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Review: Scarygirl

By
Don Parsons
– January 30, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Scarygirl, meet dragon-machine-thing.

Note: This game was reviewed on the Playstation 3 platform. It is also available on the Xbox 360.

Scarygirl, originally a free-to-play web game, takes you on a journey through a vast set of environments and will make you remember just how much rage old-school platformers can cause.

Scarygirl, the protagonist, mixes platforming and combat with the use of her whip-arm. For transportation, the whip-arm is used to cross gaps by holding the jump button. This lets you to helicopter across and outside of this fundamental reason, it also serves as “jump correction”. The floaty physics of Scarygirl can be forgiven because you can just hold the jump button to perfect an otherwise awkward jump. 

The game relies heavily on its simple combat. That’s not a bad thing, but there are some frustrating parts later on in the game that are sure to provoke yelling and (possibly) throwing things. Sometimes i’s frustrating because of some moments that feel busted, but other times it’s a matter of design; Between a bad checkpoint system and trying to figure out what moves to use against what enemy, I was at wits-end during certain portions of the game.

One of the many pretty environments.

The 21 levels vary in length. Each level has enough of a varied design and theme to keep you intrigued as to what you will come across next. The few water stages, for example, were simply beautiful. The graphics in general are a little on the bland side and don’t pop as much as I had expected, but the neon seaweed was quite mesmerizing. Checkpoints, however, are a different story. Sometimes, they are well placed, but other times they are spread so far apart I wondered why they even bothered. Clearing four waves of incredibly difficult enemies time-after-time just to die on the fifth wave made me want to pull my hair out. Other times I’d be greeted by a checkpoint a few platform jumps later and I’d be greeted by a checkpoint.

The quirky level design, with fun little camera shifts, is something that immediately stood out.  Skipping along through a stage, the level will suddenly shift to a different angle and you just keep on skipping. It may or may not rotate back, but it was little additions like this that made the game different than others in its genre.

By collecting gems in the game, you occasionally come across a weird Octopus shopkeeper where you can buy new moves, equipment and vinyls. The latter is simply a collectible to get a trophy/achievement, and I spent most of my gems on the moves as they unlocked. Most of the equipment didn’t seem to affect gameplay in a significant way.

It's a scaryworld if owls are out during the day.

The single biggest fault Scarygirl has is its grappling mechanic. I am no stranger to whip-across-the-chasm gameplay, but it gets a little frustrating when you release from one point and can’t grasp the next point easily. Wall-climbing is the same; climbing across a wall, jumping over an obstacle, and hitting up on your controller’s d-pad should make you re-grapple the wall. It didn’t all the time, and it was inconsistent things like that which totally killed my joy of strong platforming sections that should otherwise be fun. You can also grapple onto rocks or stunned enemies in order to throw them at targets, but I had the same issue of it not aiming in the direction I had it pointed at.

Couch co-op fans will be pleased. While there is no online play available, you can partner up with a local friend and tackle the levels together. From the little bit of co-op that I played, it didn’t change anything drastically, but it can be fun if you have a significant-other or family member who enjoys platformers.

For people who enjoy a decent platforming experience (especially with an old-school frustration element), and are looking for something new, this game is a perfect addition to your digital library. But casual fans of the genre may steer clear; the grappling and difficulty of certain sections can be a little too much at times.

Pros:

  • great level design and shifts in perspective
  • quite lengthy for a platformer
  • upgrades give you a sense of progression

Cons:

  • bad grapple mechanics (aiming, swinging, wall climbing) can add unneeded frustration
  • inconsistent checkpoint system

Score: 3/5

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Just In Bailey: Time to Say Goodbye

By
Joey Alesia
– January 30, 2012Posted in: Columns, Editorials, Guides, Joey's Blog, Just In Bailey, Staff Blogs

My wife loves to read.  She decided after three of George R.R. Martin’s books from the Song of Fire & Ice series that she would take a break and read the first book in the Hunger Games series.  Believe it or not, she finished all three books in just three days.  And as much as she loved the books, my wife was sad at the end.  It wasn’t the ending itself that made her sad.  For her, the adventure was over.  This happened with the Harry Potter series as well.  Here was a series my wife grew up with, and then before she knew it, it was over.  The books finished a few years ago, but the final movie came out just last year.  In the blink of an eye, a big part of her high school and college years was over.  She told me it was like a piece of her was gone.

That got me to thinking of similar experiences I had.  I’ll admit, I was sad when Harry Potter was finished.  I came in around the sixth book.  As late to the party as I was, the series created some great memories for me.  Video games are no different.  You spend hours, days, weeks, even months, immersed in a game just to see it end.  But, it isn’t the end that matters.  As cliché as this may sound, it’s the journey that is the important part.

Take Final Fantasy VI as an example.  People will argue until they are blue in the face, or even passed out from lack of oxygen, that Final Fantasy VII is the best in the series.  To me, FFVI had the best cast of characters and a storyline that was touching AND made sense.  From the moment Terra’s Theme hits and you see her walking in Magitek armor with Biggs and Wedge, the story takes you in and holds on for dear life.

You follow a multitude of compelling characters through a revolution, world-changing catastrophe, and loss of loved ones.  It hits you again and again with emotional moments that make you laugh and cry and do both at the same time.  Then there’s the epic final battle with one of the craziest antagonists in gaming, Kefka.  Once you beat Kefka, the game ends with each character’s story wrapping up nicely.

The game itself can take 60-80 hours if you decide to tackle every bit and do an extensive amount of level-grinding.  80 hours, that’s around 3 and a half days over a few months of playing the game.  That is a lot of time to spend with these characters.  But, when it is all said and done, do you remember what really happens at the end?  Aside of saving the world, I don’t have very fond memories of the ending.  I remember meeting Cyan’s dead wife and son.  I remember Kefka poisoning the water and killing General Leo.  It’s the moments like these that get me excited to play the game again someday.

Games with a compelling story have a tendency to grow on the player.  I don’t think every game needs a story.  Sometimes you just want to play and not think too much.  And then there are games that have a great story that is diluted through unnecessary sequels.  After finishing Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and hearing Ubisoft wants to keep making games for the series, I am worried.  I really enjoy Assassin’s Creed’s storyline.  But with yearly releases I’m growing tired of playing games that are more a small expansion to the story than adding any real meat.  This is a case where I wouldn’t mind if they took a break.  A year or two off would serve the series well, allowing it to come back refreshed and renewing the journey.

Then there are the games that allow the player to dictate how the story goes.  The single greatest achievement in this to date is the Mass Effect series.  Each decision the player makes has an impact on the overall story.  Something you say to someone in the first game could severely impact the ending of the third game.  As such, the journey becomes extremely important.  Unlike most games though, this journey doesn’t just lead up to the ending, it creates it.  So, the ending becomes purely incidental.

Some games even have a journey that has a tendency to lose track of itself.  It gets twisted and convoluted and can’t seem to find itself.  I’ve heard tell that Final Fantasy XIII-2 suffers from this, but I’ll reserve judgment until I play it.  The series I see that suffered the most from this is Resident Evil.  What started out as a zombie outbreak has exploded into a strange tale that spans into Europe and Africa.  Somehow the U.S President’s daughter gets involved and then there’s a plant with a new version of the original T-Virus.  It goes on and on.  The series even lost sight of the genre it created going from survival-horror to survival-action.  I love the Resident Evil series and can’t wait for the next few games.  I only hope these games can put the series back on track.  Even a reboot wouldn’t hurt.  Really, the more you think about it, this journey may actually need an end to make sense of it all.

This leads me to one of my favorite beginning-to-end journeys (as much as I love The Legend of Zelda, there is a questionable timeline and the series hasn’t ended yet).  Metal Gear Solid has one of the best journeys I have ever taken in video games.  Is the story crazy and convoluted?  Yes, it is.  But, in the end, it makes sense.  This is the first series to get me near tears.  When Solid Snake is trying to get through the thermal area in Outer Haven near the end while Akiba and Meryl are fighting for their lives, I was mashing the square button, standing up, yelling at Snake to keep going.  I had been with him since his foray into Outer Heaven on the NES and I was not about to see him die like this.

Not only did the MGS journey have a great storyline, it also had an unbelievable cast of characters.  From Psycho Mantis to The Boss, from Otacon to Raiden, each character made the journey that much more special.  And Snake, be it Naked Snake or Solid Snake, was caught in the middle, trying to survive through lies and betrayal while doing everything he could to save the world from disaster.  His story is one that is masterfully told and has a clear end to it (at least until some wise guy tries to change that.  Please, Konami, let Kojima-San go on to other projects).

So, what is the moral to my story you ask?  Why, it’s the story itself.  We gamers put a lot of time and effort into video games.  We grow attached to the characters and the stories.  Some are short and easily understood, while others can span multiple games and become convoluted.  What is important isn’t how these games end.  It’s the journeys they take us on that matters.  So, while you may feel like a piece of you is lost when you put 80 hours into a game and finally get to the end, just remember the incredible moments you experienced and the characters that joined you on your quest.  Not every fantasy has to be final.

Just In Bailey –an homage to the secret code from Metriod, which allowed you to play as Samus Aran without her suit– is an editorial column at Vagary.TV brought to you by Joey Alesia. Each week Joey will challenge you to look at a different perspective of the characters, gameplay, and/or plot in your favorite games. Chat up your thoughts below, or send Joey an e-mail at Joey.Alesia@vagary.tv and remember to follow him on Twitter @wrkngclsswrtr.

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Playstation 3 Review: Zack Zero

By
Chris Scott
– January 29, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews

In a world where games are endlessly marketed and every little detail is known about them months in advance of their release, it is nice when a game can just appear on the scene and surprise you. Zack Zero, the Crocodile Entertainment developed platformer, kind of does this. The game delivers a solid first impression visually, but unfortunately most of the other reasons it is surprising are less than stellar.

Zack Zero centers on the quest of Zack to rescue the love of his life, Marlene, from the clutches of the evil Zurlog. Zurlog has taken over the universe by kidnapping Marlene in an effort to trick Zack into creating a time paradox. This story is conveyed to the player via some less than inspired cartoonish stills complete with an overly dramatic voice over. It is obvious the game is attempting to emulate early sci-fi pulp adventures but it does not quite hit the mark. However, regardless of how mediocre the delivery of the story may come across, platformers live and die by their gameplay and Zack Zero is no different.

Much like the Little Big Planet series, Zack Zero is a 2D platformer that inhabits a 3D world. The 3D world is bright, colorful and quite pleasing to the eyes. Unlike Little Big Planet where everything in it operates on the same rule set, only Zack is forced to abide by the rules of 2D platforming in his world. This discrepancy has the effect of allowing for enemies to come from both the foreground and background . It can look cool but it also has the unkind effect of allowing enemies to attack Zack without recourse. This fact caused my Zack to die more than one untimely death, frustrating me quite a bit.

Even more frustrating than getting attacked with no genuine way to defend myself was the overall design of many of the boss and mini boss encounters. Taking a cue from retro platformer design, Zack Zero pits the player against bosses that attack with a simple pattern. Figuring out the pattern and navigating around it to score attacks is the base of all these encounters. Unfortunately, many of them happen in awkward locales that put Zack against attacks coming from off the screen or needing to jump with no room to do so. The final boss in particular was extremely frustrating with the boss’ rocket attacks coming from off screen.

Combat takes up a good portion of the game, and sadly a lot of the combat is less than stellar, but the combat does not define Zack Zero as a game. It is called a platformer for a reason and the best parts of the game revolve around Zack running, jumping, and figuring out puzzles. The platforming in Zack Zero is far from a perfect experience; I suffered from recurring input lag while timing jumps but the design is solid, and more importantly, quite fun for most of the game.

Zack is not your ordinary space ranger, he comes equipped with three different suit powers and, much to the game’s credit, these powers are available from the get go and they never get taken away. Use of each suit is tempered by a power gauge and can be easily selected on the controller’s directional pad. While each power does have a combat effect, they are mostly put to use in the environmental puzzles scattered throughout the world and the best puzzles effectively use all of Zack’s powers to solve.

Few games have ever had me swinging on either side of the fence quite like Zack Zero did. There are some truly great gaming moments in the game but they often overshadowed by its mediocre presentation and incredibly flawed design choices. Additionally, I ran in to a situation where the game hard froze my system, forcing me to uninstall the game from my PS3 and re-download and install it – twice. Because of these factors it is hard to recommend Zack Zero without a host of reservations. However for fans of platformers, that have finished with last year’s biggest and best releases, the game can offer a solid and fun, albeit frustrating at times, four to five hour diversion.

Pros

  • Visually vibrant game world
  • Solid platforming action

Cons

  • Combat is a major weak point
  • Narrative presentation leaves a lot to be desired
  • More than a few technical glitches

3 / 5

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Film Review: Contraband

By
Chris Scott
– January 29, 2012Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are the entirely watchable but ultimately forgettable movies. Mark Wahlberg’s latest thriller, Contraband, sadly falls into the third camp.

Contraband is, at its core, a simple heist movie. Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, a retired smuggler who is pulled back into the game when his brother-in-law runs afoul of a local drug runner after botching a job. Farraday’s plan to set things right is to smuggle large shipment of counterfeit currency out of Panama. He assembles his crew, a motley cast of characters that are given far too little screen time, and lays out his plan. Of course things of this nature never go quite as they are planned.

All of this would work if there was an ounce of tension in any of the scenes involving Farraday and his team but Contraband plays like a paint by numbers heist film. The situations Farraday finds himself in are so overly contrived that it kills any potential tension the film may have had.

Fortunately, the film does deliver some solid tension away from the heist itself. Farraday’s wife, played by Kate Beckinsale, and kids are stalked and terrorized by drug runner Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi). This forces Farraday to call in his best friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) to watch over his family resulting in quite a few plot twists and tense scenes. The performances by Foster and Ribisi are the shining spots in the film, with Ribisi in particular delivering something that is borderline absurd but perfect for his role.

The biggest problem with Contraband is that as a heist film, it cheats the audience the satisfaction of seeing everything executed. Farraday’s plan changes in the last act but the audience is never filled in on the new plan and the final piece of the heist’s execution is completely glossed over. This is a standard trope of the genre but normally the film lets the viewer see the execution after the fact, this never takes place in Contraband, leaving audience to just accept it all which ultimately may leave some viewers unsatisfied.

Contraband is entirely enjoyable as a time waster but it is also not anything more than that. Like many new releases in January, the film is just a forgettable piece of cinema.

3/5

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The Perfectly Sane Show Ep. 80: Quarreling

By
The Perfectly Sane Show » The Perfectly Sane Show
– January 27, 2012Posted in: Shows, The Perfectly Sane Show

This week is loaded with news discussion, including Nintendo’s further financial woes and Microsoft’s rumored attempt to eliminate used game sales. They also hit on Quarrel, Zack Zero and some “retro” titles before veering off course into more parenting discussion by Jeff.


Also, join us in the forums to discuss games and other stuff we like.

Music in this episode:
Strike of the Devil’s Axes OC ReMix by CarboHydroM & LuIzA

E-mail comments (or questions) to perfectlysane@vagary.tv or follow us on Twitter.

Tony – iamnapoleon1066
Jeff – JustSomeDude899
Cyrus – FozioAuditore
Chris – kariyanine

Perfectly Sane Show

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Movie Dudes Episode 28: Snubbings

By
Chris
– January 26, 2012Posted in: Movie Dudes, Shows

The dudes talk some films in theaters, Contraband, Haywire, and Underworld: Awakening. They talk inside baseball, with Moneyball. And they talk about a lot of crappy horror and Final Destination 5, which isn’t crappy.

E-mail comments (or questions) to chris.scott@vagary.tv and jeff.derrickson@vagary.tv or follow us on Twitter.

Jeff – JustSomeDude899
Chris – kariyanine

moviedudesVTV

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Review: Amy

By
Kyle Baron
– January 25, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

You first

Note: The Playstation Network version was played for review. Amy is also available on Xbox Live Marketplace and, as of this writing, is scheduled for release on PC.

The crisp clip-clop of my character’s high heels were now a distant sound. Shambling through a crumbling subway station, my vision blurred and wavered blood red as the murmers of a mad voice whispered into my headphones. My skin was turning pale, eyes shot yellow, and the zombie-inflicted wound on my wrist was festering. I needed to get to Amy. Being near her kept me from fully turning into one of them.

I find Amy, the six year old with special powers who I’m charged with protecting, huddling in a locker. I comfort her as the infection from the sickly air evaporates off of my character with a hiss. Then, a monster bashes through a nearby door, the frame rate plummets, and I realize the textures on its face haven’t loaded in. It looks like I’m being attacked by a giant ogre with a shriveled apricot for a head, and now I’m just laughing.

My eight hour experience with Amy was just like that. Moments of tension and sparse touches of cleverly executed design were buried under technical problems and a messy narrative.

The game is set in the near future and you play as Lana, a woman who is the caretaker of a young girl who has special powers. A zombie virus mysteriously erupts at the start of the game and Lana barely escapes from a run in with one of the undead. Now wounded, you have to stave off the infection long with syringes and Amy’s powers so that you can get her to safety.

There’s a bond between you and Amy, as neither of you can survive for long without each other. Amy, being the subject of unexplained experiments by the game’s professorial antagonist, heals you and can use her telekinetic powers to solve puzzles. Being a small child, she can also fit through small gaps that you can’t. Lana is the only one that can use weapons, climb ladders, and shimmy along edges.

The infection also plays an interesting part in the game’s increasingly devious puzzles, as you can deliberately let the virus manifest in yourself long enough to disguise yourself as a zombie and sneak by; well, hopefully before you become fully infected and die, that is.

Syringes of the cure are the only way to survive when away from Amy

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t provide a clear indication of how infected you are. The light on Lana’s back shows how strong the virus is in the game’s environment, but only the subtle changes in her skin tone and your increasingly blurred vision show how infected you are and it takes a couple of failed stealth sequences to get the hang of just how many seconds it takes before zombies don’t notice you shambling by.

When the situation gets rough, so does the combat; it’s all timing based, using just a dodge and attack buttons, but the timing for dodging attacks is a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I stepped clear of an enemy’s attack and still got hit. Other times, while at the same distance, I deftly avoided the attack of two enemies at once and Lana went into a ducking animation. If the direction you face is even slightly off, the game bugs out and you and the enemy end up awkwardly circling around each other, flailing wildly, until one of you gets hit and dies.

Thankfully, the stealth sequences work just fine and have some good tension thanks to some crisp sound design.

Unfortunately, the voice acting of the game is awful. The main character is voiced by two different actors and it definitely shows; there are times when Lana will go from sounding American to European all in the same conversation. NPCs have stilted and forced dialogue if they talk at all, while the few story related characters have voicework that ranges from decent to comically amateur.

Seeing someone sneak around in high heels and a skirt makes me glad I'm a dude

When the handholding mechanic isn’t causing Amy’s hand to come loose when she brushes up against the environment, and when any of the above technical and narrative missteps aren’t getting in your way, there are some interesting moments in the game. One of the best sequences had me isolated from Amy while I frantically sneaked and fought my way through an infection-ridden subway station, stopping near dead soldiers to use their gas masks to stave off the infection; I felt tense and vulnerable the whole time, and it’s sad that those glimmers of brilliance are buried in such a mess of narrative and technical sloppiness.

The end cutscenes of Amy, coupled with a contrived story ending, allude to a lot of enemies and environments that didn’t make it into the game, but a lack of variety or challenge isn’t the game’s problem.The developer would have something worthy of the modest $9.99 US price if they took proper care of their existing ideas within the six chapters of the game. Sadly, Amy can’t be recommended on anything other than a discounted purchase .

 

Pros:

  • Some fantastic moments of tension and vulnerability
  • Good sound effects
  • Progressively challenging puzzles that are well designed

Cons:

  • Bad voice work
  • Serious technical issues: Bad frame rate, combat glitches, texture pop-in, awkward targeting of Amy’s powers, collision with environment causes the handhold with Amy to break
  • Loading a save game causes you to lose your checkpoint and most of your inventory
  • Story ending is contrived and some elements, like infectious puddles of goo and giant monsters, are never explained

2/5

 

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Review: Crazy Machines Elements

By
Don Parsons
– January 25, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

 

Oh, we DID start the fire....

Note: This review is based on the Playstation Network version. The game is also available on Xbox Live Arcade.

Crafting a chain of events to cause one simple event to happen is a satisfying experience. Making a laser bounce off a mirror that is angled just right, cut a rope, which in turn drops a weight on a springboard that then catapults a bowling ball through a basketball hoop may seem a little over-thought-out, but it will put a smile on your face nonetheless.

This is how Crazy Machines Elements feels. Recently released on PSN (and on XBLA August of 2011) for $9.99, FAKT Software brings its PC series to consoles with a bundle of puzzles and challenges. These puzzles, while absurd (in typical Rube Goldberg fashion), have the ability to make you feel so smart for figuring them out. In essence, it’s a perfect puzzle game in that regard.

Crazy Machines Elements has three modes; Puzzle, Challenge and a custom puzzle designer. We’ll start with the latter, as I used it the least. Creating your own levels seemed to cater more to the creative audience (which isn’t me, in all honesty). You get access to everything in the game, and can go to town whipping up your own crazy machine. It works the same as other modes, as you open a menu to pick your piece and place it in a very simple manner. One of the perks of this game is the very easy to use interface.

Puzzle mode is a bulky piece of game, as it has a plethora of puzzles. They start off nice and easy, as they should, giving you semi-completed puzzles to plug pieces into. It slowly introduces you to new pieces and how they function in the game, scaling in difficulty at a steady rate. Each puzzle has so many gold nuts to collect as your typical “game-y” collectible which you can get around to clear the puzzle, but most seemed to come naturally.

Crazy-Contraptions-To-Do-Simple-Tasks 'R Us

After completing 60 puzzles (yes, 60), you will unlock the final mode, Challenge mode. These are far more creative as you have a goal, and more than just a few tools to help you. You also have a credit limit, so each piece you place will take away from your allowance. While you have a much broader selection of pieces to use, you still won’t have access to all of them (certain ones would make it too easy, mind you). The challenges, though, take a lot more brain power than most of the puzzles, and give you more creative ways to solve puzzles.

The music in the game is very simple, and incredibly repetitive. It’s a short loop that will get on your last nerve when you are stuck on a puzzle for half an hour. I turned it off after the first set of ten puzzles. Another minor complaint is the load time and excessive framerate drops. At times it seems to slowly chug along before the animations pick up steam and go full speed. It’s mostly directly after clearing a puzzle, but it was a little annoying nonetheless.

All-in-all, this was a fun (but enraging) experience. If you like puzzles in general, this is right up your alley. Offering an extensive range of crazy contraptions to build and amaze yourself with, its biggest flaw is the lack of replay value for people like me; people that want to be challenged, but don’t have any interest in creating your own puzzles. That said, it still has enough content to warrant a purchase for avid thinkers and tinkerers alike.

Pros:

  • Tons of puzzles to work through, and challenges to solve
  • Creative solutions that make you think
  • That satisfactory feeling of completing a puzzle

Cons:

  • Generic, repetitive music
  • Small technical problems (framedrops mostly)
  • Waiting to unlock Challenge mode (the most fun and open)  until solving 60 puzzles

Score: 3/5

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Film Review: The Devil Inside

By
Chris Scott
– January 25, 2012Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

Considering that found footage films rely on convincing their audiences that what they are watching actually happened, it is surprising to me that more films have not explored the subject matter of exorcism. There have been some, The Last Exorcism most notable among them, but for the most part, found footage films have steered clear of the art of expunging demons from the possessed. That makes The Devil Inside an anomaly of sorts because it deals with the subject matter head on.

The Devil Inside starts out in 1989 with footage from police cameras and news reports at a grisly crime scene where three members of the Catholic Church were seemingly murdered by Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley). Maria is deemed insane and, for some reason, carted off to Rome to be treated by experts. Fast forward to present day, Maria’s daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), finds out from her dying father that the murders her mother committed took place during an exorcism. And so Maria sets out for Rome to explore the case, complete with her documentarian friend Michael (Ionut Grama).

The setup is solid enough but the film quickly squanders it. There are a number of story points that just do not fit with the overall film. Filming segments of an exorcism class run by the Vatican, introducing the audience to a pair of rogue priests that perform exorcisms outside the authority of the Church, and a hospital that allows anyone with video cameras to come and examine their patients. It all seems overly convenient and staged, which goes against the very nature of the found footage style of film making.

Even worse though is the fundamental filmmaking that takes place. Michael is supposed to be a documentary filmmaker chronicling Isabella’s discoveries, yet he somehow manages to have worse camera work than some high school filmmakers. The camera shakes all the time, even in interview segments where it should have been mounted on a tripod.

As bad as the stilted plotting and amateur filmmaking is, The Devil Inside could have overcome them if it had managed to be even slightly scary. It is not. When the scariest part of a supernatural horror film is a dog barking, things have not gone very well.

The entire production screams amateur hour. If someone were to have told me that The Devil Inside was a senior film project, I would not have been surprised. It would not make the film any better but at least its execution would be understandable. There is no excuse for writer/director William Brent Bell and his writing partner Matthew Peterman, the duo responsible for the reprehensible video game horror film Stay Alive in 2006. They have been around long enough that they should know better.

Found footage films are cheap to produce but there are examples of the style working quite well. There is little doubt that the subjects of possession and exorcism fascinate movie going audiences, it is just a shame that Hollywood preys on those audiences with drivel such as The Devil Inside. Ending aside, The Last Exorcism handles the subject matter in such a way that puts this film to shame. If you are looking for a solid film of this ilk, go watch that instead.

1 / 5

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PC Game Preview: King Arthur 2

By
Tony Odett
– January 24, 2012Posted in: PC/Mac, Previews

 

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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