Platform: Gamecube
Genre: Survival Horror
Developer: Silicon Knights
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 23 June 2002
Rating: Mature
Price: $15
Eternal Darkness is a horror game done well. It's not exactly scary, but it's creepy and unsettling. Not the kind of game you want to play at night, at least. It's rather original as horror games go, in the way it tells its story.
The plot revolves around one Alexandra Roivas, whose grandfather has just been murdered. The police being left without any clues, Alex decides to investigate herself. In her grandfather's mansion, she finds a mysterious book: the Tome of Eternal Darkness. As she reads the Tome, she learns of those who have owned it before, and of the ancient evil they have combated. I will not reveal any more, but this serves as the basis for the gameplay. The mansion functions as a hub, and Alex as your gate to the other characters. As you begin each new chapter, you take control of a different character, and see what they lived through. Each character has their own stats and weapons, as well as one of several different locations to explore.
There is one other feature that makes Eternal Darkness unique: sanity. As you encounter monsters, your character's sanity meter will drain, and it can be restored by finishing off those monsters decisively. But if your sanity gets too low, you will start to experience hallucinations. These can range from the music changing, to hearing voices, to the game pretending to glitch (one particularly memorable one has your memory card pretend to erase itself). These break the Fourth Wall brilliantly, and leave you questioning your own sanity as well.
As a whole, Eternal Darkness is a very creepy and memorable experience. If you have $15, pick it up.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Platform: PC (Windows)
Genre: Action/Platformer
Developer: Sunstorm Interactive
Publisher: ARUSH Entertainment/Apogee Software/3D Realms Entertainment
Release: 21 May 2002
Rating: Mature
Price: $6
With Duke Nukem Forever finally on the horizon, now is the perfect time to become reacquainted with some of Duke's old adventures. Following the success of Duke Nukem 3D, Manhattan Project returned Duke to his side-scrolling roots. It is a well-made 2.5D action platformer, albeit slightly repetitive. The level design is rather well-done, however, ranging from New York's sewers, to the streets of Chinatown, to the city's rooftops, and manage to keep things interesting.
Most of the bosses are uncreative (being little more than souped-up versions of normal enemies), every level has an annoying keycard puzzle, and enemy placement can border on unfair at times, but the gameplay is tight and fun, so it's easy to look past Manhattan Project's faults.
Duke himself is the same humourously chauvinist character we've come to know and love, helping to push the game (and all of his games, in fact) from "average but fun" into "hilarious and awesome."
As a whole, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is the same flawed-yet-fun kind of game we have always expected from Duke (and can likely expect again in Forever), and it's hard to lose when it's only $6 on Good Old Games.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Genre: Action/Platformer
Developer: Sunstorm Interactive
Publisher: ARUSH Entertainment/Apogee Software/3D Realms Entertainment
Release: 21 May 2002
Rating: Mature
Price: $6
With Duke Nukem Forever finally on the horizon, now is the perfect time to become reacquainted with some of Duke's old adventures. Following the success of Duke Nukem 3D, Manhattan Project returned Duke to his side-scrolling roots. It is a well-made 2.5D action platformer, albeit slightly repetitive. The level design is rather well-done, however, ranging from New York's sewers, to the streets of Chinatown, to the city's rooftops, and manage to keep things interesting.
Most of the bosses are uncreative (being little more than souped-up versions of normal enemies), every level has an annoying keycard puzzle, and enemy placement can border on unfair at times, but the gameplay is tight and fun, so it's easy to look past Manhattan Project's faults.
Duke himself is the same humourously chauvinist character we've come to know and love, helping to push the game (and all of his games, in fact) from "average but fun" into "hilarious and awesome."
As a whole, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is the same flawed-yet-fun kind of game we have always expected from Duke (and can likely expect again in Forever), and it's hard to lose when it's only $6 on Good Old Games.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Friday, March 11, 2011
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
Platform: PC (Windows)
Genre: Action/RPG/Simulation
Developer: EasyGameStation
Publisher: Carpe Fulgur
Release: 10 September 2010
Rating: n/a
Price: $20
One thing that always bugged me when playing RPGs was how shopkeepers would never just give you stuff, even though you were trying to save the world. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale made me realize why. The game puts you on the other side of the counter, where there's no point to saving the world if you're left broke afterward.
Having been saddled with an enormous debt by her missing father, Recette converts her house into a shop, to sell items and equipment to the townspeople and to adventurers passing through. To make the money you need to meet the weekly payments, you'll have to buy, sell at a profit, and hire adventurers to escort you into various dungeons.
The gameplay combines standard trading-simulation game mechanics with top-down action-RPG dungeon-crawling, and it works surprisingly well. There are several adventurers to befriend and hire, each with a unique play-style, and hundreds of different items to find and sell.
That's pretty much all there is to Recettear, and it can get very repetitive after a while. But so many things about the game, from its lovable characters, to its brightly-colored world, to its whimsical story, are all so charming and downright fun.
For the amount of play I got out of Recettear, $20 on Steam was a fantastic deal.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Genre: Action/RPG/Simulation
Developer: EasyGameStation
Publisher: Carpe Fulgur
Release: 10 September 2010
Rating: n/a
Price: $20
One thing that always bugged me when playing RPGs was how shopkeepers would never just give you stuff, even though you were trying to save the world. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale made me realize why. The game puts you on the other side of the counter, where there's no point to saving the world if you're left broke afterward.
Having been saddled with an enormous debt by her missing father, Recette converts her house into a shop, to sell items and equipment to the townspeople and to adventurers passing through. To make the money you need to meet the weekly payments, you'll have to buy, sell at a profit, and hire adventurers to escort you into various dungeons.
The gameplay combines standard trading-simulation game mechanics with top-down action-RPG dungeon-crawling, and it works surprisingly well. There are several adventurers to befriend and hire, each with a unique play-style, and hundreds of different items to find and sell.
That's pretty much all there is to Recettear, and it can get very repetitive after a while. But so many things about the game, from its lovable characters, to its brightly-colored world, to its whimsical story, are all so charming and downright fun.
For the amount of play I got out of Recettear, $20 on Steam was a fantastic deal.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Pennypincher's Corner II: Irisu Syndrome
Platform: PC
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Katatema
Publisher: Katatema
Release: 5 October 2008
Irisu Syndrome is a very difficult puzzle game starring the bunny-girl/witch Irisu. As you play the game, a story of three college students on a camping trip unfolds, told with both images, and text files that slowly appear in the game folder. The ending differs based on the scores you get. I cannot say anything more, for fear of spoilers (and trust me, you do not want it spoiled) For reference, here is how the game works:
-Colored blocks slowly fall from above and pile up on the ground. You can left-click to shoot up a white block, or right-click to shoot up a faster white block. Your goal is to destroy the colored blocks to get points and replenish your slowly-emptying life bar. You can do this in two ways:
1. Knock them into same-colored blocks already on the ground, destroying both.
2. Knock them into same-colored blocks still in the air, causing them to fall and explode.
-Be careful, though, as each block that falls to the ground damages your life bar, and if your life bar empties, the game is over.
-There is also an unlockable "Metsu" mode, which adds some new twists to the gameplay, and expands the story.
Irisu Syndrome, as well as a fan-made English patch, can be downloaded here.
--Kotaro
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Katatema
Publisher: Katatema
Release: 5 October 2008
Irisu Syndrome is a very difficult puzzle game starring the bunny-girl/witch Irisu. As you play the game, a story of three college students on a camping trip unfolds, told with both images, and text files that slowly appear in the game folder. The ending differs based on the scores you get. I cannot say anything more, for fear of spoilers (and trust me, you do not want it spoiled) For reference, here is how the game works:
-Colored blocks slowly fall from above and pile up on the ground. You can left-click to shoot up a white block, or right-click to shoot up a faster white block. Your goal is to destroy the colored blocks to get points and replenish your slowly-emptying life bar. You can do this in two ways:
1. Knock them into same-colored blocks already on the ground, destroying both.
2. Knock them into same-colored blocks still in the air, causing them to fall and explode.
-Be careful, though, as each block that falls to the ground damages your life bar, and if your life bar empties, the game is over.
-There is also an unlockable "Metsu" mode, which adds some new twists to the gameplay, and expands the story.
Irisu Syndrome, as well as a fan-made English patch, can be downloaded here.
--Kotaro
Friday, March 4, 2011
Kingdom Hearts II
Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: Action/RPG
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix/Buena Vista Games
Release: 28 March 2006
Rating: Everyone 10+
Price: $18
One wouldn't think that a game about Disney characters could be in any way dark. The Kingdom Hearts games prove that not only can it be dark, but epic in scale. The first Kingdom Hearts was a mediocre action-platformer. Its follow-up, Chain of Memories (essentially Kingdom Hearts 1.5), was not very good either, relying on a rather annoying card-based system. Two less-than-stellar games, and it was easy to write Kingdom Hearts off as a failed experiment.
Then came Kingdom Hearts II.
With a renewed emphasis on the action rather than platforming, KH2 gave the series the kick it needed to become actually good. And it was great! All of the Kingdom Hearts games since have been very much worthwhile, though none more-so than II itself.
As for how it plays, you use your ship to travel from world to world, exploring different Disney settings (re-visiting the ones from the first game, and adding several new ones), killing both Heartless, and the new villains, the Nobodies.The controls are solid, though the action can decline into button-mashing at times. However, there is a good amount of tactical variety, as you not only have your main weapon, the Keyblade, but elemental magic, summon spells, combination attacks with your party, and super-forms.
The plot is also well-made. We start off with a new protagonist, with events seemingly unrelated to the previous games. Then plot twists take place and we see where we are in the grand scheme of the overarching plot. One year after the events of the first game, the evil Heartless from the first game are still around, but a new enemy--Organization XIII--has surfaced as well. We return to our original hero, Sora, and take on both of these threats. I will not spoil anything further, but trust me when I say that I fully enjoyed watching the story unfold.
As a whole, if you like action/RPG hybrids, or have enjoyed any of the other games in the series, then give Kingdom Hearts II a shot. $18 well-spent
.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Genre: Action/RPG
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix/Buena Vista Games
Release: 28 March 2006
Rating: Everyone 10+
Price: $18
One wouldn't think that a game about Disney characters could be in any way dark. The Kingdom Hearts games prove that not only can it be dark, but epic in scale. The first Kingdom Hearts was a mediocre action-platformer. Its follow-up, Chain of Memories (essentially Kingdom Hearts 1.5), was not very good either, relying on a rather annoying card-based system. Two less-than-stellar games, and it was easy to write Kingdom Hearts off as a failed experiment.
Then came Kingdom Hearts II.
With a renewed emphasis on the action rather than platforming, KH2 gave the series the kick it needed to become actually good. And it was great! All of the Kingdom Hearts games since have been very much worthwhile, though none more-so than II itself.
As for how it plays, you use your ship to travel from world to world, exploring different Disney settings (re-visiting the ones from the first game, and adding several new ones), killing both Heartless, and the new villains, the Nobodies.The controls are solid, though the action can decline into button-mashing at times. However, there is a good amount of tactical variety, as you not only have your main weapon, the Keyblade, but elemental magic, summon spells, combination attacks with your party, and super-forms.
The plot is also well-made. We start off with a new protagonist, with events seemingly unrelated to the previous games. Then plot twists take place and we see where we are in the grand scheme of the overarching plot. One year after the events of the first game, the evil Heartless from the first game are still around, but a new enemy--Organization XIII--has surfaced as well. We return to our original hero, Sora, and take on both of these threats. I will not spoil anything further, but trust me when I say that I fully enjoyed watching the story unfold.
As a whole, if you like action/RPG hybrids, or have enjoyed any of the other games in the series, then give Kingdom Hearts II a shot. $18 well-spent
.Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.
--Kotaro
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)