Mature gaming is often a strong misnomer. The word “mature” is often substituted for “graphic,” “visceral” or “violent.” Actually maturity is demonstrated through portrayal of events that are adult, substantive and consequential. Mortal Kombat, for example, is often considered a mature game, but really, its simplistic nature doesn’t convey maturity so much as horrific maiming and violence. The fact is that there are relatively few games that portray actual maturity. They attempt to imply maturity and consequence through arbitrary morality systems, glossing over and gamifying maturity. It is the classic failure you see in lesser works in many genres: showing instead of telling. And let’s face it: human beings are complex. Rare indeed is the individual who is completely saintly or utterly evil. The vast majority of human beings exist somewhere within that spectrum, yet games tend to force us towards one extreme or the other.
It is into the want of actually mature storytelling that The Witcher 2: The Assassin of Kings steps. Sure, Geralt of Rivia will hack off limbs, cover himself in the blood of his foes, and have wild sexual escapades. But he will also exist in a real sense, a character in a complex world making decisions that vary from self-serving, self-interested to protecting the very fabric of his world. It is refreshing to see a character participating in epic events only as they relate to his own personal struggles. Geralt is not motivated to save nations out of a sense of duty. He is simply endeavoring to survive in the world, to make his way and build a life of his own. Sadly, Geralt is swept away in events beyond his control, and finds himself used as a weapon in a conflict not of his choosing. Geralt has abilities, and everyone has need of what he has to offer. He wishes peace, but is destined to be a pawn of war.
Early game will see Geralt wandering about during the sacking of a town. This is the result.
Fantastic writing and voice acting weave a first rate adventure (though the use of the amnesia trope is unfortunate- the writing here in all other areas is so good, they could have done better). The tale strikes an excellent balance between linearity and player choice. Each chapter provides significant opportunity for open world exploration, which can easily be ignored in favor of pursuing the main story. That story provides plentiful opportunity for choice as well, and those choices will guide the narrative, make enemies and friends, and significantly affect what portions of the game you play. Decision will, as they often do in real life, close off some opportunities forever, while opening other doors.
The level of maturity extends to the combat. Each encounter is a deadly event, and, much like real life, precautions must be taken prior to the event. That classic RPG mechanic of quaffing heath potions repeatedly whenever you’re in trouble won’t work here, for a couple of reasons. First, you can only take potions when you’re outside of combat situations. Secondly, each potion is, to a degree, toxic—drink too many potions, and Geralt will meet an untimely demise. Preparation also includes the harvest of the proper ingredients to make potions, and the crafting of strong armor. Searching for potion recipes and blueprints for weapons, armor, traps and bombs are key to success on the battlefield.
You have a sword for monster and one for humans. Pull the right one.
The thoughtfulness you apply to preparation extends to the combat itself. Enemies will work to surround you, striking you from multiple directions at once. Strategy, proper use of magic, well timed blocking, traps and items will get you through your battles, but take note: combat is tough. Success is built upon identifying and exploiting your opponents’ weaknesses. Assessing your situation is just as important as your ability to hit the X button with lightning speed. Battles may be won with the casting of the right spell or the toss of the right item. Popping up the spell wheel or the items list in combat will slow down time to a crawl. It’s not a Mass Effect-style pause, but merely a slow down, given you precious time to cast a defensive sign in the nick of time or plant a throwing dagger in your opponent’s forehead. It’s an interesting stylistic choice, giving that Matrix-effect to key moments, and allowing you to experience the supernatural speed for which a witcher is known. Though the battles are difficult (and on higher difficultly settings, a real rite of passage for the strategic gamer), the tools Geralt possesses make matchups compelling and fun, provided you are willing to truly think them through.
The Witcher 2 offers a refreshing look at the RPG genre. In an era where story driven RPGs are being pushed aside in favor of open-world experience, this effort reaches between the two and fines a happy medium. With a multitude of high fantasy games on the market, this is a unique endeavor, and one which would be appreciated by any gamer looking for a truly mature effort. There are few true thinking man’s games available on console, games with tough, strategic combat and complex, compelling and adult content. The Witcher 2 fills that void with skill and intellect, and is a must play effort for all true fans of the RPG genre.
Huge massive creature? He's mine.
Pros
Cons
5 / 5
Shepard first learned of an incoming invasion of the worst kind in the original Mass Effect. In Mass Effect 2, he was resurrected to battle to save humanity from that same incoming threat. Finally, Shepard is left to face the great battle of our time, to attempt to stave off the Reapers, a race of sentient machines, from harvesting all sentient organic life. The shadow that loomed over the previous two games finally falls, and the entire galaxy faces chaos and extinction.
Mass Effect 3 is the conclusion to a trilogy, and as such, it sees both the benefit of refined gameplay and the burden of creating an adequate finale to one of the most engaging storylines in gaming history. It’s an attempt that is largely successful, but also the videogame equivalent of kicking a field goal instead of going for the touchdown. The game largely plays it safe, and while this strategy results in a satisfactory experience, it also causes the game to miss out on the greatness of its predecessors. The original Mass Effect’s dialogue and incredible story combined with some lackluster design decisions gave it the ultimate flawed masterpiece feel. Mass Effect 2 was able to refine the first game, eliminating the flaws, and provide a continuity of story based on player decisions we’d never before experienced in a game. Mass Effect 3 provides a similar continuity, while becoming even safer in the gameplay department. It seems that in an effort to avoid any gameplay criticism whatsoever, Bioware distilled the game merely to the “choose your own adventure” storyline and the 3rd person shooting mechanics.
Thankfully, they did not distill the hotness of Liara.
Bioware’s spectacular storytelling is center stage in this game, and the weaving of player decisions over the course of the previous two games into this effort gives events a weight they would not otherwise have. The themes of sacrifice for the greater good and perseverance are prevalent here, allowing the developers to tell a tale that is both triumphant and poignantly sad. This game will invoke your emotions, especially in its middle acts. The story starts a little flat, as it spends too much time trying to justify why the course of events are set in the way they are. And (as I attempt to avoid the ending controversy) the finale lacks the explosive emotional nature of the middle of the tale. It seems as if Bioware simply peaked too soon, and had difficultly constructing an ending that matched the powerful middle acts.
I believe I've let him get too close.
The gunplay which makes up the majority of your gameplay time is the best of the series. The weapons all seem to have unique personality and weight. The hotkeys and Kinect controls allow the player to implement their powers on the battlefield more easily than ever before. This improves the flow of the combat- the selection wheel still exist (for both weapons and powers) but skipping them in favor of hotkey selections is easier than ever before. The battles have a frantic pace, but in this effort (more than previous games) Shepard is much easier to control and the shooting is much tighter.
I like explosions.
Being that the combat is so well designed, it seems only fitting that this game would include a cooperative mode. Apparently your progress in cooperative mode affects the single player campaign, but save for an achievement for having a certain level of progress when I began the final battle in the campaign, it was difficult for me to see the relationship between the two. The mode itself is a Horde-mode style battle of waves of enemies, as your team fights for its survival until extraction. The battle is changed up as one out of every three rounds gives you a special objective to fill (like assassinating targets, or downloading data from a terminal). The combat is fast and furious, and proves especially tough at the higher difficulty settings. That said, the fact that there’s only one mode removes some of the legs from the co-op. The grab bag nature of the upgrades (you earn cash to buy packs filled with random equipment) is also alternately exhilarating and frustrating. The fact that it took me seven hours of play to get a weapon higher than level one was a strong strike against the mode, and I spent a lot of time wishing there was a way to buy the weapons I needed at a premium price instead of the “buy a pack and pray” method. Without any strong weapons, I was useless to my team at higher difficulty setting, and was stuck farming money at the lower levels until I could rank up in the world. I enjoyed playing the mode, but that frustration stung a bit.
Mass Effect 3 is a solid, if not divinely inspired effort. It is a must play for those who have invested so much into the previous efforts and wish to see the conclusion to Shepard’s story. The shooting is top notch, and the high points of the story telling are more than worth the price of admission. It does fail to meet the universal high quality of ME2 (which was, in my opinion, one of the greatest efforts in gaming history) but all in all, will satisfy all but the most jaded of gamers. Shepard out.
Put my woman down!
Pros:
Cons:
4 / 5
Mass Effect 3 was released on Playstation 3, PC, and Xbox 360. This review was conducted with the 360 version of the title, purchased by the reviewer.
Often in tower defense games, I’ve felt unfulfilled. As fun as they might be, my nature is one of attack. Sitting back and waiting as the enemy pounds away at me seems like something I should be doing while my flanking assault readies itself to launch deep into the enemy rear. Defenders of Ardania remedies this situation by allowing you to, while assaulting by the enemy horde, to fight back, launching troops at the enemy base and returning pummel with pummel.
Conceptual, the game is has all the fundamentals of any tower defense game. Build up your grid from a variety of towers, with upgrades and a wide variety of towers to choose from. You’ll need a good mix, too, because enemies will attack from both the ground and the air. A nice feature allows you to build your towers a certain distance from currently emplaced towers. This means you can continually expand out your defense grid (at least until you reach the tower limit, which is sadly is a mere 10). Once you’ve built your grid, you can take the fight to the enemy, launching waves of troops in whatever mix you wish. They gain experience as they fight (successfully or not), eventually allowing you to construct hero units of great strength.
Fear my Eagle King.
All of that is well and good, and functions well, but something is missing. Defenders of Ardania, once you actually start playing, is rather dull. Every match, I’m able to build an impenetrable mass of towers, which, since the AI doesn’t deem attacking them to be useful, I never have to rebuild them. This leaves me with only soldiers to build. You can launch them in masses, and they march in a straight line to the enemy base. You can vary the mix, I suppose, and alter their routes, but you have no control over them. The entire game (save for the brief moments when you’re actually building things) is spent watching soldiers from each side march in a straight line to their deaths.
Some of the more interesting matches (and certainly the most compelling fights from the campaign) involve up to four separate players. Deciding against whom to send your troops, or which way your defenses should point adds some strategic layer to the game. The campaign itself is a bit of a slog. Each mission opens with an un-skippable cutscene that consists of text and voiceovers. These dialogues (since there’s no actual video) are long, badly voiced, and poorly written and the fact that there’s no way to fast forward through them makes them incredibly grating. I do like the between-mission narrator, who is hilarious and has a lot of personality. He numbs me to the pain I’m about to feel when I start the mission.
Defenders of Ardania has some interesting ideas. It’s just not very fun. If you’re looking for a different twist on tower defense, you might want to give the game a look. But for those looking for a deeper experience would be better off elsewhere.
At the top you'll see the dialogue you come to dread.
Pros
Cons
2 / 5
That pitcher? He’s a major leaguer for sure. 3 solid pitches and 95 mph heat. Me? I’m just a pretender. I’ve got a lot of potential, but I’m just 18. There’s a lot to learn before I am where he is. But now, we face each other. I dig in, sitting on what I hope is a fastball. First one is always a fastball, right? In comes the pitch, way outside, and I relax. It swings back, just over the outside corner. Strike one.
An off-speed pitch for an 0-1 count always throws me off-balance. I like to think that if strike one is a fastball, at least I can expect the pitcher to change speeds on the next pitch. But now, I have no idea. I’m off balance. Guessing fastball, I quick stride at the pitch. My knees buckle at the curveball, my arms locked into position. I can do little else but stare helplessly. Strike two.
There is little room for debate here. This at-bat is a foregone conclusion. I’m so out of sorts at this point that I won’t be able to hit anything squarely, and the pitcher has me so befuddled, he could throw practically anything. I shorten up my swing, determined to do anything but strike out. My big worry is that lower outside corner. The slider, the curve, the changeup: any of these three could be big trouble. I look there, for something offspeed. And when the fastball comes up and in, I never had a chance. Strike three.
This is the opposite of what I did
As much as I’d like to catalogue the features in MLB® 12: The Show is the latest in Sony’s line of baseball simulations, doing so would be a disservice to the experience. The level of immersion in The Show is stupendous, putting you out on the mound or in the batter’s box in a way that sports games seem to have forgotten to try. Baseball is the ultimate in showdown sports games. When it’s your turn, you step in against Marino Rivera, or groove a fastball for Albert Pujols. Those moments, when a pitcher and batter face each other down, are one of immense tension, which Sony’s San Diego studio has harnessed. Instead of loosely observing sports, I’m an active participant. I stare out at the mound, trying to figure out what is coming next, and what my best approach will be. If I can get into the head of the opposing pitcher, I can hit the ball hard. With the wrong approach, however, I can look very foolish.
I’m not a hard core baseball fan, and you don’t have to be one to love The Show. The confrontation between hitter and pitcher is the centerpiece of the game, and learning the strategy involved is an immensely satisfying experience. The frustration of failure and the thrill of victory are magnified by a realistic results system, based on timing, ball location and swing location. As I began my career in the excellent Road to the Show mode, starting my major league career as a no-name second baseman toiling away in AA, I hit very poorly. I couldn’t square up balls or swing on time, and when I did, I always seemed to hit them right at defenders. As I became more experience, and mastered the pitch guessing system, I hit much more successfully. The more I hit, the better I became. It was an essential experience, and one that felt right in every way.
The shades are only for style points.
I could go into greater detail about the improved upgrade system, the cross-Vita compatibility, and the awesome season mode which allows you to have your results surrounded by the real world results of the actual 2012 season. MLB® 12: The Show is the complete package, a game with tons of features and exciting, engrossing gameplay. But more than anything, this is a sports game you truly experience, lacking the “gaminess” of other titles on the market. The baseball of MLB® 12: The Show is authentic, from the batting cages and warm up pitches to the home trot and post at-bat analysis. This is baseball, the way it was meant to be enjoyed, now here for everyone.
Pros:
Cons
5 / 5
An Oriole making a play. Clearly fiction.
How to fly... involuntarily.
When I was in high school, I was part of a nerdy board gaming group. The group didn’t play much in the way of video games, except for one notable title: Worms. We passed on Mario Kart and Smash Bros., and went straight for the PC, ninja-roping and bazooka-blasting the environment to smithereens. It was an excellent title, both strategic and easy to pick up and play, and the one-worm-at-a-time created a wonderful, nerve-racking tension.
Worms: Ultimate Mayhem brings the series to the HD Console age, bringing back the gameplay from my youth and matching it with both sharp graphics and three dimensional environments. The resulting effort is a game which brings back strategy worm-bashing in a new and fun format. The worm has turned to 3D, and the results are a very solid strategy game in a console market where very few are to be found.
I don't wanna say it was a worm on the grassy knoll, but...
Worms plays just as you remember. Teams of worms cycle through, going one worm at a time, moving about the level and positioning themselves to unleash hell. You turn ends when you finally launch your attack (or if time runs out before you do so). Worms are armed (and yes, your worms have arms… at least when they need them) with a wide variety of offensive weaponry, from the classic baseball bat to more modern items like airstrikes and auto-firing turrets. The goal- to reduce the health of your opponent’s worms to zero. You can do this with your multitudes or weapons, or simply by finding a way to knock your foe into the water at the bottom of every level.
The game provides several single player options, but these are the game’s biggest sin. The AI is inept, positioning its worms poorly, making bad weapon choices, and generally doing a poor job of going for kill shots. There are some unfortunate cutscenes as well. The single player serves as good aiming practice, and really has no legitimate gaming function.
Thankfully, the multiplayer will worm its way into your heart. The game boast both local and online matches of various kinds. I prefer local (much better to taunt your helpless wormy victims in person) but the online is fun as well, and includes match making and ranked play. I found my worms getting killed like, well, worms in the ranked multiplayer, as highly skilled opponents really showed me what my crawly little buddies were capable of. Players darted in and out of the 3-D environs, using cover and skill to blast me into submission. With further experience, I too became a ninja of 3D wormanity. The game, when you’re launching an attack, allows you a first-person (first-worm?) view, making aiming a snap. Past 3D Worms games have had issues with the camera, but my experience here was very positive. I had complete control, and it never seemed to get stuck in the environment. If there were holes, however, my worms could drop into positions where I couldn’t see them, which was a slight annoyance.
And I fly through the air with the greatest of ease...
Worms: Ultimate Mayhem is everything you’d expect from Worms game. There is drama, intrigue, cute little worms with funny voices and armed to the teeth, and airstrikes reigning down death from above. The weapons are a lot of fun (though, turrets are staggeringly overpowered) and the aesthetics are quite engaging. The unfortunate single player campaign is the one bruise on an otherwise amazingly wormy experience.
Pros:
Cons:
4 / 5
Hello out there... I'm a peeping worm.
WWorms: Ultimate Mayhem is available on PS3, PC and Xbox 360. This review was done on a PS3 version.
ZAP!
I have a confession. Ever since the first Medieval: Total War came out, I’ve used an identical strategy in every field battle in every game in the series. Without going into too much detail, it involves keep my army in a very closed formation, while the enemy always seemed to be spread out. I would use my local superiority to smash the forces closest to me, and the resulting wave of demoralization would make it easy to defeat my enemy in detail. Think Alexander at Gaugamala (Wikipedia it… I’ll wait).
The first time in King Arthur 2 (KA2) I bunched my army up like that in a boss battle, half of it was annihilated in about 2 seconds. This, I mused, is going to take some thought. Someone has taken one of my favorite genres and turned it on its head. What do I do now?
Getting the plague is a solution
Quickly, I found that this was a game where your armies (especially in the end game) were more of a supplement to your heroes than the main event. Your task in King Arthur 2 is to level those heroes up by completing quests. The strength of your actual army, while important, was secondary to the effort your heroes would have on the war effort. Through their special abilities and combat skills, the hero units are the stars of the battlefield, leaving piles of enemies in their wake. While there is an experience system for your regular troops, leveling up your heroes, gaining more and stronger powers in the process, is much more important. This is a game about heroes knocking the walls down. Tactics involving your armies are secondary to those involving your heroes, creating an entirely new twist on the strategy RTS elements. Battles hinge on the fate of your hero units, and swirl around them.
Being a role-playing wargame, the strategic level is less about building up massive armies and taking the war to your neighbors and more about taking your 3 armies (yes, you’ll only get three at most) and completing the quests you’re confronted with. While it is refreshing to have clearer goals than “conquer the weakest neighbor,” I have to admit that it was slightly bothersome to be forced to ignore foes sitting just over the border because I wasn’t allowed to attack them. My territory, as it grew, also felt quite barren with so few armies. I’m conditioned to think of bigger and more as better, I suppose.
Mountains!
KA2 is, if nothing else, one of the most graphics intensive strategy games I have ever played. The level of detail on the battlefield is mind blowing. Field objectives stick out, beautifully painted onto lush terrain. Even the overmap is gorgeous. If visuals are your thing, you can do far, far worse than KA2.
While I do really enjoy what King Arthur 2 has to offer, it’s difficult for me to give it a whole hearted recommendation. While the quest system is refreshing, it feels too constricting (moreso than its predecessor). Still, the battles are fantastically fun, the powers of the heroes amazing both to use and to watch, and the game a beauty to look at. If you are a strategy gamer, King Arthur 2 is a must play effort.
Pros
Cons
4 / 5
Helloooooooooo statue.
This is where the magic happens.
Note: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was released on PS3, PC and Xbox 360. This review was conducted on Xbox 360 with a copy purchased at retail.
Your character awakens in a pile of dead, putrid bodies. Struggling free, they have no memory of what has happened or who they are. The only thing that is clear, from the very beginning, is that they are special, different from everyone around them. They have the power to change the world, to act outside of their own destiny. They have been severed from fate.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (KoA) is the triumph of thematic continuity. Fate transcends the game on every level, from combat mechanics to the upgrade system, from the essence of the main character to the deep, engaging storyline. This third-person action RPG is clearly the first must-play RPG of 2012 (and yes, that was a shot at Final Fantasy XIII-2, a game that should never have been made).
Why grandma... what a big stick you have.
KoA is a game about questing, dealing with various factions and people in the world, and solving their problems (or, if you desire, advancing yourself at their expense). Quests were available everywhere- the game certainly left you no shortage of things to do. There was a main questline, 5 faction questlines (all outstanding in their own right), and a huge number of side quests. All of the quests I managed to play through were fully voiced and well done, even if they seemed tangential to the main story. This was a world that meant you to go out and do. The quality of the writing was simply outstanding, though I could have done without the excessively outlandish names.
Any RPG worth its salt requires a good upgrade system, and KoA’s certainly fits the bill. Each level increase always you to add a point to a skill like Detect Hidden (if you want gold and lots of loot, go here) or Blacksmithing. Then three points are yours to place in the categories of Might, Finesse, and Magic, allowing you to develop your character as you will. This is all pretty standard. What’s not standard is that at any time, you can travel to a Fate Weaver, and pay gold to have all those points redistributed however you see fit. This allows you to complete transform your gameplay experience at any time, and is a feature other similar games should consider. There’s nothing like playing a game for 20 hours and realizing that you’ve wasted a third of your skill points in areas you no longer use, and having no recourse. Problem solved.
Nice sword. Trying to make up for something I see.
The weighty combat was very impressive. All sorts of weapons have their own feel, making you feel like a slashing whirlwind with daggers, or giving you the murderous weight of a war hammer. You can leave two weapons equipped, and each is mapped to its own button, allowing you to switch seamlessly during combat. Abilities are mapped to the right trigger, allowing you to deal death in a variety of ways without much effort. You’ll also spend a lot of time blocking and rolling, and some special upgrades make those defensive skills deadly in their own right. The combat is well paced and fun. The enemies are also well varied, and some of them are massive in comparison to your character. Some of the boss fights (while not particularly challenging) are very compelling. But, as seems par for the course in games these days, the final boss was a disappointment. The game built up to the battle so well, leaving me incredibly invested. But, after the fight, I felt let down.
I can juggled these hula hoops, too.
The world of Amalur is massive, and there is much to do and explore. It’s not quite Skyrim in its scope, but you will find yourself still capable of sinking many, many hours into this game. There is also loot everywhere. I enjoyed how, whenever I picked up an item, I was instantly able to compare it to my equipment and equip it without entering a menu. It saddened me, though, that there was a loot cap of 70 (upgradable 3 or 4 times via backpacks you could buy at merchants). While that may seem like a lot, with your character carrying 2 weapons, 6 different types of armor, and each individual potion and item counting toward that limit, it was reached far too frequently. I’d love to see a patch with that limit increased, as I spent a lot of time leaving items on the ground, or searching my inventory for the weakest item to destroy so I could pick up whatever I had just taken from an enemy corpse.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the game that Fable always wished it was. The game includes weighty combat, a deep, well written story, and a massive world to explore and shape with your decisions. The game includes some fantastic moments, and probes a variety of intellectual questions surrounding the nature of fate and our place in the universe. KoA is an outstanding effort, and hopefully only the introduction to the world of Amalur.
Pros
Cons
5 / 5
Note: This review was done using the PS3 version of the game. It is also available on Xbox 360.
The Soul Calibur series has long held the title of “Fighting Game of the People.” While Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs Capcom received all the press, Soul Calibur was the one game you could sit down and play without getting a PhD in combo-ology. Soul Calibur V continues this fine tradition, sacrificing complexity, challenge and precision in the name of playability, to varying amounts of success.
Applause is due the greatest feature of any fighting game ever: a fully functional character creator. When I was able to make my combatant a massively tall spear waver in a pirate coat, with jester boots (complete with bells on the tips), a top hat, and a massive purple afro, I decided I was in love. Too long have fighters forced us into using a set of fighters with a couple of alternate costumes. Soul Calibur V allows us to choose a move set, and then build a character that looks like whatever we wish them to be. The editor has extensive features and was definitely the best idea the game brings to the table.
I’m not as excited by what Soul Calibur V presents in the single player campaign. The presentation is distinctly sub-par. The infrequent cutscenes are supplemented by drawings with voiceover. The drawings themselves are, frankly, awful, though the voiceover does do an adequate job of explaining what’s going on. Given what we’ve seen from other developers in this department in recent years, the story presentation was disappointing.
The campaign itself consists of 20 levels of one of one fights. Occasionally, you’ll fight more than one enemy per level, but the combat themselves are pretty generic. I understand that there’s a formula to encounters in fighting games, but changing it up once or twice over the course of 20 levels would have been refreshing. To top it off, the single player AI was pathetic. In most of the fights, I was able to win by spamming the same single button combo over and over again. I didn’t even need to learn the block function until level 19. This was on the highest difficulty setting. Side stepping seems to leave the enemy AI facing the wrong direction for the entire battle. If you are looking for a single player venture, you can skip SoulCalibur V due to the poor AI combined with the mediocre presentation.
Arnold would be proud.
Thankfully for Soul Calibur V, there’s a lot more to it than that. The multiplayer suite is quite deep, and has a full set of features, including stat tracking. The more you play, the more you level up, and unlock more ways to outfit your character. And of course, being Soul Calibur, anyone can pick up the controller and stand a chance in a fight (though, actual deep knowledge of the controls, combos and such provide a key advantage).
Doing (or receiving) damage in a fight boosts up your Critical Gauge, which in turn allows you to conduct special attacks and combo breakers at key moments. As nice as a feature as this is, it seems less impressive than some of its brethren (with Mortal Kombat’s gory X-ray attacks and the screen filling insanity that happens when you fill the gauge in Marvel v Capcom 3). The attacks don’t seem to do much more damage than normal combos, and don’t look particularly impressive. If my character can call in his werewolf persona to tear into his foe, I want to see something that awes me.
Soul Calibur has one again called in a well-known character from another series, in this case, Ezio Auditore from Assassin’s Creed 2. Unlike previous guest characters, I didn’t find Ezio to be completely overpowered, and he seemed to fit the aesthetics of the game a lot better (16th century folks would not be able to stand up against, say, light sabers, like they did in Soul Calibur 4). He’s a fine addition to the game, and I’d like to see future guest characters in the series given the same sort of consideration, and be equally as appropriate to the setting.
If you’re looking for a multiplayer experience that’s both familiar and easy to digest, Soul Calibur V is the game for you. However, the single player campaign is insufficient for a recommendation on its own merits. It leaves the game feeling a bit incomplete, and I can’t help but thinking my opinion of the game would be higher were such a throwaway mode not included. The multiplayer is fun, but if you are used to a more hardcore experience, you might wish to look elsewhere. The fight between Soul Calibur and Soul Edge continues. I recommend ignoring it in favor of the battle between yourself and random player on the internet.
Pros
Cons
3 / 5
Proper weapon for the man on the right: lighter.
Dwayne may not be bright, but he makes up for it with... no, he doesn't make up for it.
I hate Risk. As Vagary’s resident hardcore strategy gamer, you might think that this is because it’s too simple, but that’s not actually the reason. My objection is that too often, the battles come down to luck rather than skill. If I assemble an army of 20 to attack an army of three, I should win quickly and decisively. Thankfully, Quarrel has an elegant solution to this problem: instead of rolling dice, make the winner determined by a word game.
Quarrel consists of a map, on which you and up to three other players hold a bunch of territories. Each of your armies will consist of two to eight bouncing minions, be they ninjas, Vikings, soldiers, or what have you. The cute aesthetic is one of the game’s best attributes. Defeated troops will cry, and final victory will get you a huge victory block party. You attack adjacent territories, in an effort to conquer them all and win the game. Battles begin with a word scramble of eight letters. For each unit in your army, you can use one letter to make a word. Different letters have different values (like in Scrabble), and the highest value word wins.
You can play with a timer or without. I recommend playing with a countdown every time, though, as with infinite time, a larger army can take its time and win every single battle. The timer also makes the battles quite frantic, as you scroll back and forth, trying to get in your words, and come up with something before the time hits zero and you auto-lose. In addition, the case of word value ties, the quicker player wins, so speed counts. Typically, I spent most matches trying to build an army of 8 (the maximum), but you have to be quick: at the end of each turn, the game system will load reinforcements onto the map through a variety of methods. Wait too long, and your enemies will grow very powerful.
Vikings are expert words smiths.
The game includes multiplayer (though no local co-op, because you could see each other’s words). I tried the multiplayer, but I found that since I was unwilling to cheat (word unscramblers are everywhere) and I had no chat pad (the game in chat pad compatible) I was destroyed. Sticking with single player, there were a couple of different modes, but all boiled down to the same game (conquer territory by making words). Though I enjoyed the gameplay mechanic very much, I eventually grew bored from the repetitions. It would have been nice to have letters cycle through, or disappear as time went on (use the high value Z before it vanishes!). I can’t help but thinking that the concepts here are ripe for expansion with future releases. I know I was left wanting more, not simply in terms of more play, but also more depth and variety.
Quarrel’s biggest asset is its price point. In an era where even $10 releases are becoming few and far between, $5 US at release is an absolute steal. This game is worth far more than that (though its previous release on iOS may have forced lower pricing), providing addicting gameplay and several different game modes. There aren’t enough brand bending word games on XBLA, and this one adds strategy and conquest to that equation. For a few evenings of wordtastic fun, it’s tough to quarrel with Quarrel.
Pros
Cons
4 / 5
Can't do that in Total War.
Shogun: Total War founded the genre of the hybrid RTS/turn-based strategy game over a decade ago. But while the Total War series has long been the most well-known in the genre, it has grown stale over time, with frequent installments upgrading the graphics, re-using the same ideas, and, over time, eroding the enemy AI to a degree that player triumph in nearly every battle is inevitable. Thankfully, there is another player in the sub-genre, and they are bringing something fresh to the table.
The 2007 release of King Arthur: The Role Playing Wargame brought a new spin to the game. Instead of simply raising troops and fighting battles, it challenged the player to take on a new role-playing experience as well. This hybrid, instead of merely providing you a few new units to fight the same battles, led to playthroughs that felt completely different from any of the Total War efforts (which, at the end of the day, all felt very similar). And now with the King Arthur II release at hand, Paradox provided us with a preview code to look at their next effort.
Despite some hokey voice acting, King Arthur 2 presents a grand tale that begs the player to continue onward. It’s refreshing to have a strong story element to a grand strategy game, which gives the campaign more weight. Instead of fighting battles to take a province and get more funds for raising troops, I’m battling to stop evil, or save my home from rebels. This is a significant departure from the genre norm, as other games typically focused solely on taking territory for the sake of glory or victory conditions. Narrative gives meaning to battles, and attaches one much more closely to the action.
A nice of vipers. Sounds like a good place for a nap.
The RPG elements add an interesting twist to the action. While other games have generals who possess traits, the decisions you make along the way will determine what qualities your main character possesses on the battlefield. Is he a wizard? A powerful warrior? Then he will wield magic or strong combat abilities when a foe is on hand. And like any good RPG, the game includes boss fights against unique enemies.
If I were to caution anything about these games, it’s that they take a lot of machine to run. The stunning visuals (they attempt here to take your breath away as often as possible) will eat your video card alive if you aren’t properly equipped. Each unit’s soldiers are uniquely rendered, and the massive battlefields are littered with beautiful terrain. Paradox is known for games that are more substance than style, so the King Arthur games are a bit of a departure from their normal fare. Having been brought into the Paradox fold by Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron, I was surprised to see that this game was so graphically heavy. Don’t get me wrong: I like it. I just wish I didn’t have the urge to go out and buy a $4,000 laptop after playing it.
The battles themselves may seem like the typical “order masses of men into each other” that you get in the genre, with flanking tactics and mixed units being the keys to victory. However, these battles are changed significantly by the additions of hero units, along with huge and dangerous enemies that can easily smash your units to bits.
In a games industry that seems complacent, that never pushes boundaries and offers consumers exactly what they wanted and no more, King Arthur II is a boundary pusher. I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve spent with King Arthur II so far, and can’t wait to get into the full game when it launches January 27th. Having battled back the hordes with Arthur’s knights, and returned from the dead to kick some ass in Dead Legions, I look forward to see what else Paradox has in store. Look for Vagary’s review in the coming weeks.
Guarantees an "arrowing" experience.
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