The Baconing

The Short

Pros
- Basic loot driven action RPG
- It has dialogue in it
- Graphics look cartoony and nice
- Kind of reminds me a lot of the Deathspank games

Cons
- Good thing this isn't a Deathspank game, because if it was it would be the same recycled crap all over again
- I mean, really. It clearly isn't. "Deathspank" isn't even in the title
- As a savvy consumer, I have brand awareness, and based on that alone I can conclude this is not, in fact Deathspank 3
- Because if it was Deathspank 3, it would be one of the laziest, lamest, most unfunny rehashes of an already beaten-to-death game series I've ever played
- And this would be especially bad if it was $15

Thank goodness! A new action RPG from the makers of Deathspank!

The Long

Wow, Hothead is really amazing! After releasing the sort-of-good-despite-itself Deathspank, they followed it up with a really cashed-in, mediocre sequel Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue. I was worried that they'd keep trying to milk this franchise with something like Deathspank 3, probably using a corny subtitle involving bacon that is drawn out and not funny, but I was in luck! It seems Hothead is trying a whole new franchise, completely separate from that other basic Diablo knock-off game with bits of humor (and by "humor" I mean "the one Ron Gilbert wrote was sort of funny" [and by "the one Ron Gilbert wrote was sort of funny" I mean "Deathspank 1"]). I must commend them for releasing two new IPs in such a short span of time, completely different and not at all the same as each other.

So let's take a closer look at this totally unique, not-Deathspank sequel because if it were it would say "Deathspank" in the title: The Baconing.

If you are not a savvy gamer, you may think this is a picture of Deathspank. BUT YOU ARE WRONG, GAMER TROGLODITE! FOR THIS IS CLEARLY NOT DEATHSPANK, YOU CASUAL ANGRY BIRDS PLAYING TARD!

The Baconing has a rich and unique storyline not at all tied to previous Deathspank games. In The Baconing our main character Deathspank (which I assume is a totally unique and new character who just so happens to have the same name as the iconic character from the Deathspank games, which are totally unrelated to The Baconing) has rid the world of all evil (prequel potential?) and is now bored out of his skull. He also wears a lot of thongs, which is also unexplained, though it does seem oddly similar to Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue's ending. Luckily,  I'm smart and know this is not the case.

Anyway, these thongs are evil, so he has to travel the world and throw them into the sacred Bacon Fires in order to stop an uber-Deathspank mech from destroying the world. 

I will say this: I sure am glad The Baconing is its own original IP and not a Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue sequel. Because if it was, it would be one of the lamest, poorest, most desperate attempts to extend an already concluded story (with multiple endings) into a completely asinine premise. 

Also, this game thinks its funny but it really isn't. At all. I'd say something here like "it's somehow even less funner than Thongs of Virtue", but since the two games are clearly unrelated I will refrain from saying something so uneducated an uninformed. I do have gamer blog integrity here, you action RPG peasant. 

This casino includes a delightful new feature: run around a whole lot to get quests far away that do nothing. Once unique to Deathspank, now a part of The Baconing

Speaking of Action RPGs, that's what The Baconing is, if you took everything that made them compelling and streamlined it to the point of extreme boredom. Plenty of gear drops, but there isn't any big decisions to be made here, so much so that you can have an "automatically equip best stuff" button so you don't even have to go into the menu. Brilliant. Why even have armor at all? Who knows. 

This is a similar system that was implemented in Deathspank and, while tolerable there, got extremely boring in Thongs of Virtue, especially once you realized all the little "ticks" that make these grindy-looty type games actually enjoyable were streamlined so much they were completely gone, and you were just playing the same damn game over again. But this is not Deathspank, this is The Baconing, so what would have been an absurdly tired and downright monotonous tedium-fest through the quagmire of boring suckness is now amazingly bright and fresh again. I squealed with glee every time I leveled and the bonuses were so small and gated it didn't matter. I was overjoyed when I kept getting variations of the same weapon that just did slightly more damage, essentially meaning the game never changed. I was enraptured in the throngs of virtue (whatever that means) as I spent the majority of the game walking and eating food on a timer because the potion limit is so obscenely small. All these features, which were tolerable in Deathspank only because it was the first to do it, were magically made fresh because this game was called The Baconing and not Deathspank III. Thank goodness for that.

Also Strong Bad is in this game. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT MUCH?!

This game looks totally and completely fresh, assuming you have never played, seen, or been around someone who has ever played a Deathspank game in their lives. Which, considering this is a new IP, you probably haven't! And a good thing, too, because this is by far way blander than any of those games. While the sort of weird computer world is cool, you only go there for a few brief moments, and the rest of the world is brown and gray. Even sailing (a feature I'd say was lifted from Deathspank II without frills, but this is a new IP so forget I said anything I should just delete this sentence on nooooo) is on muddy looking water with tons of random islands that look bad and have nothing to do on them. The Animal Crossing-esque world rotation is still sort of a neat gimmick, but it's been overdone in the Deathspank games. Too bad games from a totally different series coincidentally had a similar art style that tarnished what would have been The Baconing's unique and lemony-fresh graphical style.

The music, I am sorry to say, is directly ripped from Deathspank. I don't know if The Baconing (as a new IP) was made by a fringe group in Hothead or something, but the Deathspank guys really should sue them, if that's possible within a company. Every song is exactly the freaking same as Deathspank, from the battle songs to most of the roaming music. I mean, come on guys! I know we recycled sound effects and stuff in the NES days, but this is 2013! Get with the program! 

This game has clones in it, which is weird because The Baconing feels like a clone of Deathspank. But luckily it's a totally different game, as I might have said once or twice during this review. 

Thank goodness Hothead knows what they were doing. Had this been a third Deathspank game, one without any notable improvements, upgrades, or even the slightest of changes, I'd have been downright infuriated to have had been forced to play it. It would have been one of the most cashed in, cheapest sequels I've ever experienced, with recycled music, graphics, and even less humor than the already unfunny Thongs of Virtue. Not to mention the streamlined ARPG mechanics, which were decent at best previously, would now only exacerbate the fact that this game is the same monotonous tripe we experienced in Thongs of Virtue, and trying to stretch the idea for a freaking third game would have been abhorrant and downright insulting. In brief, the game would have been literally painful to play, and this reviewer wouldn't even have had finished it, quitting shortly after the 2/3rds mark.

HOWEVER!!!

Since The Baconing CLEARLY does not have the word "Deathspank" anywhere in its title, I am completely sold on the fact is is a new IP and thus everything in this game is fresh, unique, and fabulous. Thank you, Hothead. Thank you for not releasing useless drivel that causes me actual, physical pain to experience. Thank you for not filling me with regret for even installing the game, despite having gotten it as an extra in an indie bundle. Thank you for calling this The Baconing, and distancing yourself completely from the Deathspank IP. 

Because if you hadn't, it would have been beating a dead horse into the ground that had already been beaten to death in Thongs of Virtue. Much like the overrunning joke for this review has been completely and utterly wrung dry, probably back on like the third paragraph.

One out of five stars. 

Editors note: The Baconing is actually Deathspank 3. This review was supposed to be funny as an overexaggurated reaction to the fact they took "Deathspank" from the title, obviously because people were seriously bored of the IP by this point. I apologize if somehow you got to the end of this without understanding, but if you did...maybe The Baconing is the game for you.

Homefront

The Short

Pros
- Decent enough shooter...that is, it never really broke
- Premise is interesting
- Multiplayer is stable and has a few unique ideas
- Graphics aren't...awful
- Explosive barrels are yellow instead of red. That's...a good thing.

Cons
- Single player is three hours long.
- Story is bland, patronizing to the intelligence of its audience, and borderline racist
- Shooting feels weak and bland
- Guns, sound effects, and voice acting are all very lame
- Even more "paint by numbers" than other Call of Duty clones on the market
- Controller support works, but only just
- Tons of blatant, in-game avertising
- Playing this game right after Spec Ops: The Line was a bad idea

Objectives: Keepin it simple for the dumb shooter fans

The Long

So let's get something out of the way real fast, despite my scathing reviews of the genre on this blog, I don't mind modern military shooters. I used to be really deep into Modern Warfare 2, and Black Ops, and for the most part I figure if you enjoy those types of games, that's cool and all. I mean, I wouldn't have played Homefront or Medal of Honor or all those other games if I didn't actually enjoy parts of the genre, right?

That being said, Homefront is an absolute disaster. 

I was actually looking forward to this game pre-release, and almost even pre-ordered it. As a fan of Call of Duty who was obviously seeing the series multiplayer (and single player) stagnate, I was more than willing to let THQ start up their own thing that could overcome it. However, after just a few minutes in both Homefront's borderline-offensive single player and shockingly boring multiplayer made me realize that Homefront is nothing more than an inferior clone, and all of THQ's large aspirations to make the game "better" than its competitors completely stumbled out of the gate. That, or died before even leaving the gate. 

So let's talk about Homefront.

Aiming down a red dot site? Never seen that before. 

Probably the worst thing about Homefront is its single player. Again, I felt the story had a lot of promise. It starts by giving you a stylized intro splicing real footage with obvious actors to show a series of events leading to North Korea taking over South Korea, allying with China to take over the majority of Eastern Asia, invading Hawaii, and occupying the Western side of the United States. It's actually somewhat chilling, especially for those who have followed North Korea in the news, because let's be honest...that country can be pretty scary. While the idea of it taking over the US is pretty far-fetched (especially since, I dunno, where the crap is the rest of Europe during all of this?), it's an interesting idea. Set a game in the US where half the country is occupied, and people are having to fend for themselves.

Homefront takes what could have been a decent premise and makes it downright stupid, and borderline racist.

Let me get this off my chest first, because I'm itching to say it: racial slurs for enemies, even if you made them up specifically for this game and are very obviously referencing "North Koreans," is not OK in your game. I get it, you want to show the people hate the North Koreans occupying their country, but having your team toss around racial slurs when you gun down people or using them amidst military jargon is not cool. I wouldn't say I'm one to get all uppity about this sort of thing, since I'm not a Korean-American and thus can't give my opinion on this game's representation of (what I'm assuming, based on the preface) is essentially both North and South Koreans, but still...seriously. There's even a scene in the game where they condemn a group of weird survivalists hicks (out of Utah, apparently  Do they have like ten wives too?) for being racist against your teammate who is Asian-American. Um...but you were all tossing around these racial slurs for the thousands of Koreans you gunned down during the game. But it's ok now because in-game you showed your guys are clearly incapable of racism because they defended your one team member who was Korean (and, also, the brilliant nerdy machine guy. Stereotypes, ahoy! Also, the black guy dies first. Again, awesome.).

First thing I said when I saw this cozy home base: it only exists to be burned in a "dramatic" moment later. SPOILER: I was right. 

Speaking of your companions, none of them are likable (except the Korean, weirdly enough. At least he was sort of witty). You have your rough-neck leader who is supposed to be a role model, but instead he's just a huge dick. You have your sort of hispanic girl ally who has a bare midriff and whenever an explosion happens that launches you all on the ground she somehow lands so her perfectly-rendered, jeans-covered butt is facing you. Classy. And...that's it, actually. There's a black commander but he dies (um...spoilers?) in like the first two missions so...awesome.

But where this game really fries my bacon is with it's attempts to be "edgy." It starts with Koreans busting into your house and putting you out on a bus that drives slowly through town. As you do this, you can watch all the atrocities that the North Koreans are doing to the enslaved Americans. Taking them to labor camps, shooting one that tries to one away, randomly gunning down a set of parents in front of their child (seriously...why?), complete with blood (that looks like bad ketchup, by the way) splattering on your bus window. You know. Edgy.

It only gets worse from there. As mentioned in the image, you find this utopian little self-sustaining refugee house, which exists for you to walk through once and come back to find it burned and everybody strung up and dead. You see them shoveling bodies into mass graves, only to have to "press X to hide in mass grave" later to avoid overhead choppers. You find a bunch of rednecks who just want to linch your Korean buddy and rape the girl, who spend their time torturing everybody they find but especially North Koreans. It's just one obvious attempt to "push the envelope" after the next, and all of it feels so fake and forced it's more offensive for being stupid rather than offensive to have a purpose. 

Seriously? This is the worst. 

[Tangent inbound]

See, I'm all for edgy content, or stuff that makes me thing. But that's just it: edgy content needs to have a purpose. It needs to serve the story, or at least (in a game's sense) the gameplay. The problem is, while books and movies have gotten this right, games rarely do. Mostly we have crap like "No Russian" from Call of Duty, that exists just to be "shocking." It isn't really shocking because it's only skin deep. You can distance yourself from it because there's no deeper story implications, nothing that makes you mull it over and consider how it applies to yourself. Not to butt in on another review, but Spec Ops: The Line has a lot of very similar elements as Homefront, but because it addresses them serious and as the atrocious as they actually are (like using white phosphorous and burning people alive, which you do in Homefront without batting and eye but face some awful consequences in Spec Ops) the story has impact. Homefront is like that punk 12-year-old kid that you know who swears all the time around you and talks about sex or whatever. He's trying his hardest to get a rise and be "adult," but he's so ignorant and blatant it's just him making a fool of himself. Because Homefront doesn't use any of its shocking imagery, it all comes off as weak and bland.

Not to mention it falls into that "shoot thousands of non-white people as a totally white person America #1 Hoo Ra!" problem that plagues this whole genre. Makes me a little sick to my stomach. 

I'd also like to lastly point out that this is the first game where they actually recorded voice for "Take cover inside the Hooters!" and "Regroup in the White Castle!" I'm so glad to see in-game ads playing prominently in video games these days that an entire level is about infiltrating a TigerDirect.com physical store, complete with "half off!" and "killer deals on GPUs!" adds plastered everywhere. Maybe it was because I was playing the PC version, and if I'd done it on Xbox it would have been a Microsoft Store or something. 

Mediocre at best, deplorable at worst. 

It's also worth mentioning the single player is three hours long. No, that's not me exaggerating  I checked my Steam time after burning through the game on easy (including all deaths, menu navigations, me trying to figure out how to make the controller work properly, etc.) and my in-game time was just over three hours. Seven missions, one of which is maybe ten minutes long. What a great value. 

Multiplayer tends to be a bit better in terms of content, at least. It actually is pretty clever. The better you play, the higher your "priority" ranks up. So you get better unlocks (like weapons, scout drones [my personal favorite] that you can use to tag people for your allies, attack drones, etc.) but as your stars get higher and higher the other team sees your general location on the map and gets a massive points bonus for hunting you down. This idea of somewhat penalizing players for doing well (to aid the other team) is actually a pretty decent idea. And, as stated, the power-ups are cool (and there's vehicles in this game), like the scout drones and other stuff.

The problem is the shooting in Homefront is just as bland as its story and copy-cat feel.

Plus, really bad looking blood. 

Guns sound awful, to start, like pea-shooters. While I was annoyed at Metal of Honor for running by the book, at least Dice knows how to make a game sound good. Homefront doesn't. The guns sound bad, as does all the voice acting and everything else in the game. I guess I usually put this paragraph by the graphics section, but whatever.

Shooting is serviceable but not tight. While Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are obviously developed by people who have made these types shooters in the past, Homefront feels lacking. While I'll admit it was hardly bad, when I played on a controller the auto-aim seemed borked, and when I switched to a keyboard and mouse it felt waaaay too imprecise, even after messing with my mouse settings. This is combined by unrealistic and unreliable "kicks" from guns, weird iron-sights that never seem to hit where I point them, and the fact that most SMGs are just straight up underpowered, this game feels like a budget game. Which it wasn't released as, it was released as a Call of Duty killer. Sorry, not gonna happen.

Kills earn points, which you can cash in for one of two rewards. Not a bad system, honestly. 

Graphically this game looks dated. It's hard to describe, though, with static images. The game looks ok in screenshots, with a lot of texture detail, bump-mapping, and despite looking generic at least it appears to be...ok. The problem is this game looks horrible in action, and I'm not talking about the framerate. It just looks...well...the textures look like early Xbox 360 games. You know what I'm talking about, the ones that just discovered HD, so everything looks kind of weirdly shiny, like it was up-rezzed? Again, it's hard to describe, but I played the game both on the Xbox 360 and then on the PC with everything jammed up to max settings, and it looks...straight up bad. Like a budget game.

And "Domination." Woo. 

Homefront is an excellent example of failed expectations. Again, I was looking forward to this game for quite a bit, thinking it could convey a dark and interesting storyline and an actual multiplayer experience to compete with Call of Duty. Instead, we get a game that's a cheap knock-off and feels like it at every turn. It's story tries too hard to get attention and ends up floundering, the multiplayer doesn't do anything that breaks the mold or even matches it, and the game looks and sounds straight up bad.

I've been putting off playing Homefront despite having gotten it on Steam a while back because of what I've heard, and I kind of wish I'd listened. Sure, it was only about three hours of my time I sunk into the single-player, but I'd much rather have spent that time doing just about anything else.

Unless you really like bland modern military shooters, Homefront can remain forgotten. One out of five stars. I'd recommend Medal of Honor over it any day.

One of the worst thing ever.

Persona 4 Arena

The Short

Pros
- Excellently crafted fighting game from the creators of Guilty Gear and Blazblue
- Accessible combos and moves make this Arc System's most "noob friendly" game yet
- Game is gorgeous and follows a similar art/aesthetic style to Persona 3 and 4
- Story mode does a decent job connecting the characters from Persona 3 and 4 while adding some entertaining foils
- Voice acting is spot on, as it usually is with these games, and the localization team still rocks
- Music is excellent, featuring a mix of P3 and P4 tracks that have been remixed, as well as some original songs
- Works surprisingly well in the Persona universe, despite my immense doubts as to how it would fit
- We finally figure out what the heck Elizabeth has been doing since the end of P3 in greater detail. Which is awesome.

Cons
- Limited roster of characters, and most are from P4 (13, with two being new)
- The presentation of the visual-novel style story mode is completely at odds with the dialogue-based character development presented in the series Persona games
- The protagonist from P4 has both a voice, name, and inner monologue. I don't think I like it.
- They changed Chie's voice actor so she doesn't sound like a 30-year-old women. Yes, this is a con.
- I still hate how homophobic Atlas is when it comes to everything involving Kanji. Seriously...it isn't funny.

Welcome to the Velvet Room.

The Long

My eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling in raised...ness when Atlas and Arc Systems announced Persona 4 Arena. I mean...did anybody's not? Taking one of the most popular (and possibly best) JRPGs crafted in recent memory and turning into a fighting game...well...that didn't make a lot of sense. Especially considering the main focus of the games was heavy on story, dialogue, and character interaction, there really isn't much for that in a fighting game (the only "character interaction" is them beating the crap out of each other). 

However, as the development cycle went on (and I got fully exposed to the rest of Arc Systems games, and they are arguably my favorite fighting game company to date) I began to have hope that this game would work out. Especially after Atlas pointed out that 1. This game is canon (?!) 2. It would have Persona 3 characters and 3. It would have a heavy emphasis on a story that fused (hur hur, Persona puns) together; I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and allow Persona 4 Arena a shot at life.

So, as a hardcore Persona fan, Arc Systems fan, and writer, what is my opinion of Persona 4 Arena? Well, it has a whole lot of good, and a decent amount of mediocre. Read on and I'll explain.

If you like text, this game has got you covered. 

Let's go over what I'll probably talk the most about: Persona 4 Arena's absolutely colossal story mode. Considering this was what most fans considered the most sacrilegious part of the game (and the one with the biggest chance to screw everything up), I figured it deserves more than a brief mention.

The game allows you to play as every single character through the story mode, starting with the "core" Persona 4 characters (Yosuke, Yu [Aka the Protag], Chie, and Yukiko. After beating one of theirs you unlock Teddie and Kanji (who had a different path), and then the Persona 3 characters Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aigis, as well as the last P4 straggler, Naoto. There's one final new character who you play last (Labrys), and after beating her mission you can replay all other stories from the "cliffhanger" ending to see the different ways the story plays out with your chosen character as the center of attention. Finally, after getting the "true" endings from the P4 and then P3 cast, you unlock Elizabeth's story, which is arguably the biggest fan-servicy one of them all as it seems to mostly focus more on resolving parts of Persona 3's story rather than Persona 4's. 

Point being: there's a butt-load of story here, and you are going to be spending tons of hours burning through it all if you are a Persona fan (I did). So since I spent all this time beating every character to 100% and seeing every ending, that means I loved the story mode right? Right?

Um...ok, let's talk about that.

Teddy is still a lovable idiot, and his story is one of the best (if only because of his moronic monologue)

So I'll get this out of the way first: I don't really dig the "visual novel" style of some Japanese games. Don't get me wrong, it can work (Phoenix Wright is a sterling example of this) but in most cases they become exposition heavy, monologue riddled messes that spend far too much time "thinking" rather than actually moving the plot forward. They're designed to bare everything through pages and pages of text, which can be good for some people, but for me I prefer a level of subtlety in writing. On the "show, don't tell" spectrum, they tend to be heavily lodged in the "tell" section, and it irks me.

Persona 4 Arena's story mode is super exposition heavy, and nearly drowns in its monologues. I kid you not when I say there's probably 7-8 paragraphs of monologue for every spoken line in this game, and that might actually be a low estimate. As you'd expect, you spend more time in character's heads than they do actually participating in the tournament, and that makes the story's pace drag to an un-bear-able crawl (see that pun? Teddy would be proud).

This is especially noticeable (in a bad way) for the main character, Yu's, story arch. In the games he was a silent protagonist, allowing the player to project themselves onto him. Since they couldn't do that in this game he has both a voice and pages of internal dialogue with himself, most of which is boring and generic. Not to be "that guy," but my Bob (which is what I named him in P4) wouldn't be nearly as big a toolbox as Yu is in this game. Not to mention that, since he didn't really have a personality  they can only draw on things P4 forced on his character, like his relation to Nanako. This makes him seem a hollow shell of the deep character I developed (in my own head, admittedly) during Persona 4, and makes his entire scenario really awkward to experience.

Elizabeth is on the moon. Don't ask why. 

This sense of awkwardness carried over to nearly all the Persona 4 characters I played, especially considering Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko have literally the exact same character arc for their stories. And that arc is identical to their Shadow trial in Persona 4, which makes it seem double lazy. I understand playing it safe, but come on! Not to mention their internal monologues, which I'm certain were meant to make the characters more three-dimensional, actually focuses more on their two-dimensional character attributes, making them flatter than 2D Teddy. The Persona games always conveyed incredible character depth through dialogue only, since the only thoughts you could perceive were the protagonist's (and you usually directed them). It made you feel like you really knew these people without getting into their heads, and as such make the relationships feel more...real. I mean, you don't know the exact thoughts of your best friends, right? Unless you are some sort of freaky mind reader. 

Persona 4 Arena botches this when it comes to its storytelling. By going the "easy" way out and making it a visual novel method of storytelling, it loses the depth and personality found in the Persona games and just makes it a long, droning look inside the heads of people I really didn't want to see the thoughts of. I knew them well enough before, thanks.

If I'm sounding a bit too hard on the story, that might actually be the case, because despite my complaints I really enjoyed the plot at hand. Whenever dialogue did emerge it was usually excellent, and there was some fantastic character banter (again, why I play these games) in each story (except Yu's. His was dull). And the "get inside their heads" actually worked very well for Kanji, Teddie, Aigis, Elizabeth, and Labrys' story arcs (mostly because all save the latter were quite funny). The story itself is also fairly decent, and seeing it unfold from different views (as the angle gets wider and wider as you back into Persona 3 character territory and finally see what's actually going on with Labrys' story) is genuinely clever. It's just too bad you have to sift through tons of useless fluff in order to actually get to the good stuff. 

General Teddie knows how to dress. 

At the risk of running long in the tooth here, let me end this briefly: Persona 4 Arena's story does an adequate job connecting the worlds of P3 and P4, is chock full of some fantastic fan-service, has a decent plot (once you actually get to it), the voice acting is excellent, and it made me genuinely excited to see where this series will go in Persona 5. It also works the whole "fighting game" mechanics into the world in a way that is surprisingly not lame, so the idea of these characters fighting each other actually makes sense, so that's a credit. While the method of administering the story was arguably the worst way they could have chosen, it's still worth looking into if you are a P3 or P4 fan.

Oh, last thing: you'll have to have played both Persona 3 and 4 to really understand and get the story here, and you'll even have to have beaten the optional velvet room bosses from both games to really get the story here (or Elizabeth's, at least). I'm serious, both games. While it does a decent job expositioning the crap out of you in case you missed one of the two games, it isn't sufficient enough if you are going in completely dry. So play the story after beating both games, alright? There, I'm done.

On to what really matters. 

Ok, so story beats out of the way (and see how I avoided spoilers? You'll thank me later), let's talk about what actually matters in terms of gameplay: the fighting itself. For those who have played previous Arc Systems games, you'll know they're big on lots of half rolls and multiple button mashes and loads of counters and crazy combos. And, for those who like their other games like BlazBlue or Guilty Gear, you'll be pleased to know Persona 4 Arena is absolutely an Arc Systems game. In fact, it might be their best one in terms of control.

The gamepad is very simply laid out. You have two buttons that are your character's physical attacks (light and heavy) and two that are their Persona attacks (also light and heavy). Most major specials require use of Personas, which can be banished if the Personas themselves are hit four times during a match (they'll return after a brief recharge). Across the board, most characters have all the exact same sets of moves (forward half-roll + physical attack, forward half roll + Persona attack, two forward half rolls + persona for an SP special) which means you can easily pick up any character and start figuring out how they work without worry about what unique controls you have to manuiver. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this (Aigis' different modes, and Elizabeth's absolutely insane self-damaging/self-healing sets of abilities), but as a whole this is the most accessible fighting game I've probably ever played. It's very easy to pick up and do moves, though figuring out how to best use each character's unique arsenal is the "hard to master" part of this discussion.

Robot battles.

There's also a lot of Persona-themed flavor to be had here, too. Moves are named after spells, so if you know your "Zio" from your "Bufu," you're in for a treat. You gain "SP" at the bottom which is used for the more powerful specials (which are all magic taken from the series), and there are even status ailments that you can inflict on your enemies to mess 'em up (as well as All Out Attacks, though those aren't particularly useful). Characters execute their own personal signature moves from their respective games, including their common phrases used in battle. While it certainly looks and feels like an Arc Systems fighting game, the Persona flavor is still very much there, and as such adds a sense of weird style that isn't found in many other fighting games. It's a weird mix, to be sure, but I was greatly surprised at how seamlessly it blended.

It's worth pointing out, however, that if you plan on playing this online, the Xbox 360 online community seems to be pretty much dead. The netcode wasn't that great on that system to begin with, so I suppose it was inevitable (plus 360 owners tend to play more first person shooters than super Japanese fighting games based on super Japanese RPGs about monster collecting and dating...), but I've heard the PS3 version still has a decent community. There's plenty of options for couch combat if that's your thing (that's how we usually play), and as stated the story and arcade modes are pretty robust, but if online's your thing...note it.

If there's anything I can agree with, it's Chie beating up Naoto.

Here's a question: what happens when you fuse the uber-detailed, HD animated sprites from BlazeBlue with the super stylish, super flashy design of Persona 4? If you answered "something awesome," you'd be totally right. 

Persona 4 Arena looks downright incredible. From the awesome yellow theme in the menues (mixed a bit with the heavy "blue" theme from Persona 3) to the gorgeous characters and their respective Personas, Persona 4 Arena is glorious on an HD TV. Characters look very accurate to their Persona 4 counterparts, though I did notice they tended to lean a bit towards the "Arc Systems" style of art rather than their Atlas inspirations, but not enough that it bothered me. As stated previously, the effects are super flashy and look fantastic, while the menues are stylized and striking. It's a great looking game that is loyal to its source material.

Same goes for the voice acting. All the voice actors are pulled over from the original games, except Chie and Teddie. And here's where I'll make a special note. I don't mind Teddie's new voice actor (I honestly can't really tell the difference) but new Chie really irks me. A friend of mine pointed out she sounds like a 30-year-old woman in the PS2 Persona 4, but there was something about her voice that grew on you in that game. Plus, she was my favorite character in P4, so having a completely different voice was really jarring. Not enough to piss me off or anything, just...weird. I hear it's the same VA that's in P4Golden on the Vita, so there's consistency there, but it still is weird. 

Music is, as expected, fantastic, featuring killer remixes (and originals) of songs from both Persona 3 and 4. That stupid battle song from P4 is still the catchiest thing ever, and you'll probably be humming most of the tunes long after the game is turned off.

Plus, the used the final boss song from P3 for Elizabeth, which is the dopest song in the game. So there's that. 

A year later, and Kanji still is a big chicken.

I will say I was very surprised by Persona 4 Arena, in both a good and a bad way. Good because they were very loyal to the source games, the fighting is fantastic, and I love the connection between P3 and P4. Bad because the story presentation is absolutely unfitting to the series it's presenting, it has some horrible pacing, and Chie's voice actor is different. Yes, I'm still harping on that.

All that aside, however, I have to commend Atlas for this. They made a game that crossed two genres that most people don't play both of (lengthy JRPGs fused with fighting games) and managed to create a game that would appeal to both. By having it be both accessible yet competent, and paired with the charming and memorable characters from both games, Persona 4 Arena is an anomaly of gaming that shouldn't work but somehow totally does. If you enjoy either Arc Systems fighting games or the Persona series, you should check it out. Plus, it's like $20, and if you plan on playing Persona 5 I'm pretty sure some stuff in this game will be referenced. It is canon, you know.

If they'd just presented the story better, this would probably earn a perfect score. But for now, it still gets a glowing four out of five stars.

And remember: every day's great at your Junes

X-Blades

The Short

Pros
- Game isn't completely broken
- Auto-maps to an Xbox 360 controller on the PC, which is nice
- Game is playable, if mashing X over and over can be counted as "playing"
- I got it essentially for free in an indie bundle somehow
- The background/world graphics are actually somewhat inspired at times
- Eventually it ends


Cons
- Graphically dated, even on max specs on PC
- Main character's design is an absolute joke
- Gameplay is extremely repetitive and dull
- Upgrades are lifeless and tedious
- No real dodge/block button
- Enemies don't react at all when you deal damage / no hit feedback
- Bosses take far too long to take down
- Some reviewers actually gave it decent scores, which tricked people into wasting their money

Meet Ayumi. Truly a woman for the modern age. 

The Long

If you are going into game design, you should pick up X-Blades. Nobody else in the entire world should even give this game a second glance, but if you are someone who likes to study games (particularly the third-person action genre variety, such as Bayonetta or God of War), then you really must play X-Blades. Not because the game is good, heavens no! But because X-Blade is the literal embodiment of everything that can be done wrong in the genre. I'm dead serious here.

I'm extremely temped to forego an actual review (or my regular formula at least) and just list down every example of how X-Blades flubs it each and every step of the way, but hopefully I'll make it to the end without getting too sidetracked. 

But seriously...are you seeing this outfit? Someone green-lighted this? Not only that, they touted it as a feature on both the box and development videos? Sorry...already getting off track here.

This game looks like ass. In both a figurative and a *cough* literal sense. 

X-Blades is the "story" of Ayumi, treasure hunter lady. I put "story" in quotes because I skipped most of it after hearing the first line to come out of her mouth. Essentially she's looking for treasure, slices up enemies, yada yada. Every instance where she spoke made me want to smash my head into a door over and over again until I went busting through like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, so we'll just leave it as "unimportant" and "bad."

Aw man, I'm already just wanting to list off all the mistakes this game makes. Screw it, we're doing that instead. Not like anybody wants to read reviews of bad games that try to mask their opinions, anyway.

In this shot, she has 67,700 souls. Why the huge space instead of a comma? I dunno, ask the bad UI designers?

So I'm a massive fan of this genre, as in massive. I've played truckloads of action games over the years, with the 3D fighting types being an absolute favorite. Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God of War; the works. As you play through these games you start to notice some reoccurring trends, common errors if you would. Usually most games iron these out by later installments, or they only do one or two so it's forgivable.

X-Blades does all of them. Really. 

So let's just make a list here, shall we? Here's hoping I can actually remember them all, because I sure am not going back to play the game again just to remember.

Luckily, I have a lot of screenshots. 

- Infinitely Spawning Enemies - 

aka "The 'Matt Hazard' Issue"

There's nothing more frustrating then to feel like you aren't making progress in an action game. Usually you can gauge your progress as you progress forward and murder everything in your path, watching the numbers dwindle. In games where they make every kill a chore, you want to feel satisfied when you clear out a room. You don't want to feel like you are swimming against the tide.

X-Blades does this, and in spades. Nearly every level has an enemy whose sole job is to spawn truckloads more enemies. Sometimes there's a dozen of these guys, just popping out flying ghosts like there's no tomorrow! Some can't be killed until all the enemies are killed! Every boss in the game will spawn an infinite number of enemies until taken down. It's tedium at its finest!

While perhaps every once in a while its forgivable, doing it nearly every level is unbelievable. How lazy do you have to be? "Hey, just throw a few spawners in and we'll call it a level. Done!" This is Bad Design 101, and we are just getting started.

Lightning...go?

- Bosses with way too much life - 

aka "The 'No More Heroes' Issue"

This seems to be a Japanese game thing, but it happens in western games too. You get to a boss, and it seems like you are doing no damage to him at all. So what should be a challenging, engaging five minute battle ends up being ten minutes of frustrating tedium. Like the final bosses of Conan or Viking. The best part is, in most of these situations they won't even have the courtesy to grant you a checkpoint. So if you die, you go all the way back to the beginning, thirty minutes back. It's frustrating, obnoxious, and an amateur mistake. X-Blades does it not just with the bosses, but with every freaking enemy...you know what? Let's give it it's own bold thingy here.

- EVERYTHING has way too much life (including you) - 

aka "The 'Ninja Gaiden 1' Issue"

Everything takes forever to kill. Everything. Even when using the elemental weaknesses against them, it still takes too long. Even after upgrading your weapons (which I swear does nothing), most everything takes about twice as long as it should to go down. To add insult to injury, they hardly do any damage to your massive health bar, either, so it becomes an incredibly dull war of attrition. It's worse on the bosses, but having the regular enemies do it is just...it's bad. 

Hope you brought popcorn. I'm not stopping. 

- Gating your path until you kill every last enemy -

- The "'Way too many action games do this' issue"

Man I hate this, and it's always so contrived. "An invisible door appears! You can't continue until you kill every enemy in the area!"

I can understand how this can work, and honestly it's kind of a staple of the genre. Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and God of War all do it frequently and I love those games. What makes X-Blades so much worse is the previously mentioned year and a half it takes to kill anything, and the fact that if even one tiny, hidden enemy remains (because some of them don't even seek you out; they just sort of hide) you are gated from continuing. What an awful mess. Not only that, after you clear the path, it doesn't even give you a camera pan to show where to go. You just run around hoping to find the exit eventually. Great. 

- Putting bad platforming in an action game -

- The "'Seriously, stop tacking this crap on if your system isn't designed for it' issue"

Another common issue, but it's way worse in X-Blades, mostly because the double jump only works when it wants to. I'm not kidding; I never found a way to reliably do it. Everybody loooooovvvesss having to do platforming in games that up until that point have been about action, right? That's why climbing the Hades spires in God of War is the best thing ever? Oh wait, no, it was the worst part in an otherwise highly decent game. Because nobody wants to endure bad jumping mixed with bad camera with gameplay controls clearly designed for combat in mind. 

X-Blades, with its awful jumping, takes this to a whole new level. Not only are the parts short and completely frustrating and unnecessary, but the only way to do any sort of sprint is to double tap the analog stick forward and press jump. Seriously, have you tried double tapping an analog stick in a 3D game with any reliability? It just doesn't work. And, in this game's case, resultes in a lot of cheap deaths.

I really despise this game. 

- No hit feedback. At all. -

The "'Nobody makes this mistake anymore' issue"

This is a big one. A real big one. I'd even say that, even with all the other issues before (and forthcoming) I'm listing, this one hurts me the most. There is no feedback in this game, none. Sure some of the smaller enemies sort of think about flinching when you hit them, but big enemies and bosses? They don't even react. Unless you use magic specific to knocking people over (like Earthquake), you can flail about like a crazy person and not know if your hits are even registering. Despite sometimes popping off bits of blood (or gore or...something. I honestly don't know what it is), enemies never flinch, change attack patterns, or recognize you've hit them. And considering how bad the clipping is in this game (it's bad. I can walk through most bosses without taking damage or issue whatsoever), you might never know. Considering how slow boss health meters drop (as mentioned before) you could fail about for a good chunk of time before realizing you are doing no damage. Considering some enemies have actual immunity to specific weapons like...I dunno, regular slashing, knowing that you were doing no damage would be a nice thing.

Added bonus is even your hit animation is weirdly unexaggerated. Don't worry: they make sure you can't do anything for a good several seconds before it resolves, but it looks more like she's just standing there rather than attacking. That's not frustrating at all in the middle of a big fight, to suddenly stop moving and not know why. 

I'm never gonna stop. 

- Not designing levels that flow together or work with your basic gameplay mechanics -

The "Wait, what game am I making here?" issue

X-Blades is split into a large number of very small chapters that have no mid-chapter checkpoints. 90% of these consist of a single area screen where enemies will spawn forever for a good chunk of time until you kill every single one of them and the exit to the next spot appears. Then you go into another single room "level," fight everything, and proceed. Some of these require jumping, and the game scores you after every single room.

The problem is that, with the controls, nothing seems to be designed around how the fighting is set up. You only have a basic attack and a ranged attack, and then a handful of powerups. Enemies seem to be made completely at random and the stages do not encourage any exploration or sense of wonder. One stage (I kid you not about this) was me standing in a room while spikes appeared on the floor and I dodged them by walking around the room slowly. After completing an entire set of spike patterns the pattern reset. I began to wonder if there was something else I was supposed to do, as it had been around ten minutes of me walking around a tiny room dodging spikes that did no damage. Turns out, nope! About halfway through the second cycle a cutscene triggered and I moved on. What was the freaking point of that?

- A combat system that only uses a single button -

The "Enslaved" Issue

As if this game hasn't sold you on tedium yet, what if I told you there's only one attack button? No light and heavy, no variety, one melee attack. Yeah, you have a gun attack, but considering how many enemies are melee you'll mostly just be pressing X over and over.

There are a few magic abilities in the game, which you can map to all the rest of the buttons, but most require either "Rage" or are completely useless. So you'll pretty much be pressing X. Over and over. Forever. 

Demon eyes!

- Having useless powerups that are either too cheap, too expensive, or impossible to find -

The "Devil May Cry" Issue

Upgrades in this game are a complete joke. First off there are the ones you can buy, your magic. The magic itself is a buy once, get it forever deal. It never really upgrades (though buying one kind unlocks more, though it never tells you this even remotely. Would a tree kill you?). 

The prices for these upgrades make no sense. Some are 150 souls. Some are 30,000. Both popping up shortly after starting the game. Which is better? Which does more damage? What's the difference between Fire and Lightning Blades, besides 15,000 souls? What do these moves do? Are there more combos or anything I can do with them? X-Blades tells nothing. 

But in order to actually upgrade damage you have to find secret items in the environment, which are usually hidden within inanimate objects like pots or statues. Huge surprise coming: statues take something like 10-20 hits to destroy. Seriously. And sometimes pots don't break because (as mentioned) the clipping and collision detection in this game is awful. So you'll probably miss a bunch of upgrades along the way.

Not that any matter, since there's perhaps three spells you should get (Fire Swords...uh...and Fire Swords) that are useful. The rest are absolute garbage, especially the ranged "Magic" you learn at the beginning. It does nothing. 

A bad game walks into a bar and asks, "Why do I exist?" And the bartender trades it in an Gamestop. 

- Having Auto-targeting that doesn't work -

The "Games that don't have manuel targeting" issue

This one is especially worse since a good portion of this game is ranged attack, and she can only hit something if she's targeting it.

There is no manual targeting in this game. At all. Everything is done automatically. And I say "is done" very loosely here, because the game seems to randomly choose who to target based on it's current daily horoscope mixed with whatever it read in its tea leaves this morning. I have no idea the reasoning behind the targeting here. I've tried to manually figure it out by messing with the camera, but the only thing it does consistently is avoid targeting bosses for useless enemies or just nothing in the environment. Guess it has that down, at least.

- Being so misogynistic that even males cringe at your character design.-

The "Japan" Issue

I think I should start this off with a picture, which probably isn't safe for work. Not that any of these screenshots have been.

Nothin wrong here. 

Let's go over Ayumi's clothes (or lack thereof). She wears a skimpy bikini top with a g-string on bottom, thigh armor sort of covering part of her butt but not really. Now let me point out that this is a 3D action game, so you spend most of the time behind the character. And also mention that in game her thong is low enough to see the top of her ass-crack as her butt jiggles about.

What the hell is wrong with these people? 

Add in a hefty dose of boob-bounce and the fact she looks like a well-endowed twelve-year-old and the creep factor has hit amazing new levels. I remember reading interviews with the developers of this game who were absolutely obsessed with this character design. They plastered it across everything, bring it up in every interview and touting it as the best part of their game. Like...seriously?

I'm not one to open the can of worms regarding women in games because it's far too complex with both sides taking way too many pot shots. But I think we can all agree that this character design offends everybody, clean sweep. I was embarrassed the minute I loaded this game up.

 Just...dammit X-Blades!

I could keep going, but I think you've had enough.  

Added on top of this system is graphics and character models that look like they were made in the PS2 times. Some developers use cell shading to make absolutely beautiful games (Eternal Sonata, Wind Waker) while others use it to cover lazy graphics. X-Blades is among the latter. While I will admit some of the environments do look decent, usually they are coated in such a think layer of bloom and light that you can't see anything that's going on. This is funny, because the actual effects in battle and bland, don't really emit any light (just a sort of uniform light blob; no actual shadow effects here), and it all looks outright dull. Monster designs are hideous, have low poly count, and again look like something off the PS1. 

Music is also tedious. Going a Devil May Cry route with awful butt-rock mixed with songs that I swear were written for the sole purpose of being annoying, the background music was frustrating to say the least. But what is even more annoying is the voice acting, with every character spouting awful lines in what has to be the most obnoxious voices ever. 

So much for keeping this all short. 

As stated at the beginning, X-Blades is a great game to look at from a design perspective, especially in this day and age. It falls into every single trap action games have been trying to avoid over the past decade. Despite all this, the game is still technically playable, though I have no idea why you'd ever want to. Unless you have it for a means of study, absolutely avoid.

What makes me sadder is that some gaming outlets gave this thing reasonable scores (probably because it wasn't completely broken), which undoubtably tricked some people into buying it (or playing it, in my sad case). It even got a sequel! This is not a good game, not by any stretch of the imagination. If you are looking for an action game, look anywhere elsewhere.

NOT recommended. One out of five stars. 

Evil whats-her-face compels you. 

Yoostar 2: In The Movies

The Short

Pros
- Act in REAL MOVIES!
- A good 50 odd film clips to insert yourself or friends into
- Playing the game with friends can be pretty amusing
- Decent mix across genres, styles, and time
- Can upload your videos online and share them with friends

Cons
- Kinect's video recording camera looks like absolute garbage, especially next to the movie clips
- Doesn't do a good job cropping/trimming your images, and the mic is also pretty bad
- Most clips from famous movies aren't "that clip," you know, the one you actually want to perform
- Menus are clunky and hard to navigate with Kinect interface
- Doesn't have any replay value beyond a novelty you show friends

The GiantBomb bros reenact Norbit, a classic for the ages. 

The Long

The idea behind Yoostar 2 SHOULD work. Being able to insert ourselves into our favorite movies to reenact (or just act stupid) sounds both hilarious and fun, and doing it with a friend would only enhance the experience. The makers of Yoostar went so far as to say that "Yoostar will do for movies what Guitar Hero did for rock."

...yeah, it sure did. That's why I got this game off a clearance rack at K-Mart for $5. Infinite replay value. 

No sense of scale, here. 

As stated, the concept of Yoostar 2 sounds appealing. The game gives you a very wide range and selection of movies and TV to choose from, each with their own iconic moments. You can then insert yourself as one of the characters in the scene, the game will prompt you to speak the required lines at the right times, and then replay it for you. It sounds like it would be great to mess up your favorite movies, and it...sort of is, until you realize the game isn't doing half of what you think it is. 

The game only notices sound, and only if it's making noises at the right time. It can't check actual words (much like Rock Band and other singing games), it doesn't have any scenes that require actual movement (which, given the Kinect's capabilities, is the biggest loss for me), and can't sense facial expressions or anything like that. So you are pretty much just playing karaoke, except instead of singing you are reciting movie lines (or just making up your own, which I did for a certain Terminator scene). 

Acting masters. 

Once you do a scene once, you probably won't want to do it again. Luckily there's a lot here...but I swear their selection isn't very good when it comes to actual scenes from the movies. And why the heck is Norbit in this game? Norbit is like the worst movie ever! And while it's funny to be Derek Zoolander once, if you don't have friends in the room to laugh at your performance you feel pretty lame. And alone. And friendless.

But these conceptual issues have nothing on the technical problems, most of which stem from the Kinect camera itself.

First off, the microphone in the Kinect, which the game uses to record all the lines. I'll be frank: that mic is a piece of crap. I have no idea why it is so bad, but when it comes to recording things it just sounds terrible. The game makes no attempt to adjust your voice or input so that it matches the other actors in the movie (to provide a sense of volume balance) so often I'll be WAY LOUDER than the movie I'm in. The camera also picks up every little thing, so you can get bad scoring by just having a friend laugh at your antics in the background. Awesome. 

The movie selection is mostly good, but with a lot of bad. 

But the ultimate offense is how badly you look after rehearsing. The Kinect's actual camera (vs the infared one) is pretty bad, making the video quality look worse than something I would have recorded off my Razr phone back in 2004. And while I can understand it might be hard to sufficiently "crop" someone's body from the background, if you have long hair (like me) or move a lot it'll often lose you and cut body parts off. Bad trimming with bad recording makes you look like a fuzzy home video cardboard cutout, which is completely unappealing to watch. 

WHICH DEFEATS THE POINT OF THE ENTIRE GAME.

Gettin' ready to "act"

Perhaps the most damning problem with Yoostar 2 revolves back to my original complaints: there is no longevity here. Yeah, it makes for a fun time if it's the first time your friends have seen it, and you might get a few laughs out of ruining some movies (because, seriously, acting them out is boring), but after four or five scenes most people are done, and once you've seen it once you've seen it forever. It isn't like Rock Band where I'll replay games over and over for higher scores, mostly because the gameplay in Rock Band is fun, and acting out scenes in Yoostar 2 is frustrating and dull. Luckily I only paid $5 for this game on super-clearance, and even then I'm not sure I got my money's worth. 

Oh yeah, navigating the menus sucks too, but that' par for the course with Kinect games. 

Yoostar 2 looks appealing on the store shelf. It looks like you'll have a total blast, a really fun time with friends and you goof off and reenact the "THIS IS SPARTA!" scene from 300. But after a few clips you and your friends will be bored and have a weird sense of awkwardness. Did I enjoy this? Was it actually funny? Or was it just really awkward? Maybe it would be better after a few drinks, but I can't attest to that either way. 

It's hard for me to even recommend this as a gimmick game. Like I said, $5, still not sure if I got my money's worth. If someone gives it to you for free then I guess it might be worth your time. But, honestly, this game is just a slew of broken promises, bad tech, and awkwardness. There are better Kinect games if you want to show off your new toy, so go get some of those instead. 

One out of five stars. 

Meet the Fockers. Another classic.