Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

The Short


Pros
- Adds new units, new balance, and a full single player campaign
- Finally adds boats back in
- New locals are vibrant and colorful
- Added tons of new heroes and content via patch downloads, all for free
- Upgrades to the map editor made custom maps go from "crazy" to "completely insane"
- DOTA.
- The definitive version of Warcraft III


Cons
- New campaign's story isn't as good and ends on a cliffhanger
- Graphics haven't been touched up at all

This menu screen has been etched in my brain forever. 

The Long

So after Warcraft III was awesome and I loved it and all that, I was pumped for the expansion The Frozen Throne. I was at summer camp when I bought it, and was super excited to go home and play it. What I didn't expect was that this would be the start of an obsession, one that has continued all the way to this day. Because with The Frozen Throne came the better map editor, and with the better map editor came DOTA. 

But we'll get to that eventually, because first I have to review this game on its own merits. 

"On its own merits"...with a DOTA screenshot

The Frozen Throne continues where Reign of Chaos left off. The Burning Legion got sufficiently stomped at the World Tree, though the tree was destroyed and most of the world is now roasted. Arthas is still out there, as is Illidan (a fallen Night Elf) making trouble. Illidan is especially being a twit, uniting with the Murlocks (a water race) in an attempt to take over in the Burning Legion's wake. Once again the various forces have to ally, though this story is a much darker one that focuses heavily on Arthas' continued fall from grace rather than the overarching war. 

As it stand, the story is a decent one, though it doesn't reach the heights of Reign of Chaos. It has a few shocking moments (like the ending), but as it stands it doesn't break from the norm. There's some human racism and a few other things to spice it up, but the world isn't exactly brought to a new depth here, and while it's fun and diverse the missions tend to get "samey" (with the exception of the Undead campaign). 

It does have an interesting Orc campaign that plays more like an MMO than an actual RTS, focusing on giving you two heroes and a few random units. Surprisingly, only the first chapter is on the disc, the rest have to be gotten via patch downloads. It's a nice twist, though an actual Orc campaign might have served better. 

The new areas are cool, though the graphics still look mediocre.

But where The Frozen Throne shines is with its improvement to multiplayer and balance. Each race gets one new hero giving them a total of four and, since you can only have three heroes during a match, deciding which one to use becomes a big decision. The new heroes are well balanced and fix previous problems (like the Orcs not having a healer hero), but then they added more. Before you could recruit mercenary unites from random guild halls hidden throughout multiplayer maps, but now they actually have unique heroes there too. Want to summon a Panda warrior to fight for you? You can! It's crazy and adds a level of unpredictability to matches, which the game certainly needed. 

I won't go in detail regarding the new unites, suffice to say that they give the game what it needs: a fresh take, a better balance, and a whole lot more replayability. I didn't really get into Reign of Chaos' multiplayer, but I really got into Frozen Throne's. Something about it sticks better, like Brood War compared to the original Starcraft, and for that I suggest it over the original's. 

Blizzard also gave away a ton of new heroes via patches, introducing new character models and new spells and everything, which is really cool. Normal companies would have charged for these, but with Blizzard they just came with the patches. Good show, and it also revamped the multiplayer every time. They still patch this game to keep it balanced, which shows their constant dedication.

Enough of that, time to talk about DOTA. 

My friends and I call ourselves the "Dota-rds," showing you exactly how mature we are. 

So one of the things I mentioned in my Reign of Chaos review was the fact that these games have an insane map editor. Well, in The Frozen Throne Blizzard just said "screw it" and unleashed the floodgates: you can do just about anything you can fathom with it now. People have made full-fledged JRPGs, actual MMOs that save your progress even after you quit, super complex tower defense games, racing games, wave-based defense games, and the list goes on. By allowing people to make custom spells (the biggest map editor change between Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne), people could now make entirely new heroes with entirely new skillsets, as well as devise their own items and effects. It was this craziness that led to the phenomenon that is DOTA.

DOTA (for the uninitiated) is actually an acronym for "Defense of the Ancients." It was based on an old map type called "Aeon of Strife" (or "Aeon of *whatever*") back in the Reign of Chaos days, though these weren't particularly enthralling because they used pre-built heroes and broke the balance something awful. But with the ability to edit spells, character models, and more, The Frozen Throne was prime for an upgrade. And they did upgrade it. Oh boy, they did. 

That's some crazy stats. 

So here's the general gist behind DOTA (and the MOBA genre it invented). There are two ancients on either corners of the map, and the goal is to destroy (or defend) them. There are always three lanes leading between them, with a river in the middle that allows free traversal between the lanes. There are also multiple shortcuts on either side (you can see the map in the lower left corner of the above screen shot) through trees and forests, which also allows for sneak attacks due to hiding spots and lack of vision. Everyone only controls one hero, while the main "creeps" are spawned by the AI. All the creeps ever do on both sides is spawn and run directly for the ancient, attacking whatever the find along the way (usually each other). There are tiers of towers guarding each pathway and, ultimately, the final base. Your goal is simple: outlevel or outbuy the other heroes, bust through the towers and into the base, and destroy the ancient. Then you win. Easy.

The tricky parts come later. First off, there are over ninety heroes to pick from in the current DOTA iteration, which is insane. Since all their abilities lead to completely unique playstyles, you'll have to be familiar with most of them to both know to play your hero and what you are up against, lest you underestimate them and die to an unknown spell effect. To earn money in this shindig you can either kill creeps for a small amount of coin, sit around (since you get money based on time anyway, albeit very slowly), or murder enemy heroes for fat bank. 

There are also tons of items, including many that can be fused later into better, more powerful artifacts. You have your mix of consumables, armor, weapons, etc. with varying complex effects. Many even give you spells to use. 

So basically you have to manage your hero while still working together on 5 v 5 player teams until one emerges victorious. It's a rush, and since there are so many heroes, items, and playstyles no two games are the same. Games are pretty quick relatively speaking (usually 30-45 minutes) meaning you can burn through one and still have time to do stuff the rest of the day. Like more DOTA. 

Huntin' creeps.

For a custom map, DOTA is crazy in how well balanced it is. While some heroes have their obvious foils (one is straight up titled "Anti-Mage"), when two balanced teams square off it can be a very difficult war of attrition. It's gotten so popular that Valve is straight up porting the game into it's own standalone title (with the brilliant name of DOTA 2), changing literally nothing least they mess up the immaculate balance. And they still haven't given me a beta key, which pisses me off, but that isn't part of this review. 

There are problems with DOTA, the biggest being the bar of entry. DOTA is insanely complicated, with hundreds of items and nearly one-hundred heroes to learn and keep track of, with new things being added and changed constantly. I was lucky in that I started back when the game was still young, so it was a gradual learning process was the game was improved and patched, but for a newcomer it's completely overwhelming. It doesn't help that the community is full of impatient jerks. If the Xbox Live community is a bunch of profanity spewing twelve-year-olds, than the PC community is arrogant elitists, who don't give anybody even a chance to improve before insulting and slandering them. It can take a substantial time investment to understand DOTA, and even if you are good people will still treat you badly. It's an awful community, but that's why you 1. Always play with friends 2. Ignore the haters. 

Almost done with DOTA, I promise. 

Still, for those who persist they'll find an insanely addicting sub-game within the Frozen Throne main game. I started playing this game "officially" during my freshman year in college, our entire dorm floor forming a league and basically going in and kicking the crap out of everybody and everything on Battle.net. Many of us have kept it up to this day, still booting up The Frozen Throne almost nine years later to throw down on some DOTA (though most got into the DOTA 2 beta without me, so now they play by themselves. VALVE! You are ruining my social relationships!) . It's addicting, fast, and very fun, and it's totally crazy this evolved from just somebody messing around in the map editor. 

Literally at the crossroads. 

Back to vanilla The Frozen Throne, the graphics haven't seen much of an upgrade, but they certainly prettied up the effects and the lands you traverse. The music is still just...there, which is fine I guess, but it doesn't stand out at all. It's really about the new units and unique map editor, with the multiplayer being so solid you are willing to forgive the fact the game looks ancient by today's standards. 

Though the set-pieces still look pretty nice. 

As it stands, even today The Frozen Throne is a worth investment for any fan of RTS or RPG action. The core gameplay still holds up, and there's a large group that still competes online. The upgrades to the single player aren't substantial but the new units are, making the game considerably more fun to play, even by yourself. But if you hate the core game you are guaranteed to find something you'll love on the online custom games, with the craziness in the maps coming out of the woodwork. Though it's true most of the talented developers have moved to Starcraft II, there's still plenty to love here, and considering you can get the whole collection of Warcraft III games on the cheap, there's been no better time to dive in.

Were I just rating The Frozen Throne's single player, I'd probably give it four out of five stars. But with the inclusion of DOTA, which makes The Frozen Throne my most played game of all time, I can't give it any less than five out of five. This was a life-shattering phenomenon for me, and a way I met and bonded with lots of new friends and allies. I even met a ton of awesome people over Battle.net because of it, people I keep in contact with to this day. It's been a crazy ride (one I hope continues once I get my hands on DOTA 2), and for that I can't award it with a score any less than perfect. 

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

The Short


Pros
- Unique hybrid of RPG and RTS elements
- Four races, each unique and well balanced
- Long single-player that focuses on each of the four races
- Strong story about redemption, revenge, personal failings, and hope
- Shifts focus from massing units to smaller, more micromanaged skirmishes
- Strong competitive online multiplayer
- Map editor allows for some crazy scenarios
- Fantastic art design

Cons
- Graphics look technically dated
- Music isn't anything special
- The weird RPG/RTS fusion can turn a lot of players off
- Water units are gone from Warcraft II, though air units are still there
- Storyline leaves a lot of things unresolved

The Reign of Chaos has come

The Long

I actually played and beat Warcraft III before Warcraft II. A friend lent it to me after I'd gotten my own tower computer, and I burned through the entire game rather quickly. As a long time fan of both Starcraft and the Age of Empires games, as well as this being about the time I was really getting into the old Final Fantasy RPGs, I loved the uniqueness of Warcraft III. At the time its colorful graphics and interesting characters captivated me, and it's odd mix of RPG and RTS elements where exactly what I wanted. 

But I might be getting ahead of myself. Let me explain (in brief) Warcraft III.

Which involves lots of crap. 

Storywise, Warcraft III excels. Similar to Blizzard's space opera Starcraft, Warcraft III has a well-crafted (get it? Crafted? Hur Hur) yarn at its core that even has a few dramatic plot twists. Essentially, the Burning Legion (aka Demons From Space) has shown up on the Warcraft world, with the intent of taking it over and turning all its inhabitants into undead. I don't get what they think they'll do after they turn everybody into zombies and burn everything to the ground, but villains in these things haven't really thought it all through. The story is then split between the four races: Humans, Orcs, Night Elves, and the Undead. Each has their own unique arc and purpose for fighting and level of involvement. It works because each race is self-contained while still being a part of this big whole. The Human campaign is about the young paladin Arthas who (in an "Anakin Skywalker" esque twist) is corrupted by his bloodlust and desire to destroy the undead to the point that he actually falls and becomes one (and one of the biggest villains in the Warcraft universe). The Undead missions continue Arthas' story as they move to take over the world of men. The Orc story shows their young warchief Thrall as he attempts to take his people across the seas to safety away from the Burning Legion, and the isolated Night Elves have to deal with the multiple refugees encroaching on their lands as well as the Burning Legion coming to destroy them.

As it stands, I found the Night Elf campaign to be the weakest (which is too bad that it's also the last), with a resolution that was a big corny and the characters never proving compelling. The rest of them, however, are well written, and I was genuinely curious to see how each individual character arc was going to resolve. 

The full-3D allows for in-game cinematic, which look...ok. 

But the meat of any RTS (Real Time Strategy) is the gameplay, and it is here Warcraft III takes a unique tangent from other RTS games. Usually RTS games involve building massive armies with a good mix of soldiers, then sending them crashing into each other with casualties quickly escalating until somebody has some soldiers left and somebody else doesn't and the game ends. Warcraft III took this and turned it on its head with its unique approach to the genre.

First off, the game focuses on doing two things differently: smaller battles with further emphasis on specific unit abilities, and heroes. We'll quickly break these down.

Warcraft III takes care in having every unit be useful from start to finish. In most RTS games, you start with crappy fodder units that are cheap and die easily and then abandon by the end of the game. Warcraft III does good to make sure every unit has a good balance of abilities, strengths, and weaknesses to make them viable. Even the crappiest Footman has his benefits: he can learn an ability to make him nearly immune to ranged fire, he's cheap, and you can buy them in bulk because they don't cost much "population" space. This spans across the races to every unit. Due to the massive diversity, you are required to diversify yourself or else you'll eventually face an opponent who has built your weakness en masse, and you'll be crushed. The balance is near-perfect (though Orcs seem a bit weaker to air than the others) and since your maximum population unit is substantially lower than other games, you'll have to pick your units very carefully. 

Second is perhaps the biggest change: Heroes. In addition to building regular units, Warcraft III now has special hero units. These units level up, learn new abilities and spells, can purchase or pick up weapons, potions, and armor to equip, and even learn an "ultimate" at level 6. Heroes only gain XP when around battle, so it's important to either go around hunting down neutral "creeps" (killable creatures that come with whatever map you are playing) or fight enemies. Heroes can be revived but at a hefty cost, and they are also extremely powerful and tout the best spells in the game so it makes sense. While units are certainly important, having a level six hero when your enemy has a level three hero can completely change the tide of battle. 

Leveling up your hero is necessary to win

It's this fusion of traditional RTS elements (unit diversity, finding a mix between ground and air units, etc) and the RPG elements with the Heroes that makes Warcraft III shine. Since you are limited to the number of units (and heroes) you can have, you are constantly required to make difficult choices. Do you spawn two heroes but have them split the XP, or just have one fat carry? Do you focus more on ground or air, offensives spells (with your hero's leveling) or defensive spells? Units are more expensive than other games, and the more of them you have the more "Upkeep" the game requires, meaning you'll earn a percentage less gold the more units you have. So you are effectively being penalized for having large armies, which makes you realize exactly how valuable they are. Every Footman death is noticed when they were expensive and important, so the game turns more into keeping your small squads alive and knowing when to strategically retreat rather than throwing mass bodies of soldiers against each other. It's a unique and fun twist on a tired genre.

Though "more zombies" is never a bad strat. I think. 

This is combined with Battle.net, Blizzard's multiplayer service, which hits it out of the park. There's a robust ranking system, online leaderboards and ladders, and a matchmaker that is...ok, if a little slow. But the star of the show is the custom maps. Warcraft III's map editor is insane, allowing for some truly awesome feats for those talented. Several entire new genres of games (MOBA, and making Tower Defense games mainstream) spawned from Warcraft III, which goes to show that if you put the creative tools in the hands of your fans they'll make something awesome. Again: entire game genres from a map editor of an RTS game. It's insane.

The game looks as colorful and vibrant as its predecessor. 

Graphically, Warcraft III is mixed. The art design is fantastic, setting up a theme that would later be used in its blockbuster World of Warcraft MMO. It's bright and a bit cartoony while still able to be dark and methodical, which fits. Effects look particularly flashy, and the attention to detail on the units is astounding. Unfortunately, time hasn't been kind to Warcraft III, and it's 2002 3D isn't nearly as impressive as it was a decade ago. Units have high polygon counts and look blocky, and though they are still well animated they kind of now look more like blobs rather than actual units. Bumping up the resolution can help, and one still can't help but be impressed at the art, but it still stands that the graphics don't look particularly good anymore.

The music is also a bit of a disappointment. After both Warcraft II and Starcraft had some catchy, memorable tracks, Warcraft III's fully orchestrated soundtrack seems content to sit in the "background noise" category of music. It isn't bad, it just isn't memorable or particularly enthralling. Which is too bad considering the pedigree. 

Units have a good mix of attacks and spells

As it stands, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a standout title among RTS games. Despite a few minor issues, the game is an excellent one, and is certainly worth looking into. It's had a polarizing effect among fans for it's design choices to shift towards a more RPG, micromanage heavy style, but I personally love it. It's hard to master, even if you are good at other RTS games, and the hefty single player gives you plenty of value even if you never journey onto Battle.net. The only reason this game isn't as well played as it used to be is because it's expansion, The Frozen Throne, essentially took everything that was good in this game and ramped it up, including the map editor. But that's a review for a different time.

As it stands, I'm content giving Warcraft III a four out of five. It isn't for everybody, and the expansion pack essentially made this first game obsolete, but its still a single-player blast which you should check out (as with all of Blizzard's games). 

Plus, you can have an epic "Bears vs Tanks" battle. What other game has that? NO OTHER GAME IS THE ANSWER. 

The Incredible Machine 2

The Short


Pros
- Over 150 puzzles of the Rube Goldberg variety
- Two-player head-to-head puzzles
- Allows you infinite customization to create your own puzzles, backgrounds, etc.
- Soundtrack is surprisingly good, with mp3 quality tracks
- Balances well between being very difficult and very easy
- Has a great deal of style throughout

Cons
- Will not work on modern machines, even in DOS-Box, due to a memory detection bug
- The "sequel," The Incredible Machine 3.0, works in Windows but strips out every UI element that made the game charming
- Some of the puzzles can be borderline mind-bending in their obscure solutions

Pictured: My childhood.

The Long

We weren't allowed any video game consoles growing up. My mother never saw the point of owning something that only had the singular purpose of playing video games, so she never allowed them in the house. Because of that, we'd have to do with computer games for the majority of my childhood, though I do remember the fateful day when we discovered emulators. My first owned console was a Nintendo Gamecube in college, so everything past the PS1 era was experienced after 2004. 

That being said, I was lucky, because I was growing up pretty much during the golden age of Sierra-On-Line. Looking back I can think of many games that sucked away most of my time: Lords of the Realm 2, Missionforce: Cyberstorm, King's Quest VI, Warcraft III, and the Dr. Brain games. But there is one game that both my brother and I spent nearly every waking second playing. A game that was part creative tool and part actual game, one that was never outmatched for "Nathan's Life Wasted" time until Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne came along with DOTA. Yes, it's The Incredible Machine 2. 

I love this game. 

I still remember it well. I wanted this game for my...oh crap, was it my eighth birthday? [Insert quick fact-check here], ok it was my ninth birthday, because it came out in 1994. Anyway, I really, really wanted this game for some reason, but this was before Amazon.com provided internet convenience to every home, so my mother drove me something like two hours to a small video game store in Santa Barbara (Software Etc? Maybe?) just to buy me this game. It was in a mall, we stood in line for a really long time (I was born in December, so it was probably a Christmas line), but in the end I got my prize: The Incredible Machine 2. And thus my childhood was burned away.

The Incredible Machine 2 is a simple concept, and you've probably played a game like this at some point, since they keep trying to re-release it with different titles but never quite grasp the charm of this original game. Essentially, it's a game based on the Rube Goldberg devices, those overly complex steps involving random objects to do simple tasks (like turn on a light). The game gives you anything from 1/2 to a 1/4 of the puzzle, and then gives you limited objects to solve it. It's a simple idea, but due to the massive number of objects and multiple things you can do with each of them, puzzles can become complex quickly.

Something like this

It's a simple concept, but a good enough one for both kids and adults to be entertained. Despite having an overly-long tutorial (for kids, I guess, but also unskippable) the game gets hard fast, with some of the "Very Hard" batch being downright devious. There's over 150 puzzles, and finishing them all took my poor, only-allowed-to-play-videogames-on-Saturdays 9-year-old self several years to complete.

The amount of stuff you could edit was nuts. Also, all these screenshots look better when you click on them; shrinking them is making them look like crap for some reason. 

But the best part about this game is the puzzle creator. Back in the days before the internet was a big deal (we didn't have internet until 1998), The Incredible Machine 2 allowed for you to create your own puzzles and share with friends via...floppy discs? I guess that works. It had two forms of this: a tutorial that walked you through every step of the process, and a sandbox where it just sort of threw you into the creator and said "GO NUTS!" 

There's an art to creating puzzles. You have to determine what objects you have "locked" in, and which you "unlock" (which the player then has to decide where they go). You can also throw red herring objects (Can Openers were our favorite, since they could double as inclines) to try and screw up your friends. And, after you were finished, you could color the backgrounds with a variety of images to add a personal flavor to your puzzle. You could even mess with gravity and air pressure! How nuts is that?

Even the menus radiate charm

Between my brother and I, we made probably over 300 puzzles, including several that were part of a "Series" that had a sort of disjointed storyline going on. We figured out how to manipulate the puzzle systems to create fake cutscenes, got really good at using the backgrounds (which don't interact with the actual objects) to provide hints for the puzzles, and more. We have about half of them still saved on a floppy disc somewhere back home (unfortunately the other half were on our 486-66...never to be seen again), a testament to this game's amazing systems. We entered contests hosted by Sierra-On-Line (and didn't win, though it involved mailing them a floppy disc with your puzzle on it), competed to out-puzzle each other, and more. It was nuts. But we never did get our friends to play them (none of them owned the game), so I suppose it was a "party-of-one" thing. Oh well.

It has a VS mode, where the cat faces off with Professor Tim. Protip: Cat always wins. 

One of my favorite parts about this game was it had style. From the objects to the menus, everything worked together to have a pleasing GUI and really just add to the style. It also had a surprisingly great soundtrack, using MP3 quality music (something Nintendo wouldn't figure out until last year's Zelda, hur hur hur) that could be played off the disc in a CD player! Yeah, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, only not as good! Whatever, I loved these songs. They aped the style of nearly every genre you could think of (except maybe Rap), except if they had lyrics they'd be singing about puzzles and inclines and can openers. Freaking hilarious.

"Don't drop a hog in the parts bin, you'll be forever trying to find it."

It's unfortunate that the "sequel," The Incredible Machine 3.0, took everything I loved about the game and then sucked it up hardcore. It was essentially the exact same batch of puzzles, except made for Windows 3.1. Which sounds fine, except they made the UI look like Windows 3.1 instead of their own custom thing, which looked like a bunch of gray boxes. Great. Also, the version on Good Old Games is apparently the floppy disc version rather than the CD version (were you seriously trying to save space, GoG?), which means all the music is garbage Midi rather than the awesome CD version. Massive disappointment. Added bonus that the package they sell it in says it has The Incredible Machine 2, but they are lying, and if you email them to tell them it they'll give you a snippy remark about how everybody knows they are the same game.

LISTEN YOU JERK, THIS WAS MY CHILDHOOD. I THINK I WOULD KNOW WHEN YOU DID IT WRONG. URK. 

(Rant over)

Seriously, this looks like ass compared to the original. Thanks, GoG. Thanks for lying. 

It's really too bad, because I still own my original The Incredible Machine 2 disc, but it won't run. Since our dangfangled modern machines have more than 8 MB (yes MB) of RAM, the installer can't detect that high and it decides that since it can't detect it you must not have enough, and therefore aborts the installer before you can even start. I tried messing with its brain in DOSBox, but the installer was too smart (?) for me and still wouldn't work. So I either have to buy a 486-66 again or just play the crappy Incredible Machine 3.0. Sad, sad day. 

Ah, much better. I love you, Incredible Machine 2. 

I love this game. Even playing the gimped 3.0 version, I remembered how much I love it. It's a fun game for both kids and adults, and they've tried over and over to "reboot" it (with The Incredible Machine Contraptions, and the modern, oddly named I <3 Geeks [Seriously, that's the name of the DS game]) but none has ever grabbed the charm of the original DOS version. I really wish I could get my copy to work again, but for now I'll just have to run of nostalgia fumes until I find some ancient computer that will run it at the Goodwill or something. 

You can get the Incredible Machine Mega Pack off GoG for $10, and I now see they changed the product description because of my complaining to say The Incredible Machine 2 is no longer included. So I guess that's good they aren't lying anymore, and the rest of the games in the pack are pretty good (though it doesn't have The Incredible Toon Machine), but I'd only suggest it if you don't mind the ugly version. As it stands, 3.0 doesn't get me my fix, but...whatever. I love this game. 

I need to find my floppy disc. 

Five out of five stars. 

And my disc still plays on my old Walkman! Ha ha ha, 90s!

Braid

The Short


Pros
- Beautiful visuals
- Unique puzzle-platformer with no dead time and genuinely ingenious brainteasers
- Time reversing mechanic is done in a way not seen before
- Music is incredible
- Story is captivating
- Has probably the single greatest ending level in any video game, except perhaps Portal 2


Cons
- While the story is good, it takes the fast train to pretentious town pretty quick
- On that same note, its attempt at "deep" ambiguousness just makes it seem silly
- While the 3-4 hours of gameplay are fantastic, they left me wanting more
- No replay value whatsoever. Once you beat it, you are finished with it.

Braid is one pretty game. 

The Long

What if you had the ability to do things over? Yes, like Prince of Persia, now that I think about it. But it's this idea of being able to redo mistakes that the game Braid centers around, both with its gameplay and story. Braid is a puzzle platformer about time manipulation, an indie game by the extra-pretentious Jonathan Blow. This game received a lot of acclaim when it came out, only to be countered a few months later by people deciding they didn't like it anymore. I don't know why this game got such a massive amount of internet backlash (maybe it's because Blow is kind of a jackass), but regardless of how its creator is or even how pretentious its story tries to be, Braid is still awesome. If I were to ask it to cut all story elements out entirely and stand just on its puzzle gameplay and graphics, Braid would still be a very good game. Part of my favorite games ever? Maybe not. But we'll get to that later. 

Braid gives homage to a lot of other classic platformers. 

At it's core, Braid is simple. You start with one ability: hold X to reverse time. You have no limit to how long you can reverse time (you can erase your progress over an entire level if you want), there are no limitations, nothing. This obviously means death isn't an issue, since you can always back it up if necessary. From these simple beginnings the game becomes more and more complex. You find items that are immune to your time-reversal, meaning if you open doors and then back time up, the doors will stay open rather than close again. There is a world where walking to the right moves time forward, while walking left moves it back, and standing still causes all time to freeze. There's a world where, after backing up time, a shadowy doppleganger will redo the last thing you did. And there's the final world where you are given a ring that puts up a "slow time" bubble, which slows not just your enemies but you as well.

Forgive me if that was a spoiler or something, but that is actually the entire game. You have five worlds filled with puzzles, each employing a unique twist on the basic "time reversal" mechanic. If that sounds a bit sparse it's because it is: Braid can be beaten in probably 3-4 hours on a first run without looking up puzzle solutions on YouTube. What matters, however, is how good those 3-4 hours are.

If you have a nice HDTV, this is a great game to show it off. 

Braid has no filler. Before each world there are a collection of books that fill in the "story" (more on that later), but you can completely breeze by them if you like and get straight to the puzzles. There is little exploration or even traversal, meaning it's essentially going from one puzzle to another until you are finished. No filler, no fluff, no padding. So those 3-4 hours I mentioned above? You will be actively engaged the entire time. Backing time up, slowing time down, all that stuff will quickly become your plaything as you master the mechanics of each world. And just when you have it down perfectly, the world is over and you are given a new toy to play with. It's perfectly paced and painless throughout, making it an excellent game for both "hardcore" gamers as well as the slow-learning "casual" crowd.

Every puzzle in this game is masterfully designed. Like how each level in Super Meat Boy was meticulously created to be perfect, Braid's puzzles are fun, paced well, and offer just enough mental strain to avoid being frustrating. It's that perfect balance Portal had, only as a time-reversing platformer. Great stuff.

Each level has a graphical color scheme to it, making them all the more memorable. 

Now we have the elephant in the room: Braid's story. After its release people went all loony trying to fully decipher it, whether it was a metaphor or meant to be taken literally, or if it was about a princess or the making of the atomic bomb or what the hell what is going on in this story?! Since I've come to the conclusion that overanalyzing this batch of supposed nonsense is just buying in to Jonathan Blow's ambiguous pretentiousness, I'm going to take this story at complete face value because that's what works the best. You are Tim, a dapper looking gentleman who runs around in a full suit and tie (and has red hair! Bonus!). He was apparently in an relationship with the "Princess," and the situation of this relationship isn't fully explored until the very end of the game. During this time, Tim made a mistake, and now he is off trying to recover her (just like our dear friend Mario). He starts oddly enough on World 2 rather than World 1, though without spoiling too much I will say that distinction is pretty damn important since World 1 is actually the last world you unlock in the game.

What the hell does that even mean?

So the whole story is built up that Tim is chasing his Princess, wishing he could somehow reverse time (like he does in the game) to undo his many mistakes that ruined his relationship. Simple, clever incorporation of story into gameplay, I like it. It does take about three times as many words as necessary to get to that point, but whatever; you can purple prose your way around if it means integrating game mechanics into the story, because nobody ever does that and I think it's what makes the medium unique and more people need to do it.

Then you get to that last level.

That beautiful, incredible, insanely clever final level. 

Yes, I'm going to gush, shut up. 

So as I hinted a few paragraphs up there, one of my biggest problem with gaming as a medium is I don't think they are using their potential to its fullest, especially with their stories. You have a medium that does a rare thing: allows for interaction while still being able to present a powerful audio/visual experience. So you can get personal investment with gameplay by sheer fact of interaction, while still guiding that investment via the visual/audio means. And I just now realized what I just said sounds like the wordy pretentious text in Braid, so I'll hurry it up.

The point is, developers treat game stories and gameplay as two very distinct spheres. Story just sort of fills up in-between the gameplay bits, tying it together but never actually interacting. It's a waste (something Nier fixed with its final twist) because they could be doing so much more. You could use a mechanic that quickly becomes so second nature the player almost forgets about how special it is, incorporating it into every aspect of your game and dropping hints about it in your story. Then, when you hit a final reveal, you could use that mechanic in a way to actually tell the ending in a way that involved player interaction and still based it around what they'd learned the entire time. Then you have a seamless integration of gameplay into the story, and you've created a well-knit experience. Like Nier, or the Portal games. 

Braid does this better than any game I've ever seen.

Har, Mario reference. GAMES AS ART. 

Without spoiling much, let's just say the final bit of Braid does everything I said above, and mixes it with a clever twist that actually pieces the whole game together quite nicely. It then tries to completely ruin this with its retarded epilogue (though the final scene, which again I won't spoil, is extremely well done), but it doesn't change the fact that the final World is one of the cleverest fusions of story and gameplay I've ever seen. Yeah, I might be buying into the pretentious bulls*** that is this game's story, but I loved the ending. And even if people love hating this game, I still can't deny that the ending does something few games do, and more games should.

The game has some excellent music. 

Graphically, Braid is beautiful. If you've been looking at the shots you know it's PURDY, but as an added bonus they all look even better in motion. It's like a living watercolor painting, dripping and flowing across your screen. Each world looks unique, and they all look quite fantastic. Kudos to whomever did the visual stuff for this game, because it looks great. 

The music is also awesome, a fantastic mellow mix that consists of only about four or five tracks, but still provides the right evocative atmosphere. The song during the final level is also perfect, though I won't spoil the reasons as to why. 

This game looks astoundingly good. 

So anyway, that's Braid. An excellent puzzle platformer (albeit only 3-4 hours long, at most) with beautiful graphics and music, and a story that is good if you don't think too hard about it, but do think about that ending level because it is good. This game is like $10 on XBLA and probably loads cheaper on Steam (it goes on sale like every other week), so you have no excuse to not pick it up. If you enjoyed Portal, you'll enjoy Braid. If you enjoy platformers, you'll enjoy Braid. And if you enjoy sipping espressos from china cups while writing poetry on your Macbook and wearing a beret and tsking about how games are ART, then you'll enjoy Braid.

My point is you should at least play this game once, so get to it. And if you want to be pretentious about it you can, and if you want to just enjoy the puzzles you can, but as it stands its still one of my favorite games ever and that's the point. 

Five out of five stars. 

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

The Short


Pros
- Enchanting, hilarious story set in the Super Mario world
- Combines turn based battles with an active attack system that makes them more engaging
- Fantastic soundtrack
- Did I mention this game is funny? It's wit goes a long way.
- Sits at about exactly the right length to provide an engaging experience the entire time
- Tons of minigames and side stuff to do
- Enemies are actually in the game world so you can dodge them rather than fight them
- Doesn't require the usual grindfest of normal JRPGs

Cons
- Graphics, which looked great in the SNES days, look a bit dated now
- Battle song will forever be embedded in my brain
- Despite not needing to grind, this is "fixed" by having tons of enemies on the field
- Has a maximum level cap, inventory space, and coins. I hate it when games do that.
- Characters like Geno and Mallow are owned by Square, and will never be seen again

Time to take the train to nostalgia town

The Long

It's May 1996. Everybody in the US is freaking out because we all knew the N64 was coming out by the end of the year. Most people have packed up their SNES systems in preparation for this new polygonal behemoth, promising full 3D graphics and a new collection of Mario and Zelda games. That is probably why Super Mario RPG was overlooked when it was released at that time. Essentially the swan song of the SNES, Super Mario RPG was a weird hybrid of two of the biggest companies in gaming at the time: Squaresoft and Nintendo. Essentially an "RPG Lite," Super Mario RPG took Nintendo's star mascot and planted him firmly in turn-based battles, an "epic" and "enthralling" storyline, and a battle to save the entire world and everybody's wishes. Did it work?

You bet it did.

ADVENTURE!

Super Mario RPG's story is silly nonsense. When Mario once again has to go save Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser (an event that, even in 1996, the characters in the game joke about it being so routine), just as he about to deliver the final blow a giant sword from space or something rams into Bowser's castle, sending everybody flying across the land. You later find that the titular Seven Stars have been taken, and without them all wishes will cease to exist. Heaven forbid!

Since Mario is drawn to stars like flies to dog poo, he sets off on a magical quest to retrieve them all. On the way you'll encounter some of the weirdest characters ever to grace a Mario game (and then never to grace them again, thanks to Square and Nintendo fighting over copyrights), journey across the Mushroom Kingdom (which never seems to have any consistency in its layout), and meet old friend and enemies. It's an extremely simple story, but there are a few things that really make it shine.

Oh yeah, stupid Birdo is in this game. I almost forgot. 

First off is that it's just...really, really charming. I know that, in a world where having a viewpoint character nuked and chainsawing guys in half is standard gaming fare, this might not be considered a plus by a few people. But, despite the fact that Mario never says anything and most of the game is a load of nonsense, nearly every character of this game is endearing. The pace does fluctuate a bit, with some dead time between the Seaside Town and the Cloud...place, but as a whole the game constantly has funny cutscenes and entertaining dialogue that keeps the flow.

Something it does really well is "emote." You know what I'm saying: they mad a big deal about it in Final Fantasy VI when characters winked, laughed, shook their heads, etc. Mario RPG does this to an overexaggurated sense, adding some character to Mario even though he never speaks. All the characters also have distinct personalities (except Geno, who I have never seen why he's the fan favorite when he only exists to spout expository dialogue) which are in turn overemphasized, making this a silly, juvenile yarn that existed when "juvenile" just meant "silly for children" rather than "body excrement jokes."

There's a lot to love here. 

So what do you actually do in Mario RPG? Well, at it's core its a simplified turn based JRPG, with some minor twists. You take turns to execute attacks based on the speed stat, either attacking or casting magic spells. You'll gain XP and Coins and level up and buy new weapons and armor. Very basic stuff.

What Mario RPG does well is add little things to keep you engaged in the battle. When every character attacks, you have the option of hitting the A button at just the right moment to initiate a chain (an idea Legend of Dragoon stole and then ramped up to the 9th power) which does bonus damage and can't miss. Eventually you get so good at these you can do them in your sleep, but at least you can't just mash the A button through every fight.

The same goes for magic. Weirdly enough, everybody shares "Flower Points" (MP), meaning I hardly ever used magic except with my main casters (sorry, Bowser). But each of these spells often requires something as well, be it holding a button or mashing one, or just tapping the "magic" button again at the right time for similar bonus damage. It isn't much, but it goes a long way to keeping the battles from becoming boring.

The only good Geno is a dead Geno, hur hur hur. 

If anything, Mario RPG could be criticized for being too easy. Aside from an extremely difficult optional boss that basically requires you to get cheater items to beat, 90% of this game is a total cakewalk. If you've ever played any JRPGs before (or most video games, to be honest) than you'll probably have an easy enough time. Money is plentiful, and the ability to both do bonus damage and block damage means you can breeze through battles. Killing enemies can frequently drop bonuses like "Full HP" and the like, making the game even easier, and since it requires almost no level grinding (yay!) if you do happen to accidentally overlevel the game will become a total cakewalk.

Outside of battles the game keeps you engaged as well. Set on an isometric view (aka the hardest view to control anything in ever), Mario still has his signature jumping ability, which is used for some mild platforming puzzles and item collection. You can see enemies on the field to avoid them, which is nice, though jumping on them doesn't earn you any kind of bonus (unlike the future Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games). It keeps things interesting and in the vein of the Mario games, which means it works.

Dodge 'dem barrels! And I just now noticed the sword in Bowser's castle is in the background. That's a nice touch. 

The game also has a load of minigames, most of which it requires you to do once as part of the plot, opening it up later for multiple replays. There's also a secret casino that requires a bit of guessing to get to, but there's enough side crap here to keep you entertained for a long while, even if you don't decipher it's mysteries.

This game draws from the Mario well quite frequently.

Graphically, it's hard for me to decide. It has that "pseudo-3D" thing that Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct did, though Mario RPG look a lot cleaner than those two games. It's weird though...I have two TVs in the house (yeah, I know, M. C. Moneybags here), an LCD HDTV and a flat screen tube TV for my retro games. On the HDTV this game looked like absolute garbage, and yes I made it so it wasn't stretching to widescreen, duh. The game looked really pixelated and grainy and just straight up bad. On my tube TV, however, I thought the game looked fine (as did the rest of my pixel-centric games). So I guess it looks good if you put it on a crappy TV? Who knows.

The art design is excellent throughout, with the new characters fitting in well to Mario's world, and the game constantly keeps pushing you forward to new, exotic locations. It has a fire level (of course) and a sewer (of course) though no ice level, so it gets points for that I guess. It does have a water level, though. Well, whatever, I think this game's art design is great and it looks fine (on my tube TV).

This game has some great music

The soundtrack certainly lives up to both Nintendo and Square's SNES reputation, with nearly every song being memorable and fantastic (except that main battle song, which I have heard so many times I kind of want to erase it from my brain forever). The song above, "Beware the Forest Mushrooms" has been my phone ringtone for almost four years. I keep trying to change it and it weasels its way back in somehow. It's just an awesome song. All the songs are awesome songs. This game has a really killer soundtrack, that compliments the whimsical style of the game well. 

More music, because it's all so good. 

So. The big question of this review might be: Has Mario RPG actually aged well, especially after Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi did the whole "Mario is in an RPG" thing to critical acclaim? Well...yeah, it has. Unlike many older games, this one holds up well because it was a really good game when it was released. But what I really think helps it work is the fact that it doesn't take itself seriously at all, focusing more on humor over telling some epic, earth-rending story. Melodrama, the staple of most JRPGs, quickly becomes seen for what it is after several years (which is why replaying any Final Fantasy game after VI is a chore), but whimsy and wit tend to persevere. Even if the RPG mechanics would be considered dated by a modern crowd, Mario RPG does well enough sticking to its gun for both its story and presentation to still be endearing, even so many years later. It's why people still love Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle and other games where the gameplay has since been outdated: because there's still a soul in there. Mario RPG is a game with a lot of heart (if you'll forgive the cornyness of that statement), and I think that makes it work, even now. 

Also because Mario's house is awesome. 

You can get this game for the almost offensively low price of $10 from the Wii's Virtual Console. If you want to snag the SNES cart you'll be looking at a bit more ($50-$80, depending on condition), but since they're exactly the same game it doesn't really matter. If you haven't played this game and you have any fondness for either Mario or Squaresoft (back when they actually made good games) you are a horrible fan and you need to get this game right now. Trust me. It's held up.

Seven out of five stars. Hey, it was in the game's title, so that means my joke is hilarious.

You and me both, Wishing Star. You and me both. 

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The Short


Pros
- Superb evolution of the platforming formula
- Excellent platforming puzzles and traps
- Introduction of the "time reverse" mechanic relieves the frustration of failure
- Charming characters and witty dialogue
- Story told as a narration fits the Arabian theme
- Excellent graphics for the time, still hold up reasonably well
- Great music

Cons
- Combat isn't particularly enthralling and can be "broken" with a few attacks
- Some of the puzzles can have obscure solutions
- Pre-rendered cutscenes look pretty bad in this day and age
- The game eventually ends

This ain't your momma's Prince of Persia

The Long

Back when I was a child, my time was primarily occupied by three games: The Incredible Machine 2, Lords of the Realm II, and Prince of Persia, all on the computer. The original Prince of Persia was a 2D platformer with a focus on "realistic," meaning you couldn't drop down 100 feet and just walk it off. It had an interesting mix of puzzles, platforming, and climbing combined with some pretty mediocre combat and a difficulty curve that was out of this world. After making a few successful versions of the 2D Prince, the original creators tried their hand with Prince of Persia 3D, which was a pretty bad attempt to modernize the series. Needless to say it was forgotten, and the whole series was abandoned for several years until Ubisoft decided to bring it back in 2003 with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. As another attempt to put the prince in 3D, this time the formula was...let's say a little more successful.

Welcome to the new 3D platformer. 

The story this time around revolves around a young, brash, headstrong Prince (of Persia) who aspires for glory in battle under the watchful gaze of his father, the king. When Persia invades a city, the Prince (in a hunt for treasure) acquires the Dagger of Time, a weapon whose full potential is initially unknown to him. After returning to Persia with both the Dagger of Time and the Sands of Time, a massive hourglass, a treacherous Vizier tricks the Prince into putting the dagger into the Sands, causing time to mess up and everybody in Persia to turn into crazy sand monsters. As one of three people who were't changed (the Prince, the Vizier, and a captured girl from the original city called Farah), the Prince has to confront his arrogance in order to undo his mistake and fix both time and the mess he brought upon his family and country.

It's a simple story, but what shines is how well it is played out. The entire thing has an Arabian Nights feel to it, because the Prince is actually narrating this story to an unknown audience throughout the entire game. Should you fail completely, the Prince will hesitate and say, "Hmm...no, that's not how it happened." before you reload a checkpoint. But what is probably the most endearing is the Prince himself, and how he interacts with Farah.

Video game romances are overdrawn affairs, often a mix of forced circumstances, melodrama, and just a general lack of development. While PoP: SoT certainly has a little bit of these things, it is completely overshadowed by just how damned charming both the Prince and Farah are. Farah is a sensible, if a bit uptight, woman who wants to fix things and blames the Prince for this old mess. The Prince (initially) thinks he isn't to blame for anything, and will defend himself with perhaps a little too much vigor throughout. The dialogue is clever and natural, the character interactions realistic, and as a whole it's a charming love story hidden inside an action-adventure game about sand monsters. I'm not going to say it's the greatest story ever, but it has a certain freshness that no other game I've played has been able to emulate, and that makes the characters and their situations memorable. 

Plus the Prince is kind of a jerk, which is entertaining in and of itself. 

But what about the actual game? Well, PoP:SoT could actually be considered revolutionary. While the failed Prince of Persia 3D didn't work because they tried to emulate the original games without evolving enough, PoP:SoT manages to both take the original ideas from the first Prince of Persia and blend them into something completely new.

PoP:SoT is a parkour platformer, and could honestly be considered the first parkour platformer. For those who down't know what parkour is, it's an art/ability to run seamlessly across dangerous environments without slowing down or stopping. For example, it's common in PoP:SoT to wall run over a pit of spikes, leap to a precarious pipe, swing from it to a ledge, and then jump back and forth between a tight space before emerging victoriously at the top. It's a game that rewards preciseness and speed with some incredible sights, and a general feeling of satisfaction when you overcome some of the more difficult rooms. And it gets hard, fast, which means you'll be failing constantly. Which brings us to another excellent improvement: the Dagger of Time itself.

Every room is, itself, your biggest opponent.

It's hard to believe that once upon a time time reversal mechanics in games was unique. Now it's everywhere, from our racing games to even Rock Band 3 using it when you pause. But back in 2003, the concept was completely novel, and PoP:SoT pioneered the concept. Essentially how it works is the dagger allows the Prince to "reverse" up to the last 10-20 odd seconds, with the ability to stop reversing anytime mid-transfer. So if you leap off a ledge and just miss a button press, you can immediately back time up for another shot. This was a fantastic concept because it meant, unlike Uncharted, that you could actually put some horrendously difficult platforming puzzles in without the risk of having your players hate you for cheap deaths. 

Of course, your sand powers were limited, so you still had to be careful least you be forced to checkpoint the room over again, but the number of "do-overs" you had increased throughout the game, and along with it the difficulty increased as well. It was ingenious for this type of game, and was so good that all the sequels used it too, which I'm totally fine with. The platforming in this game is excellently designed from top to bottom, making each room a cross between a deadly puzzle, a button-pressing challenge, and a visual thrill ride as the Prince just barely makes a wall-jump in time to grab onto a pole and miss falling to his demise.

As another bonus, save points also double as hints. When you enter a glowing pillar of sand that doubles as a save point, it'll show a quick flash-forward of what is to come and how to succeed. It's presented extremely quickly, meaning you'll probably only remember small samples of it, but it's usually enough to both keep the challenge while ensuring you never get stuck. A great little touch. 

The platforming in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time set a standard. 

I'd honestly go so far as to say what Mario 64 did for 3D platformers, PoP:SoT did for its evolution. Think now on how many modern games have borrowed or taken chunks from its seamless, perfectly controlled parkour gameplay. Crackdown, Infamous, Prototype, Uncharted, and others all owe a rather hefty debt to this game. Mario 64 figured out how to make 3D platforming work, but PoP:SoT figured out how to do it in style, with a player feeling like they had full control over the awesome things they did, while still making it completely manageable. It's hard to describe the combination of elation, fear, and thrill that playing PoP:SoT invokes, but just know that there are few games as good as this one, and I've played my share. 

It's a pity they thought it needed combat. 

It isn't all sunshine and roses, though, as the combat in PoP:SoT isn't particularly great. To be honest, I never really had issue with it, it just seemed more tacked on than anything. The Prince is pretty agile in his fights, being able to run up the enemies themselves and leap over them to instantly get behind them for free hits, and he can jump off the walls and ram himself into them (the super-cheap way to breeze through the game, FYI), knocking them over for a quick kill. In order to finish enemies off, the Prince has to absorb them into the Dagger, meaning you knock them on their backs, wait for an opening, and suck their sands up before they can get back to their feet. It's simple and does a decent job displaying the Prince's acrobatic skill, but to be honest he feels a little gimped. After I've scaled a massive tower, running and leaping and jumping and getting dangerously close to falling, having him plod around with the same three moves is lame. They fixed the combat up a bit in the sequels, but for now I think it's servicable but not great. It doesn't take anything away, but it could have added so much more.

This is where the fun stuff is. 

The visuals haven't aged well at all. They still don't look awful (like most N64 games now), but they certainly appear dated. Character models have low polygon counts and their hands are just...blocky. The CG pre-renderings are extremely blurry and have janky animations. However, when you are running, jumping, and flipping in-game the Prince's animations are fantastic, all the way down to his quick ladder climbing.

The sound design is excellent throughout, with the voice actors for the Prince and Farah really bringing it home in terms of quality and presentation. The music is also amazing, with a combination of rock and Arabian themes that can be both upbeat or subtle, adding to the overarching experience very well. It's a memorable soundtrack, and that's saying something.

Good stuff.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a masterpiece of a game. Not just for what it inspired (a whole generation of games involving easy climbing, running, and jumping), but because it is just a damn solid game on its own merits. Combining lighting-fast, frustration free platforming puzzles with a clever story and well presented script, there is very little to dislike about this game, even nearly ten years after its release. It has since been re-released on the PS3 as the entire trilogy in HD, which I highly suggest picking up if you haven't played any of these games before. 

Five out of five stars. 

A job well done, Prince.