Halo 3: ODST

The Short

Pros
-  All new single player set during Halo 2 but on earth
- Play as somebody other than Master Chief (finally)
- Handful of new weapons
- New Firefight mode
- Story is a very different approach than the other Halo games
- Nathan Fillion does a voice in it
- Includes a disc for the complete Halo 3 multiplayer experience

Cons
- Story is stale and doesn't pack promised emotional punch
- Firefight is friends only; no open matchmaking
- Not much different from Halo 3
- While it's nice to have a Halo 3 multiplayer disc with all the maps, it's still the same old multiplayer
 - Doesn't do much to expand the Halo mythology or improve the Halo formula
- Short; only a few hours long
- Graphics are in the Halo 3 engine and look dated
- Halo Reach basically made this entire game obsolete

Welcome to New Mombasa

The Long

Halo 3: ODST sparked a lot of talk leading up to it's release. Originally titled Halo 3: Recon, it was slated as a sort of discounted expansion pack to the original Halo 3. As it came closer to its release, however, Bungee announced they had added a significant amount to the game, and therefore would be charging full price for it. People were pissed, even though nobody had actually played the game yet. So, in the end, is Halo 3: ODST worth it, or is it just as we all thought: a glorified expansion pack?

Halo 3: ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2. While Master Chief and the Arbitor were off blasting aliens on other planets, back on Earth stuff was getting crappy. The Covenant showed up and started off an invasion, leading to most of the Earth getting blown up and Master Chief having to come back and save the day again (which is how Halo 3 starts). You assume the role of an unnamed rookie soldier who is a member of the ODST squad (which stands for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, basically marines that drop in from orbit to kick butt), whose drop pod has a malfunction and results in him being knocked unconscious for most of the battle. The game is evenly split between playing as the rookie and as other members of your squad who, unlike you, actually landed and did useful stuff rather than sleep in their pod for several hours.

And your captain is Nathan Fillion. That's not the character's name, but I never bothered to learn it. 

As the rookie the game sort of turns into a weird, pseudo-open world experience, where you explore the ruins of the now-overrun New Mombasa and find objects relevant to the battles that your squadmates experienced a few hours previous. You then relive those experiences (which usually involve the standard Halo fare of riding vehicles, blasting dudes, and pressing "B" to melee) before jumping back into the rookie. Near the end of the story, it makes a (rather jarring) jump from the past to the present, where the squad reunites for the final battle and the game ends with the Covenant still blowing up the planet, but Master Chief about to show up. Yay; everything we did was for nothing!

Bungee pushed that this story was better than any of their others, and I can at least agree that it is different than the other Halo games. Halo has always been a power fantasy: you play a super-soldier who can jump ten feet in the air, duel-wield impossibly large guns and base enemies in the face or run them over in purple space jets. Because of this, the set-pieces have always been appropriately over-the-top and goofy. Compare the end of ODST, where you are essentially driving down a freeway (wee?) to the end of Halo 3, where you are driving across the surface of a crumbling planet as it explodes around you, making sweet jumps and finally launching your Warthog off the side of a ruined planet into the hanger bay of a spaceship. 

Yeah, I can make that jump, no sweat. 

This is what Halo is, and it's what Bungee is good at. They aren't good at hamfisted "emotional" stories or slow, plodding exposition. This is also evidenced in Halo Reach, which should have been the best Halo story ever, but instead ended up being incredibly boring and shallow, but this isn't a review of Halo Reach it's a review of Halo 3: ODST, so I'll shut up about that now. Point being: Halo 3: ODST plods along for most of the game, with the flashback action sequences a decent saving grace but still dwarfed by anything that happened in Halo 3. Because Bungee isn't that great at actual writing (especially dialogue), I never felt attached to any of the characters (besides the fact the main character was Nathan Fillion, and I kept pretending he was Mal from Firefly), and so I was never motivated to see what happened. The fact that the single-player is incredible short just seals the deal, leaving it as an interesting experiment but a failed one never-the-less.

So the single-player is unique but uninspired; what about the multiplayer modes? Halo has always been about it's super-hardcore multiplayer following, and on the surface ODST is everything you ever wanted. It comes with two basic modes: Firefight (which is on the ODST disc) and the complete Halo 3 multiplayer (which is on its own disc). Let's talk about Firefight first. 

Suffer not a beastie to live...wait, I said that in my Metro 2033 review. Oops. 

Firefight is basically Halo's answer to Gears of War's "Horde Mode." Basically you grab four human players, and you try and hold off wave after wave of computer-spawned baddies. Every few waves "skulls" are added, basically difficulty modifiers (giving enemies better grenade throws, better aim, more health, etc) to keep the whole thing from becoming a cakewalk. You have to stick together to survive, sharing health and weapons and ammo. It can get very difficult very fast, and it works like it did in Gears with the whole "frantic desperation to survive" once the battles really get heated.

It still has problems, though, first and foremost being there is no public matchmaking. At all. And since you are inexplicably limited to two people split-screen per box (unlike regular multiplayer, where you can have four people at once), you have to play online in order to get a full four player-team, meaning you need at least two actual friends to play with. Yeah, you could tell me to "go find some friends, loser" but having to get the crew together whenever we want to play is inconvenient and annoying. The fact they took this out for Halo Reach only proves they knew it was a bad idea, and makes this mode feel like some weird beta for that new, better version. 

The other problem is that it...just isn't particularly engrossing. I really got sucked into Gears of War 2's horde mode; I probably played it more than any other online shooter's multiplayer up to that point. But Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode just seemed...basic. It was like they knew they should make a "Horde" mode (around this time everybody was doing it) but the only put the bare minimum into it. It's still decent, and if you have four people on system-link where you can scream at each other it's a hilarious blast, but when you tear it down to its core, Firefight on ODST is a really shoddy attempt. This is only further exacerbated by the fact that the Firefight mode in Halo Reach is really good, which again makes me think the whole Halo 3: ODST experience was Bungee experimenting before releasing their actual finished product a few years later.

I suck at Halo 3 multiplayer, but I still enjoyed playing it for some inexplicable reason

The other multiplayer experience is "The Complete Halo 3 Multiplayer Experience," which essentially means they took the same Halo 3 multiplayer you've been playing for years, throwing all the expansion maps on a disc, and calling it good. There is no actual new multiplayer with Halo 3: ODST. At the time it was released I had no problem with this; I owned Halo 3 but hadn't played the multiplayer much, and something I hate about console FPSes is the fact there never seem to be enough maps (unless you shell out like $50 for the expansions). So this disc was actually pretty awesome, if a bit basic. But if you were somebody who loved Halo 3 (which I'm pretty sure that's who Bungee was marketing this game to), then you probably owned the expansions already, meaning the whole "multiplayer" aspect of ODST was wasted on you.

I can't say much about Halo 3's multiplayer: either you love it or hate it. It's heavily weapons based with a hint of vehicular combat, allows for some totally nuts game modes and maps, and everybody on it is way the crap better than me. Regardless, if its your cup of tea then this is the best place to get it, though I'm going to tell you right now that Halo Reach's multiplayer is basically a billion times better.

Bungee still knows how to make a hell of a trailer, though

So...the verdict? Despite what I've said Halo 3: ODST isn't a bad FPS, it's just a bad Halo game. The standard of quality set by the series demanded better than what was given, and the lack of anything new in the multiplayer department (save a mediocre Firefight) really makes this package seem incomplete. Add to the fact that now, years later, I can look back and say Halo Reach did literally everything that Halo 3: ODST did but better, and I see no reason to pick this game up instead of that one. 

That being said, it is still an extremely solid shooter, because while the extra bits may fall short, the core of these Halo games is the shooting, and that holds up. Because of that, I'm going to tack on an extra point to my original two out of five score, giving it a final score of three out of five.

However, I really can't recommend buying it at this point in time unless you really love the Halo universe, have to own every game in the series, or think the Halo 3 multiplayer is somehow better than the Halo Reach multiplayer (it isn't). You can get the game pre-owned for $10, though if you love Halo you could probably go as far as $20. Just know that you are looking at the weakest entry in the Halo franchise. 

Oh look, now I've gone and made Mal sad. :(

Earthworm Jim

The Short


Pros
- Goofy, zany platformer
- Excellent animations and art design
- Lots of crazy levels with tons of variety
- Launch cows

Cons
- Some spotty and floaty controls
- Water level is stupid difficult
- SNES version is missing a level that was in the Genesis version

COW LAUNCHED

The Long

Earthworm Jim is the 90s. Spawned from a generation infatuated with Animaniacs and The Tick, Earthworm Jim is a goofy, weird take on the platforming genre that sports excellent animations, a bizarre sense of humor, and a boss that burps fish at you. Yep, burping fish. This is that kind of a game. 

On its most basic level, Earthworm Jim is a platformer that quickly goes from "cakewalk" to "tough as nails" in just a few levels. You are given two attacks: a gun dependent on ammo and a whip (which is actually your suit whipping your earthworm body). The whip can be used to latch on to various hooks to reach secret areas (or just progress the game) or to kill enemies. Simple stuff.

Groovy!

This game got a lot of praise when it was released, if only for its great art design and animations. Made by professional animators, all the characters and enemies look really good for an SNES game. It's colorful and would fit right in with the Saturday morning cartoons of the 90s. In fact, it did, because they made an animated series based off it (with Jim being voiced by the same guy who does Homer Simpson. Who would have thought). 

Coming soon to a TV near you. In the 90s. 

The weirdness of this game is just...way out there. The first level is a junkyard full of crows, mutant dogs, and you jumping on tires and climbing on conveyor belts to avoid fishtanks and...more tires? It is then followed by the boss that burps fish while dropping tubas on you. Yeah.

You then race a crow through space, dodging asteroids in some attempt to not have to fight him. After that, you go to hell.

Yep

Or "Heck," rather. Fight demons, lawyers, snowmen, and some totally loony cat. And then you go underwater, where you ride a giant hamster to eat cats. And the boss is a fish in a bowl. And then you have a bungee-jumping competition against a sentient ball of snot. And you have to save a little dog who walks forward from ramming into anything for a whole level, or he turns into a massive dog and eats you.

Yep. Bungee jumping snot. Quality. 

 The game keeps mixing stuff up so often you'll probably not notice the fact the game is actually pretty short. The Genesis version had an entire extra level (which was super difficult) that the SNES version didn't have, which is too bad for us Nintendo enthusiasts. We did however, keep the horrible water level, where you have to drive a poorly-controlled pod through hairpin turns, where you only get something like five hits and are on a timer. And then it makes you do it again. And again. And again. 

This is seriously not fun anymore

Eventually, the humor can't stave off the frustration. The bungee-jumping snot is funny, but it just throws you into it with no instruction and you hope for the best. The "save the dog" level is cool in concept but awful in execution: it pretty much requires you to completely memorize the dog's path and when to force it to jump, etc. The fact the regular controls, while serviceable, are not as precise as they should be adds another layer of difficulty and frustration.

You'd better duck, dog, because I am not doing this level again

This game has also been re-released in HD on the Xbox Live marketplace for $10, which is a good deal if you have memories for it, but its difficulty and controls mean it hasn't aged well. While I still think this game is a really fun, unique experience, there is only so much the weirdness can account for. I'd suggest picking it up for your SNES or Genesis for your collection, but not for more than the $10 also asked for on XBLA (get the demo).

If I were to give it a score rating, it would be a close four out of five. Despite it's flaws, I personally think this game is great (and years of playing it have put most of the difficult segments into the "muscle memory" area of my brain), but if you don't have any history with it feel free to knock a point off the final score. 

A face only a mother could love

Week in Review 1/22/2012 - It Starts

Welcome to "Week in Review," where I summarize what went down this last week on Nathan Vs. Video Games, my attempt to review every single game I've ever played. Yeah. It's gonna take a while (especially since I'm still playing games currently).

I started off by trying to just do one game a day, but soon realized that would mean I'd be somewhere around the age of 50 by the time I finished. So now I'm doing two a day, with the possibility of speeding it up once I finish with the current novel I'm writing. I'm going to try and do one retro game and one modern game a day, though I make no promises to me following this system with exactness.

This week I reviewed 16 games, putting the total reviewed at 21. Not a bad start, all things considered.

Here are the links to these reviews with my blurb scores following.

Viking: Battle for Asgard - 2 / 5 Stars
Rayman: Origins - 5 / 5 Stars
Limbo - 4 / 5 Stars
3-D World Runner - 4 / 5 Stars 
Lost Odyssey - 4 / 5 Stars
Legendary Wings - 4 / 5 Stars
The Binding of Isaac - 5 / 5 Stars
Parasite Eve - 4 / 5 Stars
Metro 2033 - 3 / 5 Stars
Protect Me Knight - 5 / 5 Stars
Resident Evil 5 - 3 / 5 Stars
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 1 / 5 Stars
PowerGig: Rise of the SixString - 0 / 5 Stars
The Rise of the Argonauts - 4 / 5 Stars
To The Moon - 3 / 5 Stars
Dead Space - 5 / 5 Stars

So far I've been mostly reviewing either Xbox 360 or PC games, which makes sense since those are probably the systems I've played the most on (except I should probably add the PS2 and SNES as close runners-up). This week I will try to get more SNES and PS2 reviews for you, with plans for Earthworm Jim, Persona 3: FES, and others already in the works.

Also expect a massive review of Nier one of these days, though it might get an entire day to itself considering how long it will end up being.

Thanks for reading, and please share! I might also try to compile a list of every game I plan to review for next week (hint: it'll be massive) so I can directly tick off reviews and you can watch my slow progress to the end.

Have a great week!

Dead Space

The Short


Pros
- Perfect blend of action/horror
- Grisly violence and gore ramp the tension up to insane levels
- Fantastic UI; everything is displayed in the game world. No HUD.
- Sound design is exceptional
- Unique method of dispatching enemies; "strategic dismemberment" rather than headshots
- Graphics are gorgeous and the steller art design leads to some true monstrosities
- Story is interesting and reminded me of Alien
- Perfect length single-player
- Controls on 360 work like a dream

Cons
- Lots of the game consists of people bossing you around to do things
- The end turns more "action" than "horror"
- The "baby" enemies are pretty tasteless
- Limited enemy variety
- Plot kind of goes a bit loco near the end
- Gave me actual nightmares. That's not allowed.

Word of warning: the game very much earns its "M" rating

A warning: This review contains screenshots and video that some might find disturbing. Trust me, the one above is just the beginning. 

The Long

People don't really make horror games anymore. The genre saw a complete shift since Resident Evil 4 showed up and turned it all on it's head, essentially turning "horror" games into "action games with scary elements." Which was probably for the best, considering the reason most horror games were actually, well, scary was the fact that they'd limit your ability to control your character, ramp up the gore, and limit your methods for fighting back. The game was scary because your character was underpowered, the game was intentionally designed for you to die, which meant it just generally felt unfair. Resident Evil 4 clearly saw this as a problem and switched it up, which was good from a gameplay standpoint but bad from a horror standpoint. Who is scared when you can blast zombies with a sniper rifle from three-hundred yards away?

Or rocket launchers. Real scary, guys. 

Dead Space literally came out of nowhere. It was designed by EA Redwood (which has since been rebranded Visceral Studios), saw little to no advertising, and released quietly onto the market. It didn't sell many copies initially, but it did see a massive spike in used sales (which prompted gamers to pick up Dead Space 2 when it came out...see EA? Used game sales help you) as well as extremely favorable review scores. Well, add this review to the mix, because I'm telling you right now this game is amazing.

The premise behind Dead Space is pretty much the same as the movie Alien. Isaac Clark, an engineer, is sent on a mission to investigate what is going on the U.S.G. Ishimura, a massive mining ship designed to "crack" a planet from orbit and extract it's precious minerals. Apparently everything on the Ishimura just went dark, so a small team of an engineer (you), two pilots, a military leader, and another engineer head down to try and figure out what is going on. After crash landing and finding the place completely deserted, things get...nasty.

Seriously, you should have just turned around and left

It turns out the hundreds of thousands of people on-board have been transformed into horrifying monsters called "Necromorphs," essentially re-animated corpses that have been twisted into really nasty things. They are fast, they are brutal, and they don't lumber about like idiots (hey there, Resident Evil 5!). They want you dead, and they will not hesitate to completely dismember you at a moment's notice.

Isaac (aka you) is separated from his team, and thus begins a long and dangerous journey to both restore power to the ship, find out what the heck happened, stop it from continuing, and get out safely. It's a bloody, violent story, filled with betrayals, deaths, and plenty of twists to keep you on your toes. While there are a few parts that are unbelievable (one Necromorph manages to infect an entire ship in like fifteen minutes? Really?), the tension just keeps ramping up until it reaches a near-unbearable level, closing out with an insane sequence and reveal that (while predictable) is still pretty shocking. Combined with fantastic voice acting (Isaac is silent but the rest of the crew, as well as the audio logs you find, can be quite chatty), the story is as compelling as it is shocking. It fits the genre well, and leaves you wanting more.

And there are some of these things. Gross. 

Aside from the story...where to begin? Well, I suppose I can start with the graphics. Dead Space looks amazing. The animations of the enemies are completely disturbing and fantastically executed. Isaac has a sort of heavy, thumping side to his movements that fits with all the mining equipment he's wearing/hauling around. The blood and other fluids the nasty creatures spew is particularly well rendered, making the disgusting enemies and environment even more horrific. I have literally no nitpicks with the graphics, and I will say the lighting in this game is something particularly worth mentioning. Lighting in games (especially horror games) is a delicate thing that has to be done completely right or else the player will just not notice it. Dead Space does it all better than any other game I've seen (with the exception of its own sequel, Dead Space 2) and it just proceeds as a fantastic compliment to the graphics. Incredible stuff.

Perhaps my favorite feature, however, is the HUD. Or rather, the lack of one. See, Dead Space has NO onscreen HUD. Everything you need to know is displayed directly in the game world, meaning no arbitrary menues ever (unless you do a complete, hard pause with "Start"). See that bar on Isaac's back? That's your health. See the blue half-circle next to it? That's your statis gauge. When you raise a weapon to fire it projects a small hologram with the ammo you have left. Menues such as inventory, shops, workbenches for upgrades, elevators; everything is displayed in-game via the world's holographic technologies. It's something you really wouldn't think much of, but it really provides an unparalleled level of immersion. Remember Metro 2033? Where the entire UI is set in-game? They took it from this, and guess what? It works great in both of those games. The best part in Dead Space is the fact that going to a store doesn't pause the game (even though it locks your character in place). So if there are still enemies nearby quickly trying to "hide" in a store to pause the game will only result in you getting your face gnawed off. 

I really suggest blasting that thing. 

This level of dedication to its mythology also shows in the weapons. As an engineer, Isaac doesn't really pick up guns or other weapons, and the Ishimura is a mining ship so it isn't exactly stocked with heavy artillery. Instead, Isaac has to make do with the various mining tools left onboard the ship to mow down the monsters. Your first weapon is a plasma cutter (which is also probably the best weapon in the game), a "gun" used for mining that can fire in either a horizontal or vertical line. You pick up other stuff too: a line gun that cuts a straight arch forward, a buzzsaw that holds a spinning blade out a distance and can be directed about (this is a particularly nasty weapon to use on your enemies), an industrial flamethrower, and others. You do get a "gun" at one point, but it's vastly inferior to the mining tools you find, as I will now explain.

The idea behind Dead Space's shooting is also unique. In most games (including horror games) your goal is to aim for the head. Not so in Dead Space. Shooting off an enemies head usually just pisses them off, making them a harder foe. Dead Space's system (which they coined the lovely term "strategic dismemberment") is to shoot arms and legs off the horrors until they stop moving. Which is exactly why the plasma cutter is the best gun in the game: you can shoot horizontally or vertically on a whim (and there's an achievement for beating the whole game using only it, which is actually pretty easy). This system really mixes stuff up, but it also forces harder decisions than just "aim for the head:" do you go for legs which are harder but slow enemies slightly, or the arms which are their main means of attack? 

But always aim for the glowing weak point

All this is combined with controls that are both tight and somewhat hindering, but intentionally so. Remember what I said above? About how the genre's staple is intentionally weakening your character (usually through poor controls) in order to cheaply "ramp up the tension?" Dead Space's only real way that it does this is with it's UI: not being able to pause can prove difficult, it's totally possible to get into some camera angles where you can't see Isaac's health, he move a little clunkier than a more agile person would (but it's totally believable), and you can't see ammo unless you either go into a menu or raise a weapon. But as for the shooting, it's spot on. You can move and shoot (again, suck on it Resident Evil 5), strafe, and make pretty precise shots. They manage to do this and keep the game difficult and intense by cranking the enemies up to eleven. Like I said: they are extremely fast, very deadly (at the beginning you have two hits, tops, before you are dead) and come out of nowhere. Rather than having to gimp its enemies due to hindering gameplay (just look at how slow the zombies or enemies are in the original Resident Evil or Silent Hill games) it catered the enemies to work with the tight controls. That, my friends, is called being a good game developer. 

I forgot to mention that in space there is no sound save your breathing. And since your enemies don't breath...you won't hear them sneaking up on you. At all. 

So it has beautiful graphics, steller art design, awesome sound, great controls, and is a most excellent action game. So here is the real clincher: is it actually scary? With all this action and fast paced shooting, is it possible to be legitimately scared in this game? Resident Evil 4 was white-knuckle tension at its finest, but it really wasn't scary enough to stick with you. The old Silent Hill games (especially 2 and 3) gave me some serious heeby-jeebies, but they did it at the cost of clunky tank controls and poor combat. How does Dead Space fare?

You've been warned: this video is pure nightmare fuel. Even at poor quality. I saw 5:50 in game and had to turn it off afterwards.

Dead Space is both tense and scary. The beginning parts especially, where you are unarmed and have no idea what is going on, is particularly nerve-wracking. The game knows when to quiet down, cut back on the enemies, and throw you into scenes of total creepiness. It's these quite parts of Dead Space that are truly horrific, often coupled with witnessing the aftermath of things better left unsaid. Even near the end, where you get equipped enough to blow through most enemies without too much trouble, there is one particular part of the game where you visit an area you've never been before, and what you see there is just...brrrr. Creepy. 

The horrible looking monsters help, too. 

So...problems? What don't I like about this game? Well, the story is interesting but it usually consists of one of the two remaining members of your team radioing you and saying "Oh crap! This thing just broke! Quick, you go fix it while I wait here to turn it on!" And after you fix it they say "Oh no! It still isn't working! Now go here and fix this next!" Which gets old real fast.

The enemies also don't show much variety. You have your standard running guys, ones that crawl on the ground and have tails, these weird mutant baby things (which are super tasteless, by the way, and they get worse in Dead Space 2), some big fat ones like the one above, the wall guys, and a few others. By the end of the game they basically recycle the enemies but instead color them a sort of gangrene-looking black (meaning they are harder) which is nice they are more difficult but you use pretty much the same tactics to take them down. 

Aside from that, I really have little to say bad about Dead Space. I've had friends try it on my recommendation and then quit (the tension and violence is certainly too much for some, if not many), but if you can handle the extreme violence and horror you are looking at simply the best in modern horror/action games (and yes, I think it's a better game than its sequel, but you'll have to read that game's review to find out more about that). Anything I can complain about is nitpicking, because as a whole every part of this game fits together wonderfully to create one of the best games I've ever played. 

Oh, and one more thing: the game only has single player and is about 6-8 hours long, but beating it gives the option to play on "Insane." Let me tell you: this is the single most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done (except Dead Space 2's "Hardcore" mode, which gives you only two saves to beat the entire game with). You die in single hits at the beginning, even with the best armor. By the end you've upped it to about three hits, but enemies are significantly tougher and more aggressive. I takes an already tense game and turns it insane (hence the name of the difficulty) and is like playing a totally new game. The game also has a New Game + mode for those who like that, though you are limited to replaying on the same difficulty. 

Falcon...PUNCH!

I'm pretty sure you can get the game new for $20. It is worth the full $60. I've played it both on Xbox 360 and PC (the PC version released with some issues that have since been fixed) and suggest playing it with a gamepad either way. If I were to give it a star rating, it would be five out of five. 

And since I promised in my warning to show you something that would give you nightmares, here's a design illustration for the standard Necromorph.

This picture still freaks me out. 

To The Moon

The Short


Pros
- Absolutely beautiful soundtrack
- Charming 16-bit "RPG" style graphics
- Fantastic, emotionally riveting story
- Lots of interesting plot twists

Cons
- Gameplay elements seem unnecessarily tacked on
- Walking from place to place can be boring and uninteresting
- Very short (3-4 hours, no replay value)
- Story is good but seems to back off just short of being magnificent
- I can't decide if the ending is perfect or just mediocre

To The Moon is an extremely story driven experience

The Long


To The Moon is not really a video game, at least not by standard conventions. Yes, it's an interactive piece of computer software designed for pleasure. Yes, it looks very much like an SNES (or PS1) era pixelated JRPG. And yes, it does have some puzzles, adventure game elements, and even a weird duel-joystick shooter-esque part (which is thankfully very short). But in reality, To The Moon is simply "game as story." It's a tale that chooses to use, instead of words on paper or actors on screen, video games as its medium of choice. It's probably the closest thing to an "art game" I've reviewed on this blog, and might actually be the first "art game" I've actually played all the way to completion.

It's a not-so-distant future. Through technology, we are able to grant a person on their deathbed one final wish, by going into their minds and altering their memories to add the thing they want most. You assume the role of two scientists tasked with fulfilling a dying man's final wish: he wants to go to the moon, but he doesn't know why. Thus begins a journey starting at but a few hours before his death, and spanning all the way back through an entire life of love, loss, mysteries and mistakes. All with the hope of finding the reason why he wanted to go to the moon, and making his final dream possible.

If this sounds a bit like the plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Inception, you aren't far off. The game is very similar in these regards, almost uncannily so. Luckily it forges its own path relatively quickly, providing a story that is both unique, touching, and very much relevant to everyone.

Even though it has an "RPG Maker" vibe, I can't knock the impressive visuals

In terms of actual gameplay, To the Moon is a hybrid adventure/puzzle game. Without spoiling the story, the general gist is that in each block of memories you experience there are five objects that are especially pertinent to the patient (Johnny's) past. Once you find these five object (usually accompanied by short scenes explaining their importance), you apply them to a final object that will allow you to warp to a different memory. In order to warp you have solve a simple block-turning puzzle, which is usually not easy enough to cakewalk through and not hard enough to actually provide any mental stimulation. You have to do about a dozen or so of these puzzles across the course of the game, and by the end they feel more like unnecessary roadblocks to continuing the adventure rather than actual important parts of the story.

There is another weird moment where the game sort of turns into a duel-stick shooter mixed with...I don't know, dodging stuff? Is that a genre? It feels extremely out of place and while I can understand it was perhaps put there to lighten a particularly dark series of events, it's contrived.

Seriously, this game is very pretty

Speaking of contrived, let's talk about the story. Now don't get me wrong: I really enjoyed the vast majority of the story here. Seeing Johnny's relationship with his wife River play out in total reverse, from her death all the way back to when they first met was absolutely beautiful, and even though I knew (generally) what was going to happen next, it was carried out with such care and craft I didn't mind being proven right.

That being said, the story still has a few hang-ups. The two scientists - who are essentially silent watchers of this man's past - are extremely dry, insensitive, and off-putting. I understand that as a part of their job they'd have to distance themselves from their clients, but some of the remarks they make are downright spiteful, and it really pulled me from the story. The attempts at humor, as well, were low-brow or just simply uninspired, and they were a sharp contrast to the soft drama that was taking place throughout the rest of the game. Again, I can understand the need for humor to help keep things from getting too dark, but I really think their lines could have gone with another edit. 

My other issue was with the ending, which I will not spoil here. Needless to say, I'm glad an issue that I thought wasn't going to be addressed was, and the final scene is absolutely jaw-dropping. However, the events that play up to it don't seem in line with the rest of the story. When you are talking about someone's life, you are talking about an extremely complex and deep event. There are millions of threads, all knit together, and there is no easy way to take it all apart and then put it back together again (which the ending somewhat attempts to do). The ending presented just seemed...shallow. Like we'd had this massive amount of buildup over the previous two and a half acts, and now they chose the easiest way to end it. It wasn't bad, and again the ending scene was beautiful, but it did seem a little too...safe. After such an elaborate, excellent story, I was really hoping for an ending that matched. I didn't feel like I got it. 

The soundtrack is downright beautiful

The music in the game is mellow, slow, and absolutely perfect. It kicks in at just the right time, using only a few unique tunes and then variating on them throughout. It works, and works very well. The graphics also, despite looking like they should be in a JRPG, are well drawn and animated and work well to put this haunting, somber story together. All the pieces fit, making the experience an excellent one.

There are very few games like To The Moon, and again that is mostly because it isn't really a game. As an interactive story it is quite good, though it does falter a bit in spots. As it stands, the game is $12 from Freebird's website, but you can play an hour of the game for free to decide if you like their style of storytelling. The game is only 3-4 hours long at the very most, which makes that asking price seem...a bit high (though $12 really isn't a lot of money, I think dropping $5 from the price would be more reasonable). 

This is also an extremely difficult game to score, as it doesn't follow any other gaming conventions. I'd probably give it two stars as a game, but four stars as an overall experience. Considering the puzzles sort of messed up the flow of pacing and probably should have been kept out, I'm going to go for an overall  three out of five. 

Rise of the Argonauts

The Short

Pros
- Compelling storyline
- Superb soundtrack
- Mix of Mass Effect and Greek mythology
- Leveling up / skill trees proceed in a very unique way
- Dedicate yourself to three gods, in both dialogue and fighting, and be rewarded appropriately
- Fun combat; multiple weapon types to use
- Voice acting is excellent

Cons
- Very, very glitchy
- Not as much combat as you'd think; mostly lots of dialogue
- Not really any bosses to speak of
- Can drag on at times
- Feels like with just a little more polish it could have been something exceptional

BOOM. There goes the head.

The Long


The Rise of the Argonauts is a game from Codemasters, the guys mostly famous for making racing games like Dirt and Grid, and Liquid Entertainment, who have made no notable games as of yet. It sort of came out of nowhere in 2008, sold a meager amount of copies, and silently slipped away. This isn't Codemasters' first attempt into something besides racers; they created the Overlord games as well. While their non-racing games all seem to share some common theme (read: they are all super buggy), Rise of the Argonauts is actually an exceptional title from beginning to end, blending the best parts of other games while adding enough unique touches to provide a captivating experience.

The plot is a loose version of the Greek mythological tale "Jason and the Argonauts." Essentially, Jason's wife gets axed on their wedding day, and so he goes off on a quest both for revenge and to try and persuade the gods to bring her back to life. After a quick trip to the local oracle for guidance, the game lets you pick from a variety of islands to tackle at your leisure, finally throwing you in the Underworld (not a huge spoiler; literally every game set in ancient Greece puts you in the Underworld at some point) and off to an epic-ish final battle. On the way you'll run into plenty of ancient Greek staples (Hercules, minotaurs, cyclopses, the works) though it doesn't mine it's mythology quite as heavy as the God of War series. Actually, at first glance people might think this game is just some God of War knock-off. They couldn't be more wrong.

Does this look familiar? Like...I don't know...MASS EFFECT?

Rise of the Argonauts is an action RPG, and a very unique one. You still go out and bash stuff with a trio of weapons (you have spears for quick strikes, maces to break shields and amor, and swords are just all-around good), knock dudes'  heads off with spears, and generally just wreck shop if somebody tries to get up in your face. But what is interesting is how little combat the game has relative to its dialogue choices.

One of the islands, for example, is pretty much 90% talking. The island you start on, also, is primarily you conversing with people in order to get to know them better. Sounds boring, right? Well, luckily the game has an excellent script and superb voice acting, but there's another bonus. 

Each dialogue choice puts points in one of four gods. For example, pick the war-like, aggressive response and you please the god Hades. Be witty and clever and Hermes will benefit, and so on. Each of these four gods have a tech tree (and are tied to one of the three weapons or the shield) and so how you choose to play your character (brutal, clever, compassionate, or lawful) changes what abilities you'll be able to spend your points in. It's a really cool system, and one that actually makes your dialogue choices important in more than just "I want to play this character as a massive jerk."

The graphics and art ain't half bad, either 

The leveling is also really, really unique. You don't get experience points at all in this game. Rather, the game has a "constellations" system, where basically each star is a different goal (example: behead 10 enemies, complete a quest objective, kill 1000 enemies, etc). These "achievements," if you will, progress naturally throughout the game, so you don't ever feel like you have to grind, but you will have to try some tricky stuff during combat in order to get them all. They even have ones for talking to all your companions you pick up along the way, which is pretty cool. 

Getting stars gives you points, when you can then use on the God trees you've unlocked. Basically you are "dedicating" your achievements to a certain god, who in turn grants you the boon you've requested. It's a really clever system, especially considering we've been pretty much doing the XP thing forever and Rise of the Argonauts essentially invented an entirely new (and workable!) way around it that also fits wonderfully into the game's mythology. Really, really clever stuff.

The combat itself is pretty basic (play on hard) but never too overwhelming. I actually didn't spend any skill points for about half of the game (was saving them up to blitz a tree when it finished unlocking), and with some skill I never really had too many problems. The fact it requires you to switch up your weapons (maces on shields, spears on fast enemies, swords on...everything else) keeps things fast and fresh, and while it isn't God of War, it was never unfair or clunky. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of bosses (it's not like Greek mythology is lacking for big nasties to take down), but the experienced still felt complete regardless.

The soundtrack really needs to be mentioned. It's by Tylor Bates, the composer behind the 300 soundtrack, and it is really really good. The music is appropriately haunting, with plenty of backing vocals singing in...greek, I'd assume. One of the best songs in the game happens when your health is low (you have regenerating health in this game). The screen pales to a muted color, all other sounds and music cut out, and you hear this.

Really haunting

Other points of note are just the continued similarities to Mass Effect. You get more and more companions that you haul around on a ship, taking two of them with you on missions. They bicker and comment based on who you've brought, though you can't equip or level them. The dialogue wheels, as I said above, are straight out of that game, and the super-cinematic camera angles that pop up during conversations and cutscenes are ripped straight from that game. This isn't a bad thing - Mass Effect did all these things right, and so does Argonauts - it just can seem a little familiar at times.

Lastly, this game is really, really glitchy. This is especially the case if you install it to the Xbox 360 hard drive; for some reason this seriously increases full system freezes (no good). I don't know if the PC or PS3 versions have the same issues, but from what I hear they are still pretty glitchy. I never hit anything that erased my progress or made it so I couldn't continue, but I did have to do a few manual reboots because of freezes, odd geometry catching, or other weirdness. It's a fragile game, and was never patched, which is too bad because it could very well have been a masterpiece had they just taken the time to polish it up a bit further.

Rise of the Argonauts is the very definition of a lost gem, if one still in the rough. It's beautiful, has great voice acting and storytelling, and while it might be Mass Effect meets Greek mythology, it brings enough on its own to the table to make it a completely enthralling experience. The unique leveling system alone makes this game worth checking out, and also it being a game that can focus almost an entire section completely on dialogue choices with no combat and still stay entertaining. It's just a pity they didn't squash all the bugs or put a little more effort into marketing it; I'd love to see more games like this come out of Codemasters.

You can get the game new for $20, and even less used. This is absolutely worth it at that price. If I were to give it a star rating, it would be four out of five, if only because the lingering issues prevent it from being completely perfect. 

And it's also an easy 1000/1000 for achievement hunters. So there you go. 

Power Gig: Rise of the SixString

The Short


Pros
- Has that "Breathe" song from Breaking Benjamin that I like...oh wait, it's already on Rock Band.
- Has "Head Up High" by Firewind...crap, that's on Rock Band too?
- Well at least it has "Cherub Rock" by...dang it Rock Band!
- You can sing into it and it will give you points


Cons
- Freaking everything.
- Graphics and animations would look bad on the PS2
- System for displaying notes is the worst ever
- Four characters, each locked to an instrument. Why...?
- No auto calibration; you have to do it manually (even if you take your #s from Rock Band or Guitar Hero it still doesn't work)
- Seriously, the way the drums work is impossible to read
- Story about "fighting 'The Man' with rock" is almost as dumb as Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock's story
- Load times are awful, even installed
- Makes you play the same awful songs over and over and over again

Oh, it only gets worse

The Long


Let me just get this out there from the start: Power Gig: Rise of the SixString is total garbage. There is literally no reason to purchase, borrow, or even look at this game in a world where Guitar Hero and Rock Band exist. It plays horrible, has a mediocre selection of music at best, is graphically an abomination, and has even less features than the original Guitar Hero. This is the worst music game I have ever played, and I've played plenty.

Power Gig's big push was the "Rock it Real" idea, where they basically promised that you could learn to play a guitar with their game (something Rock Band 3 tried and Rocksmith perfected). The bundle packages even came with a REAL SIX STRING GUITAR! which you could plug into the game (or an amp) and ROCK OUT MAN. The Six-String guys even flew over some volcano in Iceland and threw a big bag of plastic guitars into the lava to prove their point, and to also prove they should have used that money on a better graphics.

You sure are showing those Rock Band/Guitar Hero types, Power Gig

That's pretty awesome, I guess, except for one problem: this game does not teach you how to play real guitar. The guitar they ship is too short and is made of crappy plastic. In the game, you don't actually learn chords; they just designated the standard Guitar Hero/Rock Band colors (green, red, yellow, blue, orange) to different spots on the neck, so you can literally press ANY strings down (making ANY chords) and it'll still take. It DOES NOT TEACH YOU GUITAR AT ALL. So them dumping all those things in the volcano was basically them saying, "These plastic toys have better user interface than our sucky guitars with uncomfortable strings! Quick, BURN THE EVIDENCE!"

So you can't learn real guitar with it, whatever. Rock Band 3 has the actual option to teach me guitar and I've never touched it, and I love Rock Band 3. So...what about that gameplay? And it's much-proclaimed Kid Rock exclusivity? Can it compete in a world where Rock Band 3 and Guitar Hero 5 exist?

No. It can't. Because it is crap.

Some "quality" gameplay

Everything about Power Gig screams low budget. First off: graphics. the game looks straight up horrible. I'm surprised this game even shipped with HD options. The characters would look bad in an early PS2 era game. Their animations are especially awful, being static and jerky and worse than Guitar Hero 3's drummer (my standard for bad music game animations). The characters are completely uninteresting, and the worst part is you can't switch them out. You have one guy who is the singer, one who is the drummer, one the bassist and one the guitarist. That's it. Customization? Character creation? Freaking anything? Nope, don't need it.

After you've been assaulted by this horrible blight upon your eyeballs, you suddenly realize something. "Hey! I'm playing these notes with this awful interface, but they aren't registering? What gives?" Maybe this is just a personal problem I had, but I could never  get this game to calibrate properly. I have an HDTV with a little delay, and a sound system with a rather significant delay (something like -43 MS) which means if my game isn't calibrated, I can't play it. Guitar Hero and Rock Band offer automatic or "strum when you see a line" calibration which helps set it up for you. Power Gig gives you a bunch of numbers and says "good luck!"

So I booted up Rock Band 3 and checked my lag specs, wrote them down, booted up awful Power Gig again and punched them in, determined to glean some sort of enjoyment from this abomination of a product. Guess what. It still was off. And let me remind you: I am pretty damn good at these kinds of games. I play everything on Expert (including Pro Drums on Rock Band 3 and harmonies) so it wasn't for lack of skill. Even on medium I was missing more notes than not. I tried different guitars just to be certain...nothing. It never worked properly. Not that I'd want it to, given how awful their notes were (and their charting...horrible).

ROCKIN' IT REAL MAN!!!

So I gave up and sang, which actually...worked. Believe it or not, their singing system is pretty dang decent. It basically gives you three ratings on your pitch: perfect, passing, and miss. It does it for every single part of the song, meaning that rather than being a strict "pass fail" system (like Rock Band uses) it grades you during your singing on your pitch. I thought it was pretty neat and actually made it so I couldn't half-way do things like I can sometimes in Rock Band (though I sing on expert, so my pitch is pretty decent already). It's "talky" parts were also better in that regard, actually picking up syllables so if I just sputtered nonsense it would sometimes bump me from "perfect" to "passing." 

Unfortunately, my joy was short lived, because the career mode in this game is an abomination. Remember how I whined about Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock? I'd rather play that ten times over than play half of this again. Basically, every song has an associated symbol. Your goal is to go to various venues (which each have their own symbol) and sing the right symboled song in order to "level up" the area. So you grind the same three songs ten times until the area unlocks.

Then it gets worse.

They make it so (essentially) you get more songs, but each song counts half, except a few that count full. So you either play a bunch of half-pointers (which is a waste of time) or just sing the double-pointers a billion times in a row. 

Then it does it again. 

I didn't finish the game. I couldn't. Which means I didn't unlock all the songs (yes, song unlocking! That's always awesome, not being able to play the songs I want upfront!) and never got to the Firewind song I really wanted to. Then I remembered I got it off Rock Band Network like a year ago (and a much better version, too), so I loaded it up and played that instead. That song is AWESOME.

KEEEEP YOOOURRRR HEAD UP HIIIGGGGHHHH

I can't believe I'm wasting so many words on this review when I have better things to do (like write novels). Here's the thing: I bought this game for $5. That was about $10 too much. Don't even pick this game up off the ground if you find it lost and alone on a cold winter's night in the street. Let it freeze to death, cold and friendless. It's all it deserves. 

If I had a "buying price" it would be $-20. With that $20 you could buy 10 Rock Band songs, which would give you about 10x more fun than this game. If I gave a star rating, it would be zero out of five. Don't encourage this kind of behavior. Just...don't. 

Maybe they should have thrown all their PowerGig discs in the volcano.