I spent the majority of yesterday thinking about the shiny new copy of L.A. Noire that was stowed away in my backpack.  I had picked up my pre-ordered copy during my lunch break, held it in my hands, and felt the weight of the three disc game as it slid from my grasp and into my bag.  The final six hours of my shift crept by at a torturous pace and I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Needless to say, I was freakin’ excited to play the game that had been on my radar for nearly a year.  As the game loaded on my Xbox 360 I found myself saying a little prayer to the gaming gods that this highly anticipated game would not disappoint me like other games have recently (*cough*Brink*cough*), and let me tell you, it hasn’t.

The opening scene introduces the city of L.A., which, in my opinion, is as much a character in the plot as the leading man, Officer Cole Phelps.  Only in 1940′s L.A. would a player find starlets, aspiring actresses, directors, mobsters, and of course your run of the mill housewives turned murderers.  Rockstar has done what they do best in this game; putting together a cast of memorable characters in a true to period, living environment and highlighting the memorable areas and history of the city.  Do not get me wrong here, this game is not your typical Rockstar game.  The similarities of past games stop at the setup of the city and the map exploring mechanics.  Rockstar has gone a more serious route, playing to classic 40′s crime drama movies flawlessly, pulling the player into the storyline from the opening scenes.

Following Officer Phelps through his rise in ranks in the L.A. Police Department, from lowly patrolman to traffic detective and so on, the player is also fed Phelps’ back story of military officer training in a series of foggy flashbacks of Phelps’ memories.  The actual game play starts with two patrolmen, driving in an open world to a dispatch call, where Phelps and his partner are commissioned with the job of searching a crime scene.  The search and the subsequent events after, train the player in the fine arts of crime scene investigation, running the leads and speaking with people of interest, but the real star of the investigation process is the interrogation game play.  The developer has added a twist to the usually dull question and answer interactions of other games, using their new facial animation software to allow the player to actually “read” whether your suspect is telling the truth, lying, or holding out on you.  To take it a step further, if you misread the suspect, the game will use that misread to trick you into misreading again by using the expressions, stutters, or movements against you.  As with any suspect in real life, some are terrible liars, and reading them was easy.  But as I progress in the game, the suspect’s personalities, vocal patterns and of course facial ticks are becoming more and more complex and difficult to read, especially the women (but isn’t that how life is?).  This amazing little feature really sets up a lot of potential for the next generation of games.

The game itself is not without flaws, as with any title with this much content.  Their are some mild issues with graphics and frame rates dropping, as well as my own game freezing once so far.  As for game play components that missed the mark, the side missions have so far been very simple dispatch calls, consisting of a quick chase and stand off with a gunmen that always ends with the gunman dead after holding a hostage or a quick climb to the top of a bell tower to stop a jumper, not really fun and very repetitive, but none of these problems are deal breakers in any way.

A compelling story, familiar movement and fight mechanics, beautiful graphics, memorable characters, and a whole new way to play a mystery/puzzle game leaves Rockstar deserving a huge high five and a thank you for putting in the work to develop a truly well made game.  I hope that the last 75% of this game is as entertaining as the first part and the cases keep getting more complex and challenging.  I for sure will be playing this one in its entirety and enjoying every minute of it.

My fellow podcast hosts have already spoken their piece about Valve’s newest title on Level 75, but they had to abide by courtesy not to spoil the game for you. I, on the other hand, am able to put this courtesy entirely out of my mind, because I can tell you that if you have not finished Portal 2, you should not read this.

It feels somewhat cheap to compare Portal 2 to its predecessor. Portal was, if nothing else, an impactful game. So much of it was fresh and new. The core game mechanic was something we’d really never seen before. Game-world physics were suddenly fun, not just something we needed to overcome. And the whole time we were watched – judged – by this artificial intelligence that was subtly becoming more and more threatening.

Portal 2 has been released into a completely different gaming culture; one that has experienced and been uniformly changed by Portal. It is because of this, and because of the cultural phenomenon Portal became, that Portal 2 had to do some things very differently. In many ways the sequel is the antithesis of the original.

Portal placed you in tight claustrophobic areas and made you yearn to break out. Portal 2 has you traversing the sprawling bowels of Aperture Science, a company that just builds on top of the shit that doesn’t work. Yet somehow, of these two games, Portal 2 feels far more constrained. The addition of new platforming bring variety to the puzzles, but it is variety within a tightly set system of rules. Gone is the thrill of finding short-cuts and ingenious solutions to complex puzzles. Instead, puzzles seem to present themselves as having one solution. As a result, successful completion of any specific test chamber just feels like doing what the developers intended you to do, which is a foreign feeling for this series.

The story, while riotously funny at points, was not particularly immersive. GlaDOS as a potato may be a funny concept, but it came at the cost of feeling connected to my player character. If Chelle was truly my representative in the world of Portal, she would have left the crazy bitch to be pecked apart by a crow. Wheatley may have been trying to kill me, but at least he was inept at it.

In fact these attempts on my life were my favorite parts of Portal 2. I was reminded of the classic Looney Tunes cartoon “Duck Amuck” which plays out an argument between Daffy Duck and the animator. Only this time, it’s Daffy that holds the brush and he’s not particularly good at using it.

Portal 2 had an uphill battle. So much of what worked in the first hinged on surprise and the unknown. Duplicating that would have been impossible, so it’s understandable that the sequel is a very different beast. Some departures worked; the Cave Johnson segments stand out as a fascinating look into the history of Aperture Science. Others, like the GlaDOS/Caroline connection felt forced and unnecessary. Faced with the unenviable task of making a full-priced sequel to a worshipped budget title, Valve has performed admirably… but perhaps it was too great a task for anyone to truly accomplish.

Anyone who says video games don’t cause violence has obviously not played Mortal Kombat. As a kid, I remember attempting to uppercut my best friend David after throwing a cup of ice at him. He countered with a clumsy leg sweeping move, which only succeeded in him scuffing my Keds. This was a common scene when you lived two blocks from Keystone Pizza, the only arcade in town, and they had just installed a brand spankin’ new Mortal Kombat Arcade game. We made a small fortune scrounging for quarters under couch cushions, in our dad’s pockets and mom’s purses, under car seats, and in junk drawers, spending every last one each Saturday afternoon playing match after match. When we were broke, we sat and spectated our friends’ matches until our mothers drug us home for dinner. Mortal Kombat had burrowed its way into our hearts and brains, starting a love affair that had been long forgotten, until I picked up the latest Mortal Kombat for my PS3.

First, I would like to say I did not have high hopes for this game. After Mortal Kombat 3, the series was in a downward spiral; attempting to keep up with the ever advancing technology while chasing the charm that the original titles seemed to ooze. Popping the game in for the first time, I wondered how the series could ever return to its former glory. What I discovered, as I started up Story Mode, was a simple answer and a pleasant surprise: a return to MK roots.

It has always felt unnatural to me to play a fighting game on a 3D plane. Something about the controls and camera angles just never sits right. Thankfully MK has returned to the classic fighting game orientation – two fighters on a 2D plane. Story Mode starts with Johnny Cage defending his honor and proving he is a “real fighter” and not just a chump actor in a fighting tournament held in the outer realm. Little does he know that this is Mortal Kombat and the fight is not for glory, but for the future of earth realm. Sound familiar? For veterans of the Mortal Kombat series the entire game’s Story Mode will be very familiar, as it is a retelling of the original three Mortal Kombat titles. New comers to the series will be able to catch themselves up on all the characters and back story (without the aid of Wikipedia), yet it still entertains veterans of the series. During Johnny’s cut scene intro into the story, you are challenged to a fight with another familiar character from the series, and the actual gameplay begins. The two fighters zoom out from cut scene to the 2D level and a best of three fighting match begins.

The first thing I noticed during the fight was the level’s visuals. The background to your match is clean and realistic, with animations going on while you fight. The fighting graphics were definitely more impressive than the cut scenes, which left something to be desired. When my opponent landed his first hit on me, I realized something else I had been missing from recent MK titles, the gore! Mortal Kombat used to be the king of gore, and let me tell you, the King is back. While Story Mode has enough gore to please the MK loving masses, an extra dose of gore is administered via tournament mode, with injuries to the players body that show as you get hit and stay for the duration of the best of three match.

With gore and graphics aside, the fighting mechanic is what sold me on this game. The controls are easy to use, the combos flow smoothly, and the special moves are easy enough to pull off, but what stood out the most was how interactive the fight was. I could not corner someone and sweep kick them until I won or throw a plasma ball at them over and over. Any move can be blocked or countered, with good timing and a little awareness. This made the actual fight between me and the AI not only challenging and varied, but a whole lot of fun. An added feature to the fight mechanic is a bonus bar that fills up as you get hit. This bonus power bar can be used along with your special moves to launch a special combo move for added damage. If your bonus bar fills up fully, you can launch an “X-ray move” which shows breaking bones, severed arteries, and crushed skulls while a devastating move is carried out. Four fights into playing as Cage and I had his moves down fairly well. This is when what I think is the most fun about Story Mode happens. You switch characters. Story Mode plays through cut scenes and best of three matches, playing only four matches as each character while telling each of those characters’ part of the tale. At the end, I had played a more varied group of players than I had ever played during the original three MK titles.

Along with Story Mode there are a handful of other game modes, including a tournament mode (fighting your way through the Mortal Kombat tournament and fighting Shao Khan in the end), online play (I have not had the pleasure to play this yet because of the troubles with PSN), and the Challenge Tower, which includes 300 levels of fights, power tests, memory tests, and even fighting off hungry zombies. As you play any mode in the game you will be collecting Koins, which can be used to unlock music, levels, alternative outfits and other goodies in the Krypt. During my play through of Story mode I collected enough Koins to unlock all of the alternative outfits to be found in the Krypt, as well as several levels.

An excellent fighting experience, fun gameplay, and the return of the nostalgic feelings of my childhood has pushed Mortal Kombat into my favorite titles pile once again, leaving me with a satisfied feeling and a need to uppercut my best friend. Though MK will not win any awards for originality or an Oscar for storyline, I say “who the heck needs that when I get to kick a guy so hard in the stomach he pukes”. If you are looking for a return to the past, with an upgraded fighting engine and graphics, this true reboot of the Mortal Kombat series is a sure bet for any fan of the fighting series.

Rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Picture it:
You wake up.
You’re nameless.
You’re lost.
You’re constantly being taunted and mocked.
You’re 2-dimensional.
The issues are black and white and you’re wandering in a literal and figurative maze of despair and regret.

There’s only 2 possibilities of whats going on. Either A.) You’re married, or B.) Your playing Shift Extended.

The latest iteration of this “born from Flash” franchise, the one we shall henceforth refer to as: “Shift Extended” (because that’s its name), was released as a PSN Mini which can be played either on your PlayStation 3 or whatever version of the PSP you probably don’t have.

In Shift Extended you are Test Subject 12378 locked in a maze of monochromatic madness.  You wake up in a prison of sorts; disoriented, confused and being taunted by an unknown presence.  You’re left without much to help you traverse this desolate, angly landscape save for two important things:  Your wits, and the convenient ability to phase through seemingly solid objects.

Sound familiar?

Its pretty clear that Belgium developer Fishing Cactus are fans of the modern classic, Portal.  But really, who isn’t?  So don’t hold it against them that certain themes seem to be lifted directly from the playbook of GLaDOS herself.  Because at its heart, the mechanics of Shift Extended are pretty unique and the package its wrapped around is really just window dressing for the core game play.

You control Test Subject 12378 through a black and white world of platforms and peril.  The goal in each of the 120 levels (!) is to reach a door and… you know… go through it.  The catch in Shift Extended is that the world gets flipped upside down.  No… literally.  You can really flip the level thus phasing yourself into a different color.  So if you’re white, you can use the white areas of the world as your platforms and the black areas as your corridors, and when you phase to black, its the opposite.  In effect, this makes (almost) every part of the game a potential area for movement and progression.  To contrast, take your classic platformer Pitfall, in which you jump or swing from platform to platform avoiding spikes and alligators and deep pits.  In Shift Extended, what was that giant pit, can suddenly turn into a tall tower, giving you access to point you couldn’t reach before.  Get it?  No?  Check it:

I say almost because there certain elements that the game employs in its multitudinous array of levels that stirs up the coffee so to speak.  For example, there are parts of some maps that are black and white checkered.  You can’t phase through these puppies.  You have to negotiate them.  “But how?”  you may be asking, “If I can’t phase through them, what do I do?  HOW DO I DO GET PAST THEM THEN!”

Whoah..  Calm down there buddy… While your panting subsides,  I’ll drop the knowledge on you.  You see sometimes, you just have to figure out the clever way around.  But most other times there are these fancy consumables, circle shaped with a light bulb in the middle, that pop those suckers right off the board.  These circle shaped little guys are 1 of 3 types of possible items you can collect throughout a level.  While we’re at, I might as well describe to you the other two.  You see, in some levels there are rectangular platforms with a keyhole in the middle that are blocking a certain path, but for every lock there’s a (convenient) key that will either swing the barricade out of your way, or swing it in a direction that blocks some spikes or creates a platform for you to move across.  The last consumable is a… phaser… thingum… that basically changes parts of the map from white to black or vice versa again opening a path that would have otherwise been blocked.

These mechanics lead to the real trouble with Shift Extended:  Its too easy.  Its too easy to just shift your way through a level without really having a plan for what your doing.  Its too easy to see that when I consume X consumable (which is most likely the only one you can access at the time) that it opens up the path to Y consumable, which opens up the path to Z, etc.  The fault is not in the linearity of the game, but that the linearity is too heavily broadcast.  There was never a moment in the 120 levels where I asked myself, “What do I have to do next?”  It was always very clear.  For a puzzler, this is a little disappointing.  The absolute joy of this genre is in coming to a seemingly impossible crossing, baking up the old noodle and figuring out a path you’re not even sure the developers thought of.  This game doesn’t have any of those moments.

All told Shift Extended is a pleasant way to spend an hour or two.  There’s really nothing to keep you coming back because unfortunately there’s no indication of how the score is being kept.  Time trial people might find a kick in it, but there’s no external clock to race against.  This is a major oversight in a game such as this.  Is it worth the $3.99 asking price for the PSN Mini version? No.  Especially considering you can find a bunch of variations for free on different flash gaming sites.  Would it be worth a dollar?  Um… sure.

Pros:

• Fast, and interestingly addictive gameplay
• Quick pick up and play mechanics.  (Levels take on average about 20-40 seconds apiece)
• Great for short attention spans

Cons:

• The constant shifting may induce nausea
• Far too easy
• The music is pretty much the same and it gets repetitive
• The cost

Rating: **~~~ (2/5)

The One Liner: Shift Extended is a quick little puzzler for bus or train rides, but you won’t find much depth in the challenges and there’s not a lot to come back to.

The Ryu Ga Gotoku series, known in the Western world as Yakuza, has become one of Sega’s longrunners. With 4 main games and 3 spin-offs, it’s a commercial juggernaut in Japan and a sleeper hit in the west. A spiritual successor to Shenmue, with immense refinements on the basic formula of that series, it follows the adventures of former Yakuza soldier Kazuma Kiryu, as he attempts to make his way in the world, even as his criminal life continues to haunt him.

The first two games in the series cover the early years of Kazuma’s return, following a prison stint for a crime he didn’t commit: by contrast, Yakuza 3 jumps the timeline ahead by several years. Following his now-legendary exploits to restore the Tojo Clan, Kazuma and his adopted daughter Haruka run an orphanage on the island of Okinawa. Of course, this wouldn’t be Yakuza if Kazuma didn’t get pulled back into the game somehow, and what follows is a rollicking adventure through the criminal underworld, as Kazuma finds himself embroiled in a story of greed, revenge, and international politics.

The story of Yakuza 3, while in my personal opinion not QUITE up to the gold standard set by Yakuza 2, is tight and interesting, though a touch slow to get started in earnest. However, this is to the game’s credit, as I feel like too many games try and rush the player through the framing story. Most of the early chapters involve Kazuma doing the day-to-day management of his orphanage, which mostly amounts to you exploring the personalities and troubles of the kids in his care. It’s honestly a refreshingly relaxed change of pace for poor Kazuma, who for the prior 2 games has been up to his tattooed shoulders in unending tragedy and heartbreak.

Of course, it all goes wrong when a friend of his from one of the local Yakuza families is shot and critically wounded by a man bearing an unsettling resemblance to his late mentor, Shintaro Fuma. This ties into an attempt to snatch up the land deeds of Okinawan locals to put up a resort for international tourists, and the subsequent near-slaying of Daigo Dojima, current leader of the Tojo Clan and another of Kazuma’s close allies, by the very same doppelganger. Kazuma, leaving his kids in the care of Haruka and several local Yakuza buddies, heads off to Tokyo to try and find out what’s happening, and how it involves the Okinawan locals he now calls neighbors.

I won’t say much more of the plot: there’s so many twists and turns by even a quarter way through the story that even getting into the cast of antagonists would be spoileriffic. The key matter is this: how does Yakuza 3 integrate the plot into gameplay?

The answer is ‘very well,’ certainly better than it’s predecessors. Even small changes are big leaps forward in terms of presentation and tone. Probably the thing that stuck out most to me was the way that street battles are now handled: rather than simply fading out and then fading back in to a more detailed and ‘fight-hospitable’ environment, the environments of the free-roam game are now large enough to accommodate battles on their own. The camera simply pans dramatically to show a crowd gathering to watch the ensuing fight, the enemies squaring off with you, and then the battle is on. The environments themselves, by the way, are ENORMOUS, and the level of detail put into them is breathtaking. Even the grimy red-light districts of Tokyo manage to be beautiful in their own way, glittering with neon and streetlights.

Speaking of improvements to the environment, it’s worth noting the new ‘chase sequence’ gameplay. At certain points during the game, it enters into VERY cinematic and well-done chase sequences, as Kazuma attempts to run down targets to wring information out of them. It’s a gameplay shift, sure, but the controls feel so natural that it’s never unwelcome, and the tension and excitement they bring on is never unwelcome. I found myself hoping that more people would try and run from their scheduled beatings, so I could chase them down and slide over car hoods and whatnot.

Actual combat, while still as robust as it’s always been, has been streamlined and improved even above the basic formula. Most notable to me is the new weapon system: there’s something of a crafting system in Yak 3, and broken weapons you’re fond of can be brought in for repairs at the local weapon dealer. This makes me MUCH more likely to use weapons than in prior Yakuza games, where they were one of those ‘oh, I’ll save it for when I REALLY need it’ things, that you end up putting away for a rainy day and then never using at all. There are also a number of new weapon styles to master from several different teachers, as Kazuma steadily increases his mixed martial arts arsenal. Personally, I’ve grown rather fond of the tonfa, but it’s entirely likely that every player will find their own favorite weapons.

The centerpiece of the combat system has always been HEAT Actions, ludicrously brutal finishing moves that Kazuma can unleash whenever he gets his dander up. Said FAITINGU SPIRITTO is represented by the HEAT Gauge, which is filled by taunting and beating the crap out of enemies, and lowered by getting the crap beat out of you. This is subtle, but a noticeable change from many brawler-themed combat systems where getting pummeled increases your super meter as much or more than actually dishing out harm: Yakuza rewards you for ruthlessly crushing your opposition, not for making heroic comebacks at the last second. Granted, an early ability makes your HEAT raise slowly when critically wounded, but all told it’s generally better to meticulously dissect your enemies rather than pull out come-from-behind victories.

There’s more to the game than underworld intrigue and pummeling mooks, though, a LOT more. Much like Shemnue, the Yakuza series is a minigame extravaganza, but unlike Shenmue these ones tend to actually be fun. There’s pachislots, crane games, golfing, fishing, batting cages, karaoke, and probably a shitload more I simply haven’t found yet. And that’s not even getting into sidequests, learning new fighting styles, and Kazuma’s photoblogging(yes, he has a blog, and yes, he makes taking pictures with a cameraphone unbelievably badass). The simple fact is that you could play this game for weeks and simply never run out of new things to do or try. Personally, it’s going to take me quite a long time to kick my new pachislot addiction.

Of course, there are some downsides. The plot of the Yakuza series is INCREDIBLY dense and involved, and playing the previous games is highly recommended: while Yakuza 3 does include plot recaps of the prior two games, you miss out on a lot by skipping them. Bosses can also be punishingly hard if you’re not used to the game’s controls: combat pretty much starts out ‘challenging’, quickly ramps up to ‘hard,’ and then stays there for the rest of the game, so playing on Easy is recommended for newcomers and those without great reflexes.

Granted, if the very worst thing I can say about a game is ‘it gets kinda hard’ and ‘there’s a lot of well-told story,’ then my opinion of it should be fairly clear. If you own a PS3, and Yakuza 3 isn’t part of your collection, then do yourself a favor and grab a copy. You truly won’t regret it.

Goji writes pop culture and video game reviews on her Livejournal, a condition for which she is currently seeking extensive medical treatment.

Sometimes you just gotta slow down.

Video games don’t always have to be fast paced. You don’t always have to have bullets constantly flying or several hundred explosions going off in the space of about ten seconds, and even multiplayer shooters featuring squads of soldiers armed to the teeth with enough ordinance to erase a medium sized country from the face of modern civilisation don’t always need to be twitch-controlled fragfests. And though I do love sprinting across the Fields of Battle or being Called to Duty with groups of my friends online, I am here today to tell you about a game that takes the exact opposite approach to player-versus-player modern combat.

Frozen Synapse is a new ‘simultaneous turn-based strategy game’ – to use the official description – developed by indie team Mode 7 Games. Played from a bird’s eye perspective, the game sees players planning out and executing the moves of their respective squads of soldiers turn-by-turn, until either the enemy squad has been wiped out or until certain objectives have been met. The way Frozen Synapse differs from other similar turn based titles however, is that in this game both players plan out their turn at the same time, and once both players ‘commit’ their plan the turn is played out with all actions playing out simultaneously. It adds a whole different spin on tactical strategy games where you have to actually predict what your opponent is going to do, as opposed to each player responding to the actions of the previous turn.

The amount of detail that can go into planning out a single turn is staggering, as units can be told to perform different actions along every single step of their planned movements. A timeline of instructions can be set in place for every single waypoint along a soldier’s path, with options available such as adjusting aim direction, crouching, firing ordinance at a particular moment, ignoring sighted enemies as they sprint past an open corridor, or even just waiting at a single waypoint for a second or two if you expect an enemy unit to cross at that moment. You are also given the ability to simulate enemy movements when planning out turns, so you can see the outcome of what will happen if your opponent does what you expect them to do. One extremely good example for all of this was mentioned my Mixmoff on the podcast this week: Facing off with two units on each side of a wall both armed with rocket launchers, he expected the enemy to attempt to blow up the wall his unit was standing behind, effectively killing Mix’ soldier. Mix instructed his unit to step back a little, wait two seconds and then fire his rocket where he had expected the enemy unit to destroy the wall. However, when the turn played out, the opponent had almost expected the same, as he had instructed his own soldier to do the same thing, though waited a second longer. Situations like this really do justice the the sheer amount of strategy and forward planning that can be found in Frozen Synapse, creating one of the most in-depth and intricate strategy games I personally have ever experienced.

Games in Frozen Synapse comprise of two players being assigned a randomly picked squad of 3-5 units. The soldiers in each squad will be a random mixture of machinegunners, snipers, rocket launchers, grenade launchers and shotgun users. Both players generally get a very similar team, and there is usually a difference in one or two of the units though it doesn’t usually appear to imbalance the game at all. There is also a multitude of game modes to choose from, ranging from Extermination – a simple deathmatch mode where the objective is to eliminate the enemy team, to modes like Secure where one player must defend an area of the map of their choosing while the opponent tries to capture it, and Charge where each player starts on opposite sides of the map and one must make it to a certain point and hold onto it for a number of turns while the other attempts to stop them. There are ‘Dark’ versions of each game mode too, where enemy units are hidden from view unless they are in line of sight of your own soldiers, and the last known position of enemies is displayed while you plan out your turns. The Dark game modes seem to be the most popular in online games, generally because they require a lot more thought and care in planning out your moves, and I personally see it as a lot more interesting and exciting compared to being able to see and expect just what your opponent is trying to do.

Frozen Synapse is shaping up to be something truly special in the world of online strategy titles, and with the right publicity it could expect to get quite a good following especially with the plans to release the game on Steam. I would love to recommend the game to anyone with an interest in tactical combat titles, or just anybody looking for something different, but there is one major issue holding me back – the game currently seems to be far too expensive for what it is. As a niche title with a lot less content as say, other indie titles such as Super Meat Boy for example, I really don’t think $26.99 is a good price point for this game. Whilst it is true that you get two copies of the game for your money, it may be better incentive to have the option to buy a single copy for a lower price, and even so I still feel like the price is a little higher than I would expect from a game like this. If you do have the extra money to throw their way however, show Mode 7 Games your support and pre-order a copy of this fantastic strategy game for you and a friend today! You get instant access to the beta, and Mode 7 will inform you when the game is going to be released fully.

Frozen Synapse has no firm release date as of yet, but it is expected to be released sometime later this year. Now I leave you with a video of a game between Mixmoff and I that we actually talked about on the podcast. Be advised – the ending is truly epic. The game may seem like it was incredibly short – only taking 35 seconds to watch, but the planning is where the gameplay really extends. This game actually took us closer to twenty minutes.

Images for this article are preview screenshots from the Frozen Synapse website due to some issues with my computer taking screenshots in games that use DirectX at all.

In the future, professional sports will no longer be comprised of a team of athletes chasing a sphere or ovoid around a grass field, but rather take the form of teams of cloned combatants killing each other in colourful metal deathmatch arenas for our entertainment.

As some of you may know, though many of you will not, Monday Night Combat has seen something of a re-launch this week as it makes it’s debut on Steam. This time however, I am already seeing a much brighter future for the game than it ever had on Xbox Live Arcade.

Monday Night Combat is a interesting mixture of games like the popular Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients (also known as ‘Multiplayer Online Battle Arena’ or ‘MOBA’ games), and first/third person shooters such as Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, Team Fortress 2 et cetera. I suppose you could even call it a very close fusion of Team Fortress 2 and DotA, though it is completely different from either of those games. It was released earlier this year for the Xbox 360 by up and coming indie developer Uber Entertainment where it received a warm reception, but does not seem to have kept up with the attention span of many console gamers. The game saw its official release on PC last night, and after participating in the beta for the past month or so I have noticed that it has already undergone some pretty major changes and started to develop a strong community. The game has almost been completely re-balanced to accommodate mouse and keyboard play instead of a controller (though a 360 controller may still be used), and the developers are even interacting very closely with the community in the Steam Forums for the game.

Now when I say that I have ‘participated’ in the beta recently, I must inform you that I have been playing almost nothing else other than Battle Kid and a few rounds of Frozen Synapse. I have become uncontrollably addicted to this game, and the only things that have managed to pull me away are other obligations and/or the point where my brain begins to melt. Everything about the game has managed to captivate me, from the bright colourful graphics of the game’s similar-to-TF2-yet-still-unique art direction, the whole ‘futuristic-bloodsport-meets-professional-football theme, to the fast paced and incredibly strategy-focused gameplay, and especially the absolutely hilarious humour that Uber Entertainment has packed into the game. That’s right, Monday Night Combat is one of the few games out there that is honestly and genuinely funny, and never seems like it is trying to hard simply because the nature of the game is already very over-the-top. The characters in the game all have their own quirky phrases and humorous animations, though the place where the game’s hunour truly shines is in the commentary provided by Mickey Cantor – the official Monday Night combat announcer. This guy has some of the funniest dialogue I have ever heard, from simple announcements such as “Somebody out there has a kill streak to DIE for! Get it? DIE for? Hello? Folks?” to true gut busters heard in pre-match announcements like “To the folks up there in rows 500 and above, we’re still on full coyote alert, so keep an eye on your kids! A DINGO ATE MY BAAAABYYYY! HI-YOOOO!”, or after match announcements such as “The Icemen are your winners! Which is bad news for their fans, who are outnumbered 3 to 1 by the Hotshots combat hooligans waiting outside the Arena right now – lets go live to that action!”
Whoever Uber got to record the voice work for this guy should be worshipped, because the man is a god at what he does.

If you have fifteen dollars to spare and a computer to play it on, and are a fan of multiplayer shooters at all I highly recommend picking up Monday Night Combat. Also, if you buy the game before February 1st you get a bunch of TF2 items to wear in MNC, and also some MNC gear for your characters to wear in TF2. Free stuff for both games, what’s not to like?

Also, they recently added a new character to the game. Fans of Penny Arcade may now flee in terror, because the Fruit Fucker is here for your juices! Look forward to shooting him for money and fabulous prizes! HI-YOOO!

This is why Uber Entertainment are allowed to have nice things.

And last but definitely not least, here’s the game’s official PC launch trailer:

So in an attempt to make a less-than-triumphant return to getting my opinion back out to the masses with burning vigor, I have decided to pursue a more clichéd approach to my articles. Namely, my thoughts of games from days of yore.

To kick off this series of reflections on the titles that helped to make this fine industry what it is today, how about I start off with the best classic game you have almost certainly never played? (That is, if you are a reader from the United States or Canada!)

Back in the golden age of gaming (or the 16-bit era, for you young ‘uns), when kids that played video games weren’t nearly as cool as the ones in TV commercials and Mario and Sonic wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near each other let alone co-hosting their own Olympic event, Japanese RPGs were the undisputed kings of their generation. Ask any person who was into gaming in the nineties what their most fond memories of this era were, and more often than not they will recount stories of swords and sorcery from the Final Fantasies or Secret of <Insert Word Here>’s of the time.

During these wonderful years, two publishers/development companies were most well known for producing high quality role-playing titles – Squaresoft (of Final Fantasy fame), and Enix (for pretty much every other good RPG until the end of the 32-bit era). You may better know these companies these days as Square-Enix, a horrible mess of a company merger that seems to have descended into a horrible dark money-sink of disappointment and flashy cutscenes.

Unfortunately, whilst these companies were responsible for some of the best loved role-playing masterpieces of all time, sales figures did not always meet expectations, and Enix were forced to stop publishing titles in the US in late 1994. This was really bad timing, because a developer named Quintet, who were responsible for creating phenomenal Super Nintendo titles such as ActRaiser and Illusion of Gaia, were putting the finishing touches on what may be the greatest game that was never released in the United States – Terranigma.

Terranigma is the third game in an unofficial trilogy of games known as the ‘Gaia Trilogy’ (there is also a fourth game in the series on the PSX known as Granstream Saga, but this is a lot less known). The trilogy comprises of the games Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma, and even an NPC in a secret town in Terranigma refers to the game as ‘Illusion of Gaia 2′. Many of you old timers may very well remember Illusion of Gaia – it is on many ‘Best on Super Nintendo’ lists out there from critics and gamers alike. My friends and I were lucky to have gotten to play Terranigma growing up, as it was released in the UK in 1995, which is how I can recount my experiences with this hidden gem with you today.

Now we get to the meat of this story, the game itself!

Terranigma is an action RPG with controls very much in the vein of The Legend of Zelda and Secret of Mana, with its own interesting twists. The main character’s only weapon is a spear, of which you will acquire more powerful versions over the course of the game, and you always have the same five attacks available to you – a simple stab, a quick multi-hit stab, a dash attack, a jump strike, and a jumping dash slide attack (which is always fancy to look at). Although there is not much variety in the attacks you can perform, an extra degree of depth is added to the game due to the fact that enemies are independently strong or weak to different attacks – for example, a certain enemy that borrows through the ground in a desert area is immune to attacks whilst you are standing on the ground, but takes damage from the jump strike. The same enemy takes double damage if you hit it with the aerial portion of the dashing slide, but is immune to the ending slide of the same attack.

You will also acquire magic over the course of the game, but you must purchase the single use ‘rings’ using Magirock – a rare stone usually found hidden in dungeons. There are only 96 total of these stones in the game, so their use is limited, but they are always very effective. It also promotes extra exploration to find these hidden objects. The magic effects for the more expensive spells are usually a treat to watch however, so it’s a decent trade-off.

So the gameplay in and of itself is not the most unique you will ever experience, but it stays fun and never gets tedious. However the place Terranigma really stands above other games of its time – and even above many games of today – is its incredible, epic story that focuses on the resurrection of a barren, lifeless planet. A storyline with many intricate twists and developments, filled powerful and emotional events that will surprise even the most seasoned player. It is also one of very few games that deals heavily with concepts such as philosophy, religion and belief, and one of the game’s later villains actually presents a very realistic fear that is sure to hit home in an attempt to reduce the world to its barren state. There are many dark points to the story also, involving immortality-obsessed cults, slavery, murderously insane royals, children that won’t let go of their disturbing death-filled pasts, war and genocide.

Terranigma starts off with a fairly typical and seemingly innocent prologue of a mischevous young spikey haired boy living in a quiet, calm secluded village where the only excitement comes from Ark chasing the town’s chickens into the weaver’s house and desecrating their looms. You start out with the village elder telling you to go apologise at once (although you do have the choice to just be a douche and backtalk them instead). After doing this and wandering around the village for a while, upon returning to the elder’s house you find your friends attempting to open a door the town’s chief told them never to open, which of course you agree to help them with. After throwing a few household objects at said door, you manage to break it down and a voice calls out to Ark for help. On the other side of the door, Ark finds his very own Pandora’ box, which upon opening turbs every person in the village (except for Ark and the elder) into ice. The elder tells Ark that to restore the villagers, he must seek out five towers outside of the village and beat the fiends within to restore their souls.

Sounds pretty typical so far? Well this is where the game starts to show that there is much more in store than originally appears. When you first venture out of the village, you will notice that the ‘overworld’ here is actually more like an underworld, as you are in a vast underground cavern with rivers of lava and an expansive rock ceiling above you. Even more intriguing is that as you finish each tower, you are shown an animation (with some of the most impressive visuals on the system to boot) and informed that one of the world’s continents has just been resurrected. After finishing the five towers that comprise the game’s onset, the elder tells you that you must cross over to the world above and restore life to the world – plants, animals and ultimately humans. All of this brings up the other striking point of Terranigma. The game is set on Earth, thousands of years after a great cataclysm.

Of all the RPGs released over the history of video games, I could probably count on my fingers the amount of these games actually set in the ‘real world’. In a genre of nameless fantasy worlds with unfamiliar locations, this is adds a whole new spin on things by giving you a world you can actually relate to. Also, later on in the game you even have to help humanity develop their civilisation back to more modern standards by promoting invention, expansion, trade and economic growth between the cities of the world by helping people with their dilemmas or helping to influence the choices they make in leading their societies. I have never seen another game like this where the choices you make in conversations and actions you perform will actually stunt or promote the development of a nation. Ark also develops very personal relationships with a lot of the people you meet in these cities, so you actually end up actually caring a lot about how the people’s lives will turn out. The best example I can think of off hand is in the town of Loire, where an election is held after the king passes away to determine who will be the town’s representative. Depending on who you vote for, the town will either thrive and expand to a large center of culture and commerce, or stagnate and never become anything more than a secluded backwater village.

The game also has a really quirky sense of humour that it really doesn’t share with anything else. It’s not slapstick silly at all, but some of the things characters say have been known to make me laugh out loud on a number of occasions. From the ridiculous things that Ark tends to say (that only make sense to him, and are known to confuse others), to the sarcastic remarks other NPCs make from time to time, it tends to be a little on the mature side yet never crude. In a time of bright colours and cutesy graphics, more mature humour in a game was practically unheard of. The way you switch to your menu in the game will also make me giggle from time to time, as Ark will actually jump into and stuff himself into the box from the beginning of the game, which contains all of your items and weapons, and is practically another world in and of itself.

Visually, Terranigma is one of the more appealing games on the Super Nintendo. The graphics are very bright and colourful, and there is a striking amount of detail in the game from lush green forests filled with unique plants, animals and birds, to people’s houses with highly detailed furniture and floral arrangements, and even animated fish bowls and other decorations.The character sprites are large and colourful with a fair amount of variation, although the standard monster sprites do have a fair amount of palette swapping going on. The bosses are very original and detailed, with Bloody Mary and The Eagle being some of the most memorable bosses out of most SNES RPGs I’ve played.

Sound wise, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The music is fantastic and never gets old, with some truly exceptional and memorable tracks used (particularly the music from the starting town and the Overworld) . However the sound effects do not have a terrible amount of variation and many are re-used, but they get the point across and generally fit the situation.

If you like RPGs at all and live in the UK, or if you live in the US and can get your hands on a PAL Super Nintendo and Terranigma cartridge I highly recommend you look into playing this game as soon as is humanly possible. If you can’t get your hands on those, there are other means of getting to play this fantastic game which I am not at liberty to discuss here. I cannot recommend this game highly enough to anybody who has not played it yet. Since I do actually own it, I am currently replaying the game for myself. I could never beat the final boss as a kid, so I think I owe it to myself to go for gold all over again. I am currently half way though the game and it is every bit as awesome as I remember, and is even better than I remember it being in some ways. I also can’t believe how much of the story’s twists I have forgotten over the years!

I am not going to attach numerical scores to these games in these write-ups, but I am going to say how much I recommend getting the means to play each game.

Terranigma – Quintet/Enix – Super Nintendo

Cruz’ Recommendation: Highest Recommendation – You Must Play This Game!

These views slowly started shifting into the cusp of 2010, though few still linger. With the peak of motion gaming, and developers creating games that involve the entire family, the dark world of gaming was given a second look.

Most of the opinions were formed by people that had not played games, but rather just watched behavior from an outsiders point of view of a specific group of teens and adults. Video games were harmful because that is what they observed without having been part of the activities. One could say that football is harmful, having never played it before and only seeing the physical injuries that the players take on a constant basis. Why would anyone enjoy a sport so violent and aggressive? Why would anyone want to play a video game that seems pointless or one that is filled with violence?

As the developers started creating games that appealed to all age groups and then went a step further by making them easier to play with motion peripherals, it allowed a different vantage point for those that had wanted to study the effects of gaming. They could now play the games they hated so much and, have been finding as the years go by, what seemed harmful… is now fun. No one likes to be left out of an activity that so many seem to be enjoying, and perhaps it was that inability to experience what it is that gamers find appealing that led the study makers into an opinion that this hobby was somehow dangerous.

If this trend of making games more accessible continues, perhaps gaming will no longer be an underground subculture that is scorned by well groomed adults and professionals. Perhaps the studies deeming it dangerous and harmful will disappear all together as more find enjoyment with their friends and families through the ease of motion gaming and the simplicity of shovel ware. In a few years, maybe a quick Google search of the terms ‘Video Game Depression’ and ‘Recent Video Game Studies’ will only come up with positive results, or no results at all.

Will this be a good thing for the industry? Or will the world wide acceptance of video games somehow make it an uncool thing to admit to enjoying?

Send us your comments or email us.

Sometimes it feels like modern games coddle players.  There was a time when beating a game meant sitting down and battling through it in one sitting.  If you were lucky the developer employed a password system that would bring you back to the start of whatever level you were on.  Now we have checkpoints after every minor battle and constant autosave systems. We have unlimited lives and omnipresent hint systems.  Gamers today often find their only challenge in competitive multiplayer; someone on the other end creates a challenge where the developers couldn’t.

I mention this because Super Meat Boy is hard as hell.   I had every intention to finish the game before reviewing it, but I couldn’t.  This isn’t to say I can’t beat this game or that I won’t; god help me I will finish this game.  However my conquest has eluded me due to a perfect storm of tortuously difficult levels and sheer content overload.

Super Meat Boy is, on the surface, a simple platformer where you lead a skinless flesh bag through a carnival of dangers with the elemental power of wall jumping.  Dig deeper and you will begin to notice how tight the controls are.  With practice you’ll find yourself recreating the exact same jump time and time again.  You’ll start to feel how button press duration affects your trajectory and how a running start affects your momentum.

And then you will die, a lot, and eventually you’ll grow to accept that too.

After each successful run, you'll get to revisit the preceding failures. With up to 40 Meat Boys simultaneously hurling themselves at the level, it's one hell of a reminder what it took to get it right.

Life, Death, and more Death.

In Super Meat Boy, death is the norm.  Oh sure, maybe you’ll make it through the first dozen levels without dying.  Hell, maybe you’re really good and you’ll breeze through that whole world without seeing your avatar splattered into a fountain of blood and sinew more than a handful of times.  But eventually this game will catch you, and it will break you, and it will laugh and tell its friends about the whole thing.

Thankfully, death in Super Meat Boy comes at very little expense.  The levels are small, so being forced to start over doesn’t feel like a major setback.  After dying, you are respawned at the start almost instantly.  In platformers of the past, frustration generally sets in during the death sequence.  To this day thoughts of MegaMan’s death animation can still make my skin crawl.  Super Meat Boy avoids this by never pulling you out of the fray, and that goes a long way towards keeping the game from ever being truly frustrating.

It’s important to note that Super Meat Boy does not achieve kills through cheap tactics.  When you die you know exactly what you did wrong.  With the exception of a couple of boss battles, death doesn’t sneak up on you.  When you die in Super Meat Boy it’s always for the exact same reason: you weren’t perfect.

You'll need to use that vertical track to the left to launch Meat Boy up this salt silo. It takes precision and patience to pull off all these jumps just right.

You’re the best! Around!

Super Meat Boy is an exercise in perfection.  Some of the most difficult levels present their challenge by demanding perfection from the player.   You’ll need to have perfect timing to avoid an oncoming laser beam.  You’ll need to jump at the perfect angle to squeeze between two saw blades.  This is about learning a system of gameplay and becoming perfect at it, and your reward is the unmitigated rush of adrenaline you get when you succeed.

But Super Meat Boy does not just require perfection, it demonstrates it.  On display here is some of the best level design since Super Metroid.  I lost count how many times I jumped directly into a trap placed there by a team who obviously took the time to play their own game.  With a masterful pace the game introduces a new hazard or level element as soon as you start to get the hang of the old ones.  It slowly builds an arsenal of weapons with which to torment you, and then it clicks off the safety.

You can change characters when starting a level, or at any time from the pause menu. After mass deaths, sometimes a change of character results in a quick success.

Is it worth the price?

When games are released on console download services, value for price always seems to be a major topic of conversation.  Super Meat Boy will be released for 1200 MS points (or 15 real-person dollars), which is the price point most often associated with the question “Is it worth that?”  This is always a very personal decision, but all I can say is that Super Meat Boy packs an absolute ton of content.  The normal game has well over a hundred normal levels.   Add to that the “Dark World” levels (mega difficult versions unlocked by beating the normal level fast enough) and that number doubles.  There are also hidden “Warp Zones” in each world that contain a handful of retro-themed levels and the promise of entire worlds free to download in the future through XBL’s title-managed storage system.  When was the last time you played a game with potentially 350+ levels?

Adding to the value are the Super Meat Boy’s myriad unlockable characters.  The list reads like a who’s who of indie gaming heroes.  Tim from Braid, the ninja from N+, and Edmund McMillen’s own Gish are just a few playable characters.  Each has their own unique gameplay mechanic that dramatically affects how the levels play, so you’ll find yourself replaying old levels with new characters just to clock a faster time.

Conclusion

Super Meat Boy is one of the most addicting experiences I’ve had with a controller in hand.  The game is jam-packed with references to the classic games I played growing up: Castlevania, Street Fighter, Ninja Gaiden.  Each world of Super Meat Boy features an intro movie that mimics one of the classic game intros of that generation.  There’s even a boss that tips off his attacks by blinking (see Punch-Out). But the most fitting tribute is the game itself, which is simultaneously a throwback and improvement upon those classic games.  Though some gamers may be turned off by the near-constant death required to plow through this game, those who give it a chance will be rewarded with one of the best platformers released in this or any other generation.  Super Meat Boy expects you to be perfect, because it is.

Rating: ***** (5/5)