Tag: Review

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Attack On Titan’

by Josh Jackson

Attack On Titan seems like the kind of license that would be perfect for a video game, right? Based on the anime and manga series of the same name, what could be more exciting than soaring through the air and cutting down these towering giants? Unfortunately, past iterations haven’t had much success in delivering a satisfying adaptation to our screens, but that all changes with the new Attack On Titan from Koei Tecmo and Omega Force. Known for their work on the numerous Dynasty Warriors games and spinoffs, their expertise when it comes to creating large scale battles shines through with one of the most exciting games of the year, licensed or otherwise.

Attack On Titan PS4 Screen 1

Closing in for the kill.

If you follow the anime, you’ll know that the show has been stuck in limbo over the last few years after its initial 26 episodes, so forgive me if the plot sounds familiar. For those who might be introduced to the series for the first time through the game, Attack On Titan focuses on the last of humanity, most of which was wiped out years before by the sudden arrival of the Titans. These seemingly mindless creatures feed on humans, and pushed those who were left behind to build a new settlement separated by three walls. Eren Jager, Mikasa Akerman and Armin Arlert, childhood friends who live within the outermost Wall Maria, have their worlds torn apart when a sudden Titan attack led by the never before seen Colossal Titan, results in the wall being breached and their parents being killed as a result. Deciding to enlist in the military as retaliation, the trio prepares to take the fight to the Titans, becoming humanity’s last hope for survival.

When looking at how easily the humans are decimated throughout the series, Attack On Titan almost feels like Dynasty Warriors in reverse. Between Attack Mode, (where the story takes place), and Expedition Mode, (side missions that focus on obtaining new materials and gear), the core game play revolves around the player stepping in the shoes of one of the Survey Corps members as they traverse one of many maps, slaying dozens of Titans while helping squad mates in need. Capturing the feel of the show and its soldiers’ unique method of movement thanks to the Omni-Directional Mobility Gear, using these grappling hooks to fly through the air at high speeds is as satisfying as it looks. The controls admittedly have a bit of a learning curve as you memorize how to grapple, speed up, lock on, focus on one of five body parts, issue orders to your squad, and close in for your decisive blow, but once it all comes together well. Cutting down enemy after enemy results in one of the most thrilling game play experiences so far this year.

Attack On Titan PS4 Screen 2

Sasha Blaus holds her own against James Woods here.

Once on the battlefield, your main focus is to follow the red marked objectives to advance the story. Usually involving taking down multiple Titans, you’ll find yourself in a bad spot if you run out of gas for your gear, or if the twin swords you use for attacking wear out. All it takes is one mistimed attack, a lack of speed or a set of dull blades to be grabbed by an enemy, and if you’re not fast enough with your reactions, you’ll be food in no time. Thankfully, the field is littered with support soldiers who hand off more supplies when approached. As barbaric as it sounds however, the only way to know what they’ll give you is if you let them get eaten. Yes, much like the show, death is all around you. These NPC’s will often be killed, with a notification in the corner making you feel extra guilty about it by letting you know each time. By killing a Titan who’s consumed an ally, they’ll occasionally drop their corpse, which is marked with an icon showing which item their body will reward.

Attack On Titan PS4 Screen 4

Yep. A lot of people die.

If you want someone more reliable on your team, story characters will often signal for help with side objectives, ranging from helping them turn the tides in a losing battle, escorting them to a point, or triggering traps on the field. Once aided, they’ll join your five person squad and attack alongside you, bringing more items with them and triggering traps in the process. Often stronger than the generic NPC’s you can recruit, once a squad is in your control, you can issue generic commands like having them guard you, fan out to attack multiple nearby targets, or focus on the area you’re attacking for a devastating group attack.  In typical Dynasty Warriors fashion, important characters like your side quest recruits will comically “flee” the battlefield when defeated instead of getting killed. Which is strange since getting killed usually means getting eaten, so watching your squad be swallowed and chewed only to say they were tired of fighting and retreat right afterwards, is unintentionally comical. I mean, flee to where? You’re dead, man!

Speaking of friends, while Attack Mode is strictly single player, Expedition Mode lets players team up online to take on more difficult quests for the sake of money, new equipment, and the needed materials. Each set of missions is divided by a section of the map, each of which needs to be scouted throughout its nearly 100 missions. Not restricted to the story, these quests have the freedom to offer up some insane challenges to any Survey Corps member brave enough to take them on, and while expedition missions can be tackled solo, you’ll start to regret it once the difficulty ramps up. The reward is worth the struggle though, since the only way to unlock new weapons, Mobility Gears, scabbards, and eventually horses, is by playing through these missions. On the flip side, you can only unlock new characters for this mode by progressing through Attack Mode, so you’ll want to play both side by side if you want to steadily progress without trouble.

And while the assumption would be that each character would be exactly the same, Attack On Titan does a great job of making each main character feel unique, playing up their character strengths. Eren obviously has his Titan Form, where he can temporarily transform into one of the monsters and tear them apart with some basic melee combat abilities, but when characters like Levi and Mikasa feel significantly better at sword fighting thanks to their unique abilities, or Armin making up for his lack of strength by being the only person who can issue individual orders to his squad thanks to his tactical brilliance, each playable character delivers a small, yet noticeable difference to how you’ll approach combat.

Attack On Titan PS4 Screen 3

Each character is unique, but only Eren can one hand grab Titans that look like babies.

In both Attack and Expedition Modes, you’ll wind up with extra material drops by attacking marked limbs on Titan bodies, or earning an S rank at completion. Coming off as simple enough at first, obtaining S Ranks often felt more frustrating than it was worth. Finishing the stage fast enough and addressing enough side requests were both fine, but it’s easy to get knocked down a rank because you didn’t kill enough Titans. In my confusion, I noticed that in many cases, you’ll have to hunt down and kill nearly every Titan on the map, no matter how out of the way they are compared to the rest of your objectives. Feeling like a battle against my own annoyance, there’s little in the game more disheartening than getting your rank dropped because you didn’t kill those two guys hanging out in the opposite corner of the stage, especially when rare materials are on the line.

As much as the ranking can bring down your spirits, it’s a nitpick next to some of the bigger issues with Attack On Titan, most of which bog down the main game too much. For starters, while delivered with the same solid voice acting, beautiful visuals, and stellar presentation as when you’re in the middle of the action, the story is hard to stay interested in since it’s a story we’ve seen told so many times. This isn’t the game’s fault, but it’s impossible to be excited about sitting through the Female Titan finale for the third time. Fortunately, the game goes above and beyond in this respect, adding in part of the next story arc after the credits roll as a set of bonus post game quests. Within the main game, some of the missions feel more drawn out than they should be. If we break down the anime and make an action game out of the actual fight scenes, there’s very little to explore, (which was a big reason why last year’s game fell short). To compensate, small moments that were either glossed over, or took up all of two minutes of screen time on the show, will be expanded into whole missions in the game. It’s easy to see where the developers stretched things out to create a more “full” gaming experience, but for every great level we get, it also ends up being tied to slow story progression.

Attack On Titan PS4 Screen 5

You’ll be thankful for your crew when you’re inevitably caught.

But most importantly, as fun as the game play is, Attack On Titan falls into Omega Force’s most consistent complaint. This game is far too repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, the satisfying flash of a perfect attack, the occasional zoom in on your character before they deliver the killing blow, and the spray of blood that douses your character in a brutal crimson rain never gets old, but most of the combat revolves around you doing the same thing repeatedly for the 10 hours or so that the main story takes to complete. Add in a few more for the post game content, and another 10-20 minimum for the Expedition Mode, and the shine will definitely wear off over time. The game does try to throw in new elements with horseback levels, where your faithful steed will accompany you while traveling across areas with few buildings to latch on to, Titan Mode levels, where Eren fights hand to hand with some satisfying, yet few attacks as mentioned earlier, and bosses that require you to wear down their body before their weakness at the nape of their neck will be exposed, but it’s not enough when these brief moments are quickly replaced by the standard combat. It doesn’t help when occasionally, especially in small, enclosed maps, the camera loses all sense of direction and flies around faster than a Maneuver Gear ever could. Combined with the (appreciated) grapple physics that will drop you if your hooks become obstructed, and some minor slowdown when battles get hectic, and you end up with a great game with some minor technical hiccups.

Despite the repetition, Attack On Titan is one of the most enjoyable anime adaptations I’ve played. By capturing the style and brutality of its anime counterpart and successfully adapting it into an adrenaline rush of a video game with its satisfying, fast paced action, it won’t be hard to find plenty to love. Fans of the series itself, or even an action gamer who’s never heard of the series, (if any exist at this point), would do well to pick it up and take up arms against the Titans. With online play to keep the battles going long after the credits roll, a distinct cast of characters, and plenty of content to unlock throughout, Wall Maria’s tragedy is definitely our gain.

Final Score: 4.25/5

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘The King Of Fighters XIV’

by Josh Jackson

Throughout the 2D fighting game resurgence over the last few years, one of the kings of the genre has been largely absent. As franchises both new and old continued to thrive, The King Of Fighters seemingly vanished, with the once yearly fighting game franchise failing to see a new release since the thirteenth game released in 2010. Using the last six years to regroup, refocus and rebuild, SNK Playmore’s flagship fighter has finally returned with The King Of Fighters XIV. Re-debuting with both a visual and mechanical overhaul, the series aims to make its current gen debut on PS4 the most accessible to date, all while keeping its solid team based fighting at the forefront. Succeeding in some aspects and failing in others, XIV may not be a return to form, but that doesn’t mean its not an enjoyable title in its own right.

Many years after the fall of Ash Crimson and the apparent demise of Orochi, The King of Fighters tournament has failed to re-surface. Suddenly, a mysterious benefactor by the name of Antonov revives the tournament while claiming that he is the one true fighting champion. To see if anyone can prove him wrong, the powerful warrior hopes to back up his claims by inviting teams from around the world to compete in his tournament for a chance to face him, featuring competitors like the legendary Team Japan, (Kyo, Benimaru and Goro Daimon), the heroes of South Town, (Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi), and a mysterious new trio Antonov invited personally. As usual, not all is as it seems, with a more sinister plot taking place underneath the surface.

King of Fighters XIV Review Screen 2

The Rivalry Continues

Taking an opposite approach compared to its most immediate competition, KOF XIV sticks to a more traditional set of modes when it comes to its feature set. Featuring a giant 50 character roster, (48 to start with and two to unlock), 17 are brand new. Among the 33 characters returning, some of which haven’t been playable in over a decade, and even old favorites have received some big changes, for better and for worse. The core fighting revolves around choosing a team of three fighters, each of which take turns against the opposing group. Becoming somewhat of a survival fight, your first fighter will stay in the match until they’re knocked out, moving on to your second and third character, with the loser obviously being the team who loses all three members first. Using a four button control scheme made up of light and strong punches and kicks, using them to activate the right combos, special moves and super moves at the right times will be the difference between winning and losing.

Considering that this is the fourteenth game in the series, chances are you’ve already played one of these games, which also means you’re well aware of the basic mechanics that make up these games. Moving on to what’s changed since last time, SNK Playmore has delivered on their promise to make the game more accessible to newcomers with new abilities and easy combos. Tapping the light punch button in succession will trigger an auto combo that ends in a devastating super move, (assuming you have enough special meter to pull it off.) Hitting the strong punch and kick buttons at the same time activates a Blow Back attack, instantly creating distance by knocking the opponent to the other side of the screen while setting them up for long range damage. Past KOF games let you pay one meter for a temporary power boost, which gets taken a step further this time around. Once in Max Mode, you’ll have a set amount of time to activate your EX special moves as much as you want. Other fighters usually make you pay per use of an EX attack, but having unlimited usage of the stronger versions of your special attacks can help you turn the tide of battle real quick. Couple these with your Max Super SP moves, and it won’t be long after comboing in these souped up versions of your super moves take down your enemies. Then again, when you want your victories to have that extra flair, new Climax Super SP Moves can wipe out half of the enemy’s health in one attack at the cost of three meters, complete with a special cutscene to accompany the chaos.

King of Fighters XIV Review Screen 1

Old favorites return alongside some new faces

Once you’ve gotten the hang of the core mechanics, KOF has plenty of ways to put what you’ve learned to the test. Namely, its Story Mode functions much like the Arcade Mode of past games, with an added cinematic presentation at certain points. Aside from the mandatory cutscenes that play no matter who you’re using, having certain characters fight each other will activate some back and forth dialogue that can both explore character motivations and relationships. If playing with one of the game’s established teams, finishing the game will reward you with a lengthy ending, complete with some well drawn still frames depicting the aftermath of the tournament for your team.

Supplementary single player modes include your typical Survival Mode, Time Attack, Training, and Vs. Mode against both other players or the CPU. Who would have thought!? Sadly, Trial Mode, the combo tutorial feature that has become a fighting game staple over the last few years, went from my most anticipated mode to my least favorite. Unlike other games that delve into some of the more complex mechanics for each character, each set is nearly identical in KOF regardless of who you’re playing as. Serving as a way to test your basic understanding of cancels and super moves, it does little to help you bring out the full potential of your fighter.

King of Fighters XIV Screen 6

Mui Mui, the face of SNK puchinko, makes her fighting game debut.

Yet, in a reversal of fortunes, Online Mode, which was the weak point of the previous game due to horrible netcode, is much improved this time around. Aside from most of my matches being lag free during both Player Match fights and Ranked Match fights, there’s just so much to do with friends and strangers alike this time around. First off, SNK had the sense to only make you use your preset team in Ranked Match, which prevents counter picking while letting you switch things up in Player Match lobbies. Speaking of, KOF XIV handles lobbies better than any fighter I’ve played before. Rather than make say… A queue of 10 wait for the top 2 people to finish before taking turns, anyone in the lobby will automatically be paired up to fight with someone who’s not in a fight, making it so that the only way someone won’t be playing is if there’s an odd number of players participating. Even then, the person not fighting can choose to spectate any of the fights they want. So if they see a character fighting that they’re not familiar with, they can spy on the fight and pick up some tips! Either that, or they could go into the online practice mode, where you can head into training mode with another real life person and brush up on your combos. For the extra sociable brawlers out there, Party Mode delivers a true to life KOF experience, pitting three individuals against three others for a six player fight for supremacy. Just remember, that super meter isn’t just YOURS anymore, adding an extra caveat to keep in mind when you don’t want to piss off your friends.

We can’t talk about the game without addressing its most obvious shortcoming, which is its bland graphics. Looking not too far off from what you’d expect from the Maximum Impact series from over a decade ago, its wasn’t long before I was longing for those gorgeous 2D sprites from the last two games. Everything from the character models to the effects look far from what you’d expect from a PS4 exclusive, and it doesn’t gain any points from its pre-rendered CG’s, which don’t look too much better.

King of Fighters XIV Screen 5

The mysterious Kukri is one of the better newcomers.

Then again, fighting isn’t about how one looks, but how one plays To its credit, XIV has its fundamental play down. For veterans however, you’ll likely come across a series of small changes that aren’t game breaking by any means, but will definitely feel like a step backwards. Namely, the game feels far too easy to complete, taking a series that has been known for its punishing bosses, and delivering a final fight that won’t feel like much more of a struggle than your typical brawl. Combos don’t seem to scale back damage as much, leading to some basic chains wiping out nearly an entire health bar for some low risk high reward game play. The most puzzling aspect however, is how some classic characters have had some odd changes to their tool set, making them less effective while keeping their core abilities intact. Unlike say, how Vega is a completely different character in Street Fighter V, Athena is largely the same, but is made to be even more vulnerable after certain attacks, having her Phoenix Arrow’s ending kick be interruptible, and losing her wall jump. Taking away abilities that some characters have had for two decades feels unnecessary, but doesn’t detract from the overall excitement of the game play after making the proper adjustments.

The King of Fighters XIV has a lot going for it. Its huge roster, proper single player modes with rewards in the form of endings and artwork spanning 22 years, easy to pick up and play mechanics and its hidden depth are all still here, along with one of the best sets of online features in the genre and some features to make the game more accessible for new players. Still, I can’t help but feel like something is missing compared to past games that make this entry stand above all the others. Maybe its the easy difficulty when it comes to beating the Story Mode. It could be the dated graphics, or the lack of effort it takes to pull off huge damage compared to other games. Then again, having characters changed for the worse doesn’t help either. If anything, this game is a perfect case of “death by 1000 needles”. There’s no one problem with it that overshadows what it does well, but so many small issues take what is otherwise a great game, and turns it to one that’s simply better than good. Fighting game fans will find plenty to love, but with that in mind, there’s also plenty of room to get better. Let’s just hope we won’t have to wait another six years to see the improvements.

Final Score: 3.75/5

Geekscape Games Reviews: No Man’s Sky (PS4)

by Pandageddonnn

So what’s all this talk about No Man’s Sky?

Developed by Hello Games, No Man’s Sky was released on August 9th for the Playstation 4 (with a delayed release to Windows PC’s via Steam.) No Man’s Sky is an exploration survival game, set in a (basically) infinite procedurally generated galaxy, each planet with their own unique habitat set with fauna, flora, minerals, and other resources. Your goal is to reach to the center of the universe, by request of a mysterious force called Atlas, though if you don’t want to sit through playing the story, you are more than welcome to pave your own path and explore the universe as you please.

When I first heard about this game during their announcement in the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), I was awed and excited. A space exploration game where you could endlessly traverse through countless planets? Where you can play with millions of people and still make discoveries no one else has made, discover planets that are yet undiscovered by the other players? Yes, sign me up!

As the release date came closer, more announcements were made. Naming planets, along with their respective flora and fauna. Space battles. Other sentient life forms, and learning their languages. Oh man, this game was going to be insane!

Finally, the release came. I bought it immediately. I popped out the disk and started the game up on my Playstation.

The first thing I saw was a vast terrain of unusual plants, minerals and creatures. As my camera turned, I saw my space ship, damaged and broken.

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My first task was to gather resources to rebuild my ship.

After roaming around the planet searching for materials, I finally rebuilt my ship to working condition. I had to tread wearily, as planets can have hostile life forms. Sentinels act as security guards on each planet, keeping a watchful eye on me as I mined for ore. Sometimes they would attack me if they deemed me hostile. I can attack them for titanium but sometimes it was best to run away before reinforcements were called in.

nomanskysentinels1

Eventually, I was led on a journey to rebuild my ship well enough to warp to farther planets, and along the way, I found alien monoliths. I learned words for certain alien races, and even interacted with a few aliens, though I had a hard time understanding what they said, I only knew so many words of their language. And while I don’t know what Atlas is (yet), I’m sent on a mission by Atlas to travel to the center of the universe, with the aid of aliens, technology, and black holes.

maxresdefaultEntrance to a black hole.

As you continue exploring the game, you’ll find upgrades for your exosuit, gun (called a Multitool), and ship. You will even come across distress signals where you may find another ship you can rebuild. You can even buy ships from traders and sellers.

no-mans-sky-6Buying and selling with other life forms, such as the Vy’keen.

So how do I like this game? It was everything I expected (and almost everything that Hello Games said it was going to be). Smooth controls, simple interface, insanely gorgeous graphics, and a wonderfully vast map of planets to explore. This game ended up to be much more realistic than I expected. Without a pulse engine and booster, some spots on the map might take you days (in real real-time) to walk or fly to. You have to constantly mine for energy materials to charge your life support system and blasters and fuel your ship. You could get attacked by hostile creatures that want to eat you or even befriend a friendly creature that will help you find rare resources on the planet you are on. Make friends with sentient species, or defend a ship sending out a distress signal within a battle in space. All these little things make this game so much more interactive, it truly draws you in.

I have yet to encounter any other players yet, though it has been confirmed that two players have managed to meet, a mind-boggling feat.

No Man’s Sky scores a cool 4.5/5. It’s a masterpiece, a game with a strong (yet subtle) story, yet versatile enough to where players can choose their own path and carve out their own story. With gorgeous scenery and immersive gameplay, this is easily one of the best games I’ve played to date (and I cannot wait to keep playing).

Let me know what you think! Do you like this game or not? And why?

Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Star Trek Beyond’

by Adam Korenman

When I was younger, long before the horrors of adult life turned me into the cynical specimen you see before you, I used to watch Star Trek. I say “used to,” because the epic space-opera has been off the air for some time now. I was a little too young for the Original Series (TOS, for those of you in the know), and Enterprise just didn’t capture the same spirit as the other entries. I was raised on a healthy diet of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. I sat with my brother and father and watched the future unfold in episodic fashion. I shared the adventures of the bold and fierce Janeway, the authoritative Sisko, and the reverent Picard. That was the Star Trek I knew and loved. So when J.J. Abrams stepped in to reboot the franchise for a new generation, I was a little torn.

On the one hand, I was a huge fan of J.J.’s work in TV and film thus far. He had proven himself to be an innovative auteur, willing to take on challenging material and complex narratives. On the other hand, LOST. Seven years later, despite positive reviews for the reboot, the fans were still polarized by the new universe, and I felt squarely in the middle.

Enter Star Trek Beyond. Written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, and directed by Fast and Furious veteran Justin Lin, this was poised to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The trailer overloaded the senses with quick cuts, motorcycle chases, and Beastie Boys. Honestly, it was hard to even call this a Star Trek film. So, with no small amount of trepidation, I purchased my ticket and entered the theater.

I can’t say that this is a movie we will be talking about for generations to come. I won’t pretend it is a flawless script or impeccably performed. I can say, without question, that this is the most Trek-like film in the trilogy, and may be the best of the three films overall. I will be discussing a few items from the plot in depth, so let’s take a breath and together shout:

SPOILER WARNING!

After a cutesy cold open involving cat-sized aliens and a McGuffin, we find the crew of the USS Enterprise heading for some much needed R&R at the deep space station Yorktown. Kirk opens the movie with the infamous Captain’s Log. In a not-so-subtle nod to the series, Kirk laments that his first 3 years of the 5-year mission have felt “episodic,” and he doesn’t feel as focused on the mission as he used to. In many ways, his frustration and apathy mimics our own, as we see the cinema overwhelmed by sequels and reboots and copies. The entire crew seems to feel it as well, as each looks toward a future off the ship.

This brief respite on the station includes a few brief moments and scenes that were handled with subtlety and timing not often attributed to a Fast and Furious director (it should be said that Justin Lin is, in fact, a fantastic movie-maker). The infamous reveal of Sulu and his husband is handled without commentary, only a wistful smile from Kirk at seeing his crew happy. The revelation of Ambassador Spock’s passing is also done without sap or unnecessary dialogue, just a brief moment for Zachary Quinto. All-in-all, the few scenes aboard the station set up the theme of the movie very well.

I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the action, and I honesty can say that the film is worth seeing in theaters just to witness the spectacle on screen. Justin Lin is used to telling a visually compelling story, and his work here is no different. Star Trek Beyond moves at a rapid pace, without feeling like a series of snapshots. There are a few rough patches, particularly during a late-night investigation aboard the shattered saucer section, but overall the film is coherent and exciting.

There has been a lot made recently about the difference between scenes and moments, as popularized by this brilliantly done video on Batman v Superman. Star Trek Beyond has its share of stand-alone moments, but they tend to feed the larger story in a way Mr. Snyder’s did not. Here is a spoilery example.

Spock finds out that his alternate-universe self has passed away. This scene is handled with respect and distance, allowing the audience to share is the stunned moment with the characters onscreen. Later, a wounded Spock reveals to Bones (played perfectly by the venerable Karl Urban) that he plans to quit Starfleet in order to continue Spock’s mission and increase the future of all Vulcans universe-wide. Spock breaks from his emotionless logic and tears up as he talks of the “many lifetimes” his elder self had lived. This was an emotional scene for Mr. Quinto, as the legendary Leonard Nimoy had been a close friend and mentor to the young actor when he first started out. Spock’s decision to quit his day job to focus on his species also feels earned due to the events of the series. His planet is gone, his people are scattered and limited, and the wisest among them has passed. A series of moments has added up to a powerful scene, since we as an audience have shared it with the characters.

Great movies need great heroes, and Chris Pine brings a much stronger performance to this latest iteration of Kirk. Into Darkness was blasted by critics for being too regressive from the first film. Kirk still isn’t “fit to command,” Spock doesn’t like Kirk’s methods, there is no trekking taking place. Beyond fixes many of these issues by doing what every good story must: Arriving late and leaving early. What I mean by this is that we open the movie in the middle of the adventure. This isn’t Day 1, Year 1 of the journey into the beyond. This is year 3, and the crew is exhausted. Kirk has not only accepted the responsibilty of command, but he is a revered and beloved leader. Uhura puts her life in danger to protect her captain without a moment’s hesitation. Bones and Spock act like war-weary friends rather than strangers. Scotty acts with earned authority when repairing the ship. By delivering a lived-in universe instead of one still smelling of shrink-wrap, the writer allows the hero to have a more involved arc.

Back to Kirk, we no longer see the petulant man-child from the first movie. Kirk may throw the odd glance toward an attractive member of the opposite sex (although nothing akin to the cringe-inducing scene with Alice Eve from Into Darkness), but he is by a large a different man than the one we’ve met before. In fact, I would say he feels more like the Kirk of TOS. More than that, he bears the resilience and attitude of a Starfleet officer. He wants to settle problems with wit rather than violence. A great example is shortly into Act Two. Kirk realizes that his crew was duped by an alien refugee into a trap, and he confronts the alien with his phaser in hand. The female admits her role and puts up no defense. A lazy screenwriter, and one without thought of the series, would be likely had Kirk shoot her down to demonstrate his extreme emotional state. That would have been a grave mistake, and Pegg and Jung avoid it deftly. Instead, Kirk uses the alien to suss out details of the greater plot against his crew and the Federation as a whole.

Heroes need villains, and the movie brings in a powerhouse to portray the big bad. Idris Elba, best known for being amazing (let this man be James Bond already), plays the sinister Krall. His arc is a very slow burn, which is unfortunate because it is a pretty solid turn overall. Elba is simply epic in his delivery and presence, even under layers of makeup. His attitude is important as well, as it demonstrates one of the main issues Trek fans have had with the reboot: The militarization of the Federation (Scotty even says as much in Into Darkness). Krall believes that might makes right, and that the Federation’s unity of species and belief in diplomacy is a great weakness. In a refreshing turn, Kirk becomes the voice of reason, espousing the beliefs of the Federation as the correct course for humanity and the universe as a whole.

For all the hardcore haters out there, I’m sure you will find your flaws within the film. The use of “classical” tunes by the Beastie Boys is worthy of an eye-roll, female characters still mostly act as filler, and the end space battle is hilariously simple given the shellacking the Enterprise took in Act One. Still, there is a heart of charm in this movie that the previous film sorely lacked. There is a sense of wonder, of joy in exploration, that hearkens back to the theme and tone of the original.

As a caveat to my comment about female characters, I must bring up Jaylah, played wonderfully by Sofia Boutella. Despite both her English and attitude coming from late 90’s hip hop, Jaylah is a wonderful addition to the roster and one of the best parts of the movie. She is fiercely independent, innovative, and determined in her goal to leave the forsaken planet. Her story lacks a defined third act, but she more than delivers in the film. She is never reduced to a mere sexual object, which is a huge step for the new franchise (again, Alice Eve, what the hell were they thinking?). More than just not being objectified, Jaylah is integral in moving the plot forward. She takes action, fights her own battles, and makes decisions based on her self-interest rather than that of the crew. She has agency and direction, and can seriously kick ass.

Star Trek Beyond released in the wake of the tragic loss of Anton Yelchin, the young and talented actor behind Chekchov. In the final scenes of the film, the crew of the Enterprise get together to celebrate Kirk’s birthday. Kirk delivers an iconic toast “to absent friends,” and for a brief moment the camera cuts to Anton raising his glass. The shot lingers just a beat, but editing choice is clear. This is paired with a “For Anton” during the end credits. It is another soft-handed approach to a sensitive topic, and feels like the right choice given the circumstances. It is not as direct as the Blue Angel’s motif done in the latest Fast and Furious film, but the implication is just as obvious and, at least for me, appreciated.

https://youtu.be/_bpNCaAPPXA

Simon Pegg and Doug Jung put together a strong and well-paced Star Trek adventure. The themes, arcs, and actions in the story call to mind the films of the Original Series. There is a reverence and love in each scene that was absent previously, and its return marks a change for the better. Will you find things you don’t like? Most definitely. This is not a perfect film by any stretch. There are plot holes, dropped story lines, and downright bad choices made for the sake of moving the plot forward. Overall, however, this is an enjoyable and moving film for the franchise. If this turns out to the be the last in the series, I think it ends on a high note. In an age of cynicism and pessimism, Star Trek Beyond boldly goes in a direction of hope.

GRADE: 3.5 / 5

If enjoy Star Trek, or sci-fi of any kind, you’ll probably enjoy my book.  You can also read more of my scribblings on my site.

The ‘Pokémon Go’ Servers Are Down, Hackers Claiming Credit

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Last week, Nintendo and Niantic delayed the global launch of Pokémon GO amidst major, consistent server issues that players have been experience due to GO being one of the biggest mobile (and potentially gaming in general) launches of all time.

Since then, the game has slowly been rolling out to new, mostly European countries (sorry, Japan and Canada), culminating with a launch in 26 new countries early this morning. It also appears that the game’s servers have been down all morning, with most players blaming the outage on the gigantic expansion of the game’s availability.

Apparently, this may not be the case, as hacker group PoodleCorp has taken to Twitter to take credit for the ongoing outage.

https://twitter.com/PoodleCorp/status/754298236093857792

They noted that this attack “Just was a lil test, we will do something on a larger scale soon.”

https://twitter.com/xotehpoodle/status/754329907300339712

It’s tough to tell whether this was a true attack, or just another server failure (as has been all too common with Pokémon GO since its launch), but with nobody able to log in, and for such a long time, there’s definitely something different about this outage.

Bastards. What are we supposed to do with this warm Summer day now!?

Are you playing Pokémon GO? Of course you are. What’s been your best catch so far?

The Global Launch Of ‘Pokémon GO’ Has Been Delayed Amidst Server Issues

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Sorry, world.

While seemingly every single person populating the US, Australia, and New Zealand has been playing Pokémon GO non-stop for nearly a week a this point, the rest of the planet (including the Great White North, where I’m situated) has been waiting (im)patiently for the unbelievably anticipated title to hit their respective App and Google Play stores.

While Niantic was originally planning to roll the title out to additional regions in the days following its soft launch, it now sounds like it could be some time before Canada, Europe, and even Japan (well, and everywhere else) will be able to start their new addiction.

In an interview with Business Insider, Niantic CEO John Hanke let the outlet know that the expansion of the game has been “paused until we’re comfortable.”

While the game’s reliability has been constantly improving, errors, crashes, and server outages are still consistent problems at peak times (and it seems like it’s always a peak time).

I don’t think that Nintendo or Niantic could have guessed the absolute phenomenon that they now have on their hands (Hanke stated that “We thought the game would be popular, but it obviously struck a nerve,”) so the server problems that have plagued the online-only game aren’t surprising whatsoever. Hell, I’m playing in a country where the game hasn’t launched yet (which isn’t overly hard to do), and I witnessed 50-75 players rush to a Lure Module placed a couple of blocks from my house. I have never seen anything like this before.

What have you thought of Pokémon GO so far? Do you agree with Josh’s initial impressions? Be sure to sound out in the comments below! #TeamValor!

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Megadimension Neptunia VII’ For Steam!

by Vince Jimenez

Megadimension Neptunia VII is easily the best Neptunia game yet. With noticeably higher production values, this game shines at what its good at. The music, the gameplay, and the visuals all excel. The frame rate is impeccable, staying at a steady 60 FPS . There is some fanservice as like the previous titles, but it’s very mild, and after the first few hours it should not be seen as anything more than an afterthought or for comedic relief. This makes even more sense  once you consider the entire leading cast is made up of strong females and the entire society within the game is pretty much matriarchal.

To start with, Neptunia is part of a very niche genre and series about the console industry and the war between the various companions that dominate it. There are an infinite number of dimensions, each with its own unique history, but they all revolve around different versions of the console war between Sega, Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox. In the game they’re given the names Planeptune, Lowee, Lastation and Leanbox respectively, being named after their most successful, current flagship console systems.

Megadimension Neptunia Steam Screen 1

Your typical spats between patron goddesses.

MDN VII is the sequel to Hyperdimension Neptunia (HDN) Victory, which itself is the sequel to HDN Mk2. A word of warning, going into this game first will cause some of the greatness of it to be lost on you. As it is a sequel to two previous games, references will be missed. Also, having a solid understanding of Japanese culture and anime in general, especially their expressions, will go a long way to enjoy this game more.

As we move on, VII can be easily describes as  the pinnacle of the Neptunia series so far. As time goes on, these games have only gotten better and better, and this one clearly stands as a standard when it comes to the improvements made between games. The graphics are great (played it completely maxed out, though the game wasn’t too demanding), areas that are dark look grungy and areas that should pop with color do and rightly so. The game is pretty massive, with three different intertwining stories in one  package and a huge cast of characters to choose from. In addition to the returning party members, each new character is also based on a different real world game console or game series, each of which is introduced throughout the multiple story lines. Further highlighting the changes made to how the story progresses the game does not the typical RPG flow of following the events and move on to next chapter. For example, in the G arc, we can choose between the four goddesses and develop their story, which is the only way to use certain characters, (like Noire’s campaign being the only one in the G arc with her sister, Uni, for example).

Megadimension Neptunia Steam Screen 3

K-Sha, the Konami inspired newcomer, uses Contra and Metal Gear Solid inspired attacks instead of Pachinko balls.

The gameplay is where the game really shines. Now that you are able to destroy and break of parts of enemies, the turn based combat requires you to think strategically and to plan your attacks. Some of the characters can transform during battle to give you an added boost of power and new moves you can use to to dispatch foes. In more detail, the cards at the upper right corner of the screen basically stated the order in which the enemies/heroes will attack in, while combat itself has some added elements to it. First off, during your turn, each character had a range in which they can move. This allowed you to position yourself around an enemy, attacking their flanks or their rear. Doing so increased the accuracy and damage dealt by your attacks, which is essential in some battles, especially early on when the difficult was significant. As for your attacks, you have your three basic combos. Rush Attacks, multi hit moves that are good at building the EXE gauge, (which I’ll get to later), Power Attacks, which grant increased power at the cost of the number of hits, and Standard Attacks, a mix of Rush and Power. You can have up to 5 attacks in a row, but this is determined by your weapon. There is a great deal of strategy around this piece. Each character has a different set of combos, and each combo may or may not come with a combo trait which, if satisfied, guarantees it’ll hit and be a critical strike. Figuring out which weapon to use for which character and which skills to set in which order in the combo adds a massive amount of complexity and depth to basic attacks, (not to mention this could mean the difference between life and death).

Megadimension Neptunia Steam Screen 5

The improved gameplay is the star of the show.

In addition to combo attacks there are also skills. These can be buffs, heals, resurrections, debuffs, or straight damage abilities. Some have AoE, some are linear, and some are single target. Some are elemental and some physical, which might be better to use depending on the situation. There is a wide range of abilities that you will find yourself using even late into the game because they fill many different roles, and no role ever really becomes useless. Then there are special ultimate attacks, called EXE Attacks. There is an EXE Gauge that fills with each hit you take and each hit you do. The more hits, the faster it fills. Rush attacks fill this the quickest since they have the most hits. A lot more can be said about the combat, scouting and (the weakest) crafting, but for the sake of length, I won’t. The combat system in the series has come a very long way since the early days, so newcomers to the series or those who only played the first few will know that the combat system has been greatly improved. This is the title to play if you want to get into the Neptunia series if you’ve never done so before.

Another place where the game shines excellently at is the music. There are a great number of catchy tunes and all the sound and effects fit nicely with the theme of the game. The songs are designed specifically to match a particular mood or environment. It does well at matching whatever context in which they’re in.

Megadimension Neptunia Steam Screen 4

White Heart showing off her new NEXT form.

The story isn’t going to win any Nebula awards for greatest plot twist. Once again, the game starts out with Neptune getting sucked into yet another dimension, (basically what happened in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory), and this time, along comes her little sister, Nepgear. They land in what appears to be an apocalyptic version of their world and they need to figure out where they are and how to get back home. Neptune being the lovable Neptune, they set out on their quest bringing with them everything we have come to know and love. With a rather simple premise, and a tad bit of originality, the story is never difficult to understand. That being said, the story seems to is merely there to create a story for the characters to play in, and boy they do play.

First we have Neptune, a quirky, loveable little bundle of energy and joy that can make or break the tension in even the gloomiest of scenes. Arguably, her single greatest calling card is treating the fourth wall like a revolving door .Her younger sister, Nepgear, is one of the stable, rational minded individuals in the story that tries to keep things on track. Unfortunately this often fails and she ends up getting sucked into whatever problems her sister causes for her. However, beneath her seemingly docile, level headed exterior is a full-on gear head that goes bonkers at the sight of machines and robots. Series newcomer, Uzume, joins the girls in this dilapidated environment, and is based off of the Sega Dreamcast. Uzume has a megaphone, as a reference to the Dreamcast not being known as the quietest of systems. Changes in her personality appear as well, in reference to the transition of the games that were released on the Dreamcast from cute and bubbly to sharp and cool, (though that can be subjective). Her transformed state even shares a certain resemblance with that familiar green circle on her chest, referencing the middle of a Dreamcast’s controller. It doesn’t seem like much, but the way those three characters play off each other, and play off the dozens of others that you will encounter, and can add to your party, shows where the true heart of this series lies. Every character has depth to them, even if you don’t see it right away. The story of this game is amazing, not because of the quality, but because it is what every game should be.It doesn’t take itself seriously, and  it’s fun.

Megadimension Neptunia Steam Screen 2

Uzume letting her cute side leak out of her cool exterior.

This RPG is a great start for the summer if you missed the PS4 release. With it’s abundant helping of content, it will keep you occupied for some time to come and if you’re willing to put in the time, you’ll find yourself having a lot of fun.

Final Score: 4/5

‘Pokémon GO’ Is Rolling Out On The App Store And Google Play!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: While Josh’s in-depth look at Niantic’s Pokémon GO made us wary at just how much fun the addicting-looking title may actually be, it appears that it won’t be long now before you can download the game yourself and draw your own conclusions about it.

That’s right. Pokémon GO has finally begun to roll out on the iOS App Store, as well as Google Play. Currently the game is only available for download in the always-first Australia and New Zealand regions, but that mean’s that it won’t be long before North Americans, Europeans and the like will be able to throw their first Pokéballs too.

As a previously avid player of Niantic’s Ingress, I was beyond excited when the company announced Pokémon GO. As Josh mentioned, the positives far outweigh the negatives, but just don’t expect a full Pokémon experience.

Honestly, I’m terrified for my relationships and my phone’s battery at this point, and I’m stoked to be headed down to San Diego in just over a week, where I should see an entirely different assortment on Pokémon than I will in my Vancouver homeland.

Are you excited for Pokémon GO? Be sure to sound out in the comments below! If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, you can click here to download the game on iOS, and here for Android!

Pokemon GO Screen 4

‘Pokemon GO’ Is As Impressive As It Is Frustrating

by Josh Jackson

Note: This preview is based on the most recent beta version of the game and may not represent the final product.

Despite being a huge Pokemon fan dating back to its North American debut in 1998, I’ve been very skeptical of Pokemon GO since its announcement. In the midst of the public’s seemingly universal excitement, I remember being left with more questions than answers. How would battles work? Is this going to drain your data usage? And how will the dreaded in-app purchases convince us to spend a few dollars here and there to catch that one Pokemon that continues to allude us? After playing the latest beta version of the game ahead of its rumored July release, I found the answers I was looking for. Make no mistake about it, Pokemon GO is a blast to play as long as you keep your expectations in check.

Much like the core games, you take up the role of a Pokemon Trainer who is tasked with filling your Pokedex by catching all of the Pokemon you come across. After being introduced to an unseen professor, you’ll create your character from a small range of customization options, (which I’m hoping will be increased in the final version, lest we have the majority of trainers looking nearly identical), be given a package of Poke Balls, and be on your way.

Using your phone’s GPS, built in fitness app and location tracking, your surroundings become your real life Pokemon world. Promising that terrains in real life would host Pokemon that you’d expect to see in these environments, living in the hot, dry areas of Southern California resulted in me finding numerous Rock, Fire and Ground Pokemon almost immediately. From the Onix that was right outside my doorstep, to the Vulpix and Growlithe around the block, the game didn’t hold out on the amount of popular characters they were willing to give me from the start. Limited to the first 150 Pokemon from the original Red and Blue games, it never took long to encounter a childhood favorite.

Pokemon GO Screen 3

Pokemon encounters brought to life thanks to your phone’s camera inserting them into your surroundings.

To verify whether or not terrains really did matter, I took the game with me on a hike to the local park, expecting to find many of the forest bugs and mice that typically call these areas their home. Once there, results were mixed. While there was a definite shift in the frequency I was encountering some Pokemon, (such as being surrounded by Spearow and Tauros constantly), the Rattatas and Pidgeys I was constantly encountering in the city were very much a common sight here. Even more confusing was aside from frequent run-ins with Paras, there was not a bug to be found with the exception of one Weedle that was too far to chase down. In fact, I saw more Caterpie silhouettes on my way to the park than the park itself. Could the park be considered a similar terrain compared to the city? Or was I having a bad string of luck? I haven’t had a chance to test the game in vastly different areas like the beach, but aside from a random Omanyte I found in the street, I didn’t encounter a water Pokemon the entire time I played, so I’m guessing there’s some credence to the area making a difference. Either way, I can’t complain about the park too much when I found a Pikachu there.

With so many Pokemon to catch, what happens when you need more Poke Balls to catch them with? The boring solution would be to buy some at the store with in-game currency that the professor was kind enough to give me. In addition to Lucky Eggs, which grant more Trainer experience for winning battles or catching Pokemon over a certain amount of time, (your character is the only one who levels up in a traditional sense), Pokemon attracting Incense, bag and Pokemon storage upgrades, and a Lure Patch, that calls monsters to designated Poke Stops, (certain landmarks, art pieces or points of interest marked on the map), packs of 20 or 100 Poke Balls can be snatched up for a cheap price. Whether or not you’ll be able to continuously gather money or if you’ll eventually have to pay real cash for these goods in the final game is unknown, but as far as I can tell, you’ll never have to pony up for Poke Balls if you’re willing to put some work into it.

On the subject of Poke Stops, these marked areas are where you’re going to find all of the free items you need. By walking up to these spots, tapping them on your phone when they’re in your vicinity will grant you a set of random items, which almost always include Poke Balls. From Revives, Potions, stronger capture devices like Great and Ultra Balls, and even eggs that you can hatch, (given that you have an egg incubator to put them in and are willing to walk five kilometers each). These stops were my favorite features of the game, since they encourage you to walk around and explore your surroundings, giving new meaning to the statues and murals I walk by on a daily basis without giving a second to.

Pokemon GO Screen 5

Trust me, you’ll be thankful that these sites refresh after a few minutes for return trips too, because catching Pokemon can be a real pain sometimes. Once you encounter a Pokemon, (which you’ll find in odd places, like my Diglett on a shelf of Nutella), there’s no way to battle with them or weaken then. Instead, you’re handed your stash of Poke Balls and have to swipe your screen to throw them. Your aim counts here, so if you miss, say goodbye to your Poke Ball. Holding your throw and waiting for a fluctuating circle around your target results in a “Nice” catch, which gives you a small experience boost if you’re successful, but I didn’t find that it helped with the actual capture rate. Because you see, some of the Pokemon are insanely frustrating to catch, and often with no rhyme or reason. Rare Pokemon that I would expect to be difficult to find, like Hitmonchan, were caught within a few attempts. Zubat on the other hand, which is everywhere all the time, (which is odd that a bat would be out in 90 degree weather on a sunny day in the city, but I digress), broke out of 30 Poke Balls before I finally claimed it. *30*! It doesn’t help that they can occasionally attack, (which makes them unable to catch throughout the animation,) jump to throw off your aim, or flat out run away, wasting all of your previous effort. When you do land a difficult catch however, it’s a highly rewarding experience.

So once you’ve caught a strong roster, it’s time to challenge the gyms. Each gym is similar to a Poke Stop, which is usually set in a highly populated landmark. As mentioned before, Pokemon can’t be leveled up in the traditional sense, but each one starts off with a certain CP level, which is a measure of their strength. Using Stardust and Pokemon Candy, the latter of which is specific to particular Pokemon, (i.e. Pidgey candy for the entire Pidgey line), you can raise their power so they can stand more of a fighting chance. Candy is also the only way to evolve Pokemon, which is easily the most tedious section of the game. They need A LOT of candy to evolve, with each catch typically giving you a single piece. Duplicate Pokemon can be released to the professor in exchange for another piece, but it doesn’t do much to help the annoyance. Using Pidgey as an example again, it needs 25 pieces to evolve into Pidgeotto. At worst, that’s 13 Pidgey’s that you need to catch while releasing 12 of them for one evolution. Now take that and imagine Sandshrew for example, which is harder to find and needs 50 pieces to evolve. Having to catch so many for a simple evolution for the most basic Pokemon is insane, and I really hope the requirement is balanced out more in the final version.

Pokemon GO Screen 2

Good luck ever seeing an evolution in action.

Once at the gym, you have the option to either join it, where you’ll drop off the Pokemon of your choice and temporarily lose for as long as it’s stored in exchange for periodic boosts, or challenge it, where you fight a string of trainers who have claimed it as theirs for some big EXP rewards. Once you start battling however… You’ll find where Pokemon GO‘s biggest weakness lies. Each Pokemon only has two attacks, a basic attack and a super attack. Your basic move is used by tapping your Pokemon like crazy, so you can keep spamming your attack for huge damage. There were even cases where I would win battles against enemies that were much stronger simply because I tapped like a madman, which is not very fair, even if I came out victorious. Once your super meter is full, you’ll hold your finger on your chosen battler for about a second to unleash their stronger super attack, which deals much more damage, but can only be used sparingly. I never expected anything deep, but if you were going into this expecting battles that rivaled the main games, you’re going to be disappointed. At the very least, the type match ups and all 18 types are represented, which is further than I thought the game would go to be honest.

Pokemon GO Screen 4

Outside of the battles and frustrating catch rates however, are a series of smaller issues that add up to become pretty big annoyances. The need to have your app open for anything to register is annoying, especially when out on long walks. It doesn’t make sense to me that the game reads off of your fitness app to help track steps, but your eggs won’t come closer to hatching unless the app is on while you’re walking. Couple that with the annoying music, which is on an infinite 30 second loop and can’t be turned off without shutting your volume down completely, you’re left with either trying to listen to your music or podcasts mixing in with the game’s soundtrack, or walking in silence, making your trip much more dull. Once the Pokemon GO Plus accessory is released, this problem will be solved for catching Pokemon, but it won’t do anything when it comes to the eggs. You can’t even leave it on in the background, move your phone into landscape mode, or lock your phone while it’s running, since chances are the game will crash when you try to load it back up. While we’re talking about sound, many of the classic Pokemon jingles are either missing, or sound off. I’m not sure if this was a design choice, or if Go couldn’t license the official music for some reason, but it’s noticeable for longtime fans such as myself.

But most concerning, is that the game completely stops working when outside of a service area. While this brings up a whole separate issue for people who aren’t fortunate enough to live in a large, connected area such as myself, even I ran into areas in the park where visible Pokemon and Poke Stops became unusable because the area couldn’t receive reception. What’s going to happen at beaches, which are notorious for dropping signals? Or hiking trails like mine? It’s weird, because the game is still placing objects in these areas, expecting people to be able to use them. So what’s going to happen when some locations render parts of the game useless?

Pokemon GO Screen 1

Knowing this, the positives far outweigh the negative as long as you’re not expecting a full Pokemon experience. The game may eat through your battery, but is surprisingly light on the data usage, going up less than a half a gig for a week of constant use. With that concern out of the way, knowing that items are easily accessible for free, you’ll never be short on new Pokemon to discover, and that the app actively encourages you to explore your surroundings, I’m excited to check out the full version when it releases. Is it perfect? No. But let’s hope the main game irons out some of these issues and leaves us with a brand new way to experience the world of Pokemon.

Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘Drawful 2’: Twice The Colors, Twice The Fun!

by The_acz

2 Years ago Jackbox Games released The Jackbox Party Pack onto the world. The game contained 5 unique multiplayer party games that made use of the person’s phone, tablet, or PC. One of those 5 games was a small little title called Drawful. The game consisted of players using their devices to draw (usually badly) images of a random odd word given to them. After that, the other players would get write what they think the picture looks like, resulting in them having to find the real title of the picture amongst a sea of false answers.

The game became a breakout hit, so it’s pretty inevitable that the game would get a sequel. Well, Drawful 2 is finally here for the masses to consume, but has Jackbox Games added enough to make the game stand on its own? Time to find out!

Drawful 2 Menu

The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up Drawful 2 is that you have 2 different options for gameplay now.  You still have the regular play drawful mode, but now due to an over abundance of suggestions, players are now finally able to create their own custom prompts using the brand new make your own game feature. This allows you to do just that, and it’s just as fun as it sounds. You can create entire custom episodes with custom names and prompts, and even share them online with other people. This is just one of the many great new social media features that really helps strengthen the game’s community.

Drawful 2 Custom

Custom prompts aren’t the only new thing to Drawful 2 though, as you can now draw not only with 1, but 2 different colors! This feature may have seemed a bit silly to talk about when the game was initially announced, but it really does make a big difference. Adding a 2nd color to the mix really helps keep the pictures from looking completely stagnant and helps add an extra layer of creativity onto the pictures.

Drawful 2 game

But wait! That’s not all. In tradition with making their games as stream friendly as possible, the game now includes a wealth of streaming options such as extended timers, twitch log in integration, and even the ability to censor unruly players and trolls trying to dampen the experience. Also going back to social media, one of the most surprisingly fun new additions is now being able to look at a gallery of all the drawings at the end of the game and being able to share them over Twitter (maybe make a future update that also allows people to post to Facebook also.)

Drawful 2 Censor

https://twitter.com/The_acz/status/745122946755133441

Now, even though I adore this game for all that it’s done right so far, there are sadly a couple of complaints.  These mainly have to do with the fact that I encountered multiple servers crashes and errors during my play time with the game. I’m confident that the team over at Jackbox is working hard to resolve these issues, and that most of them could have been due to a large amount of people trying to access the servers at once, but it was still enough to disrupt us enough to where I had to reset the game at one point in order to access the game again.

Drawful 2 Server

 

Conclusion:

Drawful 2 is yet another gut busting party game that’s sure to become a main stay during your family game night. The new social media and streaming features are a very welcome enjoyment, and the ability to use 2 colors as well as make your own custom prompts helps extend the overall replayability of the game as well as strengthen its community.  The only thing currently holding the game back right now is it’s inconsistent connection errors, but hopefully that’ll be getting fixed soon.

Final Rating: 4/5! Buy it!

Drawful 2 Hat

Geekscape Reviews ‘Zootopia’ On Blu-Ray

by Josh Jackson

*WARNING: Contains minor spoilers for the two people who haven’t seen the movie.*

Chances are that you’ve probably seen Zootopia by now. I mean, once a movie makes over one billion dollars, it’s safe to say everyone has, right? But upon second viewing, Disney’s latest animated feature stands just as tall as it did when it hit theaters back in March. Following the escapades of Judy Hopps, the first bunny cop who’s stepping foot into the sprawling metropolis straight from the country, and Nick Wilde, a con-artist fox who gets pulled into Judy’s first big case, the film’s relative ease at weaving together a crime caper with social commentary on racial prejudices within a family friendly package staring anthropomorphic animals is a cinematic feat in and of itself. If for no other reason though, the Blu Ray release is worth picking up just to see how much went into making this film come to life from concept to big screen.

Zootopia Review Banner

Watching Zootopia again felt like it was my first time seeing it. Once you know what the general plot is going to be, that gives you more time to focus on the city itself, with background action that’s always interesting enough to catch your eye. Whether its the internally impatient animals waiting for their turn at the sloth run DMV, or the dozens of rodents going about their business in Little Rodentia, there’s always something going on outside of the main characters themselves. This was a major focus for the creators, making sure that they captured what they felt a city full of animals who behaved like humans would look like.

Which is why the Special Features go into a huge amount of detail about how much work it took to make Zootopia feel as authentic as possible. If you loved the movie on its own, it’s hard not to have even more admiration for it after watching how much care was put into getting things just right. The map for example, was built with real life practicality in mind, placing the deserts of Sahara Square behind the arctic Tundratown, acting as a ventilator in the same way as an air conditioner. Melted ice from Tundratwon then goes on to create the waterfalls and rain in the Rainforest District, and so on. All logic that I never would have considered as a viewer, but that makes sense in the best way a city with four different climates could.

Zootopia Image 5

Aside from the environments, the animals themselves were researched heavily, leading to multiple trips to sanctuaries like Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida to observe the behaviors of each species. The hard part comes not only from adapting said behavior to a two legged version, but to get the scale just right. While previous animal films like Disney’s Robin Hood made its animals human sized, Zootopia stays true to their actual size. So making a city where lemmings can co-exist with giraffes and elephants was a unique challenge in itself, creating structures that accounted for these differences. The attention to detail didn’t end there, considering Judy and Nick alone consist of close to 10,000 individual furs each. My hands are cramping just thinking about it.

ZOOTOPIA

Once all of these details come together, the movie’s most memorable takeaway is still its plot and the themes across its 108 minute run time. While a few scenes early on come off as heavy handed with its take on racial prejudice, Zootopia does a brilliant job of sprinkling hints of these ideas until they’re forced into the forefront of the film at the start of the third act. If Frozen‘s big twist came from the fact that its Prince Charming was a two faced villain, then Zootopia doubles down by making its main character, the one who is discriminated against through most of the film, come off as the accidental villain as she turns the town’s underlying paranoia towards predators into a full on epidemic. All of this is proceeded by a highly entertaining crime caper where the “token” bunny cop that no one believes in uses her wit to force a team up with a criminal in order to solve a series of disappearances without the resources of the ZPD. With parodies based on everything from The Godfather to Breaking Bad, there’s plenty of humor to give even more life to an already excellent plot.

ZOOTOPIA – Pictured: Judy Hopps. ©2016 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

It’s surprising that everything came together so well considering how different the film was when it came to its original concept, all the way to late in its development. Using a concept where all predators would have to wear collars to measure their aggression levels, Nick would have been the focus in this version as he went through life seen as a vicious con artist, whether or not it was true. With a much more in your face version of the discrimination found in the final release, Judy would eventually be added in, and even took the form of a spy film before settling on what we ended up getting. In Nick’s case however, him being seen as a threat just because he’s a fox ends up shaping him in a huge way after the revisions as well, keeping that layer of development that makes him the most tragic character in the movie.

Zootopia Image 1

Even after the credits have rolled, there’s still plenty to see in Zootopia. the ZPD Forensic Files highlight many of the film’s easter eggs, many of which I had completely missed the first time around. Hidden Mickey’s, Pascal from Tangled, and a couple of elephants who are big fans of Anna and Elsa are just a few of the secrets that flew completely over my head. In depth interviews with the animators, a music video for Shakira’s Try Everything, (as famous pop star, Gazelle,) and a set of deleted scenes and characters in the form of the Gerbil Jerks, round out the full feature set of one of the best movies Disney has ever produced.

Zootopia Image 4

Aside from some heavy handed dialogue early on and Gazelle being placed on a pedestal, (I get wanting to get mileage out of Shakira, but why was she the ONLY voice of reason outside of Judy in the two minutes of screen time she had?), Zootopia could be looked back on as the best film Disney has ever produced. With plenty of visual humor, striking environments and cute, charming characters to keep the kids entertained while the adults ponder the expertly woven themes found in the film, not only is there something for everyone, but everything it does is done to the best of its ability. The special features only further prove how much passion went into getting this just right, and they succeeded in every way. Good job, Disney. You’ve delivered another masterpiece!

Final Score: 5/5

We Played The First Six Hours Of ‘Mirrors Edge Catalyst’

by Josh Jackson

Some of us thought the day would never come, but here we are! After earning a cult following, the original Mirrors Edge was praised heavily for its innovative use of parkour to become a new type of first person platformer. Unfortunately, the praise didn’t equate to huge sales numbers, putting potential sequels on hold. After years of fan requests and a good ear from the folks at DICE and EA, the unexpected follow up, Mirrors Edge Catalyst, is finally hitting store shelves. We got the chance to play through the first six hours of the game to see how well Faith transitions into an open world environment, and while there’s plenty of promise, it’s easy to see how she’s stumbled out of the gate.

The first Mirrors Edge was a linear first person platformer/shooter hybrid, where the focus was on finding the fastest, most efficient way to run between your objectives while keeping up your momentum. This involved moves that were unheard of using this perspective, such as vaulting over obstacles, sliding under them, wall running and rolling. Catalyst picks up on this concept and expands on it by taking the game from a linear set of levels to the open rooftops of the City of Glass. As you travel between point to point, you’ll quickly realize that there’s an insane amount of content to sift through. Between hundreds of collectables spread out across over a half a dozen types, a seemingly endless amount of side missions, and story missions that take you into different interior environments, early impressions feel like this game will be much meatier than the first, even if the content is a bit shallow.

Mirrors Edge Catalyst Screen 1

Most of the moves from the first game return, with the notable exception of the removal of shooting. Rather than bring back the tacked on low ammo firefights, Catalyst integrates movement into the combat in even bigger ways. Giving you a weak and strong attack button, the two can be used in conjunction to take out weaker enemies. As you begin to encounter better armed guards as you progress, you’ll have to rely on your momentum to take them out.  Vaulting off of vents or jumping off a wall into a light kick for example, will usually one hit KO an enemy with a side kick that doesn’t slow you down from your continued running. Hard kicks are where the game gets especially fun combat wise however, since satisfyingly powerful takedowns sacrifice some speed for the assurance of taking out your pursuers. When you’re stopped, attacking with a hard kick and a certain direction held will allow Faith to kick enemies into whatever direction she wants, leading the enemies to stumble around with some laughably slow animations. Forcing them to bump into each other will do extra damage while stunning more than just the guy you’re beating up, but you haven’t seen anything until you see a guard do his best WWE Royal Rumble impression and visibly launch himself over a railing if you kick them into one. However, these iffy animations are more than enough of a trade off for how fun the combat can be.

What’s less forgivable is the horrendously bad texture pop in I kept experiencing. For minutes at a time, characters would have flat, blurry faces that looked like they were ripped straight out of a Nintendo 64 game. Even with the red objects and trails leading me to my next objective thanks to the game’s new Runner Vision mechanic, it was hard to tell what I was looking at until the game fully loaded, (which says a lot considering most of the city is just made up of white walls.) Matching the strange visual glitches was the awful voice acting, especially on the NPC’s who give out missions. It doesn’t help that their awkward delivery is highlighted especially well by the way they tell you their life story as you complete their missions, taking you out of the experience fairly often when you can’t help but chuckle at the way their delivering these lines.

Mirrors Edge Catalyst 3

It doesn’t help that the core story itself doesn’t do the cast any favors. Faith was essentially a mute avatar in the first game, so focusing on her past, including her motivations for becoming a runner and the mistakes that put her in prison right before the start of the game, is a step in the right direction. But everyone around her has felt hollow so far, failing to establish a reason for us to care about her teammates or her father figure. To make matters worse, Faith doesn’t come off as too great of a person either, closing out the final mission in the early access version by committing a horribly out of character act of vandalism. I won’t spoil it here, but I’m sure you’ll be scratching your head as to why she would be so willing to complete this task so readily, especially for the person she was doing it for.

Story notwithstanding, the biggest issue I had with Catalyst so far was the sheer repetition of the tasks you’re given. As a runner, Faith is responsible for delivering information under the noses of the evil corporations that have a grip on the city. So be ready to take on hours of exciting side content like… Delivering a capsule! And delivering another capsule! And delivering one that will break if you take hard landings! What makes it worse, is that most of these missions take place in the same small districts, amplifying the repetition to the point where you’ll memorize many of the routes just from the insane amount of times you’re asked to run across the same paths. Even with hidden passageways, you’ll keep finding yourself running across areas that stop being exciting fairly quickly. Maybe if there were other runners moving around the city, or police actually looking for you outside of missions, it would make things feel more alive. But throughout most of Catalyst, the environment is a barren series of blocks that exist solely to jump on, making you wonder where all the people are in this sprawling metropolis full of roof running freedom fighters. It will make you eventually bolt towards the fast travel button, effectively making you want to avoid the game’s biggest feature until you move to a new section of the city. Except, even though you have a large amount of safe houses early on that allow fast travel, you don’t actually get to use it until you encounter a certain type of side mission about three hours in.

Mirrors Edge Catalyst Screen 2

These side missions in particular however, are one of the highlights of the demo. Aside from the combat focused missions where you have to avoid enemies while staying out of sight after sabotaging their security systems, the hacking rooms that unlock fast travel will really put your platforming to the test. These puzzle sections force you to examine the environment closely, looking for a way to reach the top of the server room without setting off security. Movement is still the highlight of the experience, but it really shines when it makes you focus on the best way to use it.

After the six hours was up, I was happy that I got to spend some more time with this universe and style of game play, but I’m left running away feeling like the game would have been better off staying out of the sandbox format. Serving as a sigh that the game is severely padded with meaningless side content to hide that the story isn’t all that robust, the crazy amount of repetition manages to suck the joy out of the amazing free running while highlighting how dead the world feels this time around. With that said, the improvements to the combat and the movement itself are still strong points, making Mirrors Edge Catalyst worth a run through based on what we’ve played so far. Yet, it’s far from the next evolution in the series that we were hoping for.

Unless the rest of the game is significantly better, Catalyst is looking like a 3/5.

Arcade Review: Cobra Arcade and Bar

by Matthew Morrell

American Arcades are Reborn!

If anyone’s ever had that moment while being harassed by some troll online in the comfort in their own home and said to themselves, “Where the hell are all the adults who play video games?”

Cobra Arcade and Bar in downtown Phoenix, Arizona is that place.

To verify this claim, this field reporter spent his Saturday trekking over 700 miles into hell’s front porch, Phoenix, Arizona. Temperatures reached a soul crushing 114 degrees. Expectations for whether or not this little pub was worth it began to climb.

Located just a stone’s throw away from the Phoenix Convention Center, this bar immediately exceeded those expectations. It is exactly what you’ve been looking for: a haven for gamers who grew up in the classic arcade era. Of course, if you’re at least over twenty-one they’ll let you in regardless of your recollection of the eighties and nineties. That being said, the nostalgia factor is strong in this most beautiful of bars.

She's not looking down on you, she's wondering, "What took you so damn long to come home?"
She’s not looking down on you, she’s wondering, “What took you so damn long to come home?”

Beautiful is by no means an over exaggeration (Nor was this field reporter paid to be this flowery). Even before you enter, a gorgeous black and white mural, wooden patio deck, and the delicious scent of the food-truck-of-the-week welcomes you in. Your senses aren’t lying, you’re home now.

Inside, situated underneath what looks like the engines of the Rebel Blockade Runner from Star Wars, you’ll find bartenders frantically running orders. Two huge flat-screens will play whatever happens to suit the night best; Heavy Metal, Planet of the Apes ‘68… you name it. Crammed in the corner is a live DJ spinning a perfect mix of eclectic, and kinetic tracks to mash buttons to.

Even on the busiest of nights (Saturday post Arizona Comic-Con), everyone is greeted, served, and given the time of day by friendly staff. Their in house cocktails are second to none (try an Invader). Or if you want a plain brew, they’ve got plenty to choose from along with a rotating list of ciders and beers. Take your pick from a respectable wine list too. Or, if you just really need the caffeine, Cobra’s got you covered.

What Cobra real boils down to however is that it’s far beyond a bar that just happens to have arcade games. It is without question equal parts bar as it is arcade. Among the handful of people this writer spoke with, the only criticism that could be given was a lack of racing games, and only one shooter to speak of (None other than the OG CarnEvile). But, that’s hardly a factor if you’re busy sinking quarters into TMNT: Turtles in Time, The Simpsons, or an intense two on two game of NBA Freaking Jam.

They even had Space Harrier. You heard me. Space. Harrier.

Well worth the loss of many a quarter #humblebrag
Well worth the loss of many a quarter #humblebrag

Seriously, feast your eyes upon the official list here and tell me, are you not entertained?

Clearly a rhetorical question.
Clearly a rhetorical question.

What was even better than the astounding selection of games, was once again, Cobra cares about their cabinets and the gamers who use them. From open to close while present, this report found NONE of the games Out of Order. None of them. Street Fighter II had a weird joystick issue going on at one point. Within mere moments, an In-House Tech had surgically opened the cabinet, healed it back to good, and players were kicking ass until last call. When the token machine ran out of tokens, a heartbeat had passed before it was refilled again.

So if you’re asking yourself, is it worth to escape the comfort of the ole’ homestead console or PC and venture outside? Deep down in your heart of hearts, you’re craving a friendly environment, delicious drinks, and an expertly curated collection of game cabinets. Cobra Arcade and Bar is the second home you’ve be searching for.

Cash in a sick day or two.

Go there now.

  • Matthew B. Morrell

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Hyrule Warriors Legends’

by Josh Jackson

A year and a half after it released on the Wii U, Hyrule Warriors is still one of the most enjoyable titles on the console as far as I’m concerned. Its Dynasty Warriors inspired take on the hack and slash style that serves as a textbook example of a game that’s easy to pick up and play, combined with its seamless integration of classic Zelda mechanics to break up the persistent repetition issues that games of this nature usually run into, and what we ended up with was one of the most exciting takes on the musou genre we’ve seen in a long time. With that in mind, is it worth playing all over again? Nintendo and Tecmo Koei hope so, with the release of Hyrule Warriors Legends on the Nintendo 3DS. By adding sorely missed characters from The Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask alongside the long awaited female Link with Linkle, will they be enough to breathe new life into a game that was just released a little over a year ago?

Hyrule Warriors Legends Screen 1

If you played the Wii U version, then you should know exactly what you’re getting into with Hyrule Warriors Legends. Split up between Legends Mode, (its fancy word for the story,) and Adventure Mode, (a mission mode with a throwback feel,) the Zelda faithful will be able to choose some of their favorite characters as they fight to save Hyrule from Cia, a dark sorceress who is attempting to bring together the Triforce once again. Featuring a cast that spans the history of the 3D Zelda games with favorites such as Link, Zelda, Impa and Ganandorf, newcomers like Lana present unfamiliar material that doesn’t feel forced within the confines of the story. While the tale itself isn’t much to speak of aside from its interesting take on the whole Triforce legend, constantly playing will help you unlock hidden items, art work, characters and weapons, many of which can change the play style of character completely.

Surprisingly, each character manages to stand out pretty well from the rest of the cast, thanks to their unique abilities and movement styles. While the combo list never grows past mashing light attack until you cut off the combo with a strong attack to cap it off, their varied styles help you take on a variety of scenarios. And while yes, the game still largely consists of hundreds of foot soldiers standing around and doing nothing while you wipe out their ranks, the bosses and generals mix things up thanks to their faithfulness to their Zelda histories. Certain enemies for example, will be susceptible to Link’s tools, such as bombs, arrows and boomerangs.  Dodging and attacking at the right time can lead to powerful scripted combos, which are topped only by your super moves that become available when you beat enough foot soldiers for some screen clearing action. Between the standard version and the stronger magic imbued version that makes a completely different attack available, there’s no shortage of options on the battlefield. Even then, certain characters like Zelda can alter their attack types thanks to mechanics that are unique to them, like storing light energy or switching magic elemental types. As far as musou games go, this one is still one that offers some of the most variety out there.

But enough about the old cast, because chances are if you’re playing the 3DS version, you’re doing so because of the new characters being introduced to this version. On that front, Legends is far from a disappointment. Debate on whether or not the Wind Waker cast and the Skull Kid from Majora’s Mask should have been included all along aside, the game is far better off now that they’re in. Seeing the animated expressions of Toon Link, Tetra’s playable debut with her mastery of the cutlass and flintlock pistol, the King of Red Lions seamlessly transform into a ship, (while summoning the ocean for good measure), and Skull Kid smacking people around with faries, the wait is almost worth the price of admission alone, especially for huge fans of the GameCube and N64 classics like myself. The biggest drawback with these characters however, is how long it takes to unlock them. Because despite being the main draw of this re-release, you have to complete most of the game’s story mode in order to get to their new scenarios. If this is your first time playing the game, this isn’t as much of an issue. But if you’re returning from the Wii U version, you’ll find yourself frustrated as you’re forced to play hours worth of content that wasn’t the most exciting to begin with. Only now, it’s your second time through, and you have no choice but to push through it if you want to see the new content. Considering the game links to your Nintendo ID to share purchased DLC, I’m shocked that there was no way for the game to recognize that you’ve played it already, allowing you to access the new characters from the start.

Hyrule Warriors Legends Screen 2

This lack of connectivity extends to the Adventure Mode, which is less of a problem since this mission based mode was the highlight of the console version. Yet, I can’t help but feel bad for the people who sunk hundreds of hours into it the first time, only to have to do it all over again with no extra bonuses. Even still, this mode has quite a few new missions to tackle on top of the huge list of stages that were originally included. Asking players to approach stages in different ways, such as focusing on certain enemies exclusively, or answering trivia questions by defeating certain enemies, adds an extra twist to what would otherwise become monotonous fairly quickly. By introducing special items that unlock more of the map into the mix, and it gives the mode an extra Zelda flair.

Speaking of flair, I would be remiss to ignore Linkle, the newest addition to the Zelda cast. Making her debut after her concept art from the original led to fan outcry to include her, this character who was inspired by the idea of a female version of Link really steals the show. With her moveset taking inspiration from the forgettable Wii accessory pack in, Link’s Crossbow Training, Linkle is so much fun to play as, that she makes me actually want to go back and play that again. Feeling like she was ripped straight out of Devil May Cry, Linkle has some incredibly stylish combos with her twin crossbows, both of which she uses in some incredible ways. Why fight from afar when you can attach a flaming arrow to your foot and kick the crap out of people? In addition to all of the other shared abilities, she can even build up a special meter that lets her shoot a barrage of arrows like a third person shooter, sucking in dozens of enemies all at once. Her awesomeness is further fleshed out by her backstory, where she’s shown as a Cucco caretaker who believes she’s the reincarnation of the hero of legend. When she hears about Cia’s plan, she embraces her apparent destiny and rushes off to the battlefield. Except… She’s so bad with directions, (despite wearing a compass around her neck,) that she goes the wrong way, explaining why she wasn’t in the main story.

Hyrule Warriors Legends Screen 4

Sure, Linkle charmed me to death, but she doesn’t make up for the issues that the game runs into as part of its handheld transition. Aside from forcing you to replay the entire game for people who have finished the Wii U version like I mentioned above, the game also loses its two player co-op feature. Replacing it is the ability to switch between multiple characters on the field on the fly via the touch screen, or creating paths for the AI to walk while you control someone else, but I hate to see the second player option disappear since it was one of the best parts of the original. This new feature comes with its own set of problems, since the CPU has the habit of doing nothing if you don’t set a path for them, and you’ll get a game over if they die. On top of the sudden objective shifts that can lead to a sudden game over that plagued the original still plaguing this version, adding another way to lose that’s mostly outside of your control can be annoying. Other improvements include the Ocarina and Owl Statues, that let you teleport to certain areas on the map instantly, new bosses that require new weapons to defeat, My Fairy Mode, which lets you take faires you find in Adventure Mode and customize them before helping you on the battlefield, and the ability to strengthen yourself and your allies by having them focus on the same boss enemy. But again, without actual multiplayer, this extra feature feels about as empty as the rest, aside from the Ocarina, which makes backtracking seem like less of a chore.

But Hyrule Warriors’ biggest problem is on the technical side, which is a complete disaster if you don’t own a New Nintendo 3DS. The graphics are rough, with visible jaggies all around and occasional slowdown when there are an excessive amount of enemies on screen on the New 3DS. If you haven’t upgraded however, the game is so slow that it sucks the enjoyment out of what is a mostly enjoyable beat em’ up, serving as the first time that old 3DS and 2DS owners are truly getting shafted. At least with Xenoblade Chronicles, (the only New 3DS exclusive as of this writing,) it was a huge game with miles of landscape, and didn’t allow a situation where someone could buy a game that was significantly worse depending on what model you’re using.  Despite all of the fun that can be found here, I’ll just come out and say it. If you don’t own a New 3DS, don’t even bother.

Hyrule Warriors Legends Screen 3

The rough transition from console to handheld ultimately makes Hyrule Warriors Legends a very situational purchase. If you’ve played or own the Wii U version, there’s little reason for you to double dip, especially when you can’t carry over your progress and can just download the new characters as DLC. If you don’t own a New 3DS, the technical limitations of the old models makes this game almost impossible to enjoy. But if you own a New 3DS and never played the original, then this musou adaptation of the Nintendo classic is an entertaining hack and slash that is loaded with content to keep you busy. In this very specific scenario, you can add an extra point or two to the score, but despite everything it does right, Legends fails to give a huge chunk of its audience a reason to revisit.

Final Score for New 3DS Owners: 3.5

Everyone Else: 2.5/5

Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘Stellaris’

by Necroscourge

When you distill all of the science fiction greats into a single strategic title, you end up with a fantastic science fantasy romp full of wonder and depth. Using their in-house engine the masters of history simulations (Paradox Interactive) have turned their eyes to the stars, crafting a deep, re-playable experience.

You create and control your very own space faring empire at its inception. You have a brave science ship and captain ready to survey the system and a fleet of corvettes to defend your home-world. From there the game feels open ended, forcing you to map the nearby cosmos for survival. You will quickly find alien species, some hostile, some not. And they may begin talking to you in a variety of ways, including shooting on sight.

ST5
The UI is full of lists and explainations

Leaders are named characters such as Scientists and Admirals that take up the important task of heading your fleets, research, armies, and planets. Over time they gain experience and die of old age and must be replaced. Given research, you can even have genetically superior leaders that are more expensive, but kind of worth it.

Planets are composed of tiles, some of which have blockers that you can remove with technology and resources. Population units eat food, spread, have their own political opinions, and are probably the most versatile use of population I’ve seen in a 4X title. Rather than being simply a statistic grown by food, they are entities that must subscribe to your empire wide policies.

Expansionist players will find the AI hating them on almost every difficulty however, the Federation and Alliance mechanics are designed as defensive measures between empires that don’t want to get smashed by said big expansionist player. Large empires over time suffer from ethical drift, unhappiness, and political factions causing mischief.

ST6
Discover interesting new races… like humans?

Every population unit has a political standing that initially is the state’s, but over time population units will adopt different stances. With the right technologies you can even build population units of simplistic robots, droids, and even self aware Synthetic beings given enough time. The farther away from your capital worlds, the more their ethics diverge from the state’s, which can eventually lead to factions of unhappy citizens demanding independence from your tyranny.

Despite the level of depth the exploration and early game portion of the game provides, the mid game tends to turn into a stagnant tech rush or made rush of expansion. There are several mechanics in place that limit this, such as a scaling tech malus for the amount of population units you have representing the difficulty of rolling tech out to the entire populace. Smaller empires have less scientific output, but as a consequence requires less of it as well.

ST1
Races are quickly created but full of deep possibilities

Technology is a card based system where there are three branches you research simultaneously. Cards have weight determined by your state ethics and your researchers traits; with awesome purple cards being the techs that really set your empire apart from the competition. After researching debris of fallen enemy ships you get the choice to research that tech out of order, allowing smaller empires to catch up through salvage.

Combat is based on fleets consisting of ships designed by the player; Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battleships are the four sizes, using increasingly larger amounts of logistics size in return for more space to load it with components. The ship design portion of the game is extremely important but is easy to use, the UI is clearly marked for players new to the genre. Despite each ships and ergo fleet being summed up by combat rating points, you can’t only look at the numbers. Many weapons excel against specific types of defenses and every weapon has range limitations. .

ST7
Early game fights consist of ramming the enemy with guns blazing

Speaking of range, let us now discuss stagnant but powerful Fallen Empires, whom have a single strict ethos and unique AI personality. They are more or less just going to sit there around their ring worlds until something pisses them off, such as a public insult. They will then go to war with you for the sole purpose of disgracing you in front of the universe. Their ships are highly advanced using a suite of tier 5 components, including larged sized Tachyon Lances that outrange practically every weapon of lesser quality allowing them to blast apart incoming fleets before they can be hit too hard themselves; it’s almost worth losing your entire fleet against them just to get the research topics if you can afford it!

Diplomacy as mentioned is an important game-play aspect, even though the AI is suspiciously timid on normal difficulty but fairly cranky on the higher difficulties. Alliances and their upgrade of Federations are typically sought by the AI as a defensive measure due to a mechanic called Threat. It’s essentially a way of the game telling you that if you continually absorb other empires, the rest of the universe will hate you. This leads to more militaristic players having to go on the initiative if they want war to be commonplace in their playthroughs.

ST4
What’s with advanced alien races and ring worlds?

So having hyped the good and the interesting let’s discuss the bad. The User Interface is huge, jam packed with buttons and statistics, and can look absolutely terrifying at first; you’re almost required to watch somebody else play it first. I found myself constantly bumbling through the menus looking for what I wanted to do, each tab has sub tabs and places you can scroll. It’s easy to not even know you can scroll in the tech windows, or even change your government (the button for it is cleverly disguised).

On larger galaxies (800-1000 stars) the game will very quickly become laggy and nigh unplayable on the fast and fastest speeds on computers that have a little age to them. The autosaving mechanic helps with this by saving at the latest every in game year (which speeds by regularly on fastest) adding to the lag. It’s advised you start with less AI opponents if you have a weaker computer, that’s what bogs your CPU down. 

ST2
Discovering new races add their colored blob to the map

The game itself has a few bugs but nowhere near as many as you might expect of a new title. Slavery is effectively broken, the resulting unhappy slave faction cannot revolt at the moment and the Fallen Empire that hates Slavery currently does nothing about it. Exploration also needs some balance, as your science ships just sort of lose all purpose after a while. There are exploration quests but they only seem to occur once you are forced to fight other empires just so you can send a ship to it.

Stellaris is a quite stellar game with some issues, but many things it does fantastically. For one, multiplayer supports at least 32 players and since the game is real time you don’t really have to wait on anybody, which already makes it the best multiplayer mode any 4X has in my book. The game does a lot of interesting new things very well, including giving you the ability to play a strategy game without being obsessed about score and victory. You can zone out for quite some time without even realizing there are victory conditions, even though the two conditions are not really that interesting (both are essentially brute force conquer the universe goals).

ST8

I found the game quite fun and, would heavily recommend it to Strategy or Science Fiction fans!

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Bravely Second: End Layer’

by Josh Jackson

In a gaming landscape where many people feel that the traditional turn based Japanese RPG’s were a thing of the past, the original Bravely Default proved this notion wrong. Feeling like it was ripped straight off of a Super Nintendo cartridge in the way that adapted classic Final Fantasy inspired environments, game play and story telling, all while updating the formula with its unique Brave and Default mechanics, the title’s success in the West took even Square Enix by surprise. What wasn’t a surprise however, was the second game coming stateside. Bravely Second: End Layer is here, and tries to capitalize on its predecessor’s success by playing it a little too safe. Despite adding a few new mechanics and characters to keep things interesting, refusing to stray too far from the groundwork that the first game paved leaves it feeling like a far too familiar, (but still well made,) retread.

Bravely Second Screen 1

Over two years after the Warriors of Light saved the world of Luxendarc from Ouroboros, Bravely Second starts with the kingdom being confronted by a new threat. After Agnes, (the Wind Vestal from the original game who has since become Pope,) is kidnapped by this new enemy, Yew Geneolgia, heir to the esteemed House Geneolgia and leader of Agnes’ elite guard, the Three Cavaliers, sets off on a quest to rescue Her Holiness from her captors. Joining forces with Magnolia Arch, a mysterious warrior from the moon, Edea Lee, a knight of Eternia and one of the former Warriors of Light, and Tiz Arrior, a fellow Warrior of Light and the first game’s protagonist, the group pursues their enemies across Luxendarc in a quest that forces the party to question their allegiances, themselves, and the very foundation on which their world was built on.

Not much has changed on the game play front between games. Like its predecessor, Bravely Second employs a turn based combat system where opponents and allies take turns performing actions like attacking, casting magic and using items until each member on one side of the fight is KO’d. With 30 jobs made up of both returning and new classes, each character can be molded into whatever role they need to fill at the time thanks to the option to carry over limited abilities from other jobs you’ve mastered. From mages, to warriors and everything in between, the near endless combinations that this customization system provides allows you to create some truly powerful strategies.

Bravely Second Screen 2

Once you’re able to make the most out of the combat system, the game features a unique method made popular in some recently released titles across the genre when it comes to grinding for money, experience for your characters, and JP, (for leveling up the equipped job). If you’re able to defeat the enemy party in a single turn, you’ll be given the option to immediately start another fight with your current status remaining the same as it was when your last attack went through. Each consecutive fight multiples the total, so you’ll end up with the potential to earn thousands of EXP points. Thanks to the return of the Brave and Default systems, each party member can either defend, which will bank that attack to be used later, or use up to four turns at once, potentially leaving them at a turn deficit, (which makes them unusable,) for the amount of turns you attacked ahead. Various bonuses, skills and items can manipulate your Brave Points to allow you to keep attacking, potentially making level grinding much easier than it typically is in other games. Couple that with the ability to increase or outright eliminate the random encounter rate, and as someone who has been playing RPG’s for about two decades, I’m thankful for how little the game burdens you with forced combat and hours of running in circles.

As the story progresses and you begin to unlock the mandatory classes found throughout the game, (all of which are either completely new, or variations of jobs from Bravely Default,) over a dozen side quests open up that introduce you to characters and classes found in the last game. Adding a special dynamic to an otherwise by the numbers story, (which we’ll get to real soon,) these bonus quests pit a major character from the past against another while presenting a moral dilemma for Edea and the rest of the party to decide on. Some of them are no brainers, like whether or not boys and girls should go to school together in a city that was traditionally segregated until recently, to more difficult choices like whether or not pushing an old man and his granddaughter out of their home is worth creating a port that would bring prosperity to a poverty stricken town. Even when the moral choice is an easy one, is it worth giving up the abilities you want? Siding with one person means you fight the other, gaining their job after they’re defeated. But what do you do when the person you agree with is the person who’s ability you want to carry you through the main story? These moments create an interesting duality, asking if you’re willing to forsake your morals for power. Then again, it’s not like these tough foes won’t go down without a fight, presenting boss fights that will force you to manage your Brave and Default allocation more strategically if you want to walk away with your prize both during side quests, and main story fights.

Bravely Second Screen 4

But despite the possibility of losing the power you want, that doesn’t mean that you can’t find other ways to obtain it. Then again.. that depends on how many friends you have. By bringing back the communication features from the first game, Bravely Second offers a variety of ways to get yourself out of a tough spot. By syncing with players on your Friends List, adding random people once a day, or through the game’ Streetpass feature, you’ll be able to send your own powerful warriors while building a roster of your own. From linking your characters to your friends for extra abilities, summoning friends once a day to unleash a powerful attack, or having them help rebuild Magnolia’s damaged village on the moon, each method provides an extra way to make an already powerful team nearly unstoppable. Repairing the moon in particular will provide access to new weapons, armor, abilities, and customization options for your team, allowing you to manipulate how you obtain your strongest attacks. Do you want their special abilities to become available when your team takes damage? Would you rather have it build up when they defeat enemies? Or do you want to strengthen their attack, magic or BP after the action is selected? If you couldn’t tell by now, you can literally shape your team to be anything you want it to be, which is what Bravely Second continues to do best. Most importantly, the Update Friends feature will let you gain Streetpass villagers without using the Streetpass function. So as long as you have Internet, you’ll be able to take advantage of the benefits, even if the closest 3DS owner to you can’t be found within a 10 mile radius. If after all that you’re still having trouble, Sleep Points accumulate for every 12 hours the game is in sleep mode, allowing you to freeze time and unleash extra attacks. If you *really* need your SP fix, you can pay for a full refill… With real money.

Not all is well on the moon however, because the more friends you bring on board, the more Ba’als begin to invade. As a literal Ba’al Buster, part of the reason Magnolia joins you is to fight off this threat. Who are we to say no? It helps that these enemies carry special items, while presenting unique challenges that make you think outside the box to beat them. If you’re having trouble beating these often high level enemies, upgrading your moon stationed battleship, (while employing ships from your friends,) will let you drop their health and level before going into a real fight against them.

Bravely Second Screen 3

Ba’al’s are far from the only threat as your party goes against this newly formed Empire however. It’s just too bad that the fight between the two sides fails to be particularly interesting, making the story one of the weaker points of the game. It’s not that it’s bad per se. In fact, there are some legitimately surprising moments both early on and late into the 40-50 hours it should take to complete it at a decent level, (which will have even more impact if you play the special demo before jumping in to the full game). It’s just everything in between that feels like it’s just filling time before the big finale. Taking a villain of the week approach, with an assembly line of generals who only serve as a means to block your progress, you never learn too much about them to care about the fight. It doesn’t help that for every unique job that they unlock, like the Exorcist job, who can reset HP, MP and BP to their previous turns, to a job that can give huge buffs to your party while giving them to your enemies as well, you’ll also end up with ones you’ll wish was replaced by something useful, like the Catmancer, or the Patissier, who literally harms enemies through baking. To make matters worse, many of the game’s locations where you find these bosses are the exact same ones from the first game, oftentimes making the sequel feel like it’s going through the motions of the original rather than creating a unique experience that stands on its own. When you have the same music, admittedly basic visuals that could pass off for an original DS game, and the same dungeons, cities and environments, there’s no way you’re not going to lose that sense of discovery that serves as a major component in RPGs.

On that subject, while it’s far from being as tedious from the infamous twist of the first game that needlessly extended the game for hours, Bravely Second turns the mid game mind blown moment into a tradition, thanks to a fourth wall breaking segment that would make Hideo Kojima proud. The only problem is that while there are plenty of hints to point you in the right direction, if you don’t catch on, you’ll run the risk of replaying the entire game over again and being none the wiser. Look, I appreciate the creativity, but by leaving the option open to completely screw up your story progress, you’re running the risk of frustrating many a gamer.

Bravely Second Screen 5

It’s biggest problem however, is its uneven use of humor. I get that the developers were going for a more lighthearted experience, but there are some times that “gravy” references and other jokes aren’t needed, especially when the scene in question is supposed to be serious. When an important character is wounded, it’s hard to take seriously when he’s surrounded by smiling cats, or the main character continues to talk about his “coup de gravy” as a rallying cry. It breaks the immersion of what is supposed to be more solemn.

If Bravely Default was an old school RPG player’s dream game, then Bravely Second is like deja vu. The increased focus on an already robust customization system combined with its innovative new jobs, extensive interactivity with friends, and easy level grinding thanks to the experience multipliers and the ability to change the encounter rate make the game play experience go a long way, despite the story and environments feeling like you’ve gone absolutely nowhere. These issues and misplaced humor aside, Bravely Second is one of the better RPGs on the handheld, and stands as another centerpiece in Square Enix’s legendary catalog, even if it’s not the most original.

Final Score: 4/5

The Winged Dragon of Ra Rises From The Ashes In The Yu-Gi-Oh Millennium Pack

by Josh Jackson

Following a recent wave of nostalgia, with sets like the Battle City Packs and the Dragons of Legend sets over the last few years, the latest Yu-Gi-Oh set takes us back to the early days with the Millennium Pack. Featuring reprints of some of the most popular monsters, spells and traps of yesteryear, the set also contains a powerful new beast in the form of The Winged Dragon of Ra- Immortal Phoenix. Despite being summoned by Marik as the God Card’s most powerful form close to 15 years ago, this is the first time this card has made its way into the real game, finally making all three of its versions available for play.

YuGiOh Winged Dragon of Ra YuGiOh Winged Dragon of Ra Sphere ModeYuGiOh Winged Dragon of Ra Immortal Phoenix

Even in their heyday, the God Cards weren’t usually worth the trouble of trying to build a deck around when their summoning conditions were so hard to achieve. With Immortal Phoenix now in play however, Ra is looking to become more viable going forward, thanks to its ability to easily rotate onto the field. Its synergy with its other forms are a must if you’re looking to play with these cards, Revolving around Sphere Mode, (from the Battle City set,) making it much easier to get Ra in play with its ability to be tribute summoned using three monsters on yours, or your opponent’s side of the field. Tributing it allows you to bring out Ra’s base form from your deck or hand, which can deliver a powerful blow to your opponent since you can give up Life Points to boost its strength. Despite all of its forms being immune to all card effects that target it, there’s still a good chance that a sweeping spell could take out your beast, which is why the risk of summoning a God Card wasn’t always the best move to make.

With Phoenix Mode however, that all changes. Gaining a base 4000 points in both attack and defense, this card can be special summoned if Ra is sent to the Graveyard. Unlike its other two forms, it’s not affected by any other card effects, making it immune to being destroyed by anything other than a higher attack. Making matters worse for its opponent, the player can give up 1000 life points to destroy any Monster on the field as often as they can afford it. The fun only lasts for one turn though, since at the End Phase, it must by cycled back out with Sphere Mode to start the fun all over again. Even with this handicap, opening up the field for an easy 4000 damage can win most games. The trick however, is getting Phoenix Mode into the Graveyard, since that’s the only way it can be summoned, which shouldn’t be hard since the game offers a variety of ways to do so with the right cards.

YuGiOh Winged Dragon of Ra Immortal Phoenix Anime

Every ounce of fearsome power promised in the anime without having to fuse with it or give up your life force to control it! 

While Ra might be the star of this set, don’t ignore some of the other great cards in this set. Outside of fan favorites like Kunai With Chain, Flame Swordsman, Kuriboh, Toon cards and Red Eyes support, some of the most powerful cards in the game make a return with the likes of Five Headed Dragon and Harpy’s Feather Duster. Sure, they’re either banned or hard to play due to rule changes, but who’s to say you can’t just play for fun? Personally, Kaiba’s brutal trap cards like Ring of Destruction, which destroys a Monster and does damage to both players equal to its Attack Points, and Crush Card Virus, which destroys all of the Monsters in your opponent’s hand and in the top five cards in their deck that are over 1500 Attack Points, and you’ll have more ways to cripple your foe’s deck. Is there any wonder why they’re banned yet?

With these great cards come a few novelty ones too, namely Symbol of Friendship and The True Name. While both symbolize important events in the beginning and end of the show respectively, it’s safe to say you’ll never use them. The former can only be activated when you draw it as part of a normal draw while you have no Monsters and your opponent has three, and the only payoff to its contrived ruling is to add one Monster from your deck to your hand. Hardly worth the deck space, especially if you draw it as part of an effect, since you can’t do anything with it at that point. The latter card is just as unlikely, asking the player to guess the name of the card at the top of their deck. If it’s correct, add it to you hand, and either Special Summon, or add a Divine type monster to your hand, (meaning a God Card since they’re the only ones with this type). Unless you’re lacing your cards with perfumes like Mai did… Chances are this will never happen.

If you’re longing for the days where the game was more simple, you had no idea what Pendulum Summoning was, and the only “Xyz” monster you knew of was a Dragon Cannon, then you’ll do well to give the Millennium Pack a shot. With five cards per pack for a total of 48 cards in the set, you’ll have plenty of material to live out your Battle City fantasies with.

Geekscape Recaps: ‘Lucha Underground’ – No Mas

by Josh Jackson

Now that we’re in the middle of the second season of Lucha Underground, and some of the long running storylines are starting to approach their turning points, what better time to begin running recaps of each episode? As tension continues to rise between many of its performers, this week mostly dealt with handing out more of the seven ancient Aztec medallions that make up the Gift of the Gods championship. With Cage, Texano and Aerostar each securing their medallions last week, three more would be awarded to the winners of tonight’s matches, while one from last week would be put up for grabs. The bout between Sexy Star and Mariposa in our main event however, is about more than just a reward, because Sexy is looking to finally cast out her fears by facing her abductor in a No Mas match. With two monsters vying for supremacy, winning the title, (and the chance to fight for the Lucha Underground Championship), might be more of a curse than a blessing.

The show starts with Dario checking on his newly repaired ceiling that his brother Matanza, and his opponent, Mil Muertes, crashed through at the end of their no contest brawl from two weeks ago. Catrina walks in to what used to be her office, and the two have a war of words regarding who had who beat. While Catrina accuses Dario of fearing Mil, he refutes this by saying his brother will put an end to him The two agree to settle whether or not her stone or his key is the most powerful by having a rematch under Mil’s signature match type, Grave Consequences. Except this time, one grave won’t be enough, promising four coffins around the ring, and renaming the match a Graver Consequences match, scheduled for next week.

Their first brawl was a no nonsense fight that ended with a bit of nonsense, but in the best way possible. Since we didn’t have a clear winner decided when the two monsters crashed through Dario’s ceiling, here’s hoping we have something much more decisive while being just as brutal.

1st match: The Mack vs. Marty the Moth for an Aztec Medallion

This match was all about The Mack, while continuing the ongoing rivalry between him and Sexy Star vs. Marty and his sister, Mariposa. While Marty got in a little offense, (while looking as creepy as possible as Melissa Santos introduced him to the ring), it only took a few minutes before The Mack won with two stunners, the second of which was modified from a Fireman’s Carry position. A fun match that was much too short given the history between these two, which might be explained by their re-appearance in the main event.

Lucha Underground No Mas Screen 3

Backstage:

In the locker room, we see King Cuerno getting ready for his Gift of the Gods opportunity after a long absence. There, he is approached by Catrina, who promises that Sinestro de la Muerte, the last surviving member of the Disciples of Death, will turn the hunter into the prey. Cuerno brushes her off, saying that he will make death itself his most prized trophy of all. He walks away before we see Catrina look into the camera with a red glow in her eyes, further hinting at her supernatural background.

Elsewhere, Sexy Star walks into Dario’s office, and sits down with a nervous expression. While admitting that the two haven’t seen eye to eye in the past, Cuerto says he sympathizes with Sexy, because he recognizes the look in her eyes. Recounting the story of his childhood from earlier in the season, where his “evil bitch”, of a mother abused him and Matanza until the brothers said, “no mas,” and killed her, the company’s promoter encouraged her to beat Mariposa until she couldn’t help to cry out the same words and permanently lose the fear in her eyes. But when she quits, don’t stop hurting her until she can’t hurt you again. Wait… Is the promoter essentially telling Sexy to kill Mariposa? What are we going to do with the medallion if the winner is in prison?

2nd match: King Cuerno vs. Sinestro de la Muerte (accompanied by Catrina) for an Aztec Medallion

Unfortunately, Cuerno’s return to The Temple wasn’t much to speak of. After teasing an Arrow From The Depths Of Hell, Catrina came up from behind him and clocked him with her rock, giving Sinestro the opening he needed to steal the win. The bigger story was the look on Cuerno’s face as the two walked away. Now that he was cheated out of his shot at the Gift of the Gods championship, will he make death itself his next target like he promised? I’m counting on it, but let’s hope Sinestro gets some more character in the coming weeks. The Disciples haven’t had much room to grow since their debut, so I’m hoping that will change now that one of the three has gone solo.

King Cuerno

Backstage:

Mascarita Sagrada is seen curling weights that are bigger than he is before Famous B approaches him. Apparently his only client, the manager promises big things for Sagrada’s future, starting with a shot at an Aztec Medallion against one of the winners from last week. I’ll give you a guess as to who it could be, but let’s just say that if Mascarita wants to be famous, there are better ways to do it than by being torn apart.

Back in Dario’s office, Chavo Guerrero storms in and demands to know why he isn’t fighting for one of the Medallions. Annoyed, Cueto keeps going through his paperwork while saying Chavo has disappointed at every turn, blowing every opportunity he’s been given. Promising to seize his own opportunity, Chavo storms out, obviously with something in mind.

3rd match: Mascarita Sagrada vs. Cage with Cage’s Aztec Medallion on the line

Well, this went about the way you would expect it to go. No matter how much you can curl, nothing can prepare you for a machine like Cage. Sagrada got in a minute of offense, using his speed and small size to get the better of his much larger foe for a time. Then just like that, Cage put a stop to the rally. He blamed Famous B for what was about to happen and performed what could only be described as an F5, except Cage let him go in the air while the poor mini wrestler spun in the air twice before landing. A short three seconds later, and that was that.

After the match, Famous B came in the ring to check on his client, while him and Cage argued over the match. As this went on, Chavo made good on the “stealing” portion of the Guerrero family mantra, and ran off with Cage’s Aztec Medallion. Of all the people he could have taken one from, did it really have to be Cage? I’ll be there for the funeral.

Lucha Underground No Mas Screen 2

Main Event: Sexy Star vs. Mariposa in a No Mas match for an Aztec Medallion

With the story being told up to this point, this matched needed to go to a higher level of brutality to really sell the idea that Sexy was finally going to pay back her abuser. On that front, it completely delivered. As you can probably guess, a “No Mas” match is the same as an “I Quit” match, except in Spanish… In other words, the only way a person can win is by forcing their opponent to be beaten down to the point where they yell out those two humiliating words.

What started off as a standard wrestling match upped the ante pretty quickly, featuring mask tearing, chairs getting hit with chairs, chairs getting smashed into vaginas. The action spilled into the crowd and onto Dario’s office before eventually leading to the scaffolding, where Sexy was visibly bleeding under her mask. After going back and forth with a tense back and forth sequence, the two climbed back down to the crowd. This is where Marty made his return, grinding Sexy’s face into a fence until The Mack ran out to make the save.

Eventually finding their way back to the ringside area, the two luchadores continued to brawl, leading to a sick spot where Mariposa stopped a headscissor attempt and began swinging Sexy’s head into the announcers table. As the two eventually rolled back into the ring, Marty tried to intervene again before The Mack fought him off. Mariposa put Sexy into a submission hold, which led to an emphatic, “Fuck you Mariposa!”, when the ref asked if she quit. Vampiro and Sexy were both swearing left and right at this point, which put an exclamation point on the savagery of the match, (especially since that kind of language typically doesn’t fly on the network, so kudos to El Rey letting them add that touch to the story they were telling).

The finish came when Sexy worked her way out of Mariposa’s submission hold and transitioned into an armbar. Once she locked it in completely, Mariposa had no way out and was finally forced to yell, “No mas,” leading to Sexy’s victory. As if taking Dario’s advice from earlier, Sexy refused to let the hold go and put her fear back into Mariposa before The Mack delivered her hard earned Aztec Medallion as the crowd chanted that she deserved it. This closed out the show in an incredible way, delivering a type of match we’re not used to seeing female performers compete in. It was just as violent as they needed it to be, with tense spots that took them all throughout the temple. My only real complaint is that it’s getting harder and harder to buy Mariposa as this terrifying threat, since all she seems to do is lose since she debuted. Has she even won a match?

Lucha Underground No Mas Screen 1

Overall, the show itself was mostly uneventful from a storyline perspective, outside of seemingly resolving Sexy Star’s issues with the Moth Tribe. What I am looking forward to however, are the future angles they seem to be setting up. How will King Cuerno react to being screwed out of his shot at regaining the Gift of the Gods title? Will there be a Chavo Guerrero left when Cage catches up to him? And most importantly, who will come out on top when Mil Muertes and Matanza clash for a second time in their Graver Concequences match? I’m thinking next week will be a can’t miss episode.

What were your highlights of this week’s episode? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to check back next week as we continue to follow season 2 of Lucha Underground.

Lucha Underground airs every Wednesday night at 8 PM on the El Rey Network, and is available for purchase on iTunes.

Preview The Past With The Yu-Gi-Oh ‘Breakers Of Shadow’ Special Edition

by Josh Jackson

As if we didn’t have enough reason to love Breakers of Shadow, the latest expansion in the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game that we said could change the direction of the game in our original review, the special edition of the set has arrived with some exciting new cards for us to get our hands on. As with the previous special edition, each set will contain three booster packs along with two of four promo cards. Selected at random, each box will contain one of two reprints of a hard to get card, and one of two preview cards that will be featured in the next set. Since we’ve already spoken at length about the contents of Breakers of Shadow itself, let’s dive in and see what new cards we have to look forward to. Although… Something tells me Blue Eyes White Dragon fans like myself will have a lot to look forward to when cracking open these boxes. So, without further ado…

 

YuGiOh Breakers of Shadow Special Edition 1

Starting with Number 23: Lancelot, Ghost Knight of the Underworld. Formerly found in the Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal volume 7 manga, this knight sets up a solid wall to protect your field from monster, spell and trap effects. Detaching one of its Xyz material when an effect during either player’s turn is activated allows you to negate the effect’s activation, keeping you safe for one more move. When on the offensive, detaching one Xyz material lets Lancelot attack the opponent directly, which triggers its secondary effect, which allows it to destroy one face up monster on the field. It might be tricky to get it on the field since it requires two level 8 monsters to summon, and its relatively low 2000 attack points might make it an easier card to take out, but it’s clear that Lancelot gives you so many options when its on the field that it can potentially turn the tide of any duel.

YuGiOh Breakers of Shadow Special Edition 2

Continuing the evolution of the Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon that’s become a mascot for the fifth generation of Yu-Gi-Oh, this Shonen Jump subscription promo is now available for the world to play! Despite being a Fusion Monster, Beast-Eyes Pendulum Dragon can be Special Summoned without Polymerization if the fusion material monsters listed at the top of the card are on the field and in your control. Acting as a pure powerhouse, Beast-Eyes inflicts even more damage on top of its initial attack thanks to its effect, which inflicts damage to the opponent equal to the beast type monster used to summon it every time it destroys a monster. It won’t be long until those Life Points count down to zero with an ability like that!

YuGiOh Breakers of Shadow Special Edition 3

Forge of the True Dracos is the first card that we’re previewing from the upcoming Shining Victories set, which gives a huge boost to Dracoslayer players. If you have a non-Pendulum Dracoslayer monster and a Dracolord monster on the field, you can play this card to shuffle all the cards you have on the field back in your deck to Special Summon one Dracoslayer or Dracolord straight from your deck, ignoring any special conditions that would make you unable to summon it normally. With the right hand and right monster, this card can essentially give players a do-over, allowing them to pull a game changing monster onto the field with ease.

Beacon Of White

And finally, we have Beacon of White, just in time for the revival of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. As one of the most popular cards from the series’ original run and the trademark monster of Seto Kaiba, the card of a dragon that used to be a girl that was in love with his ancient Egyptian self, (hey, I didn’t write the stuff,) is set to come back in a big way. Beacon of White is just one of many new support cards that are set to debut in Shining Victories, but if this was all we got, it would be more than enough to make Blue Eyes competitively viable again. Although the activation requirements might be a stretch depending on your deck, the result is more than worth the trouble. If you have three or more “Blue-Eyes” cards in your graveyard, (meaning any card with that name in it,) you can special summon any one of them straight to the field. While no other monsters can attack, and it loses any effects it normally has, (which is mostly moot since most Blue-Eyes cards don’t have effects,) it gains the ability to attack in an amount equal to the amount of Blue-Eyes cards in the Graveyard. So if you were to say… use this card to bring back a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and you have three Blue-Eyes White Dragons still in the grave, that’s three attacks at 4500 each, more than enough to finish a duel! What’s crazy is, this isn’t where the support ends, and I’m excited to see what new tricks this old favorite will have when the full set releases.

So there you have it. If the base set wasn’t enough to get excited about, these promo cards really put it over the top. Which ones are you looking most forward to?

Geekscape Movies Reviews ‘Ratchet & Clank’

by Josh Jackson

Note: Check out our review for the game based on the movie here.

Look, I get it. Normally, when you hear that a film adaptation of a video game is on its way, you can hear the collective eye roll of the gaming community. At this point, there’s a laundry list of failed attempts, most of which suffer from Hollywood ignoring the spirit of the source material, expecting the name to sell tickets on its own. Yet, when Sony announced that they were dipping their toes in the waters of making their popular PlayStation games into feature films under the brand new PlayStation Originals banner, I was strangely optimistic. Not only because Sony was directly involved, but because one of my favorite platforming franchises, Ratchet & Clank, would be the first one to be released. With such lovable characters, a rich universe to draw from, and the developers at Insomniac directly involved with the creation of the film. I mean, with all of these elements in play, what could go wrong? Apparently plenty, because unfortunately, while the film is enjoyable, the spirit of what makes the games so beloved was lost somewhere in the transition between mediums, falling flat when it comes to some of its most defining characteristics.

Loosely based on the first game, Ratchet & Clank serves as an origin story for the legendary duo, as they get dragged into a fight to save the galaxy from the evil Chairman Drek, (voiced by Paul Giamatti,) who is attempting to create a new planet from the pieces of the worlds he is destroying. Ratchet, (voiced by his video game actor, James Arnold Taylor,) a Lombax with a penchant for all things mechanical, dreams of leaving his life as a mechanic to become a Galactic Ranger like his hero, Captain Qwark. When a defective Warbot escapes Drek’s factory and crash lands on Ratchet’s planet to warn the Rangers of the chairman’s evil plans, Ratchet comes across his ship and decides to take the miniature bot to his idols. Now named Clank, (brought to life by David Kaye, who’s voiced the character since his debut in 2002,) the new team embark on a quest to alert the Rangers while making their own mark on the galaxy in the process.

Ratchet & Clank Movie 1

Unfortunately, this sequence in the beginning is one of the few instances that we actually see the two together. For a film about the team of Ratchet and Clank, a pair that are literally attached to each other for 90% of every game, they hardly share any screen time. In fact, the divide between them makes up the bulk of the second and third acts of the movie, creating a jock vs. nerd mentality within the Rangers themselves. As Ratchet attempts to become closer to Qwark, (despite his growing jealousy towards the Ranger to be,) and his film exclusive teammates in the form of the no nonsense Cora, (voiced by Bella Thorne,) and the trigger happy Brax, (voiced by Vincent Tong,) Clank is relegated to a support role alongside the tech savvy Elaris, (voiced by Rosario Dawson). Most of the adventure involves the field team ignoring the command center’s advice, keeping Clank far away from his partner during most of the biggest action scenes of the film. When the conclusion rolls around, it makes it hard to believe that these two share such a strong bond when they barely interact with each other. I can only imagine how much of a reach this will feel like for families who visit the theater who have no familiarity with the source material.

Speaking of the new characters, I was excited about the idea of expanding Qwark’s team to add an extra dynamic to his development. Sadly, this doesn’t pan out, because each one ends up feeling more like a walking trope than their own character, Ironically, the game based on the movie does a better job establishing Cora than the film does, where the only development, or establishment for that matter, comes from her unwelcoming comments towards Ratchet through the majority of the movie. The less said about Brax the better, since his personality begins and ends with wanting to blow stuff up. Elaris is the only one who has a semblance of a character, as the sympathetic brains behind the operation who’s good advice is ignored for her “shoot first, ask questions later,” team.

Ratchet & Clank Movie 2

Oddly enough, the characters who have been established through 14 years of source material are the ones who are developed the most. As mentioned above, Clank spends most of the movie on his own, but he becomes capable in his own right as he squares off with Drek’s right hand machine, Victor Von Ion, (voiced by Sylvester Stallone). Ratchet loses the bad attitude of the original game for the better, and is further explored as a somewhat lonely orphan finding to find his place in the world. New to the film, his father figure, Grimroth, (voiced by our favorite TV father, John Goodman,) shines in his few scenes as someone who encourages Ratchet when no one else does, while being legitimately concerned about his foster son wanting to give up his life as a mechanic to essentially become a super hero.

Much like the games however, Qwark steals the show in almost every scene he’s in. His gradual shift from being the arrogant, yet well meaning hero to a jealous, insecure shell as Ratchet becomes more famous is much more satisfying than the original game, where his defining purpose in the plot just kind of happened. What does worry me about Qwark however, is that the way his story wraps up in a way that’s drastically different from the games, closing off his role in the sequels. Does this mean that this movie will be one and done, or does it disregard the sequel altogether? Considering one of the goals with this movie was to help the first game, (which was largely disconnected from the rest of the series,) tie in closer to the sequels, this was a confusing choice to settle on.

Making things even more interesting, is the introduction of Dr. Nefarious, (voiced by Armin Shimerman,) who originally didn’t appear until the third game. As Qwark’s arch nemesis, his inclusion into this origin story ends up serving as somewhat of an origin for the Dr. as well, diving deeper into why he develops a hatred for Ratchet and Clank. Plus, we get an interesting after credits scene that ties into the game that I won’t spoil here, but fans of the PlayStation series will want to stick around.

Ratchet & Clank Movie 3

While the characters and story are hit or miss, (which isn’t helped by the writing, with jokes that fall flat more often than not,) that’s not to say Ratchet & Clank doesn’t shine in other areas. The animation is gorgeous, feeling like a video game brought to life. From the large cities to the crazy gunfights, the film never fails to wow us with its visuals when the movie calls for its more extravagant sequences. Staying true to the games, a variety of weapons spanning the entire series make appearances throughout the film, from fan favorites like Mr. Zurkon, to my personal favorite, the Tornado Launcher from Tools of Destruction. It may be true that some of the charm is lost in translation due to the iffy writing, but Taylor, Kaye, and Qwark’s Jim Ward have jut enough of it to make their scenes the highlight of the movie. Even Ion, Nefarious and Grimroth add some much needed depth to an otherwise thin plot, making the film more enjoyable in the process.

So while Ratchet & Clank is a far cry from what I would consider to be a great video game movie, it does right by the series just enough for me to want to see more of what these PlayStation Originals can do going forward. If we actually had more time to develop the partnership between the titular characters, (which is the core of what works about the series,) instead of feeling like their friendship was forced, we would be much better off. With the new cast feeling mostly paper thin aside from a few standout and a spotty script, these problems are somewhat balanced out by its crowd pleasing weapons, development of the established characters, and some interesting surprises for game fans and non-fans alike. Is Ratchet & Clank the perfect video game adaptation? No. But with so much development and charm left to uncover, I’m hoping we get to visit the Lombax and his robot pal again down the road.

Final Score: 3/5

 

Wondercon 2016: ‘Star Fox Guard’ Feels Like A Full Fledged Game!

by Josh Jackson

In 2014, Nintendo had two mystery projects on display for the Wii U. Code named Project Giant Robot and Project Guard, both felt like exciting, new ways to use the Wii U Game Pad, but were too thin of an experience to feel like their own games. In fact, we predicted that these two demos would end up as mini games in a larger collection when we previewed the two projects.  While Giant Robot has yet to resurface, Project Guard was revived as Star Fox Guard, a Slippy Toad focused pack in included with copies of Star Fox Zero. As a bonus game, Nintendo would have been able to leave the  game as is and still would have left little room to complain. After all, how can you complain about a free game? When playing the final build at Wondercon this year however, and it’s immediately clear that the game has gone through a variety of improvements to make it feel more like a complete game in its own right.

Star Fox Guard Screen 1

In what’s essentially a tower defense game, Guard approaches the growing genre in a more unique way. With the TV showing a variety of gun mounted surveillance cameras while the Game Pad shows the map, camera locations and enemy positions, it’s up to Slippy to use each camera to fight off enemies before they reach the core of the map. This isn’t as simple as it sounds, since not only will you have to manage your cameras while trying to look at around nine at a time, but you’ll also need to hold powerful enemies at bay who can inflict status effects such as freezing and static, (most of which have been added since its 2014 reveal). Make too many mistakes, and they can destroy your cameras permanently.

Fortunately, (or maybe less so for the less social readers out there,) Guard has been presented as a multiplayer party game in each of its iterations despite only having one player support. The idea is that spectators in your living room will be able to watch the cameras with you, shouting out which cameras have enemies in sight while the player manages switching and shooting with the Game Pad. Friends will be a lifesaver when it comes to successfully defending your base, especially when the right advice can lead to you spotting waves of enemies you might have overlooked otherwise. Extra support actions like being able to unfreeze one camera by shooting it with another and destroying certain enemies first to avoid being overwhelmed will take more of the player’s attention, making friends even more welcomed.

Star Fox Guard Screen 2

Of course, you CAN play it by yourself, which presents a surprisingly high level of challenge, especially with later stages. This arcade style of game play where you’re competing for completion and high scores has the potential to become highly addicting, becoming further amplified by stubborn gamers like myself who would rather die a thousand in game deaths than ask for help. If nothing else, it will be the first time Slippy has been strong and independent.

While this might not be enough for a standalone retail release, Star Fox Guard looks like it will serve its purpose well as an awesome extra for fans who have waited so long for the team’s next adventure. Stay tuned for our full impressions of both Guard and Star Fox Zero once they are available for review.

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Ratchet & Clank’

by Josh Jackson

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 14 years since the first Ratchet & Clank game released on the PS2. What was even harder to believe at the time was what a legendary series it would become. In what was a golden age for its genre, Ratchet has endured long after mascots like Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper bowed out of the spotlight, (although the latter has attempted a comeback in recent years.) After over a dozen sequels and spinoffs across four different platforms, Sony and developer Insomniac have decided that it was time to revisit the duo’s roots. In conjunction with the upcoming film based on the franchise, Ratchet & Clank comes to the PS4 as a complete reboot of the original title, making some modern adjustments to go with its new take on the story. While a reboot felt unnecessary to me at first, the series’ PS4 debut serves as more than a simple do over. What we get is a love letter to the fans who have stuck through this decades plus journey while reintroducing the Lombax and his robot pal to new eyes, creating what ends up being one of the best 3D platformers in years.

Ratchet & Clank Screen 4

Can a simple mechanic save the galaxy?

Told through Captain Quark’s perspective in a scenario that’s different from the film, the square jawed hero takes us back to the days before the titular duo were an inseparable pair. Ratchet is a simple mechanic with big dreams of joining the Galactic Rangers, a team of interstellar heroes who protect the galaxy from any threat that may rise. When tryouts come to Ratchet’s home planet, he takes the chance to become something greater, (or at least to try and impress Quark, his hero and leader of the team.) Meanwhile, a defective Warbot who would go on to be known as Clank overhears his creators discuss their intentions to invade the Rangers’ home planet and take them out so their plan to destroy planets will go unchecked. Since the tiny robot failed to inherit the malicious intent of his brethren, (as well as their height,) he escapes the factory in an attempt to warn the Rangers of what was coming to them. After crash landing on Ratchet’s planet, the pair team up to save the galaxy from some of the most nefarious criminals in the system, all while impressing the Rangers in the process.

As great as the original Ratchet & Clank was, its control scheme has not aged well, leading future games to adopt a more traditional third person shooter method that revolves around strafing. No remake worth its bolts would keep these flaws unchecked, which is why the first thing you’ll notice with this latest game is how easy it is to move around. As a platformer/shooter hybrid, attacking waves of enemies and swapping weapons with a tap of the control pad while jumping out of the way of danger is as seamless as its ever been. As more weapons are unlocked, your quick select options can be customized so you can have easy access to any four weapons at any given time. When ammo is running low however, a solid swing from Ratchet’s trademark Omniwrench still does the trick. One of the most rewarding aspects of Ratchet & Clank is how accustomed you’ll become with each type of weapon and movement, especially as more options become available to you.

Speaking of options, the series has become synonymous with its over the top weapons over the years, and this reboot is no exception. Acting as a “best of” list for longtime fans, the weapons available span the entire series, with a few new weapons to boot. Staples of the PS3 games such as the pistol-like Combuster, the Groovitron, a disco ball that forces enemies near it to dance uncontrollably, and the trash talking battle companion, Mr. Zurkon, join PS2 classics like the Glove of Doom, a bomb that summons self destructing robots, and the Sheepinator, a beam that turns any enemy it hits into a sheep. New weapons like the Pixelator, a shotgun-esque weapon that gives enemies an 8-bit makeover, round out one of the most exciting weapons lineups in the series to date. Encouraging players to switch up which weapons they use, the level up system from past games returns, making it so each weapon gets stronger as you destroy more enemies with them. In addition, extra boosts can be purchased with Raritanium, where you’ll pay to fill in a board where each space adds a perk, such as extra damage or ammo. When these perks surround a hidden boost, buying all the ones around it will unlock extra surprises, making them even stronger. The would-be rangers are further complimented by gadgets such as the jet pack from Into The Nexus, and the 02 mask from the original, so you can explore both the air and sea, so there’s never a shortage on new tools to try out.

Ratchet & Clank Screen 5

You’ll have to get creative with your gear to take out the worst of Drek’s army.

Thankfully, there is plenty to explore with all your tools. More so than any other game in the series thus far, Insomniac makes the most out of the series’ PS4 debut with some of the richest environments in the series to date, each one littered with enemies and hidden areas with only occasional slowdown. Featuring a mixture of the original planets from the series’ PS2 debut to brand new areas original to the film and game, even repeated areas are either partially, or fully rebuilt. Each planet is so different from the last, that they’re always a joy to visit, which is emphasized by the game’s gorgeous visuals. Flying up as high as I could and surveying the landscape was one of my favorite things to do on the planets that allowed it, really giving you a sense of how big the game really is. When taking the character models, which rival their CG film counterparts on occasion, and you have what’s easily one of the best looking games on the PS4.

One feat that I found particularly admirable was how the game’s script made it look easy to mix in the right amount of nostalgia with new content, making it feel familiar without ever feeling like a retread. The top notch voice acting and witty script continues to impress after all these years, with Quark’s charming stupidity once again taking center stage. New characters bring in some Hollywood talent to join James Arnold Taylor’s Ratchet and David Kaye’s Clank, including Bella Thorn, John Goodman, Rosario Dawson and Sylvester Stallone. In fact, franchise purists can rest assured that aside from the game’s main bad guy, Chairman Drek, who is now voiced by Paul Giamatti, all the returning characters have kept their actors in both the games and films, while the new voices fit right in with the characters we’ve come to love.

Ratchet & Clank Screen 6

Ratchet rarely takes itself seriously, and it’s better off for it.

If the story content isn’t enough of a callback for you, (on top of the handful of Resistance references for the hardcore Insomniac fan,) unlockable trading cards can be found throughout the game, each of which contain details on both this, and past games. Collecting all the cards in a series provides extra boosts like bolt, card and Raritanium increases, as well as access to stronger versions of your weapons, so even if a walk down memory lane isn’t your thing, at least there’s that extra incentive to find them. To make finding them easier, five duplicates can be traded for the card of your choice, so you’ll want to remain on the lookout for as long as possible.

It’s easy to see that the developers know that there’s plenty we’ve come to love with this series, much of which returns to tickle our nostalgia. Certain scenes, characters and interactions will remind you of some of the charm of 2002 while making you forget that you’ve visited these worlds years before until these callbacks pop up. And yet, for every reminder of the originals, like the plumber you meet in your first full world or the hoverboard races which are even more thrilling now as they were back then, you’ll come across new battles like dog fights in space and a city defense mission where you’ll use magnets to hurl enemy robots back at their ships. It’s moments like these that really make it feel like the series has been fully realized for the current generation.

Ratchet & Clank Screen 1

Fights can get pretty intense.

Still, it can’t be all action all the time, which is where Clank’s solo missions take center stage. These puzzle inspired areas ask players to transform helpful robots in the area either into generators, bridges or springs in order to power nearby doors and open the exits. Simple on the surface, yet more complex as the game progresses, these distractions are challenging enough without becoming overbearing, only popping up a few times throughout the game’s story. That’s not to say Clank can’t handle himself in a fight, since some of the most visually impressive moments in an already gorgeous game come from when he must outwit the Warbot commander, Stallone’s Victor Von Ion. These short, but sweet sequences have Clank running towards the camera as Ion slices apart the corridors they’re running through in order to destroy the defect with his beam blade. Everything from the sparks, laser effects and fire looks so good while being fun to play, that you’ll be disappointed that these sequences aren’t featured more often.

Thankfully, disappointments are few and far between with this reboot, although one aspect that might come off as divisive is the changes to the story. Surprisingly acting as an origin story for more than just Ratchet and Clank, the big twist at the end is twofold this time around, introducing characters that originally debuted later in the series’ timeline. Unfortunately, that comes with concessions to what would become my favorite character arc throughout the games, fundamentally changing what would go on to happen in the sequels. That puts the game in a strange position because if this reboot is a one and done game to coincide with the movie’s release, then the story works better to a degree, setting up story elements for the future of the franchise. If it isn’t a one off and the whole series will begin branching out again from here, I don’t see it playing out on the track its on without completely invalidating the second game and part of the third. Considering how much I enjoyed this take on the series, knowing that the changes to the story closes off some of the best parts of potential future installments isn’t ideal, although this is more of a nitpick than a damning flaw. Still, I enjoyed the way the twist was handled in the original more so than in the reboot. You know, minus the whole Ratchet being a jerk to Clank part, which was thankfully omitted.

Outside of these story nitpicks, the only real flaws I encountered were technical issues such as “falling” off of a cliff when stuck between boxes, landing on certain mountains that were programmed like lava, and some poorly placed checkpoints that will force you to replay large fights, all because you missed that one guy stuck in the corner at the end of the third wave. While length might be an issue for anyone who is looking to only complete the story, I got a good 12-ish hours out of it on a hard mode run where I found half of the 28 Golden Bolts and leveled up all the weapons, which is pretty good for a platformer. When you consider I still had numerous collectables to find and side missions to complete, a 100% run was still hours away. For those who want the full experience however, a type of new game plus called “Challenge Mode” asks players to run through the game again while getting hit as little as possible. The more enemies you kill without taking damage, the higher your bolt multiplier, which you’ll need to take full advantage of if you want to buy the Omega versions of your weapons, which can be upgraded even further for maximum destruction. While playing the same game multiple times isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, Insomniac provided plenty of content for those who enjoy exploring every nook and cranny of the game’s world. As mentioned earlier, there’s plenty to explore.

Ratchet & Clank Screen 3

Just so we’re clear, this game is gorgeous.

Ratchet and Clank has been advertised as “the game, based on the movie, based on the game!”, but it’s so much more than that. On one hand, it might be the best “game adaptation” of a film to date, although that might not be fair to compare since it has almost 15 years of games worth of experience to build on. But what is fair to say, is that this release is not only one of the highlights of a growing PS4 library, but possibly the best game in Insomniac’s long history with the franchise. This game could have been a quick nostalgia trip that capitalized on the movie. What it ended up being was a nod to new and old fans alike as a shining example of what a reboot should be. I might be slightly nervous on the narrative direction the game is headed in, the formula is admittedly feeling a little samey despite its many upgrades, and small technical glitches hurt a near perfect package, but fans of platformers, fans of shooters, fans of the series… heck, fans of gaming can’t go wrong with picking up Ratchet and Clank, and have a chance to rescue the galaxy all over again.

tl;dr

+ Ratchet and Clank are back with plenty of new content to go with a dash of nostalgia.

+ The platforming is as fluid as ever, with both new and old weapons to keep combat interesting.

+ Plenty of worlds to explore, each with huge areas, waves of enemies and secrets to uncover.

+ Side missions like Clank’s puzzle stages and dog fights keep the game feeling fresh.

+ A new game plus mode that will more than double the standard length.

– Some story changes make us nervous for the future.

– Small technical issues pop up from time to time.

– Though offset by the Challenge Mode, those looking for a one and done game will be done with the story in a weekend.

– While great, the formula is feeling a little familiar.

Final Score: 4.5/5

Not Quite ‘Tekken’ And Not Quite ‘Pokemon’, ‘Pokken Tournament’ Is A Completely Different Monster

by Josh Jackson

Gamers such as myself have been patiently waiting for the release of Pokken Tournament since it was first revealed in 2013. While Super Smash Bros. is great and all, the idea of a fighting game dedicated to Pokemon designed by the the team behind the Tekken series seemed like the greatest thing I never knew I wanted. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to wait until the March 11th release date to get our first taste of how our favorite monsters fare in the fighting arena, as we found ourselves at the Pokken Tournament preview event to give the game a spin. Whatever it was that I was expecting, that all went out the window when I picked up the Game Pad and played a couple of rounds, because it was unlike any fighter I’ve played to date.

Pokken Tournament Screen 2

More specifically, what makes Pokken Tournament so unique is its Shift Change mechanic. Fights start off in a 3D diagonal perspective reminiscent of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games where each fighter will have full range of motion within the circular arena. That’s when some of your favorite Pokemon like Charizard, Lucario, Machamp and Pikachu among others will vie for positioning by confusing opponents with their projectile, homing and quick attacks. However, when specific hits are landed either as a one off or in a combo, the perspective shifts to a 2D plane, changing the way the fight is approached with the change in conditions. Of course, hitting certain attacks in 2D will shift the battle back to 3D, so if you or your character is better in 3D, you’ll want to switch back as fast as possible.

Making matters more interesting are the assist characters that can jump in during a match. By choosing a predetermined pair before the fight, each round asks players to choose which one of the two they want to bring out as their partner. Some like Emolga and Frogadier are straight attackers, while Pokemon like Eevee will give stat boosts for an extra advantage in battle. In Pokken Tournament, it’s not just enough to fight well, because synergy with your support character will be the difference between two evenly matched combatants.

Pokken Tournament Screen 1

Managing your supports, laying in your standard attacks, knowing when to unleash your Mega Evolution, (and the super move that comes with it), and utilizing guard breaking throws are just some of what you’ll find yourself mastering in the retail version of the game, and that’s on top of the many counter mechanics I’ve yet to fully explore! Feeling much deeper than what you would expect from a Pokemon spinoff while being friendly enough to pick up and play without much trouble, I expect that fans new and old will love their time in the arena when Pokken Tournament is in our hands. Look out for our full review in the coming days, but one thing’s for sure from our short time with the game; it’s nothing like you’ve played before.

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Gravity Rush Remastered’

by Josh Jackson

Despite the Playstation Vita essentially becoming a blip on the radar when it came to its longevity and popularity, that didn’t mean that its library wasn’t filled with numerous bright spots among its many dry spells. As far as I’m concerned, Gravity Rush stood above the rest as the real crown jewel for Sony’s PSP successor, using the handheld’s build in motion and touch features in ways that hadn’t been seen before. Essentially a game about falling, this open world title built by Sony’s Japan Studio and Keiichiro Toyama, (the creator of the original Silent Hill,) changed the way we thought about movement in games, allowing Kat, the game’s protagonist, to change the direction of her gravitational pull at will.

Gravity Rush Remastered Screen 1

The only problem? Nobody played it outside of the passionate fans who had their Vitas near launch. Now, with a much larger install base on the Playstation 4, and Bluepoint Games at the helm, (the good folks behind most of Sony’s most recent remastered games,) Gravity Rush Remastered gives Kat a second chance at a first impression, bringing over the handheld game to consoles with improved graphics and controls along the way. After enjoying everything Kat’s adventure has to offer for a second time, not only does the game feel as breathtaking as it did the first time around, but its improvements make it one of the best games you’ll find exclusively on the PS4.

Essentially a superhero origin story, Kat wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she found herself in Heksville, a mysterious city that’s become broken apart and drifting away from itself. With Dusty, her magical space cat that gives her the power to control gravity, Kat fights to help restore the land to its original state, hold off the mysterious Nevi, a race of monsters that has begun to attack the citizens, and re-discover her lost memories.

As mentioned, Gravity Rush is an open world game, one that doesn’t exactly fit any one genre. Part action, part adventure, part platformer, without any strong leanings towards any of them, the real draw of the game is being able to fly around at your leisure as you explore the beautifully rendered comic book inspired world. Though you’re supposed to be spending your time seeking out and competing story and challenge missions to help the townsfolk, it won’t be long before you find yourself taking in the sights as you fly through every inch of the city. Free roaming around Heksville is addicting on its own, which is as easy as a tap of the R1 button to make Kat float or fall in the direction she’s facing. Allowing her to walk on walls, soar through the air and even explore the bottom of the land as you discover the Precious Gems needed for upgrades, movement is anything you want it to be, (as long as you have enough energy to maintain changed gravity.) That level of freedom alone makes Gravity Rush such a unique take on anything I’ve played, creating an environment where the simple act of traveling from point to point is exciting.

Gravity Rush Remastered Screen 2

No matter how great the movement is though, it would come off as a one trick pony if that’s all there was to it. With that considered, it’s fortunate that you’ll have plenty of Nevi to square off with. Now, don’t come into Gravity Rush expecting as many combat options as a game like Devil May Cry, because that’s not what this is about. Still, by maximizing what you can do with Kat’s abilities, taking out enemies by using levitation to throw items it them, activating a powerful special attack that can wipe out waves of enemies at once, and pinpointing an enemy’s weakness before using your gravity powers from meters away to pull yourself into them with a devastating kick, all find a way to be highly rewarding despite their simplicity. All’s not well with Kat’s fighting prowess however, because when the fight is taken to the ground, her standard kicks devolve into mindless button mashing while her jump kick is needlessly hard to hit with. Chances are you’ll want to stick to the air as much as possible. Even then, even though the lock on for the Gravity Kick seems to have been improved compared to the Vita version, with far fewer unexplainable misses, Kat seems to whiff too many of her attacks late game when most of the enemies are larger with multiple weak points.

What seemed like the biggest complaint that the original suffered from was its forced motion and touch controls, which oftentimes felt unintuitive at best, and forced into the game for the sake of showing off the Vita’s features at worst. Fortunately, unlike the targeting which seemed to be partially improved, Bluepoint managed to completely fix this control issue, to the point where the game feels almost too easy at points. As if the original Vita version was trying to compensate for what they new were awkward controls, the times to beat in challenge missions seemed tough to complete. Now, I managed to finish movement based challenges with half a minute to spare on my first try on many occasions, changing what used to be a frustrating mission into some easy upgrade points. Some of the challenges will still give you trouble, especially the ones with limited gravity energy or the ones that focus on combat, but there are still noticible improvements across the board that stand out even more during these stagse. The Gravity Slide in particular, a technique where Kat uses gravity to speed and drift along the ground, is so much better that it’s hard to imagine playing any other way. Imagine on the Vita, having to hold both thumbs on the corner of the touch screen to slide, then steer with oversensitive motion controls that would send you veering into walls more often than not. Then, imagine holding the L2 and R2 buttons and steering with the stick. It’s like night and day.

But with the good comes the bad, which in this case,  a problem unique to the PS4 version. In the Vita release, dodging was triggered by swiping the touch screen in the direction you want to move. The two sticks are so far away from the screen in this case, that accidentally tapping it was never an issue. That changes with the PS4, since all of the touch controls are relegated to the touch pad right above the analog sticks. In fights where you’re trying to move the camera while moving at the same time, there were so many times where I accidentally dodged into an attack and needlessly took damage because my finger grazed the pad. And unlike the motion controls, which can have their sensitivity adjusted to the point where they can be completely turned off, there’s no way that I could find to get rid of the touch dodging.

Gravity Rush Remastered Screen 4

Unfortunately, seeing as this is a port, there’s only so much Bluepoint could change. This means that the game’s strange story is still intact, which is only seen as a negative because of how much potential it brings, only to do nothing with it. When you bring out a game in a world that’s literally floating apart from itself, a raven haired rival that wants to kill you for reasons unknown, a master thief who becomes obsessed with defeating you, and God masquerading as a homeless drifter with a penchant for flashing, you would think the game would have some crazy places to go by the time the credits roll. Yet somehow, when it’s all over with, very few of these plotlines are wrapped up, and Kat’s amnesia doesn’t go much farther than where it started outside of some hints. As someone who was really in to the mysteries the game presents, I feel that Gravity Rush often came off as a tease towards a whole lot of future events without much resolution to them in the present. It was frustrating in 2012, and it’s frustrating now, especially when the story can be completed relatively quickly. A few more hours worth of missions could have been added to flesh out the story and the length.

Though the stories that are addressed are the DLC bonus missions, all of which come packaged with Gravity Rush Remastered out of the box. Adding a bit of character and three new costumes to Kat’s story, each set of two missions helps us dive in to side stories that help us get to know the citizens of Heksville better. Some even feature missions that have unique objectives compared to the main game, such as finding scattered pages and racing while opponents actively block you. These missions won’t appear until you reach the chronological point in the story where they take place, but finishing them helps boost your town rank faster, giving you access to a higher tier of upgrades sooner than you would in the regular game. And you’ll need them, since each DLC pack comes with two additional challenge maps, each of which are significantly more difficult than the ones the main game offers.

Gravity Rush Remastered Screen 3

It’s not perfect, but Gravity Rush Remastered deserves all the credit we can give it for not only feeling so fresh despite being a re-release, but especially because it managed to engross us almost entirely on the merits of its game play. Surviving the aging process so well is rare enough, but there are very few games that I would enjoy playing all over again. This is one of them, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s beautiful. It’s creative. It has that rare quality where it changes the way we think about games. And it’s an improvement over its Vita counterpart in almost every way. The ground combat and lock on still needs some work, the story is still a glaring weak point, and the unfortunate placement of the touch pad creates a brand new issue, but none of this gets in the way of Gravity Rush transitioning from one of the best Vita games, to one of the best PS4 ones. Whether digitally or physically, (exclusively through Amazon,) do yourself a favor and add Kat’s adventure to your collection. Now, bring on Gravity Rush 2!

Final Score: 4.5/5

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4’

by Josh Jackson

In 2006, the first Naruto video game came to the West alongside the anime’s localized debut with the GameCube’s Naruto: Clash of Ninja. Over the years, countless sequels, spinoffs, and alternate series from a wide variety of developers and publishers would be released, with the definitive experience finally settling on the Ultimate Ninja Storm series. The Playstation exclusive branch of the wildly popular franchise has wowed us for years with its incredible graphics, mind blowing boss battles that oftentimes surpass the source material, and a huge roster that’s grown significantly over each iteration.

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Screen 3

With the manga’s conclusion in 2014, it was a matter of time before the games would reach the finale as well, eventually being forced to take its bow as one of the most consistent anime to video game adaptations in both quality and faithfulness. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is said to be the last game in the Storm series, wrapping up the story of Naruto and his friends with its current console generation debut, upping the wow factor in ways that will definitely leave an impression. Yet, for all the things that it does right, nagging issues from previous entries still keep the game from being a premiere fighter. Still, Storm 4 goes above and beyond to give fans of the series the sendoff they deserve.

If you’ve played a Storm game before, the basic set up of the 3D fighter is the same now as it has always been. Set with a diagonal, behind the back camera perspective, each fighter has sets of land and air combos, special moves, (ninjutsu,) and super moves, (secret techniques,) the latter two of which can be customized in nearly every mode. When you consider that the cast is made up of over 100 different ninja, that becomes a whole lot of content to discover, which is exciting every time you pull off a new attack thanks to the amazing anime inspired graphics that bring it all to life, (but more on that in a bit.) As with Storm 3, countering with your substitution jutsu has its own bar rather than subtracting from your chakra, allowing a maximum of four successive counters before you’ll find yourself stuck in a combo without a way to escape. Adding an extra layer of strategy to the fights, it’s important to avoid getting caught in situations where you have to draw on your counters before you find yourself taking a pummeling. Once you’re on the brink of defeat, overcharging your meter activates your temporary Awakening Mode, which can range from a boost in power, to a full on transformation, changing your character to a gigantic beast, which can turn the tide of battle while acting as a mind blowing display of how good CyberConnect2 has gotten at bringing the show to life.

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In addition to other techniques such as maintaining and charging your chakra to pull off special moves and stronger versions of standard attacks such as throwing shuriken, dashing towards your opponent, and performing double team attacks with one of your two potential partners, Storm 4 mixes up the formula with some new combat options to keep even the best ninja on their toes. Most noticeably, the new tag mechanics change counter attack lets you push back any attack when an overzealous opponent is charging at you. With a simple tap of the shuriken button while guarding, you’ll pay a quarter of your chakra bar, (as in a quarter of the bar temporarily disappears, and cannot be charged for a certain amount of time,) to keep yourself in an advantageous position.

Once you’ve mastered the art of combat, there’s nothing left to get in your way when it’s time to jump into the Story Mode, which is where most of the game’s visuals shine through. No longer broken up by the standard free roaming mode, (which would be kind of hard considering most of the world is destroyed at the start of the game,) the story starts off with a bang thanks to the ancient conflict between The First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, and the current big bad, Madara Uchiha. After a boss battle that looks and feels so grand, you would think it’s the game’s last fight instead of its first, it flashes forward to right where Storm 3 left off, right before the masked man’s identity is revealed in his first fight with Naruto. Here, the action slows down a bit in favor of mostly standard fights, although we occasionally get rail shooter and beat em up inspired stages to give us something special in between battles.

Most fights are bookmarked by long cutscenes that move the story along at a decent pace. Yet, these scenes constantly kept me enthralled rather than take me out of the experience, partially because of the fact that this game is the first time that the finale of the series has been animated and voiced. Then again, I use “animated” loosely, since the majority of the scenes are just still shots from the anime with voice overs over them. Ironically, the anime’s overabundance of fillers worked in the game’s favor eventually, since all the scenes that take place after the anime’s current storyline are fully animated with the in game models. For anyone who is worried about how well the ending plays out, fear not. Everything is here, from the end of the war, to a SNES-era Final Fantasy level ass pull with Kaguya’s debut, all the way up to the fateful fight between the two leads. Aside from a small amount of censorship, everything from the animations to the voice acting and the over elaborate quick time events that blows away the action of both the manga and anime, serving as a satisfying conclusion to Naruto and Sasuke’s tale.

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Screen 2

Although the story sticks close to its source material, sometimes, this isn’t for the better. As if trying to emulate the anime itself, there are a TON of flashbacks, to the point where even when I was really into the story, I was getting tired of the big finale being largely relegated to a glorified slide show. While I do appreciate that each chapter has a time estimate for how long you’re going to be watching, it made me miss the free roaming sections that broke up the action in previous story modes. For better or for worse, free roaming has been separated into its own adventure mode which takes place immediately after the final battle. As Naruto, Sakura and Hinata, the three ninja travel to iconic locations throughout the series on various missions that trigger flashbacks of some of the Hidden Leaf Village’s greatest battles. Here’s where you finally get an excuse to play as those characters who you completely forgot about in between all of the Infinite Tsukuyomi nonsense. I’m talking Chiyo vs. Sasori, young Naruto vs. Young Gaara during the Chunin Exams, and so many “memories” as the game calls them, essentially serving as a Naruto retrospective as the finale settles in. Of course, you can also play the Adventure Mode before finishing the story, but why would you do that?

However, like the Story Mode feeling tired with no breaks, Adventure Mode falls even harder in this sense. The free roaming content was never particularly good in past games, with very little interactivity with your surroundings, but at least you had the story to will you forward. What can only be described as constant filler content, there are no real stakes involved to keep you enthralled when it comes to getting absorbed in the world you’re exploring, leaving you with shallow feeling side missions to fill time. If only CyberConnect2 would not have stagnated in this sense and eventually gave us something more akin to Ubisoft’s highly underrated Xbox 360 exclusive Naruto games in terms of exploration, then Storm 4 would have been the perfect package. Sadly, free roaming failed to evolve like the rest of the series has.

Naruto UNS 4 E3 Screen 1 - Copy

Thankfully, the Online Mode is where the game feels like it has grown the most, which is fantastic since the Vs. modes are where the meat of any fighting game lies. Aside from your typical Vs. and Survival Modes, which offer various modifiers that can either help or hinder the player, the online play is the best it’s ever been. Not only does the mode allow all of your customized fighters carry over like in previous games in certain match types, but the overall experience feels much more fleshed out with various incentives to play. Including special events that come with bonuses when you play during certain times, or daily log in bonuses for extra money and Ninja Treasures that can be exchanged to unlock one of the near countless items to earn, you’ll always have a reason to log on outside of beating down other ninjas from around the world. On that note, the online play itself seems leaps and bounds better this time around, which is a huge step up for a series that’s always been marred with crippling lag. In my case, (as the Geekscape Games listeners can attest to,) I have horrible connection speeds. Yet, every match I fought was either as seamless as if I were playing on the couch, or with barely noticeable input lag that I couldn’t blame my losses on. Despite it taking so long, I’m glad the final Storm game finally got it right.

As commendable as these improvements may be, Storm‘s biggest hurdle from the beginning is that its fighting mechanics are shallow. Yes, the tag and counter features add more to an admittedly improved package, but it’s not enough for it to stand out as anything more than a really good anime fighter. All Jinchuriki, (tailed beast hosts such as Naruto,) will have a giant transformation. Almost all Sharingan users, (like most of Sasuke’s seven versions,) have a Susano’o form. Aside from puppet users, (who each feel similar as well,) every character feels relatively similar to one another, despite the 100 + character cast outside of their standard ninjutsu and animations. Even then, roughly 20% of the roster are just alternate forms of the same person. So here’s to hoping you really like Naruto, Sasuke, Obito and Kakashi, because they could make a fighting game with just the different versions of those four and have a roster that rivals the total character count of other games in the genre. Unfortunately, its game play doesn’t measure up in the same way. What’s worse is that some of this repetition could have been alleviated by the extra team attacks and characters that are locked behind the DLC paywall, but alas, it’s 2016. DLC is expected at this point, although locking away attacks for sets of characters that are on the standard roster feels a bit low.

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Review Screen 1

As my time with Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 drew to a close, the amount of content to play though both by yourself and with friends, the cinematics and graphics that often left me in awe as it wrapped up this eight year tale in satisfying fashion, and the highly entertaining combat, (despite its shallowness), are all more than enough of a reason to pick this up. While its flaws with the sameness of its cast, overuse of still frames to tell its story, the separation of the free roaming and campaign segments, and locking content that’s already in the game behind a pay wall are all apparent, its refinement of what works while vastly improving its online component make this final Storm game the best by a long shot. Non-fans will get a kick out of its incredible presentation, while long time Naruto followers will find the sendoff that the franchise deserves, riding into the sunset on top. So take a bow, CyberConnect2, because Storm 4 has set a new benchmark for what games based on anime should be.

Final Score: 4.25/5

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Megadimension Neptunia VII’

by Josh Jackson

Despite half a dozen remakes and spinoffs over the last year and a half giving the impression that there was plenty of Gamindistri goodness to go around, it’s been nearly four years since we Nep’ed up some bad guys in the last mainline Hyperdimension Neptunia game. Gaining a following based on its lighthearted take on the game industry while wrapping itself in magical girl anime tropes, its characters often overshadowed its addicting combat, which had admittedly grown stale after remaining mostly unchanged since the second game. Knowing this, making the jump to the PlayStation 4 in its current gen debut is the perfect opportunity to create a new first impression.  Thanks to some much needed changes to the battle system and larger dungeons to go with the series’ trademark humor, this is a goal that Megadimension Neptunia VII largely succeeds at.

Megadimension Neptunia VII_20151110142359

Neptune is back in action.

For the uninitiated gamer who couldn’t tell the difference between a Dogoo and a Pixelvader, Neptunia revolves around the four goddesses of Gamindustri. Neptune of Planeptune, Noire of Lastation, Blanc of Lowee and Vert of Leanbox each rule over their own nation, (analogous of Sega, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft respectively,) while maintaining a friendly rivalry for share energy, a manifestation of the public’s adoration and the source of their power. the girls have since each of which represents a different nation. As the protagonist, (which she’ll be sure to constantly remind you of throughout her fourth wall breaking escapades), Neptune steps aside a bit this time to share the spotlight with the rest of the cast. Split into three smaller stories that eventually converge into one large conflict, this is very much Uzume Tennouboshi’s tale. As the last living CPU of an alternate version of a post apocalyptic Gamindustri, Neptune and her little sister, Nepgear, find themselves transported to this world through a console that’s totally not a Sega Dreamcast. In an adventure that introduces plenty of new characters, multiple worlds and non-linear progression that shines the spotlight on all four main CPU’s, VII proves early on that it’s a huge departure from its prequels thanks to its narrative.

If you’re worried that the game sounds too doom and gloom in the same way the second game was, then fear not. Despite the the dark tone of the first few dungeons, this game finds a balance between making us laugh with its lighthearted and tongue in cheek script while creating a sense of urgency within the scenarios in a way that improves on the games before it. So if you know anything about Neptune and her world, that means plenty of winks to the audience with its parodies of video games, gaming characters, and even the business practices that occupy this hobby we all love so much. New characters like Gold Third, a group of humans who represent Capcom, Bandai Namco, Square Enix and Konami respectively, add even more depth to an already great cast, (especially nods to their company history, like Square’s S-Sha having two personalities after fusing with her former enemy, based on Enix), and the villains manage to be both hilarious and menacing when they need to be. While the fanservice is relatively tame this time around, what other game are you going to find two robot villains who are obsessed with busty blondes, only for one of them to go through an identity crisis after falling in love with the flat chested Uni?

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Meet Umio, the know-it-all fish man who resembles a certain Dreamcast star.

The gameplay has always been one of my favorite parts of the Neptunia series, which is easily the high point of VII. Making sure that the story and cast wasn’t the only part of the game changed, a host of new mechanics debut to turn the game’s conventions on its head. Doing away with its Guard Break system that’s been a staple of the series for years, positioning is more important than its ever been. Bringing back the full range turn based gameplay that debuted in the second game, each character you control can be moved freely within a certain range, with their attacks allowing you to hit multiple opponents at once if positioned right. Enemies now have parts that boost their defense, which will have to be broken off with the new Parts Break system. Standing in the right position, using the right elemental attacks, or flat out overwhelming bulky foes lets you deal even more damage, serving as the only way to beat some especially tough baddies.

To maximize your turns, you’ll have to prepare your combos ahead of time, bringing more strategy into the mix. Each weapon has a starting attack, where up to three additional moves can be mapped to fit different situations. Broken down into Rush Attacks, Power Attacks and Standard Attacks, each fits a different purpose when you’re grinding out those extra levels. Rush sacrifices damage for more individual hits, building up the team’s shared EXE Meter, (which lets the party unleash their most powerful attacks), Power does more damage, but fewer hits, and Standard is a happy medium. Beyond these categories, each individual attack will usually have some kind of perk that boosts its properties as long as certain requirements are met in that turn. For example, one attack might do more damage if your previous attack was a Rush Attack, whereas another will get a boost if you haven’t used a Power Attack yet. In addition to varying areas of attack, individual weapons also have different amounts of total attacks and unique starting attacks, making certain weapons better in the long run, even if they’re not the most powerful. The game makes sure to give you plenty to think about when heading into battle.

Megadimension Neptunia VII Screen 6

But the most impressive change that the battle system has brought is its use of team attacks, allowing your group of four to deliver huge amounts of damage with the right partners. Aside from the SP attacks, essentially your magic skills that pull from a character’s SP Meter, and the EXE Attacks mentioned above, these team ups further show how much the game has grown since its last entry. While team attacks have been in previous games, you could just unleash them anywhere on the map as long as you had the right amount of meter. This time, your whole team has to be positioned around their target in a certain way for them to work. Three member moves usually ask them to stand in a triangle formation that encloses the enemy monster for example, while full party four person attacks asks to create a square. Seeing that field placement so important this time around makes it apparent that the AI has also been improved, to the point where they’ll usually avoid grouping together or move right outside your range. It’s frustrating at times, (in a good way), but it’s good to see that the game is willing to make you work for your wins this time.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of what the battle system has to offer, Giant Battles force you to put those formations to work. As a new type of combat, these fights only allow you to use SP or EXE attacks as you gang up on a towering opponent, surrounding it by jumping from various platforms around the stage. Forcing your team to split up across the field, your priorities will change compared to regular battles since you won’t be able to be near your teammates to heal them without giving up the potential to unleash your most powerful team attacks. Moving at a much slower pace, these fights ask you to become more methodical with how you approach them, which is a nice change of pace compared to the waves of enemies you’ll be used to defeating. Slowing down the combat could eventually wear thin, which is probably why you’ll only encounter these special scenarios a handful of times.

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Some of the special moves look ridiculously cool.

Just when you think you’ve seen all there is to see, the content continues to grow about half way through. In addition to Disc Development, (allowing you to customize equipment to grant various benefits), a few new customization aspects lets you dive deeper into the inner workings of each nation. Saving up money will let you develop your shops, weapon development or publicity, which makes new items available for your group to purchase. Ranging from extra powerful gear to help you do more damage, unlocking unique items that can only be obtained through this method, or raising a nation’s shares to strengthen your CPU’s from each area, there are plenty of rewards to come if you invest in each country. Throwing in the ability to hire NPC’s to scout for secret dungeons and items, their traits that grant certain advantages and disadvantages to being in the dungeon with them, and using cash to build new paths through Route Building, even series veterans will be surprised with how much has changed since the last game.

Oddly enough, the only real flaws that the game has are when it goes half way with the improvements, which becomes painfully obvious due to how tedious these moments are. For one, the map has a bit more life to it since your main character now travels from point to point along the map, rather than just selecting a location from a list. Yet, when you move between dungeons, random battles make their series debut by popping up between areas. One of the better aspects about these games was that it gave you control over whether or not you wanted to battle by placing the enemies on the map, while allowing you to hit them for a pre-fight advantage. When you take that away, you’re adding in one of the more generic, outdated genre mechanics that the game would be better off without. I’m also in favor of the game eliminating auto healing when you leave dungeons and replacing it with having to move to specific headquarters in each area to recover, but coupling this with the random battles means you might get caught off guard.

Megadimension Neptunia VII Screen 1

The four CPU’s in their new NEXT forms.

Moving on to brand new Neplunker mini-game, the overall package would have been better off without it. Simulating the Spelunker exploration games of days past, Neptune and her team will travel through a cave with difficulty that increases as you descend. Using the same combat system for fights, the focus is more centered around exploration, platforming and eventual survival. Except… Neptune was never meant to be a platforming star, which is obvious as soon as you start trying to traverse these stages. Her awkward jumps and clunky movement is perfectly fine when playing the normal game, but when you throw in precision jumping and avoiding traps, it becomes a nightmare to play. To make matters worse, losing all three lives, (which are unique to this mode), results in a game over for the entire game. So if you forgot to save before falling into that pit, tough luck! The post game unlocks make it more bearable, but when you feel like you’d be better off avoiding a feature until after the story is finished, that’s obviously a problem.

Unfortunately, the game’s biggest issue is one of the most persistent ones throughout the series. Each game has had a bad habit of re-using dungeons, which becomes more and more inexcusable as the games continue to grow. As another half measure, VII does not repeat any of the maps from its prequels, but does re-do the dungeons IN VII! It’s hard to be too upset though, since each one features brand new, much larger areas to explore, complete with hidden paths and breakable items that hide better treasure. Surprisingly, the size increase doesn’t slow down the game at all. Registering at a smooth 60 frames per second throughout nearly the entire game, (aside from a few maps with a lot going on in the background), the game is the most technically sound yet. The character models are still fairly basic, but the visual upgrade is strong enough that it will make it harder to go back to the older games in comparison. Rounding out the areas with an updated soundtrack that contains almost all new songs, it makes it that much more noticeable when the enemies, maps and even bosses are eventually recycled. It’s a step in the right direction, but I’m hoping that future games will go all the way with creating a completely original campaign, especially as they continue to get more and more popular.

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Did I mention the transformations look amazing this time?

While not without its annoyances, Megadimension Neptunia VII is everything a sequel should be. Neptune’s fourth game provides a lenghty adventure that vastly improves combat, exploration and enemy AI, all while maintaining its laugh out loud humor for great effect. Some of the new features feel either out of place, don’t go far enough, or feel cheapened thanks to the continued re-using of assets, but these points are neglegable when you see how this game took everything that could be improved upon and made an attempt at it while staying true to the core concepts that kept fans happy over the last few years. So whether or not you’re a longtime Gamindustri supporter, a JRPG fan who wants to try something new, or even someone who wants some self referential humor to replace all the self doubt and hurt feelings that the genre is associated with, you’d do well to give Neptune a shot.

Final Score: 4.5/5

These ‘Breaker Of Shadows’ Cards Have Changed The ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ Landscape

by Josh Jackson

Every time a new Yu-Gi-Oh booster set is released, all of the new cards, archtypes and boosts to old decks that they can provide always creates the possibility of reshaping the game. Yet, very few sets have had as big as an impact as the most recent set, Breaker of Shadows, has had. Highlighted by the return of the  “Solemn” trap card, new Performapals that make Pendulum Summoning an even bigger threat, and the return of prominence for Cyber Dragons and the Atlantean/Mermail combo, and we’re left with one of the most comprehensive sets in a very long time.

 

YuGiOh Solemn Strike

Once a staple in nearly every deck, Solemn Judgment was a trap that let you sacrifice half of your life points to negate anything. Having since been banned from competitive play, Solemn Warning would take its place, costing 2000 LP to negate any card effect that would special summon a monster. Now that this card has also been hit with a limited restriction of one per deck, and newer cards that can summon en mass, Warning would eventually fade as well, With Solemn Strike however, the card’s ability to stop monster effects as well as special summons for 1500 LP gives it more flexibility. Since the card is brand new and hasn’t been affected by ban lists, this card is setting the dueling world on fire while three can still be packed in the deck.

YuGiOh Cyber Dragon Infinity

On the subject of negating, Cyber Dragon Nova is the card you want when you want to shut down effects. Bringing the GX era Cyber Dragon set back into prominence, this XYZ monster can continuously attach an attack position monster to it as material once per turn, allowing it to continuously boost its attack while storing material. When an opponent tries to set up a troubling effect, using up one of Nova’s Xyz material lets it negate the activation during either player’s turn. It’s almost having near unlimited access to a Solemn card attached to a 2100 Attack monster, who’s strength only grows as its material accumulates.

YuGiOh Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer

As with most of the recent sets, Performapal Pendulum monsters are prominent within the set, but BOSH seems to take it to another level. Headlined by the much sought after Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer, which gives you some incredible searching power with the right card combinations. Before you know it, you’ll essentially be able to choose your cards at will, reaching maximum effectiveness with your deck and dominating the field. This Secret Rare card is further complimented by Performapal Monkeyboard and Performapal Guitartle. Monkeyboard can change its Pendulum Scale to 4 when paired with a non-Performapal monster in the opposite zone, and can search for one level 4 Performapal monster once per turn, (including Sorcerer.) Guitartle on the other hand, will let you draw a card while in the Pendulum Zone every time the effect of the card in your other Zone is activated. In other words, Monkeyboard could search cards while Guitartle can let you draw a card each time, resulting in two bonus draws per turn while setting up a 1-6 scale for a wide variety of summoning possibilities. With the option to draw Sorcerer on top of that? You’re looking at a devastating combo.

Oh, and by the way; I was lucky enough to pull all three cards in my review packs that Konami so graciously provided, so if you see someone tearing up your LA locals, it’s probably me. Or not… I kind of suck.

YuGiOh Neptabyss

Lastly, we can’t talk about new cards without one that’s bringing back Mermail and Atlanteans in a big way. Neptabyss, The Atlantean Prince, allows you to move other Atlanteans to the graveyard and hand. When Neptabyss is used to activate other card effects, (like many cards of the two archtypes mentioned do,) you can then special summon one of those Graveyard cards with no further cost, potentially setting up big combos in very little time. Combined with cards from the Realm Of The Sea Emperor structure deck and Mermail cards from various sets, and this card has brought both types back to prominence all on its own. Plus, look how sexy it is!

In addition, Breaker of Shadows has additional support for Buster Blader‘s. Red Eyes B. Dragon‘s, and many other card sets. More than any other since I’ve started reviewing these sets, if you were planning on buying a box of cards, this is the set to do it with. With so many cards to help countless decks, and with these amazing abilities that have yet to be hit by the ban hammer, and it’s clear that now’s the time to boost your competitive presence. It’s only a matter of time before Konami catches onto us!

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘LBX: Little Battlers eXperience’

by Josh Jackson

Robot battling games have always been a low key favorite of mine. From Custom Robo to Virtual On, and Armored Core, there’s just something rewarding about being able to build your own character and fight it out with your friends. Sadly, games of this nature are fewer and far between these days, but that’s changing with LBX: Little Battlers eXperience, the latest game from the well versed developers at Level-5. The thought of this team bringing this type of game to the masses was an exciting one, but once my time with LBX was finished, I was left feeling like it never reaches its full potential.

Little Battlers Experience Review Screen 4

In the near future, the LBX craze is at its peak. Children and adults alike can often be found squaring off against each other with their armed cardboard bots. As Van Yamato, a boy who is obsessed with the toys, is barred from having one after his father, the creator of the original LBX model, was killed in an accident. However, a group in the shadows is hoping to reprogram the toys for a much more menacing purpose. Once one of their researches escapes and sneaks a special model over to Van, him and his friends are swept up in a deep rooted conspiracy involving assassinations, the circumstances surrounding his father’, and the fabric of the LBX robots as a whole!

If you couldn’t tell, this game goes hard with its over dramatic, anime inspired plot. Not to say that’s a bad thing, but it’s humorous to think how much of this world revolves around these toys, (I’ll take this as a sign that it’s only a matter of time before amiibo start killing people.) As Van and his friends traverse the world of LBX, players will have the option to battle NPCs for items, experience and parts, buy new parts from the local shop, or progress with the story to earn some of the better equipment. Stopping to fight every so often isn’t a bad idea, since each individual part, on top of the player as a whole, will level up, unlock special abilities and get stronger with each battle. Being prepared is a necessity, especially when certain sections of the story are filled with random battles that tend to wear you down. Speaking of wearing down, your LBX won’t perform well if you don’t take care of it, so oiling it after around ten battles is necessary if you want to keep it in tip top shape.

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Of course, keeping it in shape doesn’t mean much if you’re not equipping your LBX with the best parts. Thankfully, the game offers hundreds of ways to customize your machine. With certain types of framework to switch your robot into a particular category, (like the Strider Frame for speed, or Knight Frames for your all around types,) picking a play style and equipping parts that complement them are a key aspect of succeeding in your battles. From there, players can equip two weapons, which adds to the depth. Do you equip a melee weapon and a long range firearm? Or do you equip a shield instead for extra defensive power? Or do you just equip two melee weapon types so you can switch on the fly and keep your opponent guessing? This aspect of the game is where LBX really shines, offering what feels like a huge amount of customization options, especially when it comes to the extensive post game content after the 25-30 hour story mode is cleared.

Battles themselves are fairly straightforward, adopting RPG elements to go with the real time action mechanics. Taking place within a variety of terrains inspired by cities, forests and canyons to name a few, using cover in between long range attacks as you close in for the big melee damage seems to be the way to go in both single and multiplayer combat. Preventing players from getting too trigger happy, each attack costs a certain amount of tension. Once that meter fills, your robot becomes significantly weaker for a short time, so knowing when to attack is important when your toy robot has the fate of the world hanging over it. When in trouble, your LBX can use items to gain an advantage, or use devastating Special Attacks that increase the chances of earning bonus parts if you finish a battle with them. While fights are over relatively quickly, different battle modes, like team battles topping off at 3 vs. 3 and modes where each LBX gets three lives before being put down for good, extends the fun found in the battles.

Little Battlers Experience Review Screen 1

At least, that’s the case for the first ten hours or so, but when it comes to the single player content, battles are so frequent that they wear thin faster than you want them to. With damage being so high and battles being so short, the set up and loading screens tend to be longer than the actual fights in some cases. Considering that you’ll constantly find yourself fighting these battles, with similar opponents, stages and weapons, and you’ll start to get worn out long before the story sees its end.

This is a similar problem that other games in the genre, such as the aforementioned Custom Robo ran into, since all the customization in the world doesn’t matter when you spend your time continuously KO’ing brain dead AI. Fortunately, the latest game in that series had online play, which let you put your combinations and play style to the test against opponents from around the world. Unfortunately, LBX doesn’t offer this luxury, being restricted to local multi card multiplayer only. Let’s face it. A game like this is more of a niche title, making it so that it may be hard to find a wide variety of opponents who live in your vicinity. So without online play, it might be hard to round up a group of batllers to test your strategies with. In that case, all you’re left with is a repetitive single player mode, where its absurdly entertaining story might not be enough to keep you playing the same battles over and over again.

Little Battlers Experience Preview Screen 2

After an extensive amount of time with LBX, it’s not quite the revival of the robot battling genre I was hoping for. While all of the customization, weapon types and combat depth can be found within this package, it ends up being bogged down by the lack of online multiplayer or single card download play, a repetitive single player mode with easy to beat AI, and short battles that are over long before you’re ready. The well produced cutscenes, sharp handheld visuals and a world of potential aren’t enough to help LBX rise above more than an average game, which I’m hoping will get better with subsequent releases. For now however, we’ll have to keep waiting for another strong build and battle experience.

tl;dr

+ A large amount of weapons, models, items and battle types, creating a wide variety of strategies.

+ The ridiculous story mode that puts the fate of the world on the backs of these inch tall robots, mostly told through well produced cutscenes.

+ Fun, addictive combat, that unfortunately…

– Gets old after numerous, repetitive fights against the easily beatable CPU.

– The lack of online or single card mulitplayer makes it hard to explore the game’s full potential.

– Short single player battles wear out an already repetitive single player mode.

Final Score: 2.5/5

Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘Xenoblade Chronicles X’

by Matt Rodriguez

Have you ever played a game so immersive, so rewarding, and so exciting that it simply permeates your every thought; that while you’re travelling, you can’t wait to get home… or even postpone your sleep because you’re so excited to accomplish your next goal?  Xenoblade Chronicles X can easily have this effect on many people, and I’m not immune to its charm either!  I can confidently that this is one of the most ambitious titles I’ve ever played.  From the story, to the individual characters, the plot, battle system and customization, every piece is crafted so intricately and perfectly that it’s very easy to fall in love with it.

The story follows a colony of humans on a spaceship after the Earth is destroyed by aliens.  The aliens eventually find this spaceship, and damage it enough that the humans are forced to crash land on a remote planet named Mira.  Although the game allows you to use any team members that you meet throughout the game, the main two that you will use are Elma and Lin, two protagonists that joins forces with the main character to take on all of the games major missions (“Story Missions”)–the story is largely centered on humanity’s struggle on this new planet, such as feuds with the indigenous creatures, as well as the ongoing search for “The Lifehold’s core”, which is a major part of their spaceship that was lost on the planet.  The Lifehold’s core contains most of the other humans, who are kept in stasis.  They hope to find it, and revive all of their fellow humans to join them on Mira to live a sustainable life, and perhaps “reboot” the human race.  Needless to say, not everything is exactly as it seems, and the game really keeps you on edge from one story mission to the next, revealing certain agendas, and building on the depth of many characters.  It is easy to connect with some of them, as at times it had me wondering “if this kind of situation happened to me, how would I react?”  Also, as you progress through the game and complete specific missions, you can have some of the other intelligent species on Mira join NLA, or “New Los Angeles”, your main base of operations.  Seeing NLA grow and expand with each new species addition can feel like a reward in and of itself.

The main base of operations is held in a city called “NLA”, short for “New Los Angeles”, which is named after its Earthen counterpart (excellent choice, if I may say so myself!).  NLA, in and of itself, is incredibly large!  By my educated guess, if you were to do a direct route, on foot, from one edge of the city to the other, it will probably take you 15-20 full minutes of travelling!  The bulk of your adventure will be held in the “administrative district”, where you can purchase and modify gear, participate in online missions, as well as gather side missions for the main game.  The planet, Mira, consists of five main continents–these continents are so massive that it’s hard to explain, and can only be experienced.  If you use the map below as a guide, please bear in mind that NLA is only the circular area you see at the bottom of the map.  If you use my analogy of NLA being 15-20 minutes of travel in diameter as a guideline, then it’s easy to speculate that each of these individual continents can take HOURS travelling by foot to explore them, and that’s not even counting all of the caves underground or under other areas as well, as there’s still more of the game I need to explore.

Xenoblade-map

The graphics are very artistic, but lower quality in other ways.  As a videophile of sorts myself, I can definitely see the difference in graphical quality between this game and other Wii U games, such as textures sometimes taking a bit of time to load, and character edges coming off as blurry.  However, you would have to actively be looking for this difference in order to notice it.  The game’s artistic direction is so fantastic that this very easy to forgive.  From the tiniest detail like the many blades of grass that appears on the expansive grasslands of Primordia, to the atmospheric particle lighting in the moonlit wilderness that is the continent of Noctilum, I find myself often stopping in the middle of gameplay simply to take in the atmosphere.  The landmarks, such as grizzled mountains, lofty cliffs, and aged grand trees are so extremely finely detailed and crafted that they serve as the perfect companions to these environments.

Xenoblade-Chronicles-X-Screenshots-1

When it comes to exploration, you can go ANYWHERE.  I mean, quite literally.  Anything you can see in the distance you can travel to.  The game is never bound “invisible walls”, and nothing is unreachable.  However… monsters are littered all around Mira, so you always risk running into a higher leveled monster that you can’t handle, if you’re not careful.  As long as you’re traveling by foot, there are little to no load times, so you never lose your sense of immersion when going from one landmark to the next.  Just like Xenoblade Chronicles (for 3DS and Wii), you can reach many checkpoints throughout the planet, and then “Fast Travel” to those locations so you don’t have to worry about footing it from your current location.  This however, does cause load times to appear, but they don’t take very long at all.  Also keep in mind that I was playing through this game by pre-loading all of the special free packs from Nintendo, which speeds up loading times of the game, so this experience can vary if you have not downloaded those packs.

You can fight absolutely anything that moves in this game–from the tinest insect, to the largest dinosaur.  Of course, it isn’t practical to fight everything that moves–you need to study each creature meticulously to decide whether you can take it head on or not.  Some of the largest creatures I’ve met in this game even rival some of the largest creatures I’ve found in other games, such as Monster Hunter.  In similar fashion, if you choose to fight a monster that’s much larger than you, you can always choose to target each of their appendages (arms, legs, etc.) separately to cripple them and make the fight easier.  Those that have played the previous title (Xenoblade Chronicles on 3DS/Wii) will find the combat unchanged.  Choosing to fight any creature triggers combat–Xenoblade uses a combat system that’s very similar to the ATB (Active Time Battle) system of the RPG games of yesteryear.  Both you and the enemy can use any of your assigned abilities, however when you use up an ability, you have to wait for it to fully charge before you’re able to use it again.  Unlike most other RPGs, the game never cuts into a separate combat scene–this means all battles happen right in the open.  However, this also means if there are any other wandering enemies around, they can join the fight too!  The one insect that you’re fighting can easily become one insect, several hounds, and a dinosaur if you’re not careful enough.  Because all battles happen in the open, you never feel disjointed from the world around you, which is another thing that adds to the immersion.

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There is lots of customization in the game, with most of the focus being on the main character.  At the start of the game, you can choose to be male or female, and can adjust a variety of base options for an average human, such as size, skin color, and facial details.  For clothing, the in-game appearance changes based on the armor you’re wearing–however, there is an option to equip “fashion gear”, which masks the primary armor–in other words, you can equip the strongest gear, but maintain the appearance of other gear that looks better to you.  There are lots of wacky options for aesthetic gear, ranging from swimsuits to cat ears and everything in between.  The practical gear gives your character a very “armored” look.  On the technical side of things, you can customize: your class/weapons, ground gear, skell, set augments/slots, purchase upgrades for gear, and assign arts.  The game uses a branching system for classes, starting with one beginner class, branching into three advanced classes, and each of those advanced classes branch into two expert classes each.  Mastering each expert branch allows you to master the weapons, meaning you will be able to use those weapons with other classes.  Each class has a group of arts that can be learned for each weapon, and skills that are specific to that class–most can be unlocked by leveling up the class, but others have to be unlocked by completing main and side quests.  Mixing and matching classes, weapons, arts and skills already make up a near limitless amount of combinations… and you would think that would be enough, but they also go the extra mile with augments and upgrades!  Upgrades are the more basic of the two, where you can use monster parts to create enhancements for your gear.  These can vary from attack damage, elemental properties, defensive properties, and a whole lot more.  Augments do more of the same, but instead they work as equipment for equipment, in a manner of speaking.  For gear that has “slots”, you can attach an augment which will give the gear better properties.  While augments can be equipped and unequipped, upgrades can not.

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Skells are a major part of the game.  After a certain point, you unlock your very first Skell–they are huge mechanical robots that can fight, transform into vehicles, and fly (although that comes later on).  I simply cannot understate how satisfying it is piloting these machines–creatures who were once an impossibility to fight, you are now able to overcome, and other average sized creatures become very easy!

Transforming into a four-wheeled vehicle makes getting around Mira SO MUCH EASIER considering how large it is–and flying so high in the sky that you can admire the expanse of Mira’s mountains and volcanoes is simply breathtaking.  Similarly to characters, Skells can also have changeable weapons and armor, as well as take advantage of upgrades and augments.  A Skell’s arts are dependent on its equipped weapons–skells can have many weapons!  The following parts of a Skell can have weapons–two on their back, two on their shoulders, two in their hands, and two at their sides–that makes a grand total of eight weapons!  Setups may vary because some weapons make take up both slots (such as a two-handed weapon).  The two downsides to skells are that they essentially only have three lives, so you have to be very careful when using them, and using techniques consumes fuel, so excessive use of a skell may render them useless after a long time.

Skells

I personally enjoy the music of the game, but I’ve also heard of others disagreeing with the musical style.  The style is very non-traditional to an RPG–it can range from rock-rap, to ambient, to pure techno/electronica.  A good majority of the music has lyrics too, including the battle music, which is a very unusual, but not necessarily bad choice.  A lot of it is very catchy, so even if you don’t enjoy it, it’s very easy to make fun of.  I can’t confidently tell readers if the music is good or bad, as it’s a matter of preference.

This game has online features, but they’re more passive than active.  When you join a Conquest squad, a list of “tasks” and a time limit appears in the lower-right corner of the screen.  These tasks are groups of monsters that need to be hunted by all of the members of your squad.  When one of the tasks are fulfilled, you get “reward tickets”, as well as rights to start corresponding “squad missions” from your home base.  Fulfilling tasks are cryptic because no information is provided other than general pictures of the monster type–at least, if there is some way to figure it out, I haven’t learned of the method yet.

Reward tickets can be traded for monster parts, which can save a player a lot of time and effort in fighting or grinding the same monsters for a specific materials.  Squad missions create an environment where you can team up with up to three other players online to take on a mission in a limited environment.  Coordinating to work with your friends on these is a hassle, because you have to make sure that your friends are on the same conquest squad as you are, and some of the missions are level dependent.  And even then, you’re working against the timer on the bottom right of the screen because if it runs out, you have to start over with the task targets portion again.  Occasionally, a “global nemesis” will appear, and these are super-powered bosses that keep regenerating their health each time you beat them–the amount of reward tickets and monster parts that you receive is based on how many times you beat them within the time limit.  You are also able to “scout” avatars online which makes a carbon copy of that player for you to play with, for a fee.  This can be helpful in taking on some of the harder parts of the game, if the characters on your current team don’t quite make the cut.

Then, there is the structure of missions.  There are many types of missions–story missions (which I mentioned above), affinity missions, normal missions, and basic missions.  Story missions are pretty much self explanatory–they are missions which are essential to progressing the game, and most of the time you will be forced to have Elma and Lin in your party, since they are the two main characters besides your avatar/main character.  Affinity missions are missions which are specific to other characters you earn throughout the game, and can only be unlocked if you have a good relationship with them.  To build a relationship with an unlocked character, you simply have to use them on missions and also respond to in-game dialogue in their presence.  Unfortunately, you cannot do affinity missions while you have a story mission active, and vice versa.  Normal missions and basic mission can be taken on at the same time as story or affinity missions.  Normal missions are side-plot driven missions, and basic missions are your run of the mill MMO-style fetch quests, slay quests, etc.  Working on basic missions can be difficult because the in-game encyclopedia isn’t always very good at letting you know where certain things are, even if you’ve been there before, or fought those creatures in the past.  And as of this writing, it’s actually very difficult to find this information on the internet as well!  This game is so massive that even the internet is taking a very long time in mapping all of the possible monster drops and locations–just another testament to how massive it is.  Choices in Story/Affinity/Normal missions can affect other parts of the game–I’ve seen it happen a handful of times, but it may have happened in other areas I haven’t noticed.  I haven’t beaten the game yet, so maybe there’s more to be revealed, or perhaps I may have to look up a wiki on the differences that certain choices make.

If I had to nitpick and find one chief flaw with the game, it’s the learning curve.  Mainly in customization and combat, the game does little to no job in explaining how to access these functions and how they work.  These features are detailed in the game’s electronic manual, but since a lot of newer generation games are tutorial based, it can be easy to feel lost or disjointed right at the start, and perhaps a little intimidated.  And even if you are able to learn the intricacies, it takes a while to figure out which creatures you’re able to fight using a sink or swim approach–for example, a level 20 creature that’s the same size as your avatar may be easier to fight that a level 15 creature that’s several stories tall.  Thankfully, when your avatar dies in battle, there’s no real consequence other than being teleported far away from the site you died at… however, as mentioned before, skells have only three lives so you want to be more careful with those.  If you have earned a skell, more than likely you’ve already had enough experience to gauge the strength of monsters, but it can be frustrating when you’re flying around, and all of a sudden some goliath level 60 monster comes from out of nowhere and wrecks you faster than you can say the word “Wow.”

There is more that can be said about this game, but the points above covers most of the major highs and lows of the game.  Overall, I would say that if you have a Wii U, this game is a MUST BUY.  And if you don’t have a Wii U, go out and buy one along with this game!  I truly believe that this game alone makes the Wii U worth it, and I’ve already clocked 100+ hours into it because of all the content… and still haven’t beaten it!  With all of its missions, likable characters and story, breathtaking environments, eccentric soundtrack, adrenaline fueled combat, and much more, I can confidently say–this is my game of the year for 2015!

Review Summary:

Pros
+ Huge boundless open world/sandbox environment ripe for exploring
+ Fantastic artistic direction
+ Near endless customization for characters and mechs (Skells)
+ Load of missions and near endless content
+ Exciting combat that doesn’t interrupt gameplay
+ Rich story with many plot twists

Cons
– Difficult learning curve
– Music enjoyment based on preference
– Online potential falls short of expectation

Final Score: 4.5/5

Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Amplitude’

by Josh Jackson

Between constant delays, failing to deliver on promised experiences, or completely changing the style of a title around after the money has long since been collected, Kickstarter projects have been getting a bad reputation these days, and for good reason. So when a project that originated from a crowdfunding source releases with a legitimately great product, people take notice.

Harmonix reached out to its fans in 2014 to fund a remake of the PS2 cult classic, Amplitude. As the game that essentially layed the groundwork for what would become Guitar Hero and Rock Band alongside its prequel, Frequency, expectations were through the roof. Now that I’ve experienced the full game for myself, I’m happy to say that Amplitude still hits all the right notes, with a wave of nostalgia that’s sure to reward fans who have been clamoring for an update after 13 years.

Amplitude Screen 1

If you’ve never played Amplitude, Frequency, or their spiritual successor, Rock Band Blitz, then the concept around the game play might sound insane, but stay with me. As one of many selectable Beat Blasters, (which looks like a ship out of a sci-fi movie,) your job is to fly across one of multiple tracks that represent a different instrument or layer within one of the game’s 30 songs. By hitting enough of the three sets of beats using the L1, R1 and R2 buttons in sequence, the track will break down and start playing by itself. From there, the player must shift over to a different track and activate a new part of the song without missing a beat, with the ultimate goal being to get the full song to play on its own. You can’t take a break for long though, because each track eventually respawns, forcing you to keep the beat until the end of the song. Each successfully completed segment builds up your point multiplier, while missing sections will drop your health. If your health runs out before the end of the track, well… You know what happens. Thankfully, your health recovers as combos build as well as when you hit each quarter of the song, so you’ll be able to coast on easier tracks if you’re on the verge of failure.

Now if you have played games in the series before, then all of the above sounds exactly like what you would expect. Yet, that’s not to say nothing has changed, and all of it for the better. Most noticeably, the Beat Blaster no longer has to travel along empty tracks to get to the next open one, which was a surefire way to lose your streak in the past. Now, a simple tap of the left or right direction will transport you directly to the closest active track. You’ll still need a keen eye to figure out which button you’re going to have to start the chain with, especially if the track you’re moving to is farther away, but as those who experienced the originals can confirm, it’s so satisfying to keep those combos going as you move from section to section.

Amplitude Screen 2

When it’s proving to be too difficult to hit the right notes however, Amplitude offers unlockable power ups that can really change the game. Featuring both new and returning items across single and multiplayer, these powers become available after hitting certain notes with the desired power’s symbol on them. Ranging from automatically clearing a track, to flying over the whole stage, slowing down the speed of the song and your standard score bonuses, their various effects can give you a huge advantage when trying to maximize your results. Considering that this game can get REALLY difficult on the Expert setting and above, some of these are absolute musts for surviving the game’s gradual difficulty increase, while further keeping us on our toes at the same time.

So now that we’re all initiated with how the game works, the question at the end of the day is does this still translate into an enjoyable way to spend that precious gaming time? As with the originals, the game play is top notch, still holding up to this day. If you’re used to the single track gameplay style of the band games that rose to prominence over the last few years, then Amplitude is like those titles with ADD. Having to manage which tracks you want to tackle, pulling off complicated sequences and seamlessly transitioning straight into another one without losing your streak, accomplishing the often difficult task of getting the whole song to play is one of the most immediately rewarding accomplishments I’ve experienced. Topping off the gameplay with some impressive visuals with an emphasis on lighting effects, and the combined experience makes you feel as if you can conquer any sound put in front of you. More so than most games, getting better and pulling off these feats over time rewards you with a type of instant gratification that you can’t easily find anywhere else, providing such a simple, yet powerful pleasure when revealing the entire track in unison.

Amplitude Screen 3

If there is a place that the game falls short at though, it’s in the features it offers. Much like the original release, Amplitude doesn’t have a ton of frills outside of the standard game play modes. Consisting of quickplay, local multiplayer, (with both a co-op and competitive mode supporting up to four players,) and a strange campaign, the game gets you started with a few songs out of the gate. As you accomplish certain tasks like completing specific songs, playing a designated amount of songs in total, or progressing to a certain point in campaign, more of the track list becomes available the more you play. Yet, despite how addicting the game play is or how varied the difficulty modes are, being forced to play the same limited set literally over a hundred times before the full list is available becomes annoying to pull off, especially if you’ve mastered the songs you enjoy up until that point and have to keep replaying them arbitrarily.

On the other hand, campaign would have been much better if you actually could replay songs. Set to the backdrop of your Beat Blaster trying to unlock portions of a comatose patient’s brain in order to help the person regain consciousness, (because it makes as much sense as anything else going on in the game,) each of the three sections consists of four songs, with a hidden fifth track being revealed if you score well enough on the first four. Totaling 15 songs, this is where you’ll unlock new stages the fastest. To differentiate itself from quickplay, certain tracks require you to hit a certain streak number to regain health at the quarter checkpoints like usual. Coming up short results in the opposite, taking half a health bar of damage. While the story and gameplay tweeks are all well and good, campaign falls hard when it comes to actually completing it. In order to get the true ending, you have to beat all 15 levels, including the three hidden ones. If you don’t unlock them, you’ll have to start all over again. Yep, that’s right! From the beginning, with no way to replay campaign songs for better scores. Now imagine getting to the end and not knowing that until it’s too late. While I understand that short single player modes are typically padded, forcing you to replay the entire game is insanely annoying, even if the journey to get there is a hell of a lot of fun.

Amplitude Screen 4

Thankfully, the repetitive nature of unlocking content is helped by the game’s highly addicting multiplayer mode. Surely designed to ruin friendships in some of the cruelist ways possible, this new take on the game’s Vs. mode has opponents fighting for the highest score by trying to hit the most notes for a shared song. The player who gets to a track first is the only one that can score on it, but the player in the back row can use their power ups to sabotage the active Beat Blaster on that track. Unique multiplayer abilities like the Disrupter make the track that your friend is scoring on blurry and wavy, making it almost impossible to see. The Cleanse power that’s a huge asset in single player mode for instance, becomes the quickest way at labeling yourself as a huge jerk by instantly clearing the track, destroying your opponent’s combo in the process. Moments like these are where the multiplayer shines, which is why it’s a huge shame that the mode is local only. As far as co-op is concerned however, it’s a lot more straightforward, where each player teams up to score as much as possible.

As one of the first projects I’ve ever crowdfunded, I’m very happy with the way Amplitude turned out. It’s true that it’s missing online modes that the original had, features fewer licensed songs, with more original tracks that more closely resembles Frequency‘s set list, and a thin feature set, but considering the game’s budget, Harmonix’s latest still manages to capture the magic that started a rhythm revolution over a decade ago. Gorgeous visuals compliment creative game play that both new and old fans should make sure to check out. Unique, rewarding and oh so addicting, Amplitude cannot be missed.

Final Score: 4/5