Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

The Short


Pros
- Ten new decks with new styles and variety of play
- Multiple single-player and a three player co-op campaigns
- Improved deck customization that is at least a little more robust than its predecessor
- "Archenemy" mode is fun and very, very hard. Get two friends, not bots!
- Unlocking cards can still be just as addicting and fun as before
- Small UI changes make for a faster and smoother experience

Cons
- Though the load times are better, they are still way longer than they should be
- AI seems dumber in this game for some reason, at least when they are on your team
- Only one background to play on. The original had like four; what gives?
- DLC decks are still here, even though this game was released only a year after the first one
- I really don't like the idea of making this an annual thing, especially since the Green and Red decks aren't that different from the previous game's.
- It's still "just Magic."

Here we go again. 

The Long

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (heretofore referred to as Magic 2012 because good grief why is that title so long?) is the follow-up to last year's iteration because it sold really well and if there's anything Magic: The Gathering fans enjoy it's spending more money. It touted a list of improvements before release, claiming to have better deck customization, more decks, and general improvements. 

I honestly kind of find this game hilarious, for these reasons: The original wasn't exactly groundbreaking or anything. They tried to make it sound cool, but it was just Magic. Which, again, is fine, but it's still just freaking Magic. Then this second game comes out and they are like "we are ramping it up!" and it's the exact freaking game as the first game, which in turn is the exact freaking same thing as Magic: The Gathering.

These guys are like the most ambition-less people I've ever seen. 

Three vs one. The mighty fight battle begins. 

So...what is different? I could just sum up this review by saying "not enough, but if you like Magic you bought it already so..." but that would be a cop-out. So I'll briefly (yeah right; you've read my other reviews, I'm wordy as balls) go over the changes between Magic 2012 and Magic: The Gathering DOTP. 

First, the load times are better. My biggest complaint from #1 has been...not fixed, actually, but at least improved. Load times are still longer than they should be, but 15-30 seconds is a lot better than a freaking minute (I timed it the first time) so...good on them. At his rate Magic 2013 might actually load in a normal, reasonable amount of time. Hey, off subject, remember God of War? Or Gears of War? Those games with way better graphics that had no loading times at all after an initial one? Why did I bring this up? No reason, just thought it was interesting.

Second, there is very slightly better deck customization, and unlocking cards is a lot faster. You unlock cards in clumps now (rather than one-by-one; thank goodness) which means you get to the good ones quicker. You can also swap out any cards including ones in the "core" set out and even land to better customize your deck. I guess this is an improvement, but still not being able to pool all my cards and make my own decks is freaking stupid. That's like the main point of Magic. How did they miss this?

That's a lot of pizzazz for a freaking Magic card.

Third, there's a new mode called Archnemesis, which is pretty cool. You play 3v1 (with you as the three) against a computer who, every turn, draws a special card that gives him a powerful ability that round. These include summoning powerful creatures for free, forcing players to destroy permanents, and so on. It can be frustrating if you have a run of bad luck, but with friends it can be very fun. It's a pity that actually playing as an Archnemesis is locked behind paid DLC. Of course. 

Lastly, you got ten decks instead of eight, and I like these decks a lot better. They are tighter knit, and several actually play completely different than each other. Still no Sliver deck (which was my favorite deck ever and the only one I actually bought cards for) but whatever; they're all fine. They are also more complex this time around, and they do a good balance of making it so they start off relatively easy and the unlockable cards add depth to the deck. It's cool and works a lot better than in the original, and the better decks mean the game is funner. 

That is all the major changes I could think of. The rest of the game is exactly the same. There are still a few things carried over from the original that suck though, so here we go again (in very brief). 

Put this deck in the game. I command it. 

Attacks still look stupid. Why are the cards just slashing each other? Yeah, you can turn it off, but it still seems real lazy. 

While the original at least had variety and choices on what background you could play on (the "table" if you will) this game only has one. Why? Why would you remove options? You could have at least ported the original ones over!

Still have to zoom in on all your cards in order to see what they do. Controls still default to simple, and on advanced it has difficulty determining which card is directionally relative to the one next to it, meaning you can hit "right" to go to a card on the right of the board but instead it goes down. I don't know how you could release a second game without at least streamlining this. I bet it works way better on computer, though. 

DLC and the ability to buy cards is still here. Hopefully people who bought DLC for the original Magic learned their lesson; nobody is playing that game anymore because they decided to make yearly iterations. It's like buying DLC for a certain year of Madden. That's stupid. Don't do that. And don't buy the DLC for this game. 

AI is still clever but somewhat oblivious when you are playing against it, and dumb as a sack of bricks when it is on your team. They never coordinate, ever, and several times we could have won if he'd just attacked but since you can't directly order them to do anything (why not?) we ended up losing. Thanks, buddy. You freaking suck. 

Still heavily based on luck a lot of the time, but that's an inherent flaw in Magic: The Gathering, so I can't really pin it on this game. 

Aaand, we're done. 

Despite my complaints, there is certainly a lot more content here than the first Magic XBLA game. More decks, longer single-player (including a "Revenge" campaign that keeps kicking my butt), more options, and a faster game. It's a pity they still haven't done anything imaginative at all with this, simply sticking to the basics on nearly every level, but now that both this and last year's version is out I can say to ignore that one and get this one. It isn't a big improvement, but it's enough to render Magic 2011 or whatever redundant.

...until Magic 2013 comes out, so don't go buying this game yet. Hey, on an unrelated note, how about you do what Harmonix does with Rock Band and let us export decks? Maybe for like $1 (total. Not a deck. You greedy bastards.) since you have to monetize everything in this stupid franchise, but it would essentially add eight more decks and would make the game a lot funner.

Who am I kidding; then they couldn't sell three decks as DLC for like $5 a pop. My mistake. And as much as I hate this aspect of the game, it's how the Magic TCG has worked since its inception, so I'm preaching to the choir here.

Still, if you dig Magic, this is a decent run of it. If you hate Magic, you know what to do. Avoid and make fun of anybody who plays it's hygiene.

Three out of five stars. 

Now do this but with the Pokemon trading card game. Oh wait...

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers

The Short


Pros
- Solid video game representation of Magic: The Gathering
- Online and offline multiplayer and co-op are a lot of fun
- Does well teaching the rules and providing tutorials so you are never confused
- Graphics look decent and fit well enough for what it is
- The core Magic: The Gathering is still here, and it is very solid and fun
- Unlocking cards can be addicting, and you don't have to buy boosters!

Cons
- Absolutely abysmal load times.
- The fact that attacking is just the cards next to each other with weak animations feels like a cop-out. Why not make sprites of the monsters fighting? That would be cool.
- Only eight decks with limited customization. Nine more can be added via DLC, but it still seems sparse
- Microtransactions will unlock full decks, which feels very lame. I bought this game so I wouldn't have to spend more money on cards, gosh dang it.
- Again, the lack of deck customization removes one of the most key elements of Magic: The Gathering
- Controls can be picky and the most important feature (being able to anytime look at enemy's cards) isn't on by default
- Music gets annoying really quickly. Why does Magic need "sick" guitar riffs?
- It's really just Magic: The Gathering with limited decks and load times

ARE YOU READY TO MAKE SOME MAGIC?!?!?

The Long

Do you like Magic: The Gathering? Have you played it? Do you want to learn? Do you hate buying $4 booster packs and getting a mandatory number of land and then a bunch of cards that don't fit in your deck? Well, luckily I have the solution for you!

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers is a downloadable title available on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. And I don't want to spoil the surprise for you guys, but here it is: It's pretty much just Magic: The Gathering.

Gotta catch 'em all! Wait...

If you haven't played Magic: The Gathering then here is the most basic idea. It's essentially a turn-based strategy game with cards. The goal is to build up your "mana" (of which there are five times: Green, Red. Blue, White, Black) which can then be used to purchase/summon monsters, spells, or enchantments. You duel someone else who is doing the same thing, and that's the game.

One of the biggest draws of Magic: The Gathering is deck building. Each element mentioned above also employs different strategies. Green creatures and spells tend to be more expensive and more powerful, meaning they have a slow start and strong ending. White focuses a lot on healing and flying. Red does direct damage to your opponent and gets weak creatures out quick, stronger ones out later. Of course these are generalizations (and you can make hybrid decks) but the core ideas are still there. Buying new cards (randomly determined in boosters) is why Magic: The Gathering has made Wizards By The Coast an estimated Crapzillion Dollars. That's a technical statistic, and therefore a fact. 

Anyway, enough about regular Magic. How does this "game" version of Magic: The Gathering hold up?

You can zoom in on any card to get more information, and if you are confused it also has a tutorial for various abilities built in. 

It probably won't come as a huge surprise, but Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers basically plays exactly the same as the card game. Probably because all this game is is the card game. You take turns, the game giving you a limited time on each "stage" or "phase" of the battle (Main, Combat, Block, Main) and then the other player goes. You summon, battle, and unfortunately can't cheat and stack the deck (which was my ultimate unbeatable Magic: The Gathering strategy). 

That is actually pretty much 90% of the game. It's just Magic: The Gathering. If you are a newcomer it has a fairly decent tutorial that gets you up to speed, and starts you with decks that are very easy to use. As you play through the single-player you'll unlock more and more complex decks, which will help you get deeper and deeper into the game. It's a good technique to help those who might be just starting out, but as somebody who already knew how to play Magic: The Gathering it felt a little slow. 

But enough about that: what makes this game better or worse than actually playing Magic: The Gathering? And I realize I essentially did this in my "The Short" above but shut up it's my review. 

You can decide which cards go in your deck, but you can't make your own. 

Good Stuff!

Probably the biggest draw would be that you can play Magic alone. Some people really enjoy the card game (I'll admit I find it fun) but it can be hard to find like-minded people, and even then to find people with balanced decks. Since Magic the video game has a limited number of decks and unlocks, you never feel like your dumpy rich friend just gets a bigger allowance and bought better cards. Playing by yourself allows you to develop new strategies and experiment, and can be fun (unless you think too much about it and realize you are playing Magic: The Gathering by yourself)

Secondly is the online multiplayer feature, which is also a bonus. As stated, finding people to play Magic with can be hard, but this streamlines it. It's relatively easy to get into a game, and playing with friends is fun too. Up to four players and duel at once, which is pretty much impossible in real life unless you are at a convention or something.

Also, not having to buy boosters is awesome. You unlock cards by simply playing matches with the deck you want stuff to unlock on. It does have the option to pay $1 to unlock all the cards from the get-go (sleazy...) but if you do that you're a toolbox who shouldn't be playing games. 

Finally, it's a decent representation of magic. The boards you battle on are cool looking and can be interchangeable. The game is a bit slower than real Magic but has the benefit of actually knowing all the rules, something my friends and I have issues with. The transition is relatively painless and, as I've said a hundred times before, is pretty much just Magic. 

Watching cards smack each other with crappy canned animations is...awesome?

Bad Stuff!

My biggest complaint is the loading times. Yeah, that's a stupid thing to be my biggest, but trust me: they are really bad. How on earth does it take 45 seconds to a minute to load a single match? Look at these graphics: is this really so high-end it should take that long to boot up? It's mostly just text on a screen! Somebody sucks at optimizing their code. 

My second biggest complaint is the complete and utter lack of customization. You get eight decks of various colors (but no Black/White deck, boo) and abilities, which might sound like a lot but it really isn't. You do unlock cards which is nice, but and you can pick if you want the unlocked cards in your deck, but that's really all you do. Why not put all the decks and cards into a big pool and let me make my own deck? You could even do it like Call of Duty where you have custom classes/decks and unlock more by playing online. Perhaps the biggest draw (as mentioned above) to the Magic: The Gathering TGC is buying boosters and tweaking your deck to be the baddest of them all. Nerds get all excited over that stuff (myself included). Taking that out was a huge mistake. And I get it was probably to better "balance" it or whatever, but they completely negated that too by adding nine more decks you have to buy and making it so you can also just buy all the cards for them. So really it's just like Magic: The Gathering in real life: he with the most money will always win. 

A few other minor issues are here, but most are just me being picky. The card "attack" animations are really stupid. At least in like Yu-Gi-Oh the cards become holographic monsters that battle. That's cool. Just putting cards alongside each other with numbers and corny effects feels like a wasted opportunity. The art on the cards is one of my favorite things; why not render the monster and have 'em bite or something?

The controls are also finicky. By default the ability to pan around the battlefield on a whim is off, so be sure and turn the "advanced control" on right of the bat. But even then it can have problems determining which card you are going for. It's annoying.

Also, unless you have the card memorized, since this isn't real life you can't just look down and see what each card says; you have to highlight it and hit RT to zoom in and read the details. I get that this is because not everybody has a 70 inch plasma TV, but it still just adds another step to simply looking at my cards.

Hey, war elephants! I love these guys!

Graphically this game looks ok, if a bit boring. Again...I'm saying this a lot but here it goes again: It's just Magic. That's the whole game. It's a method to play Magic: The Gathering on a screen instead of in real life, and for that it works. It isn't particularly inspired, but whatever. 

Music is kind of stupid. I think they were trying to prove Magic was badass or something with bad electric guitar riffs in the menus and in battle. But it isn't good enough to actually get me excited about playing Magic, so it just feels like a lame attempt to show how "hardcore" Magic is. Alright? 

I hate playing against Blue decks so much. 

As it stands, Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers is for a specific crowd. I think they tried to widen Magic: The Gathering's appeal by releasing this game, but in truth I only think the hardcore Magic people will buy it. And then they'll be disappointed by the lack of deck customization and poor optimization. For what it is it's passable, but the low deck count, somewhat stilted control, and the fact that the majority of the decks are locked behind DLC is disappointing. Again, at its core Magic: The Gathering is fun, especially when playing against an opponent of comparable skill and a balanced deck, and for that this game is fine. There just isn't anything particularly inspired here, at all. 

It's just Magic. 

Two out of five stars. 

And yet I still played it for lots of hours. I guess for $5 is wasn't all that bad...

Wet

The Short


Pros
- Third-person shooter-action game with a grindhouse aesthetic to it
- Feels a lot like Max Payne with its slowmo, crazy jumps, and duel-wielding
- The duel-wielding, which auto aims with one gun while you manually aim with the other, actually works pretty good
- The grindhouse look fits the game well and is presented with quality, for the most part
- One of the few games where I welcomed enemy based waves, as the combat was enjoyable
- Fast, furious, and great stress relief
- Soundtrack is straight up great

Cons
- Instead of bosses we have quick-time events. Snore.
- The tacked-on tutorial segments are forced, boring, and don't fit the theme
- If you aren't into everything that comes with the grindhouse genre (swearing, exploitation, innuendos, etc.) you'll feel out of place here
- Stupid Unreal 3 engine...pop-in problems still are here
- Never learns any new tricks; you know 90% of the moves from the get go and the game is just repeating them frequently
- Seriously, "Wet?" Yeah, I get it is for "Wetworks," but I'm pretty sure the joke had to do with female orgasms here.

Rubi is here, and she's pissed. 

The Long

Let's just get right into this: Wet is both an excellent and awful game. Yes, at the same time. As a homage to both grindhouse movies and games like Max Payne (which this game apes a lot of its style from), Wet is a hybrid shooter/slasher with a heavy emphasis on slow-mo and stylized gunplay. Odds are you already know from just reading this whether or not you are into this kind of thing, and if you are you might as well just go pick Wet up right now. It's like $20; you could do a lot worse. 

If you are still here, let's give the rundown and see if this is what are you looking for. But first: I still can't believe this game's title. I guess that was the point: to try and titillate and attract attention, but still...stupid.

This review is rated PG-13 for lots of forced, bad innuendos.

Now that I'm done with all the review foreplay, here's the story. Rubi is a badass bounty hunter who has the unfortunate character flaw of only associating herself with people who will eventually betray her. She swears like a sailor, drinks like her liver is made out of iron, and loves murdering dudes by the the dozen. From a story standpoint, it's your basic fare here: betrayal, revenge, and lots of it. Rubi doesn't take crap from anybody, a point she's determined to frequently bring across (either with bullets, fists, katana, or just yellin').

It works, to a point. The ending is freaking horrible and out of place, and while the story fits the aesthetic it never really does anything interesting. Usually the movies done in this style have some shocking twist in the middle or near the end, but there really isn't anything here. Rubi kills some people who try to kill her, and that's basically it. Not exactly Shakespeare here.

If you like shootin' dudes, though, this game is for you.

The main event of this orgy of blood n' guts is the gameplay, which borrows a heavy amount from Max Payne and then tosses a bit more on the side. The main element here is style. Like the Devil May Cry games, Wet wants you to off dudes in clever, cool ways, and it gives you a hefty amount of tools to do it in. Rubi can slip into slow-mo easier than a hooker out of her clothes, with nearly every movement causing the world to slow down and let her pop off headshots. Grabbing a pole or bar, leaping through the air, jumping to the side from cover, or just getting down on your knees will set Rubi up for a slow-motion scene. The length of time varies on your momentum (for the knee-slide) or the distance (for anything aerial), but basically it goes that if you need slow-mo, you can get to it.

The shooting is slick throughout. You always duel-wield, and the trick here is one gun auto-aims at whomever the camera is most focused on, while you have manual aiming with the second. Meaning you can easily slide between two dudes and get both of them off...I mean pop both of them off...um...KILL both of them simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It's a cool system and helps keep things balanced, because even if you have the worst aim in the world at least the auto-aiming will kill somebody for you.

Rubi is best when she's on her knees. Wait, I already made that joke. 

It's a good thing you have all these tools because the game loves to pretty much just put you in a large environment with tons of toys, throws a truckload of guys at you, and lets you use your imagination and go all out. A persistent combo meter provides both incentive to kill quickly and stylishly, and also has a practical purpose: Rubi will heal if her combo meter stays high enough. There are whiskey bottles between levels that do the same thing, but while in combat this usually is the only way to regen health. As somebody tired of the auto-heal concept in games, this is a nice touch that helps make the game hard but manageable. Kind of like how Space Marine forced you into combat to heal, rather than hide behind a box like a wimp. Captain Titus and Rubi should hook up or something.

Anyway, the point is that this is one of the few games with "lock you in a room and have you fight off waves of dudes" that I actually didn't mind that rather "gamey" aspect of. Killing dudes is a blast, and for some reason the slo-mo style never gets particularly boring. You also have a sword in case people get too close, and let me tell you: Jumping to a pole, grabbing it one handed while shooting enemies beneath you, and then leaping off it in a horizontal, slow-motion dive while raining duel-weapon death from above while plunky guitar music is blasting is entertaining as hell. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's just so fun I can't fault it.

90% of Rubi's acrobatics are for the sole purpose of killing somebody. 

This game does have its faults, though, the biggest being impotence. And by that I mean it runs out really early on. You are presented with just about every move in the book from the very beginning scenes, and while you do get new weapons (and "Rubi Time," which turns the game into a Sin City esque look and basically makes you invincible during select scenes) the core fundamentals never evolve at all. While this tends to be ok because the game doesn't last long anyway (another impotence joke, hur hur) I would have really liked to see some new tricks. Rubi is an interesting character and they could have done more with her limberness and acrobatics, but instead they just give you a few key tools, some slow-mo, and that's it. Gee, thanks. It's like and adult novelty store that only sells three items. Ok, that joke was forced, I apologize.

There is also a distinct lack of boss fights in this game. And by "lack" I mean "none." Every boss is just another wave of enemies followed by a quick-time event. Some bosses forgo the "wave of enemies" part and are just tapping the right button to win. Really? After giving us all these awesome tools, you chicken out when it's time to put them to use during what should be the climax of the game? It's a huge waste.

"Rubi Time" is cool, but why do guys all spray white liquid? Actually...I'm not going there.

A few other minor issues pop up as well. Whenever Rubi gets a new ability it flashes back to her and the junkyard she lives in (why does she live in a junkyard?) to give you an overly long tutorial explaining it. The thing is most of these "new" abilities aren't particularly unique, and the junkyard portions are way the crap too long and too boring. Another issue is the difficulty, and how it isn't consistent. At first the game holds your hand, making enemies stupid easy and your magic slow-motion powers just destroy them. Then it gets really hard and keeps slapping you across the face until you master the techniques. Then it gets easy again because you've figured the game out. It's inconsistent, and results in some stupidly cheap and frustrating deaths, and then moves on to not having much of a challenge at all. It's still fun, sure, but it lacks any sense of accomplishment. 

Insert "analogy referencing Wet to bad, unfulfilling sex" here.

The art direction is top-notch overall, though these screenshots don't do a good job showing it (these are all like promotional stills...for some reason I couldn't find any actual screenshots floating around, and I'm not doing a Google search for "wet" or "wet screenshots" because of obvious reasons). There's a film-grain and film-reel thing going on over the entire game, with the lines and the sometimes off-center screen blocking or whatever it's called; I know jack crap about movie terminology. Just know it looks a hell of a lot like a Grindhouse movie, though at some parts they could have sold it to me better. The multiplier and a few UI elements just straight up don't fit, which can be a bit jarring. But still, it looks really good (despite a few Unreal 3 texture pop-in problems) and they sell it well enough, especially Rubi time which is freaking awesome. Plus it sends you to cool places, which is appreciated. 

The music is excellent. The songs that play in battles and during cutscenes are catchy and fit the whole theme, and are just good songs to boot. I really liked listening to the soundtrack and sometimes even play it on youtube to get me pumped to go out and shoot a bunch of guys with two guns at once while leaping through the air. Don't tell the police. 

This song now is stuck in my head forever. Thanks, Wet.

Is Wet perfect? No, far from it. Parts feel a bit clunky, the balance is totally weird, it has boring bits and the mediocre story and lack of bosses is disappointing. However, as stress relief and a homage to grindhouse movies and stylized action movies, Wet pulls it off and in spades. It certainly isn't for everyone (as I said at the beginning), and even those who love the style will have to overlook it's minor but obnoxious gameplay niggles, but as it stands I had a blast with Wet. Considering you can grab it for less than $20 from just about anywhere, I'd say it would be worth checking into, especially if you liked Stranglehold, Max Payne, or games like that. There aren't enough of these badass, over-the-top shooters, and I'd like to see more of them.

But for now, on the rebound you could go a lot worse than Wet. Though I still think that title is completely absurd.

Three out of five stars. 

"Three out of five? After all that praise? I deserved at least four, raaawr!"

You Don't Know Jack

The Short


Pros
- Same irreverent, silly, weird trivia questions as the original series
- Funny and entertaining while still making you think about some pretty tough stuff
- Four players is a hoot, and with the changes everybody gets to play on every question
- Fast paced episodes mean you can go from one to the next very easily
- "Wrong answers of the game" always keep you on your toes
- Cheap; went for $20 it's first week shipped

Cons
- Since the questions aren't randomized, once you finish an episode you can't ever play it again
- Replaying episodes for achievements sucks
- Single player, this game is pretty boring and makes you feel lame
- Some of the jokes can come off as a little grating. The puppet one, for example.
- The "Jack Attack" at the end pretty much renders the entire game previous irrelevant in terms of earning money

Ready for trivia?

The Long

You Don't Know Jack was a pretty big series back in the 90s, with it's style of inappropriate humor mixed with some actually very solid trivia questions appealing. It had that good mix of stupid humor, smart humor, and smart questions that worked, and since you could play it competitively four-player that was just icing on the cake. They tried to make an actual game show about it on TV, but it flopped pretty hard and You Don't Know Jack was put into retirement.

Now, several years after the last iteration, Jellyvision is trying to bring You Don't Know Jack back for a newer generation. They got the original announcer, the bald upper half of Jack's head (now CGI), Screws, and a freaking boatload of trivia questions (and if it isn't enough, the DLC is cheap and there's tons of it). So what are you waiting for?

Different modes are constantly mixing things up

The core concept of You Don't Know Jack is simple: ask trivia questions. The trick is in the way they do it. They constantly drop weird references, explain bizarre things in silly ways, and just generally go out of their way to be both funny and confusing in order to throw you off track. Half of the game is just figuring out exactly what is being asked, and then figuring out the answer is a whole different ballpark. There's trick questions thrown in the mix that also can mess you up, as well as a "Wrong Answer of the Day" concept I'll go into in a minute.

The biggest improvement for me over the previous Jack games is the fact everybody gets to answer every question. In the previous game people buzzed in and guessed, one at a time. Now there's a timer and all four people answer at once, revealing who was right when the timer runs out. The faster you answer the more cash is at stake, to either gain or lose, so stalling to the last minute if you don't know an answer is certainly an option.

The questions are silly while still being intelligent and difficult. 

They mix up the regular old "answer the multiple choice question" idea with some variations. DisOrDat takes the current lowest scoring player and has them pick whether or not a word on screen (presented in rapid succession) is one thing or another (for example, a Pope or a Brittney Spears Song). There's also the ending "Jack Attack," where you have to match a word with another one based on a theme, and it's pretty much based entirely on player speed. It goes a long way to make it not just silly trivia the time, and it's appreciated.

Wrong answers of the game also mix stuff up. 

Speaking of which, the "Wrong Answer of the Game" is another great new addition. Every episode has a "sponsor" for a totally off-the-wall product, and one question has a wrong answer that's relevant to that product. Pick it and you win tons of bonus money. For example, if the sponsor had something to do with vampires, keeping an eye out for wrong answers with the word "Blood" in them might be a good idea. It makes you pause and decide if the gamble is worth it, because if it's just a regular wrong answer you are out the money.

With friends, Jack is a hoot. The humor hits much more frequently than it misses (though it does miss from time to time) and with a group it can be very easy to do the "just one more episode" thing. It's a great party game that can be played quickly, since each episode is only about fifteen minutes long.

The questions are easily the highlight. 

So what sucks about You Don't Know Jack? Well, not a whole lot to be honest, but there are still a few hangups. The biggest one is if you don't have any friends (or buy the DS version), because playing Jack alone is just...not very fun. Yeah, you still get the funny questions or whatever but the main point of this game is to be played with friends. Playing with yourself (hur hur, irreverent humor) is lame and unfun, and you won't be getting the full value of the game if you do.

Another issue is the episodes. You get over 90 in the game, so that's a boatload of trivia questions, but since each episode never changes once you beat one you essentially can't replay it (unless you want to cheat and smoke all your friends). 90 episodes is a lot, though, so it isn't that bad, it just means this game has literally zero replay value. You can buy DLC packs for super cheap, however, if you really need more content. 

There's a lot of content, but once you burn through it you are done. 

Lastly, it still has the weird balance problems of the first Jack, the biggest one being the Jack Attack at the end is basically what determines the winner, not whoever did best on the previous 10 questions. Since each Jack Attack question is worth so much (to either gain or lose), it is very easy to pull ahead fast or lose it all at the end, especially in a close game. It's kind of lame, but that's how Jack has always been, I guess. 

Also the PC version doesn't have online multiplayer, and playing online with strangers is dumb since they all are just looking it up on GameFaqs. So play with people you know.

The Jack Attack can completely turn a game around. 

You Don't Know Jack, kind of like Deathspank, relies entirely on its humor to sell itself. So if you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing (dig up a few questions or watch a Let's Play to get a feel for it) than You Don't Know Jack is certain to entertain you, especially if you have like-minded friends. Considering the game retailed at $30 and is now easy to pick up at around $10-15, I'd say that's pretty much a no-brainer if you had any fondness for the older games or are looking to dive in for the first time. 

Just know that this is 100% trivia. That's the game. You aren't shooting aliens or stabbing dudes or anything. I don't know why you'd think that, but I figured I should bring it up just in case. 

I personally think this game is a riot, and was absolutely worth the $20 I spent on it. We played it a lot and only got through half of the episodes, so unless you and your friends are total trivia nuts it'll still maintain its good value. Give it a shot! You might find you are smarter than you think (but not smarter than me, because I'm a You Don't Know Jack god, ha ha!")

Four out of five stars. 

Whoops, spoiled this answer for you. 

Week in Review for 4/15/2012 - Half

A Wordle of the book I just finished writing. Bigger words indicate they were used more frequently.

Again, an apology is offered at the lack of content this week. I decided that, between last week and this week, I was going to try and write an entire novel in just that short span of time. Tonight, at 10:15, I finished Half, the ninth full length book I've written, clocking in at almost 80,000 words. For reference, the first Twilight book is about that long. Maybe it's a little shorter. I probably should have factchecked this.

Regardless, I promise I'll try and do better this week. I've been extremely busy with writing, studying for the GRE, work, and all that junk. But I'd like to get back on the two reviews a day train, so hopefully this week I'll pull it off. 

Got 5 reviews this week, totaling up to 148. 150th review this week? Absolutely. 

If you want to know more about the book I wrote, there are details on my writing blog. For now, review sum-up. 

DOTA 2 (Beta Impressions - 5 / 5 Stars

Age of Empires Online - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue - 2 / 5 Stars

Bubble Bobble Neo! - 2 / 5 Stars

Thanks for reading! See you all next week!

Bubble Bobble Neo!

The Short


Pros
- Updated version of the original Bubble Bobble with several additional new levels and modes
- Up to four players can play
- Still maintains a lot of the fun, crazy, arcade fun that the original Bubble Bobble had
- Updated music is pretty great, and all the stages are retained

Cons
- Controls are not the same (movement especially) which means some levels are damned near impossible
- Limited lives in an arcade game I paid for? This must be some Japanese bulls***
- Failure to improve in any way on the formulas
- Four player is entertaining but can also prove very frustrating
- Some level design is questionable, and not remaking the levels for the new controls makes the game pretty horrid

Get ready to Bubble, and also possibly Bobble. 

The Long

I freaking love Bubble Bobble, on both the NES and the arcade. It's a fun, silly little game with a unique mechanic that you can play multiplayer, and while being extremely simple still maintains a level of difficulty that is endearing. I never beat it on the NES or Arcade (confession time!) but I did get pretty dang far, and I have lots of fond memories playing it at the Nicklecade with my wife when we were dating (and one of the controllers could only go left, which added a newfound level of strategy to the game)

So when I heard they were re-releasing an updated version on XBLA (which is essentially a port of the Wii remake a few years back) I was pretty pumped. Now I could play with my wife and engage in silly, stupid antics like we did back at the arcade! Without having to drive somewhere! Ah, the convenience of modern technology!

Except one fatal flaw: Bubble Bobble Neo! is totally broken. In the worst way possible. 

The new graphics are ok, but really lose the charm of the 8-bit sprites

Bubble Bobble (the original) was not an easy game, and at parts it wasn't a fair game. It was meant to lure you in with its cute and easy first couple levels, thinking your quarter was well spent, and then swiftly punches you in the face as the levels get trickier and harder. The general gist of the game is that you play a dinosaur that burps bubbles. With these bubbles (of which you can burp lots) you can use them to trap enemies, make small floating platforms to jump off of, and...that's basically it. The simple mechanic of making temporary platforms and jumping off them is pretty basic, but Bubble Bobble did a fine enough job of taking that and making a decent arcade game around it, designed to suck your money away.

The problem is this: they designed every single level around a specific control scheme. One Bubble Bobble Neo! completely and utterly breaks.

One main mechanic is the fact you have to have a slight range to burp out a bubble. If you burp it too close to a wall, it'll pop instantly. This distance comes into play in some levels, where you are put into a very small box with just barely enough room to get out. In the original game, with better bubble and horizontal controls, you could tap to simply turn around and not move. This made things a lot easier. 

Not so in Neo!

In this version, tapping an opposite direction also moves the character, which would be fine except there is only just enough space in the box that, with Neo!'s new mechanics, a bubble will work. Which means you can't ever just turn around without moving. Which makes it essentially near-impossible.

This isn't the level, but searching for Level 72 and you'll find plenty of irate fans. 

I know it sounds like a little thing, but when you design the entire game around a system and then don't bother to adapt the levels when you change the freaking controls and mechanics, it just straight up doesn't work. To say it's frustrating would be a huge understatement: it's completely and utterly maddening. How could they let this happen? Are they complete idiots? 

To make matters worse, this is an arcade game designed to eat quarters, but it gives you a limited number of lives and continues and often drops you off a few floors back. Seriously? Are you being dead serious with me here? I paid $10 for this game and you limit my continues? Wasn't the point of lives to begin with to suck quarters out of people so they could earn more money? You already have my freaking money. Plus, technically this means I have less freedom than the arcade, because in an Arcade I could just pump quarters in and never stop. When you hit a Continue screen in Bubble Bobble Neo! (which, thankfully, you have unlimited continues at least) it drops you back. Freaking crap. I should have infinite lives at all times and no continues, or at least the option for infinite lives. And if both me and a partner die we should just keep going, not have to Continue. I don't want to bag on Japanese game design, but this is total and utter garbage in this day and age, and I find it completely unacceptable. Paired with the piss-poor, uncaring control changes, I can't help but be completely infuriated at this game. 

No amount of bubble-burping will ease my pain in this. 

As for content, there is still a hefty amount here. You have several levels including the original arcade and a few other full modes, complete with secrets and warps to uncover and find. As a bonus you can play the game with four players (if you hate that many people) which turns a somewhat precise arcade game into total madness, which actually works a lot better. Though when you get stuck (and you will get stuck) you have four pissed off people rather than just one, but at least having more bubbles makes the game a bit easier. 

Actually, now that I think about it, it was when we were just having complete madness that I enjoyed the game the most. My wife and I actually beat the original mode, after having to YouTube half the solutions for this "improved" version, and then replayed about half of it with two other friends. It was stupid fun, and I glean some legitimate enjoyment from it. I then put the game down and never played it ever again, because it still sucked, but hey...something positive I guess.

It still has that perfect blend of competition and co-op while playing multiplayer that makes it fun. Sort of. 

Graphically it looks...decent. The updated the pixel art to low-rez sprites (much like TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled...isn't that an apt comparison?) which are ok and still maintain most of the charm, but ultimately didn't really do it for me. The updated music is really good at least, sounding modern while still retaining its original silliness. An option to switch back to the original graphics (or controls, gosh dang it) would have gone a long way in making this game work better for me, but sadly that is not the case. Also, as the stages were originally designed in 4:3, all the widescreen bits just add boring padding on either side. Snore. 

Bubble Armageddon! 

Before I hit the conclusion let me say this: Despite those levels where the game is completely and utterly broken, the rest of the game plays almost identical to the original version. It's still a fun, arcade style romp that you may or may not have fond memories of, and the majority of the levels still work decently despite the stupid control changes. It's just those few where everything goes horribly wrong that the irritation really sets in, and you wonder if anybody actually playtested this game past the first 50 levels. Maybe it was too hard for them or something. I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, point being this: you are better off getting a copy of Bubble Bobble on the NES for a few bucks more and just playing that. Or going to an arcade, spending a few quarters, and getting your fix there. Or pretty much anything else aside from this version. Sure, you'll have a decent amount of fun for a while, but once the massive problems start showing up (or if you want to, I dunno, ever beat the game) than the game becomes total garbage. It's too bad, seeing as all they had to do was basically re-release the original Bubble Bobble with the "enhanced" graphics and it would have worked. Just goes to show: don't try and "fix" something that doesn't need fixing.

Which reminds me I have a Silent Hill HD Collection review to get to. But that's for another time.

If you absolutely can't live without Bubble Bobble in your life and have no other options, I guess you gotta roll with Neo! But if not, pass it up. There was no care put into this product, and it shows. 

Two out of five stars. 

The game developers, after realizing they duped everybody into buying their "enhanced" version. 

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue

The Short


Pros
- Same entertaining humor as the first Deathspank
- Still has Ron Gilbert on board, which means the writing is still reasonably solid
- Amps up the insanity level to new heights with bosses like Santa, a gingerbread Rambo, and more
- Most everything good from the first game has been retained
- New areas including a wild west, war trenches, and the freaking moon are funny and entertaining

Cons
- Is literally exactly the same as the previous game but with guns, which don't actually change stuff much
- Due to the cliffhanger ending of Deathspank, it makes me think these were once two games that were split
- Humor is still decent but doesn't bring anything new to the table
- One game was ok. Two you start feeling the grind as the weaker gameplay elements become exacerbated.
- No improvements make this game feel like a cop-out

Deathspank: Saver (?) of Christmas!

The Long

I liked the original Deathspank. Sure, there wasn't really any particular depth to the game, but its lampooning of traditional genre tropes while still pulling out a solid enough loot hack-n-slash made it easy to overlook any minor problems it had. I loved the script (and would address my wife with a "GREETINGS, TACO WENCH!" for several months following) and had a blast with it, but when I finished I was pretty much tired and done with it.

So when Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue was announced and then released, I was looking forward to see what else they'd do with the formula. I expected they'd at least fix the problems of the last game (the tedium that sets in pretty quickly, the sort of lackluster loot, the obnoxious food-eating) before shoving out a full-fledged sequel. The first game was the trial run, and now in the second you bust out the serious humor mixed with all the improvements you've been making the two months (yes, only two months) between the original and this game's release.

Well, guess what. They didn't fix anything. Which is a problem.

Deathspank: An old dog with no new tricks!

This should be the shortest review ever, because gameplay-wise there is literally nothing new here. You still can auto-equip all the best armor loot, which is incrementally better with no real special effects (meaning there's no choices to be made, which is kind of the point of these types of loot systems). You still get JUSTICE and dispense it accidentally because the system isn't particularly refined. The weapons are even exactly the same with the exact same powers except with a slightly modern look (magic lightning wands are now magic lightning taser-sticks, etc). You get guns that function pretty much the same as bows, so even that isn't changed. 

I was willing to give the sort of weak gameplay a pass in the first game because it was just that: a first game. It was still novel, and right when I started getting really sick of it the game ended. Booting up a brand new game, however, to find nothing new whatsoever resulted in me literally sighing and going, "Oh, I remember this. I was done with this. Huh." As a second game, I'd expect at least one major change. I can't think of any, at all. Which is bad. 

Deathspank: Like your grandfather trying to use an iPhone!

The story and humor is still here, though it lacks the punch of the original game. Swapping out the generic fantasy setting for a more modern one actually hurts the game, because that element of parody is no longer there. Yeah, you go to some way crazier places in this game (an alien invasion in a dark forest, a wild-west desert, a disgusting food production plant, the North Pole, the freaking moon) but it all feels very disjointed and not really fitting to a theme. What the hell time period is this? We have guns but everything looks like World War I, until I go to the Wild West, and then into space? Did the writers just go completely freaking insane after the first game?

Again, the humor is still here, and it still works for the most part, but an important factor in humor is the circumstances around the humor when it takes place. And while a few parts (the Wild West and North Pole especially) do work really well, the rest of it feels disjointed. It's like the writers just wrote jokes without actually taking the time to figure out the setting or who was saying it, and that sort of "generic" humor really hurts it. I still got a hefty amount of chuckles from the stupidity (mostly because I think Deathspank is the bomb), but looking back I can't name one line of dialogue from Thongs of Virtue that really stuck out. I can spout off plenty from the original Deathspank.

Deathspank: Thinking Vietnam is a great time in history to make fun of!

While we are still in the same vein of "stuff that is exactly the same as Deathspank," the music hasn't changed. At all. The only new song I found was one that plays when you are on a boat (probably because there is no boat in the first Deathspank) and I think a song on the moon? Was there a different song on the moon? And maybe the North Pole? Ok, so maybe there were a handful of new songs, but the regular walking around music, battle music, and even title screen music was all exactly the freaking same. Which makes me believe (along with the fact the game came out only two months after Deathspank) that they had both games stuck together and then broke them up in an attempt to get more money. Which technically worked because I'm an idiot. Dang it. 

Anyway, the graphics also maintain the same look as the first, but with a more dingy, grimy feel for about the first 2/3 of the game. Look, Deathspank worked because it was colorful and silly. Fighting in the trenches, Vietnam, and other dark and ugly places isn't what I want from this. It isn't funny, and it isn't cute. It's dreary and depressing and really, really boring to look at. It's like they didn't even know what made their first game good, and just went crazy thinking up stupid places you could go. Actually, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what happened.

A few places look ok (again, I liked the Wild West part a lot) but as a whole it's dark, dreary, and boring. Any bit of charm from Deathspank is lost on the abusive relationship this game has with its art style.

Deathspank: "Welcome to earth!" 

So is there anything redeemable about this casually generated, money-grabbing sequel? Well...I still beat it. And after I got over my initial "What the crap? This is the same freaking game?" I still had a decent time with it. These games are addictive by nature, the formula designed to suck you in even if the experience is shallow and droll. It's like MMOs, where you know you are bored and you should do something else, but that underlying drive to keep playing makes you continue to waste time. And then when you accomplish some tiny minute thing the victory is shallow, like you've just burned hours you could have spent doing something, anything, and you would have gotten more satisfaction. Like play Portal 2, or write a novel. Something like that. 

Truth be told, Deathspank would have been better had it just stopped after the first game. I love the character and think the style is charming, but after tainting it so badly with this rotten sequel I don't think I can go back. Then again, I just bought The Baconing (the third Deathspank game) off some PC indie bundle, so I guess I'll be diving back in. I just don't expect a good time, not after Thongs of Virtue.

Two out of five stars. 

Deathspank: Shouldn't have come out of retirement.