REVIEW: Deadly Premonition (2010)

This game has more layers than a club Sinner's sandwich

You all knew it was coming.

If you've been within earshot of me from the last 6 months, you'll no doubt know my current favourite game. I rate this little gem game of its year; I would even go so far as naming this game the best thing I've played in the last fifteen years. Considering the number of games I've ploughed through in that time, that's a HUGE accolade.

If you're familiar with the cult sensation Twin Peaks, this story should not surprise you: in fact it may astound you just how similar it is:

FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan (but please, just call him York: that's what everyone calls him) has been following a rather bizarre set of murders wherein the only link was that the victim - invariably a young woman - had a stomach filled with mysterious red seeds. The trail has led him to the sleepy town of Greenvale, a small town in the north mid-west of America, where a recent high school graduate and popular local girl Anna Graham has met a similar grisly fate as the other victims. Strung up to a tree with her belly slit open, two local children find her with their grandpa, and proclaim her a Goddess of the forest. Sound familiar?

The director/creator of this game - artistic genius SWERY - poured his heart and soul into this labour of love, and my goodness does it show. The attention to detail is nothing short of incredible, and the little details added make it a truly unforgettable experience: can you name a game where if you don't eat, you die? Or if you don't change your clothes, you start to stink? How about if you don't shave, do you grow a beard? How about a living, breathing world that carries on regardless of if you're there to witness it? Plus so many other things, a juicy number of sidequests and 65 trading cards to collect, the sheer number of things to do is astounding.

I've not even got to the best bit yet. You see, York is what you might call a little idiosyncratic. He finds fortunes in his coffee, has vivid dreams with a red room and twin angels giving him cryptic clues (I'm surprised David Lynch didn't sue), and frequently speaks with an unseen entity, his best friend Zach. The Zach mechanic is nothing short of genius, where instead of SWERY forcing you to empathise and like York and invariably cause conflict and antagonism towards him, here we're his ally and his confidante. The player substitutes for York's queries to Zach, and York will follow Zach's advice first and foremost, even if it means putting off going to see the cops for the day in order to go fishing or interview residents we might deem suspicious. York will always trust Zach's instincts (after all, it is ultimately the player in control of the action!), and we're almost free to play the game how we see fit. There are deadlines and the like but we don't get punished too much for ignoring them in order to explore the town or visit the townsfolk.

I cannot say enough about this wonderful, wonderful game. The story is jaw-dropping, and packs such an emotional punch it still hits me on the forth full playthrough. York as a character is suave, smooth and cool as an ice sculpture. He is aloof and suspicious yet still extremely likable. Also, some of the cutscenes have me howling with laughter for all the right reasons.

I cannot recommend it enough, find it, buy it, borrow it, just play it!

REVIEW: The Movies (2005)

I used to be a big fan of Maxis' "The Sims", an innovative take on the simulator genre where you take control of the people inside a house you design and - depending on your mood - make their lives cushy or a living hell. I'm sure we can all recall the time we made a lesbian couple to live in the huge mansion we painstakingly fashioned over 4 hours of hard graft in build and buy mode, then trap them in the kitchen and set fire to the staff. The Sims opened a floodgate for games like it, and so we got countless other imitators leaping onto the bandwagon out of Simcity: and thus, The Movies came to be.

The Movies is a specific type of simulator, where instead of looking after the people, a household or even a neighbourhood, you control a budding movie studio starting off in 1920. Technically, it's reasonably accurate, starting off with static cameras, black and white picture and no sound; the technology of your movies expands with the timeline and you have the option to boost it with the research department.

You have to find Stars and manage their happiness by giving them entourages and trailers in accord with their celebrity. Stars and directors gain experience by working on specific genres and reviews of your movies will show you where they need improvement, which leads accordingly into The Movies' best gimmick.

By far this game's best feature is the ability to actually create movies, scene by scene. You can choose scenes, costumes, actors to do a wide variety of tricks on set, and even modify an actor's specific performance on a film. It's a laborious process but it is admittedly a great feeling to see a labour of love play out - albeit rather crudely - before your eyes.

The Movies is an interesting entry to the simulator genre, its gimmick is fresh and innovative and as I have quite a passion for early cinema and culture from the 20th century, this was a great play for me.

REVIEW: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996)

Those from North America will recognise this classic point-and-click puzzle/adventure game as Circle of Blood. It follows young Californian Lawyer George Stobbart with enormous pockets around Europe and Asia searching for the lost secrets of the Templars after he witnesses a terrorist bombing in Paris by a man in a clown costume.

The story is fantastic and really does play out like a movie - actually I do remember going to see the Da Vinci Code on release and had several Broken Sword double-takes. A young American fascinated by the history of the Templars teams up with a hot French girl and they go to uncover its secrets... Inspiration or not, Broken Sword worked well as a game story-wise and was engaging and interesting throughout.

There is one horrible plague on this game though, several fatal errors you can make if you don't play it right. There are HUGE glitches present throughout that can literally make your save useless if you do it incorrectly. According to the credits, some of the game testing was done by family members of Charles Cecil, the creator of the game, and that may explain it. For example, if you go to Spain before completing the objectives to go to Syria, a character won't be present when you return to do an important task and you get stuck in Parisian limbo unless you restart or reload a save before you go to Spain. It's a really glaring fatal flaw and I fell into it the first time I played.

So if you know your way around the game or know where the traps are and how to avoid them, this game offers many hours of play, brilliant humour, polished voice talent and rich environments. George Stobbart remains one of my favourite protagonists of a video game: he's sarcastic, intelligent and his humour is delightfully droll. It's available on many different formats so if you like adventure games or puzzle games, give it a shot.

REVIEW: Killing Floor (2009)

Let me get one thing straight: People from England don't all sound like Michael Caine! Don't trust Worgans, Fable or this game! For the uninitiated, this game a first person multiplayer shooter: it's essentially Left for Dead in London. It's fast, fun and highly addictive.

As a nameless protagonist, your task is to survive the onslaught of zombies released by the military thanks to overambitious experiments involving genetic mutations and cloning, and of course it all went tits-up and now you gotta spray and pray with your bullets. There are some familiar settings, and they're pretty accurate, give or take the number of rampant violent raging aggressors...

One of the great perks of this game is the ability to customise your character. You get to choose a soldier with different abilities, and from that you get a class to level up, leading to better perks. I personally chose a Support Specialist because of my affinity to boomsticks and flooring many enemies with one round (thank you very much, Resident Evil). Every class adds something slightly different to the team and a well-rounded team will go a lot farther than a bunch of snipers camping around the map.

If I were to describe this game in a phrase, it would be "dumb fun". I enjoy it with friends and it's exciting and tense to play through when you're surrounded by running zombies, fattie bloaty ones, the dreaded Fleshpounds and ones with chainsaws grafted to their arms Bruce Campbell style. It's worth a trial at least and I can go back to it now and again.

REVIEW: Fahrenheit (2005)

Since the release of Quantic Dream's tech demo KARA (found here, go check it out, it's incredible), I decided to go back and play the first game I played by them, Fahrenheit - better known as Indigo Prophecy in North America - and relive their first attempt at making a video game.

Instantly, the menu of Fahrenheit doesn't say "continue game", rather it says "continue movie" or "select chapter". It reminds me of a DVD menu instead of a game one, and the entire game is an interesting blend of a film and game. This concept was adapted for Fahrenheit's spiritual sequal - the better know Heavy Rain - but it still plays competently in Fahrenheit. Our hero, Lucas Kane, awakes over a bloodied corpse with the murder weapon in his hand. With the knife Lucas has carved weird symbols into his own arm and has absolutely no memory of the last five minutes. Frightened and confused, he frantically tries to cover his tracks and hurries home, where he enlists his brother to help him work out what happened in the diner and who was behind it all.

Simultaneously, the two detectives assigned to solve the murder are also playable characters, Carla and Tyler, and the scenarios are played one after the other in various situations or scenes. One of the interesting gimmicks of the game is you can hear what characters are thinking as you play them with a button prompt, so it's not mandatory to listen to the characters' thoughts, but it's a nice bonus. It really does feel like an interactive movie rather than a clunky representation of one like some other games have attempted. The one thing that really slows it down are the controls which are sluggish and unreponsive, and you can end up grinding your face against a wall if you're not careful.

However, the story, although some people say it loses itself halfway through, I thought was interesting and fun to play through, if a little cliché at times. It flows better than some movies I've sat through, and they didn't even have quick time events to deal with!

REVIEW: Overblood (1997)

I played the demo of this on release, and then spent years searching for it, and finally on a visit to Canada twelve years later, there it was, sitting on the shelf all smug. It was one of the few times where I've instantly scooped up a game without even considering the price.

Overblood is a fully 3D survival horror game featuring a fully grown man in an ever so slightly tight one-sie called Raz Karcy, a man awaking from a cryogenic freeze with no memory. He befriends a little robot along the way called Pipo and the two work together to try and escape from the abandoned facility and also recover Raz's memories.

The game plays well, but the movement of the models is laughable at times; watching Raz run kept me entertained for ages, not to mention his hilarious falling death animation, and sometimes I saved it right before a crevice just so I could watch and hear Raz plummet screaming "BAAW!" several times. The voice acting is beyond bad and incredibly funny, but forgivable considering how old this game actually is.

The story is pretty bland, but it's not a major issue. I enjoyed playing the game a lot, and even though the script and the animations of the characters just topped off the experience as one of the so-bad-it's-good games ever, it's a challenging, interesting game and I'd definitely play it again.

REVIEW: Tomb Raider II (1997)

If you were feeling devilish, you could break someone's entire save on this game by jumping off a high place and saving it as poor Lara plummeted to her death. This was thanks to the new "save anywhere at any time" system that was introduced after the frustrating save crystals from the first game.

The second of the Tomb Raider games, this time Lara Croft is after the mythical dagger of Xian, a blade that promises immense power to whomever sacrifices themselves to it. Lara goes all around the world looking for it, including China, Italy, Tibet and even to the bottom of the ocean. Major graphical improvements were made to the original engine of the first game, such as dynamic lighting, Lara's hair and more fluid character movement. The game was continually tested literally hours prior to the final submit to Sony, and it really shows.

Lara now has much more freedom, and can use flares and climb ladders in this outing, The improved lighting was also used to light up the immediate area when Lara fired a gun, and minor tweaks led to a major improvement. The story for me was also great, because it involved shooting a massive fire-breathing dragon, and I can't argue with that. This and its predecessor really paved the way for modern adventure games, and I doubt Nathan Drake would be the man he is without our English rose Lara.

I'll never, ever forget the panic at the beginning the level "40 fathoms", when your air's running out, there's a shark chasing you and there's no sign of an air pocket. It was like Sonic drowning all over again.

REVIEW: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996)

I remember one of my elder brothers traded in the original Prince of Persia on the SNES for this shiny new Playstation game, and neither me or my siblings had no idea what we were getting tangled up in.

One of the very first games I ever played with a deep complex narrative, complete with a very likeable anti-hero and glorifying vampires as complete badasses in armour with fire swords and a treasure trove of spells to literally tear your enemies limb from limb; it blew apart my pre-conceived ideas that modern vampires were all whiny chuffs who hung around in the dark feeling sorry for themselves. Our vampire hero Kain didn't give a toss about anyone other than himself and certainly didn't dole out mercy to those he encountered on his journey to cure his vampirism.

The story goes much deeper than a simple quest however, and we discover a whole complex narrative delicately woven with time travel, free will, destiny and balance all as major themes. Kain as a character truly shines as the main attraction though, thanks to the great Simon Templeman bringing him to life. Kain is considered by many video game fans as one of the exemplary anti-heroes, and has developed over the series of Legacy of Kain games, remaining consistent and likable yet undergoing a conceivable change as his world changes around him. The Legacy of Kain games have often been praised for their polished voice talent and intricate, fascinating storyline, and the first game set the benchmark for the entire series.

As a game, it plays competently, and the top-down view makes up for the limited technology available at the time. The animations are good and fluid, and the combat, although restrained, makes for a challenging experience. I can always return to this game.

REVIEW: Devil May Cry 2 (2003)

Everyone who likes Devil May Cry thinks the second one is the bad apple of the lot, but I tend to disagree. I'm most likely biased as this is the first DMC game I completed of the series, and I found nothing noticeably *bad* with it.

Don't get me wrong: it's not my favourite game of all time, but it's not terrible. The voice acting is wooden, the combat sluggish and predictable, and the storyline sub par; but who am I to disagree when you can fly and dash around like a complete lunatic? I've always liked the idea of combing the use of a sword and guns in a video game, and allows for a bit more freedom and creativity when killing enemies, but you don't get the sweet bonuses for using weapons, and only get a big surge of points when using your sword; there's not much worse than seeing your Showtime! fade faster than summertime. Sure, you can stall it at whatever rank you are and maybe it moves up if you pull off a tricky somersault-whilst-firing-guns-downwards-all-the-time-whilst-not-getting-hit. Unfortunately, spamming the sword attack seems to get the awards up faster for me.

Maybe I haven't played the other DMC games as much as this, but I've always had a soft spot and a long afternoon for this entry to the series. Dante is a bit of an asshole, and antiheroes are always more fun than the pious, noble type anyway. The new entry to the series, some red headed woman whom I can never remember the name of - L something, perhaps - isn't fun to play as all she does in the FMVs is whine about how useless she is, and that's outrageously unappealing for a character. Emos are no fun to play! Not to mention her devil trigger looks completely retarded and just puts me off playing her full stop.

However, it's not a broken game, and it's fun to stick in every 6 months or so to have a merry old fanny about on.

REVIEW: The Lion King (1994)

I won't lie to you, I struggled with this game. I thought it might be easier being that I'm circa fifteen years older from when I first tried playing this game, and it didn't make the experience any simpler.

The Lion King is a side scrolling platform game, obviously based on the movie, where you play through various important parts of the plot both as a young and adult Simba. I'm struggling to see through the nostalgia tint my eyes have gained, but on the whole it plays well and is challenging but not cheap.

The backgrounds and sprites were actually animated by Disney studios, and it really shows. The graphics have aged well and are pleasant and fluid, The music is also a 16bit version on Hans Zimmer's original score, and is a nice addition.

I found it a very challenging game - mostly because I was playing on an emulator and my hands have been trained with a pad; but also, it's very easy to die. The stampede section requires lightning quick timing which I just don't possess and I invariably take damage every single time. However, that's not a bad thing, I would be complaining a lot more if it were far too easy, and makes the credit scroll all the more rewarding and satisfying. It was nice to revisit, but I tend to save this game and play it only once in a while, else I get stuck on a part and end up throwing my keyboard across the room.

REVIEW: Prototype (2009)

Due to the upcoming - and personally highly anticipated - Prototype 2 due to be released this year, I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and get the original out to remind myself how much fun I had playing the first time round.

If you're looking for a game that truly uses sandbox design well, then I would look to Prototype, for this is without question its absolute best feature. Sure, the story is a little more than clunky and uninteresting, and the protagonist Alex Mercer can honestly go die in a fire for all I care; it's the freedom I experienced in between the mandatory missions that left me dribbling at the mouth. The game is seemingly built around the sandbox, rather than the sandbox built around the game, which can leave the design underused in some games, but not in Prototype.

There aren't many games where you can boast to running up the Empire State Building, backflip off and faceplant a poor old biddy 5 feet into the pavement below, and that's just the start. The limit of the freedom is very cleverly hidden, and you're free to run, jump and glide both between and over the skyscrapers of New York City. The weapons are an extension of Mercer himself, and using his incredible power, can catapult himself in the air, slice a tank in half and punch through a person's chest: and that's not even half of it.

The character development and story are lamentable at best, and all I really cared about was how to kill as many civilians in one jump without the army noticing. The weapon upgrades are interesting and the finishing moves are simply outrageous visually. It's good to mess about on, but not ideal if you're looking for a game with any substance.

REVIEW: SCP-087 (2011)

Not strictly a game, but an experiment about fear. SCP-087 is based on creepypasta that has been making its rounds on the internet recently, and boy does it deliver.

There is no real objective other than to descend down a dark, creepy staircase. What's so scary about that? That's just it, there are no hints, no clues as to what's in the dark; your mind is making all the magic happen with a a few stimuli. It really shows just how powerful the brain can be at creating fear in what we cannot see.

The sounds build slowly and forebodingly, the shadows dash across the walls as if real, and the phrase "nope" is added to this in vast quantities; I cannot express just how scary this game is when played in the dark with a good pair of headphones on. There are all kinds of creepy noises coming from all sides of you, including a slow building throaty ambiance, footsteps, slow trudging ones and frantic tapping behind you. What you don't see coming towards you on the stairs all adds to a terrifying experience that I would recommend to any person eager to test their limits of just how far they will descend.

Just don't stop.

REVIEW: Bioshock (2007)

For years I had been looking for a game that story grabbed me in the same way Legacy of Kain: Defiance did, and I think I finally found it in Bioshock. I was introduced to the series backwards: I played Bioshock 2, then the first one and finished with the prequel book, but I got an amazing experience out of it nonetheless, and perhaps a better one by experiencing it backwards.

Our silent hero of the story, Jack is flying over the Atlantic in 1960 when suddenly the plane goes crashing down by a bizarre looking lighthouse structure and Jack is forced to seek refuge underneath in the underwater utopia Rapture. As he explores the abandoned ruins, we learn about this world as Jack does, including the deadly addictive liquid ADAM that grant its user magical power but requires EVE, a blue liquid, to charge it. Jack becomes a user of ADAM, who are known as splicers, and finds all sorts of artifacts left behind by a city gone mad. The icon of the series, the Big Daddy - a heavily spliced man grafted to an old diving suit -, makes his appearance with his Little Sister, who is the only being that can easily gather ADAM, making them a prime target for rogue splicers and also for Jack himself.

Bioshock being a first person shooter, I was initially wary as I tend to not like this particular genre, however, I was blown away. It's not a game that's just about shooting; it actually builds around it, making interesting use of the weapons instead of your standard inventory, the abilities courtesy of the ADAM being of particular note.

It also features some very frightening moments, and I was very tense at times on my playthrough. The lighting and sound design are excellent, and all add to the oppressive atmosphere that one would undoubtedly feel in this kind of environment. The colours used really immerse you within the clammy, dark ambience, and for a video game world, it is a very believable world to become buried in.

This is one of the very few games I have played where it feels like time doesn't stop when Jack is not around, it feels like a living, breathing, organic place thanks to the A.I. of the Splicers and makes it all the more easier to be pulled into Rapture.

I would play again.

REVIEW: Resident Evil 2 (1998)

When I picture Leon Scott Kennedy, the gruff, world-weary Leon of RE:4 and the upcoming RE:6 don't instantly spring to mind; instead it's the plucky young rookie cop of Resident Evil 2.

Along with Claire Redfield, sister of I-love-my-knife Chris Redfield from the first game, the two must find a way to get out of the contaminated Raccoon city, now teeming with zombies all infected with the T-virus. What makes it worse this time round is there're several super zombies infected with the more powerful G-virus wandering around who will easily kick your ass if you're not careful. The creator of the G-virus has injected himself with it and is going round implanting embryos into poor suckers to burst out of them Alien-style in a spectacular and gruesome display.

Resident Evil 2 is a great improvement from the often cringe-worthy first installment: the graphics are better, the voice acting much, much better from the poorly translated and delivered Engrish of RE:1, the enemies are more than boring slow zombies, there are interesting and often frightening enemies stalking you, and replay value is excellent. There are four main scenarios to complete: Leon A, Claire A, Leon B and Claire B; there are even two more scenarios to unlock after you complete the original four. Special weapons with infinite ammo are also up for grabs and alternate costumes.

Like every great sequel should, Resident Evil 2 builds on the lore already established in the first game, and improves the gameplay experience tenfold. I can pop this bugger in any day and still enjoy it: even the parts where you're playing as Sherry Birkin: the irritating child with the even more irritating voice and no gun to protect herself against rabid dogs.

Highly, highly recommended.

REVIEW: The Dig (1995)

The penultimate archetypical game to be released by LucasArts, "The Dig" remains one of my favourite point-and-click adventure game to ever exist. It contains within a genre I don't normally particularly care for a riveting, beautiful journey into a figurative and literal dig.

Our hero of the tale, Boston Low, is a no-nonsense pilot of a spacecraft headed for a meteor on course to strike Earth. The goal is to carefully align the meteor Attila with Earth's orbit to prevent it from crashing onto the surface. Accompanying him is a straight-talking Maggie, a journalist gifted with the ability to learn and understand languages at an amazing rate; and Brink, a brilliant archaeologist. After accidentally activating the alien technology inside, the three are rapidly transported to a desolate alien world, where all three must survive and try and find a way back home.

The title is an interesting one, it not only refers to the literal digging that occurs frequently throughout thanks to Boston's trusty shovel he brings with him, but a figurative dig deep down inside all three heroes, and discover what makes them tic and their grasp onto sanity as they discover a trove of mysterious crystals that promise eternal life. The crystals are not what they seem, and it seems the font of eternity is dangerously addictive and can turn a man irrational and disconnected from reality.

The highlight of the game by far was the soundtrack. Accompanied with the often barren but beautiful landscape, Michael Land encapsulated the feeling of bewilderment and awe of the alien world, the majesty of space and the beauty of the natural world around you perfectly. I cannot think of a score that has enhanced the gameplay better than this one, and it is a great substitute for other games too.

The puzzles are outrageously challenging (turtle bone puzzle, I'm looking your way!) but they're not completely impossible - mainly it requires a lot - and I mean A LOT - of trial and error to even figure out how to solve them, but ultimately, it makes the experience all the more worthwhile when you do solve them. In no way does this game undermine the player's intelligence, and you too feel as lost and alone as Boston trying to make sense of a literal alien world.

I can - and will - play this game again and again. It is mysterious, droll, and ultimately rewarding. Highly recommended.