Quantum Conundrum review

This game has several similarities with Portal, in fact both come from the mind of the designer(Kim Swift) as and such you will be spending your time going from room to room surpassing challenges as they come.

In this game you take the role of a kid visiting his uncle, a genius Professor named Fitz Quadwrangle who has turned his mansion into a huge laboratory, on arrival you find that as usual something went wrong and you are now stuck in the mansion.

One thing my geeky side finds very entertaining is that Quadwrangle, who acts as a narrator/guide in a similar manner to Glados in Portal is voiced by John de Lancie, who will be easily recognized by anyone who enjoyed watching Start Trek as Q, which is also in that series related to the quantum phenomena, so has you can imagine every time Professor Quadwrangle spoke I was literally imagining Q saying those words which added to the enjoyment of the game.

The mechanic of the game revolves around using dimensions who change the properties of the world in order to overcome the challenges. These four dimensions are the fluffy(objects becomes lighter), heavy(objects becomes heavier and can resist lasers), slow and reverse gravity dimensions, they change the physics of all objects and can only be used one at the time. Initially you have little control over the dimensions them selves and its usually one or two at the same time, but as the game progresses you will start using more dimensions.

While the concept of the game is interesting and fun, I found the puzzles them selves to be boring as my brain was craving for some hard challenges, mainly because the narrator usually tips you in how to overcome the problem reducing that feeling we get after achieving something difficult, making most part of the game feel almost like a big tutorial.

Like all puzzle type games there is little re-playability value, unless you like to try doing the same puzzles against the clock or/and in this case with less dimension switching, but then it no longer becomes a mental exercise and its all about reflexes and luck.

In the end regardless of what I felts about the challenges the game was fun, and when you look at the price of the game its definitely worth the cost, so far two DLC(downloadable content) have already been announced for this summer meaning puzzles will no doubt become more interesting from now on.

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Bulletstorm review

A futuristic first-person-shooter filled with mutants, criminals, gore and everything else you can think of, this game caters to the primal urges of every FPS lover.

You are Grayson Hunt, the leader of a small blackops task-force called Dead Echo who went rogue because they found out that General Sarrano was using them as his personal assassination squad to murder innocents, after that you and your team became space pirates until an opportunity arises for you to make Sarrano pay.

The plot is pretty straight forward and there are no major plots or twists, but this game isn't about the story, playing this game is just like going to see a transformers movie, you go there for the special effects, the explosion and possibly to see some hot actress they forcefully added to the film, this game is no different.

In Bulletstorm combat is visceral and very fast-paced as you need to get in close and personal and kick some ass... literally, sliding through the ground kick enemies in to the air and blowing their head off is a common occurrence in this game.

There is some sort of progression were it allows you to spend point you earn from killing enemies to restock and upgrade your weapons slightly, so if you like games like Unreal Tournament where you are awards more point for doing double kills, then you probably will love Bulletstorm because not only do you get more points for a double or triple kill you also get point for killing your target with style.

I truly had a great time playing this game. I found my self smiling or laughing the whole game because the character are always making witty jokes at each other and shooting at the balls of the enemies for extra points is not only hilarious, but because also it appeases my inner-phycopath in a way I haven't felt since WH40k:Space Marine.

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Makai Kingdom - Time to play

Recently I scrounged up some time in the middle of my busy college exam studies(truth: should be studying 24/7) to play through one of the more recent release from the Disgaea Series, for those who don't know the background story of this franchise: it revolves around the concept that there exist many worlds(netherworlds) each ruled by a powerful(most of the time not very smart) entity called the Overlord, each release save the remake for other platforms featured a different world/story and naturally a new protagonist but it always revolves around multiple Netherworlds and even starring characters from the other releases as hidden characters/bosses or part of the storyline as a cameo. As a fan of both tactical and rpg games, the combination of both in these games has kept me coming back throughout the releases, what makes this series so appealing to me is mostly the light-hearted stories that while goofy(with impossibly goofier characters) and yet both story and characters are extremely likeable therefore making the player interested in seeing how the story develops through cutscenes before and after each map battle.

If only we can look as "badass" throughout the game

Much power and sheer luck equals ?

A "badass" book?

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome stars Overlord Zeta, considered the most powerful across Netherworlds due to his immense Mana(innate power Overlords possess), on a certain fatidic day a prophecy from the oracle Pram foretold the destruction of his Netherworld and as any decent overlord woulddo (specially a self-proclaimed "Most Badass Freakin' Overlord In The Entire Cosmos"), Overlord Zetta blasted his way into the forbidden library to get to the Sacred Tome known to record everything and thus holding the answer to what threatened his Netherworld, and yet, in a goofy twist of faith, what the Sacred Tome had to say wasn't agreeable with the baddass Overlord as it blamed the Overlord's stupidity as the sole reason for the ruin brought upon his domain, in a fit of rage the Overlord set the book in Hellfire and watched it burn away---only to find out immediately after that the destruction of the Sacred Tome would *gasp* destroy the Netherworld(his) and as a last desperate move the he bound his own soul into the Tome and that's where our adventure begins.

in-between combat scenes

Battle: Unlike the normal Disgaeas which featured grids for movement and attack, Makai Kingdom took on the combat system from Phantom Brave giving player characters the freedom to move within a circle whose size is determined by the characters Mov(movement points), classes and weapon skills remain mostly the same from the other Disgaea games as skills are learned by mastering weapon types and while some classes remain the same, there are a few additions aswell as a couple others not in the game at the same time. While to deploy unit the game uses a similar system as in Phantom brave where you need to confine characters to objects, in Makai Kingdom this is done in the Homebase and the units will not go away after a certain number of turns once summoned, as it happened in Phantom Brave, additionally units can be set into existent buildings that the player already possess at the base, each granting different bonuses to characters housed in them and summoned into battle afterwards from the also summoned house unit. Lastly, the standalone feature not found in any of the other games from the same franchise is the addition of vehicles, they vary in size, shape and purpose but they are moving and generally faster then normal movement from the characters, they can also damage oponents and level up(although the system required for this is different then the characters and possibly more difficult).

Seriously, try it out, can't help but be charmed

Maps: As with it's predecessors, the maps are randomly generated with a feature called "extensions" which are hidden areas of the map oftenly unlocked by killing a key mob or object, save a few pre-set maps at the beginning of certain chapters, most of the RNG maps provide the player with a fresh replay value as each playthrough in the same map will be different both in objects, area and enemies, extensions also provide with a necessity for further strategy as accomplishing all the requirements and opening all areas at the same time might have the player's army quickly overwhelmed.

Finally, for anyone interested in turn-based strategy games this and the others from the same franchise (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Phantom Brave etc...) are definitely something to check out, the light hearted humour/storyline and the combat system are something that make this game noteworthy and interesting to play with

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Guild Wars 2: Flame Wars

  Over the time as I was waiting for the release of yet another game, I would have come read all sorts of information and opinions about it. Some, overexcited players, offer very enthusiastic yet exaggerated opinions as if praising their own God and expecting a blessing, while others seem to act as peasants in a witch hunt, doing everything they can hoping to again watch another witch burn at the stake in the old Inquisition days.

  I was never one to follow anything without knowledge, what can not be seen can always be heard and even the senses can be fooled, so in order to obtain the precious truth one must really needs to gather information from all sources and senses over time, comparing, connecting  and weighting them as if they where part of a "string theory", which will hopefully result in something closer to the unquestionable truth.

  One great example of why we should not trust our senses was the first time I played Guild Wars 2. After waiting so long, reading so much and watching so many videos I was finally able to play the game, I felt like a kid opening a present at Christmas and when that happens it's like looking at a bright lamp, it shines so much that only after some time can we see past the brightness and when we look away we can still see the afterimage, that was what happen in the first beta weekend. That effect soon starts to fade and we are able to see things clearer.

  The first topic that comes to mind was some people saying the quests were just a glorified "kill 10 rats" quest. I do understand why they would say that but honestly that is just an over-simplification in order to add more wood to the fire.
  Lets try a real world scenario, imagine if in the medieval times you needed to kill a group of mercenaries, you could see it as "kill 10 mercenaries" could you not? The difference is that in Real-Life you can choose how to deal with them, and that is what's missing in games, "choice".

Guild Wars 2 Quest

  GW2 however brought us closer to that by saying "there is more then one way to help", what that means is on that same quest, in order to "handle the rat problem" not only can you "kill 10 rats" you can also "poison the rat food", "use a magical flute to lure them away" or "convert the rats to help the npc instead".

  Another well known topic is the old combat and tab-targeting system, some people complain and say its outdated, which is true, but then they only focus on the targeting system and talk about Tera combat system who most of the skills make your character stop and the rest slows to a crawl an already snail paced game, making that game feel like a turn-based RPG, so they just lose all the right to complain about it. But I digress, even though tab-targeting is old and honestly sometimes hard to control in GW2 as it made me hit the wrong mob several times, these people seem to ignore the not-so-old combat system.

  Projectiles in GW2 hit who ever it touches and they can be physically blocked, so just because you have a target selected doesn't mean he is the one getting hit, Rangers with the "arrows pierce targets" Trait are an exception as they will hit anything in the arrow's path.
  Skills do not require a target to be used and like the projectile they will do dmg to who ever they hit/touch and a great majority of the skills do not require you to stop not even for casting, so far I only know of 2 skills which require you to not move(a ranger and an elementalist AOE), which makes the combat very fast paced and fresh.

  The last topic I am going to touch is the "zerg fest WvWvW". Some complain that World vs World vs World is mostly about the numbers, this not 100% true... for now at least.
  I have experience that Sieges weapons wins wars not zergs, several times I have witnessed a smaller group of players not only successfully defend their keep, but pushed us back to ours simply because our group had a zerg-mind and they overwhelmed us with a simple arrow cart(which seems to be maybe a bit too powerful). In the end I could say it's more Siege weapon dependent than zerg fest, but of course as time passes people will learn and build more Siege weapons thus becoming zerg dependent.

  In any case 3W(easier than typing "WvWvW") relies completely on other players from your server to join together and fight the common foe, for nothing other than bragging rights and the pride to say  that they play in the best PvP server.
  On the bright side, as a server wins/loses 3W, it starts to be fight with other more/less successful servers, this means that over time it becomes a bit more balanced as less PvP active servers begin to play against others of a similar nature.

  The game is far from perfect, there are bad things as well as things that could be improved but doesn't mean we have to bash everything to a pulp. The worst part is that almost of the bad things people point out aren't horrible enough to be labeled as "bad", they're just small quirks or preferences,  maybe I'll make a post about disappointing things I saw in GW2.

 That's it for today, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

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Guild Wars 2 Beta: character creation

 Last weekend was the GW2 "open beta" and everyone was excited about it, I even planned to be extra lazy during that weekend so my desk was filled with energy drinks and my food supply was all easy-cooking stuff.

  The first hours of the beta was a bit rough but from my experience, every time a game opens for the first time to a massive amount of players it is expected to the login server to have problems, as always a lot of people were crying everywhere from forums to facebook/tweeter. So i stopped trying to login since the system was being flooded. About 3-4 hours after the scheduled start, players where no longer spaming the login button so I was able to enter the game without much fuss.

 As I created my first character, the first thing i had to choose was the race. Of the 3 currently available races the Humans were the most appealing, Charr and Norn are not bad but my alter-ego demanded something he could relate with. Humans even though they are a very common race in the MMO genre and tend to be bland, In Guild Wars 2 they are remarkably well done. The amount of facial customization is very good probably even too much for the average gamer, but the "cherry on top of the cake" is how good armor looks on them.

 The last character choices are meant for roleplay and personal story, as a Human Ranger I needed to select which of the 5 gods was I blessed by, my social status(commoner, street rat or noble), my biggest regret("never joining the circus", "never met my parent" or "never found my lost sisters body"), my pet and my main characteristic.

 The god you chose don't change the story in the first 20 levels, however since it's marked in the wiki as part of the personal storyline i chose the goddess of nature as it fits the theme of the Ranger profession, i am guessing it will come into play when we reach lvl 30 which is when we get our first elite skill.

 I must say that I was hoping the pet choice would have a little impact in the Ranger storyline since it is an integral part of the profession, but in the end it feels like it just an annoying npc that follows you around and i felt no connection or empathy toward it.

That's it for today, next part will be focus on gameplay and first impressions... stay tuned!

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Blacklight: Retribution

Hello there, today I am going to review a game I have been playing on and off for the past few days, it's a free-to-play First Person Shooter named Blacklight: Retribution That's currently on open beta.

Before you start playing you should take a look at the game menu, even though it seems pretty straight forward it's not. Some menus are redundant while others are just not intuitive so I will try to explain in more detail during the review.

Let us start with the marketplace, obviously it's where you buy stuff such as gear, weapons and weapon parts(more on it later) however you can do the exact same thing from the customization menu, making it redundant since you have 2 ways of achieving the same thing with one slight difference. In the customization menu it will show how the item will affect your total stats while in the marketplace it will only show the item stats.

One thing I found confusing is the way the stats are shown in both the Customization and the marketplace. In the marketplace an item will show +10 recoil indicating that your weapon will have less kickback when shooting while in the customization it will actually reduce recoil by 10.

The customization menu is where you will change your gear and weapons. Gear-wise you have 3 slots which you can combine to your liking, some have more HP, other faster run speed or even faster energy gain for the VR. You also have a range of utility slots which depends on the armor you have, in these slots you can put items such as mines, grenades, visual-scramblers, etc. As for the weapons this is the greatest part of the game as you can tweak each to suit your playstyle:

• reload faster or carry more bullets per mag?
• closed scope with a big zoom or just a sight that aims faster?
• Stock that helps you control your recoil a bit better you one that increases the precision of each shot?
• a silencer or a longer barrel that increases your effective range?

...you choose.

Blacklight gameplay feels very similar to Battlefield as you sprint around from cover to cover in moderately large map, players as they level up will unlock backpacks which will let them fulfill certain roles in a team such as medic, dropping supplies or fixing the robots.

A particular unique feature of this game is the VR, yes it is Virtual Reality. VR allows players to enhance their vision to locate friendlies, enemies and other points of interest such as mines and weak-spots in the Robots Heavy-Armor. While using the VR you can not attack and it only works for a few seconds after which you have to wait for your energy to replenish, plus there are devices that counter the VR by cloaking nearby players from the VR or creating a dummy that will show in the VR.

HVR in action

There are 4 game modes, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Domination and King of the Hill. While DM and TDM are self explanatory in DOM you have three fixed locations where you must Hack/Capture a device and keep it as long as you can to gain points overtime first team to get 1000 wins. KOTH consists on capturing a randomly activated location by standing near it for some time, first team to get 4 points wins the match.

One thing I find disappointing in the game is the lack of strategy, sure we wouldn't expect any strategy in a Deathmatch but the same seems to apply to all other modes, since the respawn locations are not fixed its not uncommon to get killed from behind when 5 sec ago there was no one there. This gives the maps a feel that regardless of the modes they are just a big arena.

Overall the game has interesting concepts and I believe it is worthy enough for you guys to give it a try, specially if you enjoy playing FPS just to kill time... or other players.

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War Inc Battlezone

  Couple of days ago i saw an advertisement for a game called War Inc, at first i dismissed it simply because i have little faith in free games... however after i saw some gameplay footage in youtube i thought i should give it a go, in the end i am glad i did as it is indeed a interesting game.

  Registration is straight forward and very quick after which you are prompted to create a character and spend your first stat point, this is one of the key aspect that i find interesting in the game as you have several unique stats that help you enhance your gameplay according to how you like to play. There is a great number of ways to customize your character from several pieces of armor to a large array of weapons and a few slots used for skills and utility items such as mines and grenades.

  The concept of the game is fairly simple and similar to the Battlefield game but without the vehicles, you start the map on your teams default spawn location and proceed to capture several objectives by simply standing near the capturing flag, once it is claimed it will slowly give the points needed to achieve victory.

   Players have very little health and there is no HP bar other then a visual effect so a well placed grenade or mine will instantly kill you, this adds to the realism effect making your actions and awareness extremely important but you regenerate in seconds, anyway you should avoid open areas and move from cover to cover.

  One interesting thing worthy of note is that unlike most shooter games reloading a half used magazine in War Inc will throw away the remaining bullets, this makes ammunition important but you can always pick up a weapon from the floor.

  Overall the game makes player skill really matter as most fights are decided in a instant but since the respawn timer is short you are constantly getting into the action.
Its fun and its free there is no reason not to try it unless you don't like shooters.

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Orcs Must Die: Review

I have been playing this single-player game named "Orcs Must Die!", well for starts the title is catchy but it doesn't stop there as the main plot is ridiculous has well.

You start as a young misbehaved student that is forced to defend the masters fortress who after countless years of slaying orcs, slips in a blood stain and hits his head thus dying in a ridiculous fashion. To defend the castle you must protect the Rift from waves of feeble-minded orcs. Now this is the interesting part, you can either kill the orcs by shooting them with a crossbow, slashing them with a sword, blowing them with explosive barrels or arrange a set traps to do the work for you.

Simply put the game is a interesting mix of Evil Genius and Tower-Defense with third person shooter gameplay, the only CON about the game is the lack of multi-player, if they had added a way to COOP it would be on the top of my "best games of 2011"... maybe they will add it in an expansion but either way its a good game and its worth the price.

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Bastion

I recently found a little game called Bastion from a indie company named SuperGiant Games, it's a single-player action RPG that tells the story of a white-haired kid who survives a cataclysmic event called the Calamity.

The story continues as the kid tries to make the best of the situation in this floating magical world, eventually reaching the Bastion an emergency location where people are supposed to meet and rebuild and it goes on from there...

One interesting and unique feature of this game is the way the story is told, it doesn't have the typical text-quests or cut-scenes instead there is a narrator that provides a fluid yet constant reactive commentary to what happens in the screen which gives and added flavor to the gameplay, it's like reading a book while watching the action happening at the same time

Overall Bastion is a very interesting title definitely worth the rather small price it costs.
As with all things there is no better way to understand it then seeing it, i will leave you with this video showing the first minutes of gameplay... enjoy!

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Dead Island

 If i could put the game into a small sentence it would be "a world with quests like Fallout 3 with the weapon customization of Dead Rising combined with the first person feel and co-op of Left 4 Dead", however this would not be fair as the game brings many other things that makes it entertaining.

You start your journey with a cut-scene of this huge party in a tropical resort and end up drunk in your hotel bed without a clue that a huge zombie outbreak as set it self in the island, as you go on you will find survivors all around the island that require your assistance to get anything from food and water to parts to help fixing cars.

The combat is fun specially due to the variety of weapons(and their modifications), their random stats and the way they interact with your target, simply put blunt weapons break bones and bladed ones sever limbs... hint, this is specially useful for the large zombies that you can't knock-down.

So if you like survival games, if you love to transform your weapons and if you love kicking zombies in the head ,then this game has much to offer for you and for a long time as it will give you over 30 hours of co-op alone.

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