Word Realms (PC, Mac, and Linux)

In a world where words can hurt — like not just emotionally but on an extremely physical level– you wake up with an awful hangover — which is to say that you’re a native to this world, you haven’t used the power of booze to astrally teleport or something. The people of the valley you’re now in are being plagued by the evil Lord Nightmare who is, unsurprisingly, making it really difficult for people to sleep. Will you take up the cause of the local villagers, vanquishing monsters until you rush up to Nightmare’s Keep to deck him in the schnoz? Or will you just do all this junk because it means you can leave the valley and move on. You decide! Spell, use items, craft things, and solve puzzles in an adventure for all time!

History

Word Realms was the second game made by Asymmetric Publications and designed by Zack “Jick” Johnson and Kevin Simmons. It’s creation was funded through Kickstarter exceeding it’s asking price, $100,000, by a narrow margin. Johnson and Simmons had been discussing the idea of the game for months on the Kingdom of Loathing Podcast and working on it on and off before the campaign started. The Kickstarter ended on June 21st, 2012 and the game was released on May 21st, 2013. It’s competition was Fez (PC), Monaco: What’s yours is Mine (XBox Live Indie Arcade), and Resident Evil: Revelations (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and WiiU).

Experiences

I’ll just say this, my grandmother is better than me at this game. I bought it for her as a Christmas present because I knew she liked Scrabble so I figured she’d have fun with this. Little did I know that she would blow me out of the water. She breezed through the game and even thought it was a little on the easy side. I’ve been playing games for decades and I felt so upset but… why? What kind of petty jerk feels bad because his grandma is better at a game than him? — the pettiest of jerks, that’s who. So, I recognize my grammie as the resident Scrabble queen, long be her reign.

Gameplay

Word Realms is a lot like Scrabble, except your words score is the damage that your attack will do and that your rounds have a strict time limit. Monsters fight in a similar fashion and have their own abilities to amp up the difficulty, like copying your word, skipping your turn, or reducing the round time. You’ve also got abilities of your own including the power to wear clothes that boost your stats, use potions and scrolls, and use skills of your own. Your skills are based on your class, either wizard or warrior. Warriors play pretty simply but effectively, they’ll brute force their way through the game. Wizards on the other hand are more difficult but have more potential and can do bizzarre things — like wizards do.

Fight a ghost, get some loot, spell some words, feel good about your vocabulary.

The Gush

There’s so much to do beside the main quest. After you defeat Lord Nightmare you unlock Endless mode and get to face new and unique monsters. There’s also a secret underground fighting ring hidden somewhere in the game and it’s filled with a series of optional fights that confer powerful equipment and skills. Happy hunting.

If you’re really hardcore there are a few secret endings that are really difficult to unlock. No spoilers but reaching them will test yours skills.

Every word has a taunt based on its word type and it’s meaning. Fiery words, for example, get special dialogue and some words get totally unique taunts . So you might find a little joke if you experiment with your word choice.

With such classics as…

The Kvetch

There is a song for the main map and a few songs for combat. Ope, wait, there’s a song for the intro menu too. And the main menu music is the only music I can really tolerate. It’s all fine but it gets on my nerves real quickly.

I had to brute force some of the puzzles, attempting them again and again until there was a favorable set of starting circumstances. What really kills me is that only a few of these are mandatory and that those were the ones I got stuck on the most.

Not to say that the puzzles aren’t interesting, just that they were unfun levels of hard for me.

The crafting system seemed really interesting. I was stoked to discover all of these recipes and make some incredibly awesome stuff but I found it overall confusing. It took me a while to realize that one things could get crafted into another, as in, you don’t have to craft two things together. You can instead put one thing in the menu alter it to another craftable. The things I DID create weren’t stellar or even very useful for my strategies.

Look at all this stuff! Which of it goes together? I dunno, man.

The Verdict

If you like Scrabble or other word games then I think an $11 price tag is more than fair. If you’re not a big fan of word games then you’re probably not gonna like this one. It’s well made, humorous, and beautifully priced so if you want some puzzles in your Boggle then pick up a copy.

If you were totally sold on this game then pick up a copy here. http://www.wordrealms.com/

Next Week: Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars.

Medieval II: Total War (PC)

The year is 1080 AD, the time of knights, crusades, and high chivalry. Across Europe men are dying in droves for their kings and lords. You play one of these kings and control the nation — , no queens though, no girls allowed (Well, unless you have a pope who’s secretly a woman but I’m getting ahead of myself). As a king you’ve got to perform administrative tasks like commissioning buildings, recruiting troops, and assigning agents like merchants, spies, and diplomats. Oh yeah, and you command those troops and DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT LAYS BEFORE YOU! BURN ALL THAT BURNS, STEAL ALL THAT SHINES! Or… maybe you could do that whole chivalry thing if that’s your bag.

History

There’s not much gossip or incident about this game but I can offer some basic information. Medieval II was designed and created by Creative Assembly, who worked on sports games until their breakout title Shogun: Total War, sparking off the Total War series. It was published by Sega, of all companies, who purchased Creative Assembly in a bid to maintain a presence in the North American and European game markets.

Medieval II: Total War was released on November 13th, 2006. It’s competition was Gears of War XBox 360, Final Fantasy XII (PS2), and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King (PC).

Experiences

Medieval II’s trait system guarantees that you’ll eventually have the most ridiculous king or lord ever in the history of the game. From Faradoc the Fat who died 8 years into his rule after going hopelessly insane. Or a general of mine in the Britannia campaign who’s name escapes me. A man who faced and killed William Wallace in single combat, who’s health was so immense that he became brutally scarred which further increased his health. The trait system is one of the most fun parts of this game. Priests can secretly be women, and if she reaches the rank of cardinal, and if she’s voted for pope, THEN THE POPE CAN BE SECRETLY A WOMAN! Factions can be held aloft by the extreme Chivalry or Dread of their King and when he dies things might fall to pieces. It’s just awesome.

Gameplay

The game is basically split between the administration section of the game that takes place in the overworld map and the real-time combat. When your governing you can commission building projects, adjust taxes, have agents like spies and assassins perform actions, and move your armies and navies around. Every county has a city in it which is either a town or a castle the difference being towns make oodles of money and castles (generally) produce superior military units.

Behold the starting map position and county names.

Your armies march around and generally stomp your enemies. You can support these troops with family members who will command them, their command stat adding to your troops’ attack, defense, and morale. Your lords aren’t just for fighting though. They can govern your towns increasing their income and decreasing their building and troop costs — unless they have garbage traits. And traits are everything. Your most level-headed general might charge without command if he hates the French and he’s fighting his hated foes.

When your armies clash the world map will give way to randomly generated but terrain influenced combat map so try to fight someplace that works to your advantage. Combat in the field is all about shocking your enemies and breaking their morale at which point they’ll run and, unless they have a truly inspiring or terrifying commander, won’t turn back.

If your playing a Christian faction then you’re gonna have to deal with the Pope because he hates it when everyone’s fighting and being all non-Christ-like. If you work with the pope then you can call crusades on religious cities and get some free passes to attack other nations. If you don’t listen to him then your faction might get excommunicated and that’ll make your people really upset — It can also make you a target for enemy crusades. Muslim nations don’t have to answer to anyone but can only use their Jihads to re-take cities they’ve lost.

If you’ve got cardinals you can control their votes to elect a new pope and if you’re faction controls the pope then you can do just about whatever you want.

There’s also a multiplayer component to the game but you can only fight over the internet. If you want to run a campaign with your friends then you’ll have to do it hot-seat style — and have a gentlemen’s agreement to only autocalculate combat between player controlled factions because the AI isn’t as good as you are.

The Gush

I love a siege. Nothing gets my blood up like defending some walls. None shall pass says I. No matter how grim things get defending troops have a morale bonus and will flee to the center of town instead of abandoning the field. The larger the city is the more defenses it has and it may even have an inner set of walls. The siegers will be hard pressed to get their siege engines that far into the city.

Come and get me.

I love seeing what crazy pile of traits I can have on one character. I already mentioned the pope being secretly a woman but there’s nothing like my Danish king who was accompanied by an old war buddy and an classically trained Berserker.

Nothing like playing Milan. Milan gets their best military units from towns instead of castles so they have both economic power and military strength.

Sometimes things from history will happen in the game. I was playing as Egypt and born to my king was a son with the trait Born to Command and the boy’s name was Saladin. Naturally I threw him into every battle that I could and I couldn’t help but keep his chivalry high.

The Kvetch

There’s no real naval combat in this game. All you can do is auto-calculate naval battles so there’s no real skill involved. I also don’t understand exactly how they work. I don’t know what makes a good navy.

In this image is all of the game’s naval combat. You can auto-calculate or run.

The fog of war in this game is your worst enemy. If you’re marching your army and it runs into another thing be it another army, a merchant, or a princess — doesn’t matter — they’ll get stopped dead in their tracks. They also lose all of their movement until the next turn. It’s just annoying for normal armies but it can kill a Crusade or a Jihad because if the army stops moving then the soldiers will desert as they doubt your devotion to the cause. I generally cheat to disable the fog of war because I can’t deal with inching along to avoid it.

Does anyone know how merchants work? Could you drop a comment? Because I’ve been playing this game for 5 years and I have no fucking clue. I know that if you put them on a resource they’ll earn you extra money and they can try to acquire assets from enemy merchants. But enemy merchants typically have such high skill that mine fail to acquire their assets and are often destroyed in retaliation. It just feels like a waste of 550 florins.

All of the non-English voice acting sounds incredibly awful and maybe even a little racist. I keep it on just to laugh and cringe at.

The Verdict

This game gives me “one more turn syndrome” so badly. I’ll turn it on play 50 turns real quick but why not 51? Oh, wait, I really want to finish this siege. Ope, a Crusade? I’ll just finish that up real quick and then I’m done. It continues like this until my weekend gets destroyed. This game is fantastic. It’s 25 dollar Steam price tag is just a testament to how well it’s aged.

Next Week: Iji

Borderlands 2 (PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360, Playstation 4, and XBox One)

They say that the more things change the more they stay the same and it’s certainly true for the planet of Pandora. There are new bandits, a new vault, new vault hunters, and a new corporation trying to strip and fuck the planet — Atlas was so last decade, everything’s about Hyperion now. The CEO of Hyperion, known only as Handsome Jack, is aggressively settling the planet. He promises the locals that if they move to his new cities they’ll find peace and prosperity only to massacre them wholesale. You are a Vault Hunter who’s been hired by Handsome Jack to find the new vault — PSYCHE, he’s just trying to kill y’all so you can’t challenge his power. You escape but are you gonna take that attempt on your life lying down? No sir. Also, I promise there are no krakens in this game and a 99.9% reduction in Claptraps.

Handsome Jack in the flesh, so named for his unearthly charisma and face shaped mask — which is to say that it’s a mask of his own face… stapled to his regular face.

History

Borderlands 2 was developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K games. It runs on a more refined version of the old engine, a heavily modified Unreal Engine 3. They brought Anthony Burch from Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’ fame to write for the game and it paid off with genuinely hilarious moments and moments of weight.

The game’s development is characterized by two controversies. The first being John Hemingway’s blunder referring to the downloadable extra character Gaige and her Best Friends Forever skill tree as being “the girlfriend skill tree,” described as being for someone who, “suck(s) at first person shooters,” therefore implying that girlfriends are not good at first person shooters.

Pictured is Gaige and her mechanical monstrosity D347-TP or Deathtrap for short.

Speaking of downloadable content, the game offers a Season Pass which sounds like it offers all of the DLC for the game when it is, in fact, just a fancy named DLC package. The Season Pass includes the four additional game campaigns and a level cap increase but it does not include the extra characters, Gaige and Krieg, as well as not including the Headhunter mini-campaigns. A lot of customers bought the game and then bought the Season Pass, thinking they would get every DLC that came out but that wasn’t the case.

Fun Fact: Handsome Jack’s name was just a placeholder for what his actual name would be but Gearbox liked it so much they decided not to change it.

Borderlands 2 was released on September 18th, 2012. It’s competition was World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (PC), FTL: Faster than Light (PC, Mac, and Linux), and Castle Crashers PC release.

Experiences

The last Borderlands game was a fun romp, tongue-in-cheek, running around and blowing up bandits. It never really challenged my morals or myself in any deep way. I was either killing monsters or people so morally bankrupt they were akin to monsters. Borderlands 2 however presented a moral conundrum that almost stopped me from continuing with the game. I would have to do something that I found so despicable, killing someone who was very young, in order to have a chance to save the world. This isn’t sacrificing a 14 year old to save cancer, it’s doing it just to have the opportunity. In the end I kept going forward because I couldn’t stop now. And that attitude frightened me a bit. I thought about Jack and how he himself might be doing what he was doing because well he can’t stop now… but I was doing it for a good cause, right?

Gameplay

These are the new Vault Hunters. From left to right we have Axton the soldier, Maya the siren, Salvador the gunzerker, Zer0 the assassin, Gaige the mechromancer, and my favorite Krieg the psycho.

Borderlands 2 is a loot based shooter. A vicious cycle — for your enemies in any event– of using your guns to kill dudes, to get better guns, to kill stronger dudes so on and so forth with a story in there so it doesn’t grow too monotanous. Each character also has an action skill like Krieg’s Buzz Axe Rampage which allows him to go mad chop people up or Zer0’s Decepti0n which renders him invisible and projecting a decoy that draws enemy fire. They lean toward different playstyles with their different skill trees so experiment until you find something that works for you or your equipment.

Splitting trees generally isn’t worth it but there’s usually something early on in another tree that’s just plain useful. AND LOOK! Your skills properly point out when your class mod gives them a bonus.

The enemies consist of the well-known bandits and Pandoran wild-life like the wolf-like skags, plentiful spider-ants, and the brand new betentacled Threshers. New among the hazards are Hyperion’s legion of assorted murder-robots so keep a corrosive weapon handy and watch out for the self-destructing ones that’ll chase you down.

You can play alone or with friends online. The console versions also have local multiplayer as well so long as you don’t mind split screens and screen squish. The game is definitely designed to be played with friends and is much easier with an ally. Between the addition of their action skills, team buffing abilities, and the simple power to pick you up if you get downed so long as their competent they’ll counteract the difficulty increase.

The Gush

Overall the game feels smoother in every way than its predecessor. You can crawl during Fight for you Life, the animations are better, everything seems to take less time. Enemy movement is also much more fluid. Psychos will roll, dodge, and react to getting hit instead of charging in a straight line.

The new characters do a great job of pushing their abilities to new extremes. Gunzerking takes Brick’s berserk to its logical conclusion and Maya’s Phaselock is useful and has marvelous utility. The turret has also been salvaged as it now has the ability to aim and look in all directions, no longer will skags and rakks get behind its field of fire.

Phaselocking doesn’t just hold people still it can also be upgraded to explode and revive allies.

The dialogue and overall story of the game is much improved from the original. With a story that elicited actual pathos and dialogue that elicited a lot of laughs it was something that intertwined with the gameplay and world into a greater experience. This game goes way over the top and at no point does it seem silly because it meshes very well with the art style.

Handsome Jack is an incredible villain. I love to hate him but sometimes he’s just left of decent. How he’s so close to doing the right thing but has been blinded by power, greed, and his smug sense of superiority. He grabs your attention, constantly jeers you, and makes you want to take him down.

The DLC in this game is a wonderful addition, Season Pass not-withstanding. The extra campaigns, characters, and mini-campaigns are all incredibly fun and filled with new characters, enemies, and loot. It’s reasonably priced and worth the cost.

It’s got a Dungeons and Dragonsesque campaign that’s just as fun and silly as it sounds. The ending of which made me weep like a small child.

The Kvetch

The quests are usually enjoyable and introduce interesting mechanics but some of them come in at bizarre times insofar that you’ll be grossly over-leveled for their enemies and loot related to when they’re given to you. They might be fun to play but won’t be worth your time in terms of mechanical benefit.

The Verdict

My 198 hours with this game are testament to how it fulfilled my desire for a better Borderlands. If you remotely enjoyed the first game but passed on the sequel then find some friends and go at it. If you haven’t played the first game and want to scratch the Diablo II itch then this game is a fine place to start, Borderlands 1 is not a requisite– you’ll be saving yourself a disappointment of Kraken proportions. The Game of the Year edition is still $40 but it’s often on sale on Steam so I’d recommend picking it up for 50% off.

Next Week: Medieval II: Total War

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and OS X)

After World War II in his genius and his hubris Albert Einstein built a time machine and used it to go back in time to kill Hitler before his rise to power. Unfortunately without Hitler there was nothing to stop the meteoric rise of Stalin. Feeling personally responsible, Einstein used his genius to make the Allies new and incredible weapons that could crush the Soviet war machine. This left the Soviets desperate, but their network of spies was still good. They used these covert agents to steal the designs for the very time machine Einstein used to kill Hitler and a lowly aide uses it to go back in time to kill Einstein himself. Ignoring the grandfather paradox taking place here, if Einstein doesn’t exist, he doesn’t make nuclear weapons. If there are no nuclear weapons then the war with Japan did not end in their surrender. That’s right! Now it’s a three way free-for-all between the Tesla powered Soviets, the propaganda fueled Allies, and the crafty Empire of the Rising Sun. You play as an enterprising commander in the nation of your choice to take back the glory of your home and crush your enemies!

Behold, the leaders of the not so free world. Yes, that is George Takei as the Emperor of Japan and Tim Curry as the Premier of Russia.

History

Red Alert 3 was developed by Electronic Arts. It was unofficially announced in 2004 by Mark Skaggs after the release of The Battle for Middle Earth but Mark left EA soon after. Red Alert 3 wasn’t spoken of again until 2008 when PC Gamer had the game as their cover story. The most note-worthy aspect of the development of Red Alert 3 is that it used the controversial SecuROM system. So, check this, the SecuROM system makes it so each CD key could only be used five times. If you uninstall the game and reinstall it or change video drivers it might use up one of your 5 installs. Eventually backlash from the players caused EA to abolish the system’s use in this game over time.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released on October 28th, 2008. It’s competition was Fallout 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC and Mac), and LittleBigPlanet (PS3).

Experiences

The live action segments are the best part of this game. It’s satire at its best and they got great actors to play all the characters. I stand by that the live action cast was only given their scripts moments before filming. It’s the only explanation that I can find for this scene.

Just… everything about it is comedy gold. The way Curry is trying to keep a straight face, the little false start he’s got before he delivers the final line, and the way he bellows “SPACE” like he didn’t know that was the line until it came out of his mouth.

Gameplay

Unlike Mob Rule, Red Alert 3 is your quintessential RTS. You build buildings, those buildings produce units, you manage your resources, and build an army that will counter your opponent’s. You’ve also got a bar that builds and accrues points which you can spend on your factions special abilities like an orbital launch or flash reinforcements from a splintered timeline– the bar builds faster the more combat you’re in so get to fighting.

First one to blow up your opponent’s base wins.

You can play against the AI or other players in skirmish maps online. The game has also got a story campaign with 10 unique missions per faction. Normally each map gives you an AI companion but you can replace that digital dummy with a real player if you want– an RTS first by my reckoning.

The Gush

I already mentioned how much I loved the live action cutscenes. They’ve got more camp than a hundred tents put together– a secret button is hidden in a bust of Lenin for goodness sake. The only thing better is watching all the behind the scenes outtakes and silliness.

Holy co-op Comrade, you can play the main campaign with a friend. I recommend doing this because the AI isn’t exactly reliable. But if you’re not feeling the love then the AI will be a competent ally.

Normally naval combat is a poorly designed tacked on thing — I’m looking at you Warcraft 2 — but Red Alert 3 throws in a bunch of interesting and useful amphibious units. As a matter of fact every factions unique Commando unit is amphibious as well. Why did it take us this long to think of naval artillery?

The Kvetch

This game is uncomfortably sexist sometimes. From the scantily clad and sexualized Commandos to Tim Curry checking out his secretary’s ass and grinning at the player it’s all just a little cringe-worthy. The allied campaign even ends with the commander being rewarded with a night with the Allied commando or the Allied communications officer– just… blugh.

Pictured is the Allied Commando and all the combat gear she isn’t wearing and her in game model is similar.

The Soviet campaign at least has got some insane difficulty spikes. It took me three tries to beat the fourth mission and then I breezed through the rest. Last I checked difficulty is supposed to be curve with the game getting more difficult as it goes on.

Spoilers, but the Soviet campaign culminates in the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. I was so excited and totally pumped to kick J.K. Simmons out of the White House but I dunno man, the whole thing just felt toothless. The mission is pretty easy and the ending is just such a let-down. There’s a toast and you’re suddenly the new Premier, nothing makes sense. I haven’t played the other campaigns but I hope their endings are more satisfying than the Soviet one.

The Verdict

I’d say that Red Alert 3 is worth it for the cut-scenes alone. If you’ve got any interest in real-time strategy games then I’d say go for it. But if they’re not your thing then you could just look up all the cut-scenes online. It’s $20 on Steam and it’s got a $20 expansion pack and I would suggest waiting for it to go on sale. They’re also available on PS3 and Xbos 360 and I can’t speak to the quality of the console ports but Starcraft 64 has always made me wary of console strategy games.

Next Week: Borderlands 2

Mob Rule (PC)

You are an up and coming capo in another man’s mafia given the dubious privilege of commanding the Don’s forces. If you succeed, he takes the credit, if you fail, you take the fall. The big man’s got plans for you though, plans that will take you far. You’ve got to build businesses and organize your subordinates in order to destroy rival families and keep your ledger in the black. And whatever you do, never disobey the Don.

History

Made by Studio 3, the internal development branch of System 3, Mob Rule was meant to be a more combat oriented version of their previous game, Constructor. Mob Rule recycled the engine and a lot of the mechanics. It received worse reviews than Constructor at the time in large part to its UI change and mission goal restrictions.

It’s been picked up and distributed by Good Old Games these days and their port is competent and flexible but missing a vital aspect from the original, multiplayer. For whatever reason they removed the option to get a multiplayer game going. The multiplay format is no longer supported by modern Operating Systems but savvy coders have found ways to get it to run with a few downloadable programs. So I’ve got to ask GOG, where’s my mafia based multiplayer?

I mean, that’s the UI on the bottom panel. It’s not exactly intuitive.

Mob Rule was released on September 30th, 1999. It’s competition was Rollercoaster Tycoon (PC and apparently this game had an XBox port.), Dungeon Keeper 2 (PC), and Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (PC).

Experiences

This is one of the first RTS games that I ever played and the first time I did it was on a demo disk. You remember, demos, those things that don’t exist any more where you play a little bit of the game to see if you like it — yeah, those. This demo was unlike any other I had played because it incorporated its ending into the mechanics of the demo. Lemme unpack that. So, most demos ended because they just told you that you’d played enough and would have to cough up the cash if you wanted to keep going. Mob Rule’s demo unleashed a giant enemy force on you that was too strong, who The Don ordered you not to harm, that wreck your businesses and kill your dudes. Then, when you get wiped out, the game says that if you want revenge that you could get it by buying the full game. Cheap, efficient, brilliant, and dastardly.

Gameplay

This game is not your average RTS, there’s no real base building, there isn’t really a diverse arrangement of units, and everyone is using the same tools. Since there’s no multiplayer anymore it’s all about the main campaign. The campaign is split into missions where The Don will give you various tasks, some of which put the hurt on your enemies whereas others are just there to create a challenge to forward progress. To achieve these ends you’ll have to employ workers, the low health/low damage guys who build buildings and perform menial tasks — but have strength in numbers. Fixers, who literally repair buildings, can hold their own in combat, and can take over enemy business. And Gangsters, who are the fast moving, hard hitting, well dressed, gun-toting, enforcers.

You build businesses on your available land that can either produce units or money, but not both at once. Each building can be upgraded twice, and lead into higher tiered businesses that produce more money and better units — ie. you can convert workers into fixers or gangsters but higher level businesses produce gangsters instead of workers. You upgrade buildings by installing gadgets from your gadget factory. There are also gadgets with more practical uses like the dog house that will provide a given property with a faithful — if glitchy– hound who will try to defend it.

Low class businesses are things like Soup Kitchens whereas high class business are Night Clubs.

If you’re still having some trouble crushing your enemies then you can hire the Undesirables to apply the hurt-lock by destroying their businesses or stealing their resources. And if your enemies are throwing these low-lives at you then you can bribe the police to aggressively patrol and arrest them. The game is like a giant Rock Paper Scissors game where everyone is trying to buy bigger tools. Just make sure you’ve got enough cash to keep the train going.

 The Gush

I love making a well oiled and self perpetuating machine in games and Mob Rule provides. There comes a moment when your security is tight, your businesses are in order, and you can just crank up the speed on the game. All pretense of micro-management thrown out the window — until that one prick builds a haunted prison and starts haunting your buildings.

Very rarely does the game put a time limit on you. You’re free to fart around as long as you please as long as you’ve got the cash to keep it going. You can build up your businesses and forces as long as you think you have to. With timed sections thrown in to increase the dramatic tension.

The game does a great job at teaching the player neat tricks to get an edge over their enemy especially through the missions. From focusing your gangsters and police at the choke points of your empire, putting buildings near your opponents businesses and letting them burn down and explode, or dumping bodies on your opponents property to inspire the police to raid the business. The game’s missions actually inspire the player to think laterally.

This game is silly as fuck. The 3-D sections and intermission cutscenes are pretty funny. I mean, I always wanted to command a giant, sentient, bipedal, walking cockroach and this game has given me that opportunity.

The animation and design is just totally goofy.

The Kvetch

The mission goals are sometimes poorly defined. About once per campaign I was given a mission where I didn’t know exactly what I needed to do or worse yet, thought I was doing the right thing and either the game wasn’t counting it or I wasn’t doing it correctly. It’s a real pace killer when it happens.

This game cheats. It’s form of difficulty is measured in how much the AI is allowed to cheat. They don’t have to worry about producing people, running out of money, or running out of undesirables. I know this is there to compensate for their AI, they’re not as good as a player, but there’s something unsatisfying about how they and I are not even playing by the same rules.

Sometimes the AI will just crap itself and you suffer because of it. There are plenty of mission scenarios where there’s someone you’re not allowed to attack or a building you’re not allowed to destroy. Sometimes though the AI will just start neglecting this building or character, they get destroyed, and then you lose.  And it happens once every time I play through the campaign so always keep an extra save file around.

A small quibble but sometimes the game doesn’t keep its terms straight is. The Don says that electric lights improve trade but they do nothing but allow you to upgrade your buildings. Sometimes its confusing when a gadget has a different name in the factory and in text that informs which gadgets are required to upgrade buildings.

The Verdict

This game is quite flawed. If the game didn’t catch your attention as soon as you heard about it then it probably won’t. The game is twenty years old and predates common RTS user interface. I’m pretty nostalgic for it so I keep going back but I think the real quality is finding ways to abuse the game and make a perfect machine. It’s 8 dollars on Good Old Games so I recommend it only if you think it sounds cool.

Next Week: Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

Tetris Attack (Super Nintendo and Gameboy)

Yoshi is just hanging out on Yoshi’s Island, as he does, with all of the — presumably reformed villains– when Bowser — with his incredibly ill defined magical powers — enchants them to become Yoshi’s enemies once again. The spell also creates a torrential downpour that will flood the world — you see what I mean by poorly defined. Yoshi must now defeat his friends in a puzzle game to break the spell. You know what? Just… don’t overthink this, don’t think about it at all actually, it’s a tetris-esque puzzle game. Just play it.

History

Tetris Attack is a game being torn in three directions at once. It started off as Panel De Pon, a game about fairies trying to defeat the Devil King, Thanatos, who casts a spell to make the fairies fight among each other. Only Lip is able to resist the spell thanks to her magical stick — hence the Super Smash item Lip’s Stick. Nintendo knew that a puzzle game about fairies wouldn’t sell well in the states so they changed the graphics and made it about Yoshi and the cast of Yoshi’s island, which had been released earlier in the year. They couldn’t call it Panel De Pon and in order to increase the approachability of the game Nintendo asked Tetris and it’s then CEO, Henk Rogers if they could use the name. He agreed, but looking back on it regrets the decision because this game isn’t like Tetris at all, quote from Rogers, “In retrospect, we should never have done that. I don’t think that’s a good idea. It dilutes the brand”.

Tetris Attack was released on November 28, 1996. It’s competition was Diablo (PC), Twisted Metal 2 (PS1), and Donkey Kong Country 3 (SNES).

Even the walls are happier in Panel de Pon!

Experiences

I can say that as a young child renting video games from Taylor Brook Video I was completely drawn in by a game that was Tetris but HAD ATTACKING! I knew I could play Tetris so I figured I’d be able to play this game, I figured wrong. I couldn’t get very far in the main campaign because I couldn’t figure out how to execute combos or how to organize blocks to eliminate more than three at a time. Like many of these games, I came back when I was in my late teens and was able to finish it. But those unlockable characters would always taunt me, I would never beat very hard mode.

Gameplay

Tetris Attack is… well it works like… I mean, it’s sort of like… and you… nevermind, lemme just show you.

There, that’s how the game works.

The game actually presents a large variety of ways to play the game. There’s endless mode, which is most like actual Tetris. The player plays and accumulates points until they lose. In this mode combos freeze the game so you can get a few seconds of breathing room. There’s puzzle mode which presents the player with a game-state and a certain number of moves. The player’s got to use those moves to eliminated all the blocks. Then there’s VS mode! Where you get to play the campaign style game but against another player. With each player getting the opportunity to adjust their own boards difficulty. And then there’s the main campaign in which you face down 12 computer controlled opponents.

Endless mode also gets larger, more flavorful stages.

The Gush

Once you get into this game it can plunge you into a state of pure flow. It’s not about seeing the blocks, it’s just moving them — I love it. Although when things would get rough I would lose it though, me and my friends would call this, “losing the sight.” One of us would just say, “I’ve lost the sight,” and then they’d soon lose.

The game looks really kiddy, and I mean that in a good way. If the game wasn’t so difficult it would be pure joy. It’s all fluffy and and edgeless until Yoshi reaches The Cave of Wickedness. And come on, how much more punch can you pull calling it the Cave of Wickedness.

Cute overload.

The music in this game is also cutesy and I really like it. It’s not as iconic as Tetris’ A-theme but it suits the puzzling aspects of the game well, even growing more excited as the blocks rise higher. I’m personally fond of Blarg’s, Raphael’s, and Bowser’s theme. I will say though that it’s a little lazy that three bosses all use the same music.

The Kvetch

If you want to unlock the bosses as playable characters then you’d best buckle yourself in for a bumpy ride. You’ve got to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. No, not hard mode. I mean the hardest mode. After you beat Hard mode without using a continue Yoshi says that you’re gonna have to hold up and the L button on the difficulty select screen with Hard highlighted to unlock really freakin’ hard mode. Then you’ve got to beat really freakin’ hard mode without using a continue. Then you’ll unlock the bosses as characters. I just want to play as Kamek because he’s a koopa Wizard.

KOOPA WIZARD! Look at that goddam robe!

A game like this needs the tightest of controls and yet sometimes I feel like the cursor goes further than I mean it to. Maybe I’m just REALLY good at hitting the button quickly but making a misplay can be costly and undoing it takes up valuable time.

The Verdict

You can get the game these days on the WiiU virtual console for eight dollars. It’s a decent enough title but it was really a creature of its time. The big reason I spent my days learning how to play it was because it was the only game I had and I was bored as hell. It’s not a game you and your friends can pick up and play because the handicapping in the VS mode leaves things a little lopsided, and there’s only local multiplayer. You can’t just pick it up and mash buttons like you would be able to in a game like Mortal Combat. The games got a really slow burn and no real focus. I don’t think this game can replace the sheer zen of Tetris but I keep getting drawn back to it every once and awhile. I’m nostalgia blind, and I don’t think I can see past that.

Next Week: Mob Rule

Space Funeral (PC)

Blood 1 starts a new game, Blood 2 continues a game, and Blood 3 quits.

I realize as I sit down to write this just how difficult it is to explain or describe Space Funeral. You play as Tim in the macabre and bizzare world known only as Space Funeral. Tim is sad — so sad that it’s his class in the game — and he yearns for the meaning of form and the nature of the world, for it was not always as it is now. Join Tim and his domineering companion, Leg Horse, as they search for the answers to this baffling world.

Tim is so sad he cries constantly, even during combat.

History

Space Funeral was developed by Stephen ‘thecatamites’ Murphy, who’s made over 50 short games. With such titles as The Astonishing Adventures of Captain Skull and Murder Dog IV, with art styles ranging from pen on paper to 3-D animation Murphy has been making games for almost a decade now. Most of his titles are short and almost all of them are free.

Space Funeral was completed and released on September 17th 2010. It’s competition was Plants Vs. Zombies (Xbox Live Indie Arcade), Cladun: This is an RPG (PSP), and Civilization V (PC).

Experiences

When I first heard about Space Funeral I heard about Leg Horse, a horse made entirely out of human legs. Hearing this, I almost wanted to dismiss the game out of hand as Youtube fodder that was meant to market to the “Lul, so random,” crowd but I couldn’t resist investigating further. Leg Horse is just the tip of the weirdness ice-berg and what impressed me more is that I came to care about everything. The world of Space Funeral uses its weirdness as an element to tell a story. It serves a very vital purpose without which would destroy the artistic meaning of the game.

Well, the Dracula part seems needlessly random. Maybe thecatamites just likes Dracula?

Gameplay

Space Funeral is a pretty stock role-playing game with turn based combat. Tim and Leg Horse can attack, defend, use items, or special techniques to thwart their enemies. There are towns and dungeons to explore and all sorts of colorful characters to meet like the Shopkeeper who desires ALL RUBLES — also, the currency of Space Funeral is rubles which has got to count for something. The game could quite easily not be a game at all. The quality of the experience wouldn’t really change if this wasn’t a game. But if it wasn’t a game, if there was no combat, then what would you do? What would it be then?

This dialogue deserves an award or a metal… quite possibly an honorary sash.

The Gush

The music in the games is really good and really creepy. It’s got moody electronica with spoken word lyrics and even some surf rock thrown in for good measure. The music always feels a little out of place and unnerving and I love it because of that.

The game borrows a lot from Earthbound. Enemies are on the field –so the battles aren’t random –, the game is pretty easy, they both have a hellish otherworld — the difference being that in Space Funeral you live in the hellish otherworld–, and Tim even has a mystery command. So if you like Earthbound then you’ll like this game. If you haven’t played Earthbound then you can listen to my long-winded diatribe about it. https://aproximatelytoomanygames.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/earthbound/

And when they say MYSTERIOUS THINGS they’re not kidding.

This game is wonderfully dark. People live in constant torment or emotional anguish. Beds are coffins with Tim’s body in them. It’s insane and I love it.

The Kvetch

This game is extremely easy, strategy is strictly optional here. The game never poses a real challenge at the player, you’ll probably go through the whole game without losing a fight. Despite it’s ease, it’s so weird that it probably wouldn’t be fitting for a newcomer to videogames or RPGs.

The Verdict

I heard the name Space Funeral and knew I should check this game out. The next words out of someone’s face were about something called a Leg Horse and then I knew I HAD to play this game. Throw in a solid thesis, a perfect length, and a kick ass sound track and you’ve got a remarkably balanced and yet compact experience. To top it all off, it’s free. If Space Funeral sounds even remotely appealing to you then I suggest you check it out.

You can find Space Funeral and thecatanites’ other games at: http://harmonyzone.org/Videogames.html

Next week: Tetris Attack (SNES)

The Wolf Among Us (PC, Xbox 360, and PS3)

The fables and characters within that we know and love weren’t actually born on the page. They lived in their own world, a place they referred to simply as the Homelands. But  were driven out by The Adversary and his empire which lead them to our world. They consolidated their survivors, forgave their past crimes against each other, and established a community in New York City. There’s another community upstate called The Farm for the inhuman characters — don’t worry about it, no one else does… You play as Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown. Something’s stirring in the rotten underbelly of this city and Bigby’s going to get to the bottom of it — because detective things.

History

I can sum up the development of The Wolf Among Us in one word, delay. The game was announced in June of 2011 and announced again –for some reason–  in on October 2012. It got named in February of 2013 and was going to be released in January-March of 2013 and was postponed until June-August of 2013. The first episode was finally released in October of 2013.

Fun Fact: Adam Harrington is the voice of both Bigby and the Woodsman. As such, Harrington spends a lot of time talking to himself.

The Wolf Among Us was completed on November 4th 2014. It’s competition was Flashback (Playstation Network and PC), Batman: Arkham Origins (PC, WiiU, PS3, and XBox 360), and Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut (PC).

Experiences

The Wolf Among Us offers an incredible experience as an investigator, the detective that CSI has taught us to think we are. Telltale gives us the choice to play our Bigby however we want and I chose to play him with one simple rule: Everyone gets one warning, no more, no less. And sometimes that bit me in the ass. So it’s your Bigby and your rules. The replay value of the game is seeing what happens under different circumstances cleverly disguised as offering the pleasure to make a different Bigby.

I mean, is it worth it to be the fairest? But being a tyrant is fun.

Gameplay

The Wolf Among us is a narrative and choice driven walk and click adventure with quick-time-event combat sprinkled in. You control Bigby, walking around, picking stuff up, looking at evidence, and talking to people. And you’ll do a lot of talking. Every dialogue section has 4 options — and silence is always an option. The other big part of the game is choice. Every so often the game will offer the player a mutually exclusive choice i.e. if Bigby goes somewhere he can’t be in the other location at the same time. Meanwhile, anything could happen in your absence. Telltale, as always, does a wonderful job of making your choices feel like they really matter even when they might not. Especially considering some of your choices can have huge impacts on the state of the game.

Sometimes it’s literally a matter of life…

… And death.

The Gush

The music in this game is wonderful. The menu music puts me in a contemplative mood and the chapter beginning music gets me all fired up to play. It creates this moody and sleazy atmosphere for this modern film noir setting.

The story is top notch. It reacts to your decisions marvelously and those decisions aren’t always cut and dry. The story also tackles big issues that people face today like the nature of government, law enforcement, and fear. You’ll learn something about yourself going through the story.

This is the only game where someone can experience the Fables setting and it’s a treat to see. Being a fan of the Fables comic enhanced my experience but it’s not a necessity, the game does a great job explaining the setting on its own. It’s also just wicked fun to be Bigby — such stronk, much wolf punch.

It’s also beautiful watching Bigby and Snow be awkward as hell.

This game looks great, it’s incredibly stylized. Everything just pops out even though it’s gritty and grimy. The setting design naturally draws the eye right to where it needs to go.

The voice acting is evocative and incredibly emotive. From Toad’s cheapskate complaining to Gren’s rebel without a cause attitude every voice actor is bringing their A-game.

The Kvetch

The combat is a little weak. It gives the player a sense of agency when it comes Bigby’s violent side but the failure scenario just takes the player back to the beginning of the fight. It’s a tough situation from a design perspective. They couldn’t just hold the player’s hand because that might seem insulting and taking it away from the player means they’d be lacking agency during the fights, like they were watching Bigby and not controlling him. It all just seems a little odd because Telltale games are about choice and in combat I get incredibly worried that I’m going to mess up, not make the wrong choice.

We get it, Bigby will beat ’em up.

The Verdict

The Wolf Among Us is a wonderful Telltale game and a wonderful narrative driven experience in general. That being said, the player doesn’t actually do much. They’ve got a lot of input, they’ve got a lot of options, but it’s a very passive game. If you want a game where you’re doing stuff all the time then this is not be for you. This game is much more thinking about the character you’ve got int your head and what they would do or say, then the game generally does it for you. If that sounds like the sort of experience you want then go for it. It’s going for $25 on Steam right now and I’d wait until it dropped to about $20.

Next Week: Space Funeral

The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (Super Nintendo)

The vampire kingdom, the zombie kingdom, and the… human(?) kingdom have lived in peace for a long damn time. The Zombie lord Von Hessler has broken this peace, declaring war on both of the other kingdoms. No one can figure out why he’s invading nor can they figure how he’s winning! The vampire lord and lady send their son, Spike McFang, to adventurer camp — you know, where you send the kids for the summer– to get ready for the impending invasion.  When Spike returns his family’s castle has been conquered and he won’t take that lying down. Join spike as he liberates the conquered kingdoms, walks at an awkward pace, spins, and uses magical cards to thwart his enemies.

This fairy riding on a tooth is the instructor of Adventurer Camp. No, it doesn’t make sense in context.

History

The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang was developed by Bullet Proof Software. A company most known for porting Tetris a dozen goddam times — and making the slow, awkward, barf-fest known as Faceball 2000 (but that’s for another day). This game had small differences between the US and Japanese releases. For example Spike no longer fully heals upon leveling up and monsters have more hit points, making the game longer by forcing the player to backtrack and use more items. The shopkeeper’s visual design was also changed.

From a cute girl to a mummy squid thing.

The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang was released in June of 1994. It’s competition was Super Metroid (SNES), Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis), and Final Fantasy VI (SNES).

Experiences

This game was the one that got away for me. I rented it once when I was a young and impressionable child and loved it — but you know… kids are stupid. I got stuck before I finished the first chapter but that just made me want to beat it more. There was only one word that I remembered from the title, ‘Twist’. Before the internet’s day it was hard to find but as the compilation of useless information grew in size I was able to find the game at last, play it, and finish it. It all went downhill from there.

Gameplay

The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang consists of a Vampire in a blue onesie and a top hat on an isometric plane jumping around and beating up sentient onions and other weird monsters. He can attack by throwing his hat and spinning his cape — but if he spins too man times he’ll lose his balance. Spike also explores dungeons avoiding traps and searching for keys — Legend of Zelda style. Spike can also buy and find cards that can do all sorts of stuff like healing him or helping him deal more damage.

The Gush

The music is pretty good. It’s memorable enough that I still have a few of the tunes rattling around in my noggin — I still remember the Batland theme. The boss theme always got me pumped and ready to dish out some damage — whether that was strictly possible or not.

I don’t know why the world is populated by golems with Easter island heads but I like it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they’re almost always around to help.

I will admit that I’m a little weirded out by their stony stares.

The Kvetch

I just figured out that there’s a two player mode. It’s only available if Spike has a companion with him, which is only during certain parts of the game. But it’s only unlocked BY PUTTING IN A SECRET FUCKING CODE! It’s not in the manual, no one knew it when I was growing up, no one had even heard of this game. You’ve basically got to buy a cheat book to play with a friend in this game.

Spike’s main attack is his cape spin. It’s incredibly cool but totally impractical. It immobilizes Spike so it’s more than likely that the bosses –as they jump nimbly-bimbly– will knock his fangs out. Spike’s hat throw also immobilizes him but has the benefit of attacking from a range.

That white flash there is the total range of the cape.

The plot, that which it exists, is weak as hell. I’m not really rooting for anyone and the only reason I’m willing to play Spike is because he’s a vampire wearing a top hat and a blue onesie.

When you get to the end of the game you’d best have everything you need because there is no shop and no going back. To boot, the final boss is a tough sonovabitch which almost requires cards to defeat so if you used them all reaching him then you’re in for a tough fight. A fight so tough that I restarted the game and stockpiled cards instead of facing him.

The final area is also a jungle maze. If you go the wrong way you get sent back to the beginning.

Spike’s walking speed and jumping speed are so abysmally slow that you’re probably not going to be able to get out of the way enemy attacks.

There’s a sort of invisible experience point system, when Spike vanquishes an enemy he gets XP and can level up. But all leveling does is increase Spike’s health and damage. With no other features it just leads to a lot of grinding because you gotta stay ahead of the curve.

The Verdict

This game is lame overall. The gameplay is weak, the design promotes unfair difficulty, and the story is nonexistant. I was totally nostalgia blind when I went back to it and I was taken aback at how simple and hollow the experience was. This game is at the same time too short and too long. There’s not enough exporation of the world and at the same time I’m so glad when it’s over. Avoid The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang.