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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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March 8, 2012

Review Crow vs. Fun! Fun! Minigolf Touch!

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Review Crow @ 2:11 pm

Fun Fun Minigolf Touch
Caw ca-caw, caw caw caw caaaaaaw! Caaaw! Caw caaaaaaw c-caw caaaw! Caw c-caw caw caaaaaw! C-caw caw! Caw c-caw – caw caw c-caw caaaw!

[Being a bird of modest upbringing, Review Crow was initially put off by the title of this latest eShop release. For instance, Review Crow certainly doesn’t go around insisting that humans refer to him as Awesome! Awesome! Review Crow, and he very well could given that such a statement is rooted in absolute fact.

However, after scratching up the touchpad for an afternoon, Review Crow feels that there is something to this minigolf business beyond silly outfits providing birds with brightly colored targets.]

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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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Review – Warp

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:08 am

Review Warp
Science becomes a lot more interesting when people explode.

While the academic world has yet to reach that same conclusion, developer Trapdoor has embraced the idea with their Xbox LIVE Arcade release, Warp, employing a play mechanic that isn’t long for grabbing attention as the screen fills with meaty chunks and flailing limbs.

Featuring an abduction story that sympathizes with the alien’s point of view, an adorable extraterrestrial crashes on Earth and is quickly taken to an underwater government facility for painful probing and testing. The player’s first steps involve a series of tests conducted by curious scientists, but it isn’t long before contact with a strange glowing orb grants the plucky alien teleporting powers, offering the opportunity to study anatomy off walls freshly covered with human organs while making an escape.

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February 17, 2012

Review – Twisted Metal

Review Twisted Metal
Calypso’s apocalyptic tournament of car carnage returns, bringing one of Sony’s legacy franchises to the PlayStation 3 with an emphasis on multiplayer as the primary reason for investment and potential longevity. With a franchise that has seen successful releases on every piece of Sony gaming hardware to date, sans the new Vita, Twisted Metal has a strong list of accomplishments to draw on when it comes to maintaining its title as the King of vehicular combat. Mind you, that genre is far from crowded, particularly today.

It’s also worth noting another long-standing Sony franchise, the Wipeout series, as one that hit the PlayStation 3 with a digital release to deliver the core experience of its anti-gravity racing without unnecessary trappings to round out retail expectations. Under the watchful eye of David Jaffe, Twisted Metal stretches for retail justification with a single-player campaign again accompanying the multiplayer priority, see-sawing while struggling to beat familiar expectations for a story mode in addition to bringing the old war horse out for another round of competitive action that has certainly been wanting on the console.

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February 13, 2012

Review – The Darkness II

the Darkness II 2
Videogames that enable players to act out extreme power-fantasies often struggle in presenting checks to balance the ability to do anything with the consequences of such actions – or at least they should. Being let loose to smash and slaughter on a God-like level offers players incredible freedom, but wants for purpose rather quickly. The majority of such games resort to unleashing the hounds with old ideas of order and control, which often take the form of recognizable authoritative order reacting in force scaled to the level of chaos being created.

Powered by comic book source material, The Darkness II continues to serve as an oddity in power-fantasy gaming, with Jackie Estacado’s superhuman abilities offering players a check via the weight of conscious felt purely through the narrative.

The Darkness hits us with something applicable on many levels, with a power that makes Jackie great at what he does, which just happens to be killing people. But it also consumes him via its usage, with each act of power surrendering more of Jackie to The Darkness that works to consume him. And while Jackie’s relationship with The Darkness plays out this way, the consequences of this union emerge entirely through the relationships within the game rather than any play mechanic that might attempt to spank players with the parental hand of morality.

This allows The Darkness to actually brush against a pursuit often cited but rarely achieved, creating a game that does cater to those gamers simply looking for a few hours of visceral tentacle murder as well as those players inclined to read and write lofty words about the more subtle potential being tapped.

The Darkness II continues to offer the opportunity to consider consequences without the weight of heavy handed intention, though the game also struggles with subtlety, at times slipping into preachy forced moments hoping to stress the narrative effort at work beneath the layers of blood players can paint the town red with.

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