September 2009

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

September 6, 2009

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Point and click games hold a special place in the hearts of many, especially The Secret of Monkey Island. While the royal family of Daventry was combating their enemies by selecting the right inventory item and watching a quick scene unfold Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate, was taking on the masses by insult sword fighting. Sure, it was (and is still) impossible to die, but the system engaged the player. The Secret of Monkey Island also managed to set itself apart from the competition by being genuinely funny. I know that I laughed out loud numerous times throughout the game. Other adventure games (save Sierra’s Space Quest series) took a more serious tone, and that set Monkey Island apart from the crowd a little bit more.

Guybrush Threepwood is hoping to make a name and fortune for himself in the pirating business. Along the way you will be challenged by the evil Le Chuck who will serve as Guybrush’s nemesis throughout the adventure (and the Monkey Island series as a whole). The story is chock full of humor, and instead of ruining it for those of you who never got to play it the first time around I will simply describe it thusly. The Secret of Monkey Island is a great interactive comedy, and it is worth experiencing for $10 – even if you play the game once and then never touch it again.

The special edition not only brings The Secret of Monkey Island to consoles for the first time, but it also overhauls the graphics (although classic graphics are still available as an option for all you nostalgics out there). The visual style is wonderful and fits the tone of the game perfectly. Also improved is the voice acting. LucasArts clearly cares about Monkey Island and its inhabitants as each voice feels appropriate for its character, and lines are believably delivered. The voice acting also serves to accentuate Secret’s humor. Jokes are delivered well, and the title’s wit shines brighter than ever before thanks to the high quality voices.

The problems present in Special Edition are the same problems that were present in the PC original –  some of the puzzles are fairly obtuse, and some interactive objects are difficult to detect. The puzzles do all have a logical solution in so much as you will likely go “Oh, that’s what it was – I can see that” after you’ve looked up the solution on GameFAQs rather than looking through your inventory and thinking “this combination of inventory items is the obvious solution to this puzzle.” Controls are hampered not by design, but by hardware. The 360 d-pad is well-known for being problematic, and that really shines here as the d-pad is front and center when it comes to selecting inventory items and actions. The system is certainly workable, but you’ll want to break out your best 360 pad for this one.

Control issue aside, The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition is a bargain at $10. Anybody who has picked up modern adventure games but managed to miss this one should give it a shot, and anybody who played the PC original and has access to a 360 has probably already bought it and beaten it.

Plays Like: The Secret of Monkey Island, Sam & Max seasons

Pros: Funny, insult sword fighting, choice between classing and enhanced graphics and sound

Cons: A few obtuse puzzles, relies on the 360’s d-pad

ESRB: E10+ – if you are willing to stick with an adventure game then none of the content present is inappropriate

Shadow Complex

September 6, 2009

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

There is a reason that Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are commonly found at the top of gamers’ top ten lists: great boss encounters, fun exploration, large map, interesting weapons and upgrades, and tons of hidden items keep players coming back for more. Shadow Complex takes that classic formula and adds just enough to set itself apart without adding too much to take away from the homage to some of our favorites of yesteryear.

The story serves as a decent window dressing, but ultimately is not terribly important. A forest hike is reason enough to get Jason near Alpha Complex, and his bar pickup from the prior night, Claire, being kidnapped is enough of a drive to make him fight. Past that all that really matters is that you want upgrades, exploration, and boss fights while the enemies stand in your way.

Combat is fun, and the system is designed to reward the player. Headshots and melee attacks both increase your experience multiplier which leads to faster level-ups, and level-ups lead to handy in-game bonuses at levels 20, 30, 40, and 50. Higher levels, expectedly, increase Jason’s accuracy, defense, or stamina as well. Even when you’ve reached level 50, though, you will find yourself striving for high multipliers just because that is where the fun lies. Meleeing an enemy soldier to see him fly across the room or kicking a bomba (mobile machine gun robot thing) behind a soldier just to watch them both explode is always entertaining. If you want to fight conventionally you will find Jason more than comfortable with pistols and rifles as well. Aim with the right stick, fire with the right trigger, and reload with Y. Reload whenever you can – there is no penalty for it since primary weapons all have infinite ammo. Secondary weapons are useful against bosses and for opening locked doors, but you will need to be more careful with them since grenades, foam, and missiles are all finite resources.

Exploration feels familiar, but map shading seems nonsensical. If I can not move from Room A to Room B without going through another section then Rooms A and B should not both be shaded purple. Similarly, crawling through vents makes sure the first time, but after a room has been infiltrated it would be nice if I could just use doors and sensible paths. Shortcuts would be nice as well (there is one, but it is not enough considering the size of the map), but I can’t figure out a way for Castlevania-esque teleporters to feel organic in the Shadow Complex world. Your reward for exploring is better primary weapons (6 upgrades from unarmed to one-hit kills), secondary weapon expansion kits (grenade packs, missile packs, and foam packs),  and suit upgrades (super speed, double and triple jump, etc.). By the time the game is over Jason has been transformed from some average guy out on a hike into an Iron Man analog, and it feels great to know you’ve found 100% of the items (and you can be sure of it thanks to an in-game stat tracker).

In addition to the main adventure –  which took me 8 hours or so on my first play – Shadow Complex took a page from Bionic Commando: Rearmed’s book and features 21 challenge rooms in the game mode called Proving Grounds. Challenges range from timing jumps to avoid damage to deactivating laser fields with explosive barrels to a capstone mini-campaign aptly called The Big One.

Also of note is the way that ChAIR handled the Shadow Complex achievements. They took my favorite system (Valve’s achievement page from Orange Box) and improved upon it. Not only is your achievement progress visible on the stat page, but reminders pop up to tell you how close you are to getting 50 headshots or making 100 enemies scream. Orange Box did that, too, but what it didn’t do was compare you to your friends after you have gotten the achievement. It manages to integrate achievements and friends list leaderboards into the single player campaign, and it works really well (so well in fact that it drove me to go on a melee spree in order to get ahead of a friend).

Shadow Complex should not be missed by anybody who fondly remembers Super Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. And if you’re too young to have played either of those games then you should pick up Shadow Complex and fall in love with a brand new type of game.

Plays Like: Super Metroid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Pros: numerous upgrades to find, fun challenge rooms, great achievement tracking and leaderboard integration

Cons: Odd shading of map sections, lack of shortcuts considering map size

ESRB: T for mild language, violence – there is no blood and I can’t remember any horrible swearing.

Gaming Unplugged: Zombie Fluxx

September 3, 2009

Features / Unplugged / by Chris Ingersoll Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Fluxx from Looney Labs is a lightweight card game that plays quickly, is easy to learn, and is a blast at parties or any other group setting. Starting from the Basic Rules of “Draw One, Play One”, each player can affect the game in several different ways:

  • Playing a New Rule card changes the rules of the game. This may include drawing additional cards, playing additional cards, or any number of other effects. New Rules that contradict previously-played New Rules trash (eliminate) the older card.
  • Playing an Action card lets the player perform the action stated on the card. Pretty simple, no?
  • Playing a Keeper card gives the player something that (s)he keeps. Why would you want to keep them? Well…
  • Playing a Goal card lets everyone know how to win the game. There can only be one Goal in play; any new Goals trash a Goal already in play. Goals most often involve one or more Keepers (which is why you want to keep them). The game ends immediately if anyone meets the requirements of the current Goal, either because they obtained the correct Keepers or because they already met the conditions of the Goal card that was just played.

Between the ever-shifting Rules, constantly changing Goals, and chaotic Actions, it’s easy to see how Fluxx got its name. In case that’s not enough, Fluxx Blanxx offers you a set of blank cards to further add to the craziness. The game also exists in themed versions like environmentally-friendly EcoFluxx or the aptly-named Family Fluxx.

Clearly, what the Fluxx family needed was an army of brainless zombies.

Zombie Fluxx introduces two new card types that stand between you and achieving your Goal. The first type are Creepers, which represent the Zombies that give this version its name. Whenever someone draws a Creeper, they must play it face-up in front of them and draw another card to replace them; this continues until you’ve drawn the number of “normal” cards you were supposed to draw. There are four different types of Creepers, each depicting an increasing number of Zombies:

  • Regular Creepers are just a single Zombie with no special abilities.
  • Pairs of Zombies run away from you if you trash another of your Creepers on your turn (there are certain New Rules and Keepers that allow this), winding up with the player of your choice.
  • Zombie Trios don’t die like the others. Instead, when you trash them they move to the player on your left or right, depending on the arrow on the specific Creeper card.
  • The Zombie Quartet keeps coming back from the dead. When it gets trashed, it goes to the top of the deck instead of to the discard pile.

Some Goals require you to have Creepers in your possession, and others require you to have none; one Goal actually cares about the number of Zombies (not necessarily the number of Creepers) that you control. There’s also the other new card type: the Un-Goal; this card is treated like any other Goal, but if its conditions are met, everyone loses as the Zombies take over! Why would you play this? Well… sometimes you don’t have a choice (it’s the only card in your hand, for instance), sometimes it doesn’t matter, and sometimes you just play it to be spiteful!

With all the cheesy humor of a classic B-movie, Zombie Fluxx is a great way to spend some down time with up to six friends. Zombie Fluxx also contains rules for playing without the Zombies, in case you have any first-time Fluxxers in your group. I would definitely recommend playing “full” Zombie Fluxx once everyone knows the basics, however, as the Creepers add an interesting element to the game that isn’t present in other versions, but don’t get in the way of the fast-paced Fluxx gameplay.

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta

September 3, 2009

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Mothership Zeta is the fifth and final (supposedly – remember Broken Steel was originally planned to be the final DLC pack as well) expansion pack for Fallout 3. Like all of the preceding packs except for Broken Steel, Mothership Zeta whisks the player away to a new and interesting locale. The only difference this time is that that locale is not on Earth so much as it is above it. After downloading the DLC pack you will pick up an unintelligible signal. Upon following it you will be beamed up to the titular Mothership Zeta.

Once aboard you will meet Somah, and after doing so you won’t be alone for very long throughout the quest line. Your companion won’t always be Somah, but you will meet enough people from Earth’s past (none of them famous sadly – I really wanted to meet Abe Lincoln and give him back his repeater) to take her place. As compared to the other DLC packs Mothership Zeta is more like Operation: Anchorage than either The Pitt or Point Lookout. The quest line is linear, there is no moral choice to be made, and some of the collectibles are missable. Those collectibles are tied to an achievement (and presumably to a trophy when the content comes to PS3) so it stings a bit that the quest is unrepeatable on a single playthrough.

There are plenty of things to blow up and plenty of areas to wander around in. Along your travels you will see and blow up the abductee cells, hangar bay, cryogenics lab, robot production, and weapons lab. The final encounter is great and should not be missed. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you will get to take part in combat on a much larger scale than ever before. There are alien weapons to be found and aliens to kill, but both only come in three varieties. The alien rifle is useful as the damage output is good, ammunition is plentiful, clip size is large (100), and when you do need to reload the rifle is bugged so that the jam animation happens on reload making the reload extremely fast.

Unfortunately, not all of Mothership Zeta’s bugs are useful to the player. I, personally, experienced the following things: random Brotherhood of Steel members popping in to the ship, NPC foreheads disappearing making them look extremely creepy, NPCs becoming disarmed but accompanied by floating weapons, doors locking on their own, and the quest “Who Dares Wins” was started for me. Oh, and if you haven’t started it yet, you may very well end the quest You Gotta Shoot ‘Em In The Head.

Even though the glitches were numerous and the path was linear, I enjoyed my time aboard Mothership Zeta. It helps that I enjoy the 50s sci-fi aesthetic and will take any excuse I can get for more VATS combat. Aside from the linear quest line and lack of moral choice, I wish that I had found an Alien Blaster. It does take place on an alien ship, after all. For 800 MS points Mothership Zeta is an easy purchase for Fallout 3 fans eager for more DLC, but if you are patient waiting for the kinks to be worked out may be the way to go. And if you end up playing through all of the DLC for the first time as part of the GotY edition then I recommend the following order – Operation: Anchorage, Mothership Zeta, The Pitt, Point Lookout, Broken Steel.

Plays Like: Fallout 3

Pros: Fun 50s sci-fi setting, great final act

Cons: Numerous glitches, linear quest line, no moral choice

ESRB: M for Mature – this isn’t different from the base game

The Conduit

September 3, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The Conduit is hailed as “the best FPS for Wii.” That title would mean more if there were a glut of FPS available for the platform or if it were factual. Story-wise The Conduit is riddled with clichés, and the default controls are terrible. You play the part of Michael Ford, a secret service agent recruited into an organization called The Trust. You mission is to track down Prometheus, a former Trust agent who has stolen secret technology. Along the way you will encounter conspiracies, cover-ups, and an invading force of the aliens seen on the back of the game box.

There are a good number of weapons available to you, and they are divided up into three groups: Human, Trust, and Drudge (the aliens). Human weapons are pistols, rifles, and the like. Trust weapons are more interesting variants on the same, and Drudge weapons are far and away the most interesting since they are all completely alien. The All Seeing Eye is also available to the player, and it plays a key role in the game being used find hidden objects and markings, hack computers, open biological locks, and finding and destroying mines. The ASE is also used to find hidden areas containing extra ammunition, health, and weapons, but even when not in use the ASE will beep whenever you are near a place that it would be useful.

The Conduit’s narrative is mission-based, and all the objectives in these missions are simple “shoot anything that moves and the portals they’re coming out of” affairs. Enemies, expectedly, get tougher and tougher as the game progresses, but there does not seem to be enough ammo handed out to handily take care of the late stage Drudge enemies who seem to specialize in soaking up bullets instead of tactics. Weapons also take a long time to reload. Combine those two tidbits together and you’ll be seeing the mission failed screen more and more often as the game goes on.

Single player FPS don’t need grand stories and gripping narrative to draw a player in and keep them satisfied. What they do need, however, is great atmosphere and setpieces. Half-Life 2 did this wonderfully – the story was fairly standard (aliens have invaded, Gordon! Stop them!), but the atmosphere and pacing were wonderful. No gamer who played through HL2 will forget the first time they played with the gravity gun or the giant Strider battle on the rooftops in City 17. Unfortunately The Conduit’s levels are primarily barren corridors and rooms that all look the same. Occasionally you will get to go outside, but these areas are far, few, and in between.

Controls are another sore point. The Conduit has a very common problem among Wii games – there are more things that need doing than there are buttons or reasonable gestures to accommodate them so the awkwardly placed plus and minus buttons are used (minus is reload – how can something as important as reload be mapped to that tiny out of the way button?). Aiming works well as you really do just point and shoot, but turning is awkward and slow as you need to aim at the edge of the screen which makes it impossible to turn and shoot simultaneously. Chucking grenades to mapped to shaking the Wii remote which makes it sloppy as well.

The Conduit is far from the best shooter on Wii. To take that title it would need to be better than both Call of Duty 3 and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. With bland, boring levels and a lackluster plot, The Conduit should be avoided. The Conduit does support online multiplayer, but when I took my copy online I could not find any games to connect to so I can’t speak to how fun online multiplayer is. I can tell you, however, that it was frustrating to look for matches and find none. FPS games can be done and done well on the Wii, but The Conduit is not that game.

Plays Like: Call of Duty 2 but less fun

Pros: Using the Wii remote as a targeting reticule is fun

Cons: Slow and awkward turning, bland levels, bullet sponge enemies

ESRB: T for blood, mild language, and violence; this is standard FPS fare so if Halo is okay then The Conduit is, too

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