little I know of the time period it appears to have been excellently reproduced from the building exteriors, clothing and cars.

This being a film noir game they’ve also added an option to play the game in black & white. I did a comparison with turning the saturation down on my TV, and the black/white mode makes the contrast higher and looks quite good, but the game is still rather gray. I wish that the game had better lighting contrast typical of film noir films. The main menu is the best looking bit of black/white in the game with the dark shadows and bright light contrast. I wish there could’ve been more of that visual style in the game.

just like games used to be in the 1940s!

Most of my complaints about the game stem from the GTA-like elements like the driving, unforgiving collecting and also very light checkpointing in the game. I’m guessing the developers didn’t want people stopping the game for the sake of 100% completion, because this gives the game replay value. Still, they must’ve known that people were going to quit and retry missions in order to get all the questions correct, but the game isn’t set up to do that with any efficiency. If you mess up and want to try again there are cutscenes you have to rewatch (not all of which are skippable), evidence to recollect and of course the questions to answer. I think it would’ve been a good choice to add more checkpoints. At the very least, a checkpoint after evidence is collected.

Pretty much everything else is top notch. The acting is excellent all around, and real kudos to the director for getting good performances out of actors isolated sitting in a chair surrounded by HD cameras. It can be hard enough to marry motion capture with actors in a sound booth with no other actors to play off of, but this extra step for the facial capture must’ve made it that much more difficult. Sometimes the tone and energy can go up and down without any warning, but all things considered it fits together very well. The sheer scale of scanned in faces for the game is staggering with every minor NPC having facial motion capture. Yes, there is a disconnect between the fidelity of the face and body, but it’s still a very impressive achievement.

Oh yeah forgot to mention. This game is for mature audiences ONLY.

L.A. Noire is a very exciting evolution of the adventure game which has traditionally had very little innovation of its mechanics, but I hope that other companies take some cues and find more ways to make modern takes on point and click adventure. I don’t think that this sort of facial motion capture would be good in all games, because in certain games it feels better to have stylized humans, but it’s interesting technology that if used correctly could really enhance video games and take them in exciting new directions. I could see games like Heavy Rain adopting this technology well for sequels.

So once again, if you like adventure games and want some more action in them, then definitely play L.A. Noire. If you’re looking for another sand boxy GTA game with a world to cause wacky hijinks and destruction then do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. At the very least the game has to be seen just for the technical achievement alone. Your enjoyment will depend on your attention span and your personal requirements for gameplay/story ratio.

Portal 2 is a spectacular game that’s both easy and difficult to review at the same time because there’s plenty to say about what’s good, but also I want to make sure I do proper justice to it. This review will definitely contain massive spoilers so don’t even think about reading this before you’ve played the game. Play it. At the writing of this review it’s already gone down to $40 so there’s no excuse. If you don’t have $40 you must have $40 worth of stuff you can sell that’s less entertaining than Portal 2.

Portal was nothing short of a sweeping internet phenomenon and deservedly so. Its length was short and incredibly sweet, but of course we were all left wanting more. Valve listened and then some, because more is what they gave us and then brought it to the tenth power. Portal 2 is a fantastic game that is genuinely laugh out loud funny with beautiful visuals, and amazing scope that went beyond my wildest expectations.

There have been some outliers complaining about either the $80 worth of DLC released on Day 1 or the short length of the game. The single player campaign took me about 8-9 hours to beat and the co-op mode which I played off and on was of a similar play time. People boasting that they beat the game in 3-4 hours are either outright liars or savants who probably don’t understand the concept of savoring something. Portal 2 is the filet mignon of games, and it doesn’t even cost more than the others so really haters are just gonna hate.

Did you not believe me when I said I was still alive? I made a song about it.

At the end of the first Portal you’ve blown up GLaDOS and nearly escaped the Aperture Science testing facility when your unconscious body is dragged away and GLaDOS taunts you that she is indeed still alive. Portal 2 opens with Chell waking up in an Aperture Science hibernation room that looks more like a cheap hotel. Things are in complete disarray and if you’re to trust the computer, it’s been hundreds if not thousands of years since the first game.

Chell is joined by Wheatley (voiced by an absolutely delightful Stephen Merchant) who is an AI core sphere similar to the ones you threw into the incinerator at the end of the first game. Wheatley was/is responsible for the other humans being kept in hibernation but it seems like Chell is the last, and he’s trying to help her escape.

The test facility is looking a little run down.

The amazing introduction has Wheatley moving your hotel room/storage container around the beyond massive facility of Aperture Science, crashing into everything and knocking things over. The place is more like an underground city than a laboratory. Portal’s latter half gave us a view behind the scenes. Portal 2 gives you a view behind the scenes’ scenes.

The testing facility is now overgrown with wildlife, panels missing everywhere, water leaking and birds are clearly audible in the distance. Eventually you are reunited with GLaDOS and she’s more than a little miffed that you killed her so many years ago (an event her programming has forced her to relive over and over and over again). But she’s back now and more than ready to submit you to more of her infernal tests while taunting you with a lot of cutting remarks.

"Okay, now just look for the escape pod switch. Be careful not to touch any of the others."

The basic plot of Portal 2 is easy to sum up, but the writing, the level design, art direction, set decoration and animation are what make it such an unforgettable game. Everything animate and inanimate in the game just ooze charm and personality. For the full experience don’t be afraid to stop and read every sign, hear every line of dialogue and just soak it in.

The animation of everything from Wheatley to the test facility wall panels easily rival the best of Pixar and reminded me a lot of the robots in Wall-E. After playing Portal 2, you will believe that a wall or floor can have emotions. I mean, what do animators have to work with when your character at best is a metal eyeball? The robots and test facility are like silent film actors using their physicality to convey the emotion. There are games with fully voiced human characters who couldn’t hold a candle to some of the inanimate objects in this game. Animators at Valve, kudos. Seriously.

Aperture Science did a lot of incinerating.

The amazing level design of in Portal 2 cannot be overstated. I can’t remember the last game I’ve played (or if I’ve ever played) which had environments on the scale of Portal 2. The epic scope simultaneously impresses, but also informs the story in a way the best games like Bioshock use their location to immerse the player. Chell’s anti-falling boots really allow Valve’s level designers to make some truly massive locations.

The testing facility is impressive in itself, but it’s about halfway through the game when you fall into the long forgotten sections of Aperture Science where things really get crazy. Imagine an industrial version of the dwarf city of Barad-dur from The Lord of the Rings and you’ll get some idea of the scale. It’s also here that you’re introduced to Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science voiced by a fantastic J.K. Simmons. When in the Aperture Science facility of old you’ll be accompanied by Cave Johnson’s pre-recorded voice recordings intended for hapless test subjects who he promises will be rewarded with $60 for their services.

Portals are one thing, now add tractor beams and bouncy surfaces.

The gameplay of Portal 2 has been refined with several necessary additions such as a zoom button that lets you pinpoint walls you’ll need to shoot portals onto. There are also a lot of new objects to interact with such as lasers, prism cubes, hard light bridges, tractor beams, jump panels and special gels. The multi-colored gels each have different properties to them for making surfaces slick, bouncy or portal-able. When used in conjunction with portals you have a wide variety of test chambers to solve.

Rest assured, Valve has done its homework and every new mechanic is slowly introduced so that you’re well prepared by the time the puzzles get really mind bending. Some of the really challenging levels will force you to slowly assess everything in the room and plan out your method of attack. Usually the usable elements in the room have been distilled to only what you need in order to advance, so it’s rare that you don’t know at least where to start.

I don't know what it is with Valve and potatoes

Portal 2 is designed to not be a twitch reflex game, so if your solution requires a lot of lightning fast reflexes you’re usually making it needlessly complicated. The game was never frustrating to the point of digging up a FAQ and always immensely satisfying to find the solution. Sometimes I wished the creators could’ve been in the room as I played so I could give them a round of applause. During the toughest puzzles my thought process from inspiration to execution when something like this: “Oh no way they want me to do that… oh god damn they do… oh shit really?… This is awessoooooooome!!!”

When you’re done with single player there’s a fantastic co-op mode which can be played online or via local splitscreen. You play as one of two adorable testing robots which GLaDOS is using to continue her testing. Thinking with two portals is one thing, but thinking with four is an entirely different ball game. I was very intimidated going in because I was worried the puzzles were going to be so mind bending I wouldn’t be able to do them, but my worries ended up being completely unfounded.

D'awwwwwwwwwwwww

Co-op mode has the tools necessary to make things go as smoothly as possible to communicate with your partner. These are essential if you’re playing online or even sitting side by side on a sofa. There’s a “ping tool” which you can use to mark locations you want your partner to portal and also a countdown you can use when actions need to be in sync. The robots also have very cute gestures which are usually just for high-fiving each other and messing around but can also be used to show your partner where you are.

This mode is much less story driven, but there’s still commentary from GLaDOS for each test chamber, and there’s an ending which shows you a side of Aperture Science that you won’t be seeing in the single player. There are about 40 chambers in all and the coordination required between you and your partner creates some extremely fun puzzles indeed. Once again there were a lot of “Oh my god, they want me to do that??” moments followed by “Oh my god we did it!” The free DLC map pack for Portal 2 cannot come soon enough.

The primary benefit of using robots instead of humans is robots can be reassembled.

The robots you play as are completely adorable and if you’re anything like me you’ll be abusing the cute gesture buttons as much as possible while you play. The term “girlfriend mode” is often used as a pejorative when describing limited 2-player support, but Portal 2 has created one of the best collaborative gaming experiences I’ve had in a game perfect for sharing with a girlfriend, friend or family member. The co-op mode is an essential portion of the Portal 2 experience so grab a second controller and a friend to experience it.

Any gripes I had about Portal 2 are very minor and nitpicky. The game has extremely frequent load screens. I don’t know anything about game programming, but looking at the impressive environments of the game I would imagine it difficult to stream in all that information to make it completely seamless. Thankfully they occasionally inject a little story into the load screens which keeps things fresh. Other than the frequent pauses for loading there’s little to fault in the game.

Rock papers scissors shoot!

Know what else? This game is rated E-10 for Everyone 10 and above. It’s not often the gaming community gets so nuts over a game with a rating like that which isn’t a Nintendo game. I think Valve realized that if they just took the blood splatter out of the original their game was pretty inoffensive.

I’ve already played through Portal 2′s story mode 2-3 times including listening to the developer commentary. Even though the puzzles are the same the second time through, the writing is still hilarious and fun to listen to even the third time (and I suspect far more) times after. Just like a good episode of Seinfeld, good writing is good writing and can be enjoyed on repeat viewings.

If you're experiencing feelings of giddiness and increased joy, that's Portal 2.

Portal 2 not only met my expectations it utterly shattered them, reassembled the pieces and then forced me to endure its fiendish tests. It expanded upon the fiction in exciting ways and it had me smiling ear to ear with its delightful charm. The single player and co-op endings leave room for a sequel, but also are completely satisfying until themselves so if there’s never to be a Portal 3 then I can live with that.

My only gripe about the original game was that in replaying it I could only exist in that world for a couple hours at a time. But Portal 2 has given me the keys and an invitation to come back again and stick around for a while longer. I seriously love this game and want to give it a big Aperture Science style robot hug.

Outland is a game easy to describe using a combination of other games, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a unique and stylist platformer that is very easy to recommend to anyone with an Xbox 360 or PS3. Okay so let’s get it out of the way, the game takes the art style of Patapon, the exploration of Metroid, the color switching mechanics of Ikaruga and boss battles reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus. Though admittedly side scrolling platforms have had a long history of huge bosses that tower over the game protagonist.

The story doesn’t break any new ground with its themes of ancient gods becoming corrupt, deciding to destroy the world and then a hero destined to save the world. That said, it’s interesting enough to keep things going. If anything, the art design does more for the story with unique levels littered by ancient statues, hieroglyphics and runes that provide more context to the world of the game.

Oooo sisters...

The gameplay is Metroid in that you will gradually gain new abilities that let you traverse areas that you couldn’t before, but it’s not as exploration based and new powers are gained very quickly. The primary mechanic of the game is the hero’s ability to change between light and dark power or blue and red. You’re shielded from bullets of the same color and need to be the opposite color in order to inflict damage. Also there are platforms that you must change color to stand upon and spikes that protrude when you’re one color or another.

The game does a good job of easing you into the use of your powers so it’s not until later in the game that the platforming starts to get really crazy. It doesn’t ever reach the level of Ikaruga punishing difficulty provided you collect enough money to visit the occasional statue for increasing your health meter. I suspect that just like for Ikaruga there will be people who become absolute masters of this game that will learn how to navigate the most complicated bullet patterns without taking damage. Usually my deaths were from attempts at trying to be that guy and failing miserably.

Not quite bullet HELL, but it's a lot of bullets.

In addition to the platforming there’s some combat that’s a mix of three hit sword combos, stun moves, ground pounds, sliding kicks and launch moves to juggle your enemies. The combat isn’t terribly deep, but things get a lot more interesting when you’re faced with enemies of different colors or enemies who can change their color. The boss battles are pattern based, but their attack variations really keep you on your toes and are never frustrating. There were a couple I took several tries before completing, but usually the reasons for my failure were due to rushing or being too careless. The final boss battle in particular is very trying, but incredibly satisfying to finish.

The two collectible items are the “Mark of the Gods” and treasure pots of money. The game helpfully lists the number of marks via the map screen and also how many of them you’ve found. The treasure pots you’ll stumble upon frequently, but once you’ve collected enough marks they’ll be revealed on the map screen which is very helpful. Only one achievement is tied to finding the marks, and the money based one is for quantity which could be grinded if you’re a real achievement lover. The game is actually very good about leaving small subtle indicators of where hidden areas might be so I managed to find all the marks without looking at a FAQ.

Yep, there be Colossi

In addition to the story mode there’s an arcade mode complete with leaderboards for those of you out there who have to test their speed and also scoring ability. Arcade mode is broken up into sections with a timer, smaller health meter and points assigned to enemies you kill. Also you collect multipliers from dead enemies for an even higher score. There’s also an online-only co-op mode which I didn’t try out because I didn’t have any Xbox friends to play with, and I didn’t want to humiliate myself by pairing myself up with someone who might be a total savant at the game. There are also a few levels specifically designed for co-op play.

yellow sword power beats red AND blue!

The art style of Outland is really beautiful to look at with its 3D cel shaded silhouetted look. The backgrounds are a mix of beautiful pastels with a lot of depth that really shows as you run through the level. The animation of your character and enemies are fluid and really enhance the tight control of the gameplay. Bosses are also impressively animated and a lot of fun to just look at. Even if there have been a lot of games with similar visual motifs, Outland really does a great job of distinguishing itself.

I beat Outland in about seven hours and so far have added one or two more going back to previous levels for collectibles. At ten dollars, Outland is well worth the price and a great downloadable platformer for fans of the genre who are looking for something new.

Okamiden is a great Nintendo DS adventure game with a positively adorable story and is also one of the best looking games for the system. The sequel to the critically acclaimed Okami released in 2006 for Playstation 2 and later for Wii in 2008, it manages to recreate the feel of the original and give fans more of what they loved. When you go down the list comparing features between the two games it’s very difficult to make Okamiden sound like anything but a disappointment, but focusing on its own merits it’s by its own right a very good game. So for this review I’ll save comparison analysis until the end.

Chibiterasu is adorable.

The Okami series made a big splash with its painterly cel-shaded art style, story heavily inspired by Japanese folklore and unique paint brush game mechanic that allowed players to freeze the action and “paint” on the screen using the “Celestial Brush” to perform actions like cut rocks in half, manipulate weather, create fire and much more. These were previously controlled by analog thumbsticks or motion controls, but the DS touch screen implementation is by far the best and smoothest version. The direct control via stylus makes gestures quick and less prone to error. The game’s action primarily exists on the top screen of the DS with the bottom being used for the map and inventory. When you press either shoulder button, the top screen moves to the bottom and you make your paint strokes.

Good luck trying this with a thumbstick or Wiimote.

Okamiden starts off nine months after the events in the first game. A new evil is terrorizing Japan, regions have been blocked off by powerful magic curses and it’s up to Chibiterasu to restore the beautiful of the land and defeat evil. Chibiterasu isn’t as powerful as Amaterasu so on his journey he’s joined by a number of partners who ride on his back and help him fight. You go from village to village helping people out with their problems, earning praise orbs and going through dungeons gaining new abilities and fighting bosses.

How many games can you make the sunrise with a paintbrush? That's right, two.

One the best things about the Okami games are the main characters are completely animal-like and don’t speak a single word. This makes them very endearing extremely easy to enjoy playing. Partner characters interact with the NPCs and also read the sign posts along the way. It’s clear that Chibiterasu can understand humans and vice versa, but seeing the animal reactions are part of the game’s charm. During the few times Chibiterasu is by himself he’ll whimper as he unsuccessfully tries to read sign posts he might come across. The partners are children who mostly fit the archetypes of other characters from the first game. The characters are well written and really hook you into the store as you watch them develop.

Every partner has a nickname for Chibiterasu which he doesn't like.

Structurally, the Okami series owes the most to The Legend of Zelda with its fetch quests, dungeons and special items which unlock other regions of the world. Other than talking to NPCs, most of the action consists of battles with monsters which earn you items and money to spend. Chibiterasu wields one of three types of weapons which vary in power, speed and range. Items are used for healing, replenishing ink, attack and defense. There are also a number of collectibles like painting fragments, a creature guide, artifacts and figures.

When not fighting, most tasks are towards earning praise orbs (praise orbs have the kanji for “Happiness”). There are a number of ways to earn them, but most of them revolve around making cherry blossom trees bloom and going on missions for people. Okami is all about helping people out and you’ll feel really good completing these missions and getting involved in even the smallest stories of the NPCs. When you earn enough praise orbs your health or ink meters are raised by one unit.

Guiding your partner is a frequent puzzle solving requirement.

Dungeons involve some light puzzle solving mostly using your brush skills and unique abilities of your partner. Usually your partner can navigate areas Chibiterasu cannot and vice versa. Using the stylus you guide your partner when you’re apart and also defend them from enemies. The only truly irritating gameplay design choice was not being able to heal your partner should their health go down. This is especially trying during certain boss battles and also the only reason I died four times in my playthrough.

The graphics in the game are surprisingly good for the Nintendo DS. The series has always been stylized instead of realistic, but it’s very impressive how good the cel shaded painted look is without appearing terribly jaggy because of the lower resolution. 2D sprites can get extremely pixelated, but for the most part the low polygon 3D models are covered well by the cel-shading. Combine that with some animation so cute I almost can’t take it and you have one of the best looking Nintendo DS games out there.

All the gods have adorable chibi babies.

If you’ve played the original you’ll immediate recognize many of the villages and environments because they’re almost exactly as they were in the original game. There are new dungeons, areas and boss battles but a lot of the game for better or for worse is instantly familiar. Some small details might be different, but usually if you remember a weapon salesman being in a particular location they’re probably still there.

The game is well paced with new brush stroke techniques being introduced very frequently and opening up new areas and dungeons. If I would harbor a knock against the game it’s that cutscenes don’t allow you to skip past dialogue with button presses. This gets very irritating because there’s no spoken dialogue with characters instead speaking in gibberish intended to give the idea of voice. Only dialogue initiated by talking to NPCs can be skipped, but most of the dialogue in the game is in cutscenes. There’s the option to skip them entirely, but not speed through line by line.

The bottom screen is a useful map that I always forget to look at.

Another issue the game has is camera control or lack thereof. The camera usually orients itself to the best possible angle, but there are times especially during combat where it gets really annoying. In combat you can control the camera via three buttons on the touch screen but it’s not an ideal solution. At worst during exploration you can’t see the passage that you’re supposed to be walking down and have to rely on the map to get where you’re going.

When I finished the game my play time clocked in just above 20 hours, and that’s with getting I’d say 80% of the game’s collectibles, weapons etc. If you just stay on the critical path, the game is well paced with the exception being the very latter portion of the game. The original game suffered from repeated boss battle padding which was kind of irritating, but Okamiden has the dubious distinction of padding out an ending to be about two to three hours when it probably should’ve been half an hour. This for me totally killed the pace set up towards the end and brought the game to a grinding crawl. The story finishes off wonderfully, but more care could’ve been taken to make the lead up to the ending a lot less painfully grindy.

Okay, so how does it compare to the original? In a perfect world, Okamiden would’ve been the first game in the series so that when Okami was released it would seem like a fantastic sequel that takes ideas of the first and pumps it up to 11 with more side quests, more characters, collectibles, RPG-like character building and other gameplay refinements.

A few returning characters.

Unfortunately, Okamiden is a sequel to a fantastic game, but because it’s on the Nintendo DS they by necessity had to strip out a lot of content you loved in the original. For starters, the graphics obviously can’t look as good as they did on PS2 or Wii, and what suffers most is the number of objects that can be on the screen at once. The original had a lot of sprites pop in, but on the DS the draw distance is much lower which can make some collecting more difficult.

An interesting idea the developers went with was making Chibiterasu less powerful than Amaterasu so that he would rely more on his partner character. Also, because Chibiterasu is less powerful his ink doesn’t automatically refill itself over time and he has no astral pouch to revive him when his health reaches zero. Also, when using the celestial brush he has a finite amount of time before the stroke can be finished. From a story perspective this is a good idea, but in practice a little bit annoying especially when you’re in an area where you can’t easily replenish ink.

That small ink meter can be a liability when there's no way to replenish it.

Character building is much less involved because praise orbs are automatically allocated to increasing health and ink units instead of being used as currency for upgrading attributes of your choice. Battles are also preceded by a brief fade out and in from black whereas in the original game you’d jump straight into a battle and the only thing breaking up the experience was a window rating your performance.

Even though a lot of environments are shared between the games, the DS isn’t capable enough to render large unbroken areas. One area in particular is an unbroken explorable section of the original, but on the DS is split into 5-6 sections each of which can be seen from a distance, but upon entering must be loaded before you can proceed.

The game still does an admirable job of lower res versions of the brush powers.

The original game was closer to 50 hours which meant a lot more creatures, a lot more environments, boss battles, NPCs and sidequests. Okamiden is a much smaller game and while there are some new areas it’s clear that the focus was made much tighter and there were many necessary compromises. There are also fewer collectible items like beads, fish, treasure and also animals which you feed (my personal favorite). Also each weapon had about five versions, but in Okamiden there are only three.

Another big difference is the game’s economy. I didn’t spend my money on many items because usually I didn’t need healing items or offensive/defensive magic items. In the original there was a lot to spend on like weapons, new attack abilities and such. Also there were special “demon horns” you collected for premium items. Okamiden has three separate demon currencies, but in order to get enough to purchase items with you really really really have to grind. I beat the game having only bought one out of around ten premium items.

AWWWWWWWW!!!

If you boiled the games down to a bullet point list, the original game is far superior. That said, Okamiden is still a very good game that does the most with what it can. It’s still an Okami game and possesses all the humor and charm of the original. The best thing about the Okami games are their ability to make you feel happy and good about helping others. There are few games where you get so much satisfaction and joy out of playing a game. Things like feeding cute little animals and making trees blossom while not important to beating the game are a nice diversion and give a rewarding sense of accomplishment.

The fact that Okamiden exists at all is a small miracle because the original game while highly praised did very poor sales in both Japan and the United States. Still, as a fan of the original it’s hard not to be disappointed in getting a scaled down version of the original instead of a true sequel. Playing Okamiden makes me want to play the original again which in comparison would feel like a full on sequel that pulled out all the stops. Okamiden on its own is still a delightful game that fans of the original and DS owners should not miss out on.

There were lines... endless lines...

The extra space was very much appreciated, but the BCEC is really spread apart, and getting from one room to the next took quite a long time. There’s not much to be done about that since it’s just the convention building, but the stacked nature of the rooms at the Hynes was much more appreciated this year when we didn’t have it.

An unfortunate consequence of having things so spread apart was that it was more difficult to discover different rooms that you might not have been looking for but still might be intriguing. The handheld lounge in particular was really out of the way, and in previous PAXes it’s nice to be able to be walking from one place to another and just stumble upon the big bean bags.

Sometimes you want to rest when getting point to point, these bags were located at a point.

One thing I did find irritating were the maps in the program guide. The room placement and shape of the BCEC in comparison to the map didn’t make much sense at all. In one section it seemed liked there were rooms on both sides of the hall, but in reality rooms were only on the left, with windows on the right side. Getting lost was a little extra irritating because it took much longer to realize that you were going in the wrong direction.

The other thing I noticed was it seemed like the Enforcer/attendee ratio was lower at this PAX. It could be that the more spread out lines diluted their numbers but it definitely felt like the convention security was doing a lot of organizing where usually it’d be an enforcer. Don’t get me wrong, PAX still has the best volunteer/attendee ratio of any convention I’ve been to BY FAR.

People still love their Plants vs Zombies (the cone hats)

The Exhibition Hall was good, and I’m pretty sure it felt like there was more walking room. Only in a few areas were there big bottlenecks and crazy traffic. There were fewer booth babes than I’d seen at previous shows. There were still a few at various PC hardware booths and of course the school girl booth babes taking photos at the Duke Nukem Forever booth. That was the only one that irked me. Anna had the good suggestion of that booth hiring some big muscly guy to cosplay Duke instead. Some franchises I think could benefit from some “Booth Bros.” Missed opportunity!

Come on developers, popularize "Booth Bros!"

In terms of booths there’s no way that East will be able to compare to Prime simply because Prime gets to see some of the crazy booths that they spent thousands and thousands of dollars on to show their game off at E3. But that’s okay because we go to both PAXes so we’ll have the opportunity later.

The classification of indie games is probably very subjective, but I wished that they had been closer together. There were various indie game companies that were all spread around so it wasn’t as easy to just say “I wanna check out the indie games, I’ll go over there!” Also this time there was no PAX 10 which was an easy way to check out a lot of great indie games coming out.

More please!

The majority of the panels we went to were the mainstays that we’ll probably go to at every PAX from now on and they didn’t disappoint. Jane Mcgonigal was a fantastic Keynote speaker. From what little I’ve seen, the PAX Keynote is all about embracing gamer culture and being true to your nerdiness. This keynote managed to not just do that, but also feel genuinely good about being a gamer in a more global sense. I’ll still have to read her book at some point, but the talk was a good start.

Why thank you!

I wish there had been more developer panels, but I understand that it was Boston and there are more developers on the West coast. Also Naughty Dog’s panel was at the same time as Irrational Games’ panel! The opportunity to see Ken Levine couldn’t be passed up, but still it would’ve been cool to be able to see both. Then again, I have a self imposed embargo on Uncharted 3 news so wouldn’t have gone anyway. Come on developers, we love your panels!

Yes to developer panels!

The usual suspects like Mike, Jerry, Scott and Kris were all hilarious and I’ll continue to go to their panels in future PAXes. The toughest decision at this year’s PAX was skipping the Video Game Orchestra show in favor of the”Late Night with Kris & Scott” panel which was hours and hours of entertaining stories. I wish I didn’t have to make that decision, but there wasn’t much that could be done :/

Thanks again Mike and Jerry!

So how was this year’s PAX East? It was still awesome and over far too soon! Any issues I had were just minor inconveniences in what is still consistently the best convention experience I’ve ever had. I saw a lot of great new games that I’m looking forward to (Already have my MS points all ready for this Spring/Summer season) and I’m still finding out about games that I missed while I was there. I need to be more aggressive about seeing games.

We’ve already bought our passes and made our reservations for PAX Prime just a few short months and it’ll be upon us. See you later PAX!

The first game we went to was Bastion. I’ve wanted to try this game out for a while after hearing about it at last year’s PAX and also watching coverage of it at Giant Bomb. It’s headed by Greg Kasavin who used to be the senior editor at Gamespot back when I was a subscriber there. There was a short line for one of the four stations so I stood and watched others play it.

The game is an action RPG with a painterly style similar to Braid, but the unique thing about it is its use of narration. At first it might seem just like general narration, but as you move around the world hitting objects, falling off ledges and getting items you realize that everything you do has narration associated with it. Kudos to the voice actor and direction that every bit of narration comes off totally seamless.

Can't freakin' wait for this game.

The action is a combination of melee and ranged weapons, dodging etc. There are also upgrade paths for skills and weapons as you play which is an instant buy for me. Getting higher and higher damage numbers is something I can’t get enough of in games. The demo was fairly lengthy, but still left me wanting more.

I also embarrassed myself when I suggested that an item in their game called “fetching fizz” was called something decidedly more unsavory. After I tweeted that sentiment they replied that I wasn’t the first to mention that and that they were going to fix it. It’s cool to be able to give helpful feedback to indie developers knowing that it might influence the game later.

The great Behemoth Halo.

After Bastion we headed back to The Behemoth to finally play their new Battleblock Theater demo. We’ve already played it a few times at previous conventions but this was the first time they were showing off the cooperative singleplayer mode. Also we got to play it in their new arcade cabinets which was great.

When was the last time any of you touched one of these?

The game was a lot of fun and completely adorable. Especially adorable was the animation of your character playing with water like a cat (Anna was playing a cat character so it looked perfect). In the game you have infinite lives so there isn’t much pressure to finish, but I can see that in the final game there’ll be incentive to finish a level well in order to get the highest rating. It looks like it’ll be a really great game for friends, couples, parents and kids.

Battle Block Theater craziness.

After taking some photos of the cabinet we went over to the castle crashers arcade machine. We had seen it before but didn’t get a chance to play it. This time they had the pink castle crasher so Anna picked it right away. It was a little disorienting using the arcade machine because there are a lot of buttons in the game and I wasn’t sure which button was X, Circle, Square and Triangle which made navigating menus difficult. But eventually we got into a level with two other people and the carnage began!

Cutest "Thanks for playing" screen at PAX.

If Castle Crashers was ever a real arcade machine I think some things would have to be simplified because of the number of buttons, but it was still a lot of fun button mashing away. I haven’t touched an arcade cabinet in years so it was very nostalgic.

Castle Crashers Cabinet fun.

Next up we went to the Kinect booth to try out Twisted Pixel’s new game “The Gunstringer” which is one of the first Kinect games you can play while sitting down. The demo was quite long, but I think it’s because the guy didn’t realize he was only supposed to let each person play one level instead two of them.

In the game you play a marionette skeleton cowboy. The way the game controls is your left hand moves the character around while your right hand controls the gun. The way you shoot is that with your right hand you move the crosshairs over multiple targets and when you “shoot” your hand by miming a gun recoil the character shoots. It’s actually a smart control solution and it looks cool to see the character shoot multiple targets in succession. It would’ve been very tiresome and really inaccurate if you had to mime every single gunshot.

The Gunstringer at the Microsoft Kinect booth.

I had to wait quite a while to play and by the time I played I only got to play one level. It was pretty fun, but I think the problem with Kinect right now is that there’s no way to have any force feedback which is something we’ve really become used to in games ever since N64 and Playstation. Maybe someday they’ll make some kind of force feedback glove for Kinect which I think would really help a game like this. When you see guns shooting you just want to have that extra feeling of connection to the game.

After this was the Tetris tournament! The handheld lounge was in a really out of the way corner of the convention center which took about ten minutes to even get to. In previous PAXs the handheld lounge was a place you could just stumble upon, but here you really needed to intentionally go. I was on the waiting list, but not everyone showed up so I was ready to go!

What this photo didn't capture was my hands shaking like crazy.

The first guy I played I had trouble with because of sheer jitters. I thought I’d be able to be calm, but as soon as we started playing I could feel my hands shaking like crazy so I made some stupid mistakes. The games were best 3 out of 5 and I lost the first two. I did my best to keep my cool and I managed to beat him! The next two guys I managed to beat pretty easily especially now that I was getting used to the pressure. I felt a little bad because one game the junk blocks added to my screen directly lined up to the hole I was building around which made it easy to get lots of Tetrises.

I didn’t realize that these three victories put me in the final round so we hung around doing nothing for a while before I asked the person running the show what was going on and she said to come back at 4:00. DOH! We just wasted precious PAX time! We headed back to the Exhibit Hall to say hi to some people and I headed back for the final rounds.

Victory!

I don’t remember exactly how many games I played, but I think I beat a couple guys pretty easily. I felt a little bad because I swept them and once again some junk blocks lined up with my hole, but they were very nice and wished me luck. Then the next guy I played I made some stupid mistakes and got too far behind and lost. The third game we played went on for quite a while with a lot of back and forth but he beat me. That guy ended up winning the whole tournament. I had one more game to compete for 3rd and 4th place which I won! But they gave out two 3rd place prizes so we both got bronze PAX East medals.

Gabe and Tycho reveal this PAX East's secret final round game.

After this we headed straight to the Omegathon Final Round. We missed PAX Prime’s final round because the hotel we stayed at closed their luggage checking room before the final round so we had nowhere to put our luggage. Too bad because that one was the Claw Machine which looked like a lot of fun to watch. Last year’s NES marathon was amazing so I couldn’t wait to see what this year’s was going to be.

Ikaruga apparently has a very complicated scoring system.

The final game ended up being Ikaruga for the dreamcast (and XBLA now too). I was a little disappointed that it was a more modern game because I think the old school games are more fun to watch. The third and fourth rounds were Jenga and Operation which would’ve been fun to watch. Still, the crowd got really into it and it’s fun to listen to Mike and Jerry comment during the game. One team emerged victorious and that was the end of another PAX!

Samuel Adams Brick Red beer, only available on tap in Boston.

Anna and I had some time to kill before our bus so we went to “Whiskey Priest” for some dinner and local beers. I got fish and chips again which were very good, and I had some of Anna’s sliders. We cut it a little bit close so we hurried back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get a cab to the bus station. Four hours later we were back in NYC pumped for PAX Prime later this year!

One thing that will be the same for just about everyone is the waiting in lines. I skip over that part when talking about PAX, but keep in mind that for every panel we usually got in line at least an hour before the panel. This year my line waiting consisted of playing Tetris DS almost nonstop.

Long line to get into PAX East on Day 2

This year was the year the Tetris tournament finally happened during a time I had nothing else to see so I was definitely going to enter this year. Before we left for PAX I was playing some original Tetris because a friend of mine said that one time the tournament was with SNES Tetris. But it turned out it was just Tetris DS. Fortunately I picked up a used copy before PAX just in case.

First thing on the agenda for this day was “Penny Arcade Makes a Strip” with Mike and Jerry. Even though we had already had a full day of PAX, it never quite feels like PAX has really started until I see a panel with Mike and Jerry. It’s because they’re like hosts and them welcoming the crowd really feels like the party has started. Their gracious and humble personalities also just make you feel good to be there.

The audience enjoyed watching Gabe add more and more gore.

This was the strip that they ended up making during the hour long panel. There were a lot of presents given out during the panel, but it’s hard to remember specific questions. They’re just funny guys and the combination of Q&A and watching Mike draw is a lot of fun. I think since I’ve been to a few of these already I’m used to a lot of the same questions being asked like how big Mike’s photoshop canvas is. (He uses the basic 13 pixel wide Photoshop brush and does the strip at 600 DPI)

The panel ended at 11:30 and we didn’t have anywhere to be until the “Pitch Your Game Idea” panel at 2:00. But we knew that at 1:00 the Irrational Games booth was going to be handing out their PAX East T-Shirt. We had gone the day before and somehow got one, but it was a woman’s black shirt so we went to try to get another.

Lining up to play arcade games. Its like Im 11 year old again. Wait, no quarters required???

It was total chaos because they somehow decided that the best idea was to hand out shirts in front and then hand out shirts to the back by throwing them. It was crazy and we ended up just getting another black one. Only problem was that they were both the same cut so without some sort of modification I won’t be the one wearing the shirt. I tried it on and Anna instantly burst out laughing because the neckline made it look like I was about to do a ballet.

We went to “Pitch Your Game Idea” during last year’s PAX East just out of curiosity and it ended up being hilarious. Scott Kurtz of PVPonline was one of the panelists, but this was before I knew much about him at all. We also went there because the guy who runs the panel Jeff Kalles was the Penny Arcade guy who helped Anna get her Noby Noby boy scarf for the contest she won. (If you watch PATV, whenever they shoot him in his office you can see on his shelf the Noby Noby Boy plush Anna made him as thanks).

Kris Straub, Jeff Kalles and Porkfry will hear your fake game ideas now.

This year Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz’s creative partner in crime and “Porkfry” were the other panelists. The whole panel started because Jeff worked at Nintendo for a while and Mike and Jerry used to pitch game ideas to him when they were hanging out. He always stresses that this panel is for the lolz and not a serious game pitch panel, so if you have an idea near and dear to your heart that you don’t want stolen you should definitely not pitch it.

It seemed like this time around there were more people familiar with the format of the panel so they came up with really silly ideas complete with a pun filled title. It’s always fun to hear them pick apart their game ideas. There were a few games about learning to date which was sharply met with “So… the thing about this game is that if you’re playing it you’re then not doing this in real life…”

The line of potential ridicule.

The winner and by far the best idea was “00Intern.” The idea is really brilliant and I hope someone steals it and gets it made. The premise of the game is that the only reason the super spy or protagonist in video games is able to get through each level and defeat the final boss is that there’s this intern responsible for going through the level FIRST and on the way leaving gun ammo, unlocking doors, putting the keys in the getaway car etc. Then after prepping the level you go through it as the super spy, but if you didn’t prepare well enough there’s no way they can get through. You can see the entire panel here.

After that we had the signing at Irrational Games at 5:00 with Ken Levine and the lead artists for BioShock and BioShock Infinite. At last year’s PAX Prime we had some prints made of Anna’s BioShock bento because we had thought he was going to be at their BioShock Infinite panel but it ended up being their lead artist Shawn Robertson. It was only 3:00 so when we swung by the booth there weren’t that many people lined up so we went to the Exhibit Hall and looked around, but didn’t really play anything because there wasn’t time to get in lines.

A wild Ken Levine has been spotted!

So around 4:00 we headed over and the line was much longer so we sat down and waited. Finally they arrived and we stood up to get our stuff signed. They were handing out free propaganda posters from BioShock Infinite to be signed. Good thing there were two of us because that allowed us to get one of each poster. The artwork and paper stock was very nice too.

Ken Levine looking very excited about the bento photo.

Finally the time came, and Anna handed her bento photo to Shawn Robertson who chuckled when he saw it. Then Ken Levine saw it and his eyes lit up “Oh I’ve seen this!” Anna said that she was the one who made it and all of them said “Oh YOU made it?” I think Ken Levine said his wife made bento too and he called her out to come look at the photo.

Anna signs her creation based on his creation.

Meanwhile I was trying to snap photos of him signing the photo. Anna gave him the extra copy and he asked her to sign it for him. It was very cute to see how excited they were. They were saying they needed to get her to make a bento of “Him” from BioShock Infinite. We thanked them and put our stuff in our bags.

We didn’t have anything until the “Late Night With Kris and Scott” so we headed back to the Exhibit Hall to play some games before they closed for the day. We went by the Sprint booth because we knew they had 3DSs on display. The day before we had walked past and they asked if I wanted to play some Street Fighter. There was literally no line so I was able to play it for a little bit and get my first play time on the 3DS.

They wanted to give everyone opportunity so everyone got to play only one round. First thing I noticed about the 3DS is that the 3D is actually recessed into the image so it looks more like you’re seeing 3D images on the other side of a window. In retrospect this makes a lot more sense but it was kind of disappointing. If I were a kid now and got a 3DS I’d be super disappointed after seeing all those ads with things popping out of the screen. The game played pretty good but I’m not a Street Fighter player so I was button mashing my way to victory.

No more over the shoulder gaming with 3DS.

This time I waited to try out the Resident Evil game. It seemed like the 3D slider didn’t really work on this game, it was either on or off. The level was just a endurance level but the graphics looked pretty good. Of course it’s not as good looking as on an Xbox but it looked good for a handheld. Anna took a short video of me playing.

Then we headed over to one of the indie corners to see “Fez” and “Warp” which Jerry had recommended that morning during the “Make a Strip” panel. The first game I played was “Warp” which I watched the guy in front of me play and then it was my turn. In the game you play a yellow alien guy trying to escape a secret underwater facility. The alien has the ability to warp in short distances either from one side of a door to the other or INTO certain objects.

I cant wait to play more of this game, cute and bloody.

The game is kind of like a stealth puzzle game. There are some barriers that you can’t warp past and also soldiers patrol the halls. The alien can warp into barrels that you can then explode from the inside by shaking the left thumbstick. You can also do this with soldiers to predictably gory results. But if you’re caught in the sights of a soldier, they’ll make quick work of you with their guns so it’s really about carefully planning your approach to each room.

I played the game just killing everything I could, but the guy running the booth said the entire game can be played without killing anyone at all (smells like an achievement). The top down angle of the game and this stealth aspect actually makes it feel very much like Metal Gear Solid. You know, but with a cute alien instead of a grizzled super soldier.

Once again, its the smaller games that really impress at PAX.

I waited in line to play Fez which had a couple people ahead of me. I later found out this game has been in development for several years already. It’s a 2D/3D platformer with a pixel art design. Your little character has a magical fez which allows you to flip the perspective of the world. So when you’re running around it’s always 2D, but you can flip Super Paper Mario style to see the other side of what you’re standing on. This will reveal new platform positions and secret compartments. It was fun too, but I’m really excited about Warp which I wanted to play more of but the demo was very short.

After that we headed over to the Hothead booth because I wanted to try out Swarm which I had seen on Giant Bomb. Until I saw the video of the gameplay I wasn’t very interested in it because I had heard the comparison to lemmings which instantly recalled me playing Lemmings… badly. I sucked at Lemmings so if it was so similar I wasn’t sure if it was going to be my thing. But when I saw that it was a twist on platforming and combo meters it looked more intriguing.

I played for a very little bit, but the PS3 I was playing on had a busted controller so I was unable to do something which I needed to do to advance in the level. The guy at the booth said they already had some faulty controllers so I felt kind of bad for the guy. The Exhibit Hall was closing so we headed back to our hotel room for dinner.

Words cannot describe how much Im looking forward to this.

Dinner was ramen and yakisoba and we also had some shochu. If you wrote down on paper everything we did that day it might not seem like a lot but it was still enough to fill an entire day. Next up was “After Hours with Kris and Scott” which we had very much been looking forward to. We saw both of their panels at PAX Prime the previous year and they’re so hilarious. Scott is great at telling very long and interesting stories and Kris is great for his non sequitur side comments. Together they create a great comedy duo that complements each other to great effect.

This panel could alternately be called “Scott and Kris get drunk for your amusement” because it’s basically what it is. The panel started half an hour late because the previous panel went long. This meant that we waited in line for an hour and a half. The last half hour was entirely standing up which was not very much fun because it started to get really hot.

The entire thing was scheduled for only 9:30-10:30 but it was the last panel in that room for the day so they were given free reign to go as long as they wanted. At the audience’s demands they didn’t finish until 1:30 AM!!! Even before the panel started we saw Jerry sitting a few rows ahead of us. It took a little while for things to get started so it didn’t take long before a long line of people with stuff to sign formed. Jerry was very gracious and signed everyone’s stuff and took photos, but he had to hurry it up as it was starting.

Scotts brother passed out drunk on the sofa. I was really afraid someone was going to throw up.

It’d be impossible to remember everything that happened but there were several highlights. It started with Jerry performing his rap with Kris from this Blamimation episode (warning, strong language). Scott told his epic hotel room bathroom story where he broke one of the metal fixtures which was in itself a short incident, but the way he breaks the story apart makes it a lot of fun to listen to.

The creators of the game Bastion were there to talk about their game a bit and then they performed their Diablo II rap song. Someone also brought alcoholic whipped cream which I had no idea existed. It was so funny to see everyone’s reaction upon squirting it into their mouth because they weren’t expecting such a high alcoholic content.

The creators of Bastion join in on the debauchery.

Other highlights were Erika (PA’s new graphic designer hire from last year) retelling the Robert Khoo pepsi can story which I posted about in last year’s PAX post. Also they introduced the new Child’s Play hire Jamie who Scott introduced as having kicked a guy in the head once. The audience immediately requested that she kick Scott in the head. She refused, but people said they’d donate to Child’s Play to see it. They compromised that she’d kick his hand held out in the air which her kick came just short of, but the audience cheered anyway.

I could probably remember a few more stories, but it wouldn’t be as entertaining because you really had to be there. Finally, they told us they were officially ending the panel and that they had to get back to their hotels and sleep just like we should. Tired and exhausted (but feeling very entertained!) we went back to our hotel room and collapsed on the bed. Well, I collapsed on the bed, Anna might’ve stayed up longer I don’t remember