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April 4, 2012

Review – Diabolical Pitch

Review Diabolical Pitch
Grasshopper Manufacture’s first kick at the Kinect gives players a solid footing to stand on, bringing the action to them rather than asking that they flail their limbs wildly to move through environments – possibly while shouting “look ma, no hands!”

This doesn’t lessen the physical workout by any means, as four consecutive days of throwing imaginary baseballs at my television has left my body broken. I persisted in working through the pain of strained muscles however, partly because I wanted an achievement for throwing a faster pitch, but also because Diabolical Pitch is the most replayable experience available on the Kinect – or at least the most replayable experience that doesn’t ask you to dance in time to Lady Gaga.

Players step into the cleats of star pitcher McAllister, who loses the use of his pitching arm after his greatest game, and then mysteriously arrives at Queen Christine’s Dreamland, where he is given a prosthetic pitching arm and offered the chance to make all his dreams come true by a somewhat melancholic cow.

If that sounds a bit odd, expect things to get far more bizarre. And welcome back to a delightful place we know simply as the Grasshopper Zone.

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March 24, 2012

Review – Ninja Gaiden 3

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:25 pm

Review Ninja Gaiden 3
Ryu Hayabusa’s latest outing opens on a briefly disorienting note that left me anticipating the worst.

Players begin as an unknown victim, looking up at Ryu before suddenly finding themselves able to control his movements – leaping from a balcony to slice into an enormous glowing deity with a series of obligatory quick-time prompts in tow. This quick sequence of events will make sense once players have come full circle, chasing a well financed doomsday cult across the globe, but it did little to ease the cynicism I admittedly brought to Team Ninja’s latest addition to the Ninja Gaiden franchise, and seemed to give merit to the scorn critics have been heaping on the title since its release.

However, the game shifts gears rather quickly, with Ryu responding to a terrorist group demanding his presence, and leaping into the streets of London to slice through the first of many soldiers offered two days of fast paced action I’ve gladly sunk my blade into.

This doesn’t entirely take away from complaints that the title is too straightforward and simplistic – because it definitely is – but rather that the truth of those accusations offers up an experience that is still inviting. Setting the game to normal difficulty presented some occasional bottlenecks, particularly during later stages, and aside from evading or blocking before slashing repeatedly, the nearly non-existent learning curve allowed me to keep the momentum of the story moving along quite nicely, which was appreciated since I actually enjoyed the story – no one is more shocked than I am about that.

There are plenty of legitimate complaints to lodge throughout the experience, and yet this straightforward affair finds a still pleasurable balance between ludicrous action sequences that feel empowering and overwhelming swarms of enemies that are often rather satisfying to slash a path through.

And insofar as others have no complaints about running around with Nathan Drake as he shoots countless mercenaries ad nausea whilst solving a few puzzles before wrapping up another adventure, I’ve still found a reasonable amount of entertainment on this trip with Ryu as he slices through helicopters, spider tanks and an obligatory dinosaur.

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March 23, 2012

Review – Kid Icarus: Uprising

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 6:29 am

Review Kid Icarus Uprising
Starting this review off by confessing that the act of playing Kid Icarus: Uprising causes my hands a great deal of pain is a frustrating situation. For every positive point I’ve discovered within the game, and for every reason that keeps me returning to the newest 3DS release from Nintendo, my hands ache that much worse for the extended sessions.

Assigning controls to the upper one side of the 3DS leaves my pinky fingers dangling while the rest of my fingers work to hold the weight of the system, and playing through the game’s plethora of stages finds those digits going numb, kicking off a painful throbbing that moves up my hands the longer I play and forcing me to break repeatedly from Pit’s sprawling adventure sooner than I’d like.

Playing Kid Icarus: Uprising is quite a bit like being offered a bowl of your favorite ice cream, and then being told to eat it with a steak knife. The task is not impossible, and many delicious sensations are waiting to be experienced, but the process is going to leave you scarred – in this case with wretched claws where your hands once were.

And the pain extends further, because no matter what one says about the content of the game, of which there is a great deal to be discovered, this issue of control keeps presenting a barrier that prevents me from enjoying the experience as much as I otherwise might.

While I suspect that many others will share my pain after taking flight with Pit, I can’t assume everyone will suffer the same experience however – perhaps some of you are monkey bar champions and can take down a bear with your fingers. And it’s also worth noting that despite the complaint, I keep returning to the game to cause untold damage to my digits, which certainly speaks to the quality of the content.

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March 21, 2012

Review – Sine Mora

Review Sine Mora
Time is the fire in which we burn, and pilots seeking to survive the hazardous skies of Sine Mora will want to cling to every fading ember for the chance to learn why the flame that burns half as long also burns twice as bright.

The joint 2D side-scrolling shooter from Digital Reality and Grasshopper Manufacture places the emphasis entirely on that flickering flame, with a time clock often reserved for boss battles in other shooters continually ticking down throughout the entirety of this game.

Make no mistake, every second within Sine Mora counts, because allowing time to slip away is the only way to die.

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March 19, 2012

Review – Silent Hill: Downpour

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:52 am

Review Silent Hill Downpour
While the Silent Hill Tourism Board has long since given up hope, the collapsing town still attracts a few lost souls each year as stray individuals find themselves wandering the misty streets and confronting truths they’ve worked hard to suppress.

I suppose Silent Hill is a bit like the town Freud might have built, where the subconscious takes physical shape and the only way to survive the demonic torture chamber unleashed is to shine light on the darkest recesses of the mind, exposing what visitors have failed to resolve on their own and desperately tried to bury.

The earliest visits to Silent Hill began with physical searches, whether it was Harry Mason searching for his lost daughter, or James Sunderland chasing the chance to see his wife again. That latter search set the bar for a series about people burdened by the past, forced through a cathartic process while wandering those streets. It’s a legacy that frames Silent Hill as a twisted parental hand that isn’t really trying to kill people, but rather, attempting to heal them.

Silent Hill is a psychological meat grinder, with people going in one end and the crank slowly turning to show the raw meat at the heart of each. It isn’t surprising that the premise has created formulaic entries in recent years, such as 2008’s Homecoming, which seemed to create a patchwork quilt from previous releases. But 2009 saw the release of Shattered Memories, which attempted to include the player in the analytical process, and regardless of your feelings toward that release, that experiment created a Silent Hill title that was unquestionably unique.

There are times that Downpour appears to bridge the gap between those points, mixing familiar mechanics and mind games to find brief moments that feed on the player to create some space for empathy with the trials of convict Murphy Pendleton. But as the truth about Murphy comes to light, the complicated narrative misses any opportunity to truly create a character that earns enduring sympathy or comprehension.

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March 9, 2012

Review – I Am Alive

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:40 pm

Review I Am Alive
Toxic dust hugs the bowels of the city, and walking through it sees strange shapes take the form of abandoned life – ruined landmarks, rusting vehicles near rotting bodies, and buildings crumbling into the ground. Hearing a woman call for help, perhaps you move toward the sound hoping to find another survivor, only to suddenly find three ominous figures emerging from the shadows with sharp blades glistening in their hands.

Holding your own hands out defensively, the figures taunt you while closing in, offering only a few choice seconds to decide which target is worth the solitary bullet in your pistol.

So what are you going to do, Mr. Would-Be Hero?

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February 21, 2012

Review – Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Review Alan Wakes American Nightmare
A television flickers in the night, broadcasting a static signal that breaks with an episode of Night Springs. The Twilight Zone parody uses Rod Serling styled narration to set the stage about a champion of light pursuing his evil double, Mr. Scratch, in one of several episodes written by Alan Wake before his career as a novelist took shape.

Remedy uses the show to frame a standalone entry point for gamers not familiar with the original 2010 release, but this play of events might also serve as a conduit for Alan from his prison within the Dark Place. While radio broadcasts within the game give glimpses into a world that has continued without Alan, conversations and manuscript pages suggest that the writer may be using the television show in his quest to return to his wife and former life.

Remedy continues to revel in the possibilities their horror series stirs, giving fans plenty to chew on regarding the writer’s fate. The only certainty is that players must find a way to stop Mr. Scratch from trapping them in a campy horror narrative, and that Alan’s journey through the night continues within this American Nightmare.

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