Andrew Passafiume

Thor: God of Thunder: Not Asgard’s finest

May 26, 2011

When it comes to video games based on superheroes and superhero movies, Sega has published some of the worst. The two Iron Man games immediately come to mind, but you can now add Thor: God of Thunder to that list. While it certainly improves upon the standard set by Sega’s previous efforts, it still fails to deliver an experience that most people would consider fun.

As the title may suggest, you play as Thor, the all-powerful God of Thunder. The story borrows elements from the movie but doesn’t entirely follow the plot of the film, allowing it to stand on its own. You follow Thor as he attempts to stop the enemy of Asgard, the Frost Giants, from destroying his home world. There really isn’t much more to this story than that.

The combat is functional; you can pull off some cool-looking moves and special attacks, but these attacks are rather worthless as you find your basic attack is all you need to defeat most enemies. There are certain stronger enemy types and bosses you will encounter that will require you to perform certain special attacks, but outside of those rare moments, you will never feel the need to use them.

Here’s where I would make a comment about the enemy variety, but there really isn’t any. You will find yourself fighting the same three or four enemy types, with the exception of an occasional boss fight, throughout the game. The enemies are all really easy to defeat, as the same basic strategy applies to most of them: hit the attack button, occasionally block, and there you go. You can also upgrade Thor with new moves and special abilities, but you will never find a need for them.

The problem with creating a superhero video game stems from not being able to truly use Thor’s abilities as demonstrated in the comics or in the film. He is a god after all, yet he feels like just an ordinary man with a big hammer and some special moves. You never feel you are all-powerful at any point in the game. Sure, the enemies are easy enough to dispose of, but the few moments of actual challenge the game presents make Thor feel puny and insignificant.

Despite all of the flaws, the game does look decent and offers more variety in the visual and level design than I expected. The voice acting, featuring both Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki, is forgettable but certainly not terrible. If there is anything this game did surprisingly okay, it’s the presentation.

Thor definitely improves upon Sega’s previous efforts. The game is actually a reasonable length for a full-priced video game, and it offers something that could pass as a somewhat enjoyable rental if you’re a huge fan of Thor (although even that is debatable). You’re better off just seeing the movie again than playing this uninspired God of War clone.

Pros: Decent presentation

Cons: Stiff and shallow combat; lack of enemy variety; extra powers and abilities are pointless

New Game+: No more secrets

May 11, 2011

Features / New Game+ / by Andrew Passafiume /

Remember the days when secrets in video games used to be rare to come across and sometimes only discussed among a group of friends?

The original Mortal Kombat, when released in arcades, was full of hidden Easter eggs and secrets. And when Mortal Kombat II was out, it was a hot topic of discussion among my friends. Rumors would start about secret fatalities and characters that weren’t actually in the game. The new Mortal Kombat is now out and people have dissected it thoroughly, making lists and compiling every last secret and unlockable that game has to offer.

With the popularity of the Internet and the creation of many different gaming communities, it’s not hard to find yourself stumbling across people discussing these secrets just as you might have done with your friends back in the day. Back then it was about discovering them for yourself and trying to find something new to talk; it was more involved and allowed for more playtime of certain games.

These days you can find everything a game has to offer in a day thanks to these gaming communities. Everything that you need to know about the new Mortal Kombat is just one Google search away, including the unlockables, secrets, and easter eggs. You can certainly avoid these things, but if you keep in contact with any gamers online, chances are you might find out more about a game than you might want to.

Were the days before the Internet better because it gave you a chance to discover these things on your own, or is it more enjoyable to find out things right away instead of discovering them yourselves? Is a game ruined for you if you find out about all of the unlockables and extras that the game has to offer before you can even play it? And I’m not talking about story spoilers either.

The answer to these questions will vary depending on who you talk to, but it’s hard to deny that, no matter how hard you try, it might be pretty tough to avoid finding out about these things before you even discover them yourself. Perhaps knowing about a funny line in Portal 2 ruined that great moment for you, or maybe it gave you an idea of what to expect, allowing you to be more excited for it and potentially enjoy it more as a result.

Gaming secrets are rarely even kept secret anymore. Achievements and trophy lists come out way before games do, allowing players to get a brief glimpse at everything they will come to expect from the game (with the exception being specific events in the story). I used to be obsessed with looking at achievements ahead of time to find out what lies ahead in a game I’m playing. These days I rarely glance at them, allowing myself to be surprised by these moments once again, at least the best I can.

Video games are still full of surprises, but those surprises may become fewer and fewer as time goes on. Is knowing everything about a game ahead of time a good thing, or does it prohibit that sense of discovery? It might depend on the game, the situation, or the people you interact with both online and off. However you look at it, there’s no denying that how we obtain information about games has become easier, for better or worse.

Portal 2

April 25, 2011

PS3 / Reviews / by Andrew Passafiume /

Very few games have been as beloved by gamers everywhere as the original Portal; it was only a matter of time before a full-fledged sequel was released. Many people were afraid it might stretch the experience too thin, or that it might even ruin what made the original so great in the first place. The actual result is a clever game that is leagues above the original, and could be an early contender for Game of the Year.

Portal 2 picks up shortly after the events of the first game. You find yourself back in the Aperture Science labs, rescued by a small robot named Wheatley who is attempting to get both of you out of there. It isn’t long before you find yourself performing another series of portal-based tests. Despite the simplicity of the first game’s plot, the sequel expands upon the story in great detail. To talk about it anymore would be ruining it for everyone else, but the combination of amazing (and hilarious) writing with clever storytelling twists make this a story you’ll be sad to see end.

Ellen McLain returns as the voice of A.I. nemesis GLaDOS, who is as snarky and sarcastic as ever. New to the cast are Stephen Merchant, who plays the quick-witted but often misguided Wheatley, and J.K. Simmons, as Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson. All of the performances are outstanding and really allow the writing to shine; there is never a dull moment to be had.

As you may have expected, Portal 2 is all about the puzzles, and it delivers on all fronts. Just like the first game, you are slowly reintroduced to the portal gun through tests that start out simple but get more difficult as you progress. And just when you’ve mastered one type of puzzle, a new element is slowly introduced to make things even more challenging. The puzzles are excellently-designed, as are the many levels you traverse, and the difficulty is balanced perfectly. You are never once lost or confused, and the game eases you into each new scenario rather well.

The new elements that are thrown into the mix include aerial faith plates that bounce you from one point to another and gels that will, for example, make you jump higher or run faster. The addition of co-op adds a lot to the experience. It’s an entirely different story with some unique twists that connect it well to the single player content. You can play it both online and locally, but don’t expect to get very far without some kind of way to communicate with your friend.

To talk about the game anymore would simply ruin the experience for those who haven’t played yet, but I think you get the idea. Despite the lack of challenges that were so prominent in the first game, Portal 2 packs a lot of content for the price. It’s everything the first game was and more, with very inspired level design, some ingenious puzzles, and some of the best writing you’ll ever see in a video game. It might just be Valve’s best game yet.

Pros: Brilliant level design, pacing and writing; co-op adds a lot to the experience

Cons: Lack of challenges might disappoint some

New Game+: A sense of community

April 15, 2011

Features / New Game+ / by Andrew Passafiume /

The term “sense of community” is one commonly used by sociologists to focus on the experience of a community. And how does this relate to video games? Every time you play a game online, you are interacting with a community of some sort; the experience may be positive or negative, depending on both the game and the platform.

Depending on the game, the community involved could either be seen as a positive or negative thing. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops are known for their great online, but not their great online community. “Why does this matter?,” you may be asking. People still play Black Ops consistently, regardless of other idiots they may be playing with. But what makes people stick around? Clans. If they never found a group of people similar to them, chances are a lot of people would not be playing the game as much as they are, thus reinvigorating the sense of community involved.

LittleBigPlanet 2 is an example of a game that has an amazing community. The original game stuck around as long as it did because of the creativity of both the developers and the everyday gamers involved. It created a strong sense that people are truly passionate about the game and the creativity it allows them to express. LittleBigPlanet 2 expanded upon it in the best ways possible, adding even more possibilities and creating an even larger community to continue to explore the potential the series has to offer.

LittleBigPlanet 2 isn’t known solely for having great multiplayer, but instead for having a great community of gamers who love to create and share their ideas as well as experience the ideas of others. With any community, you will get a few bad eggs, but they fail to ruin the experience of playing this game with a group of friends or even with random strangers. Exploring the levels, seeing the creativity at work, it’s an experience like no other.

The community involved in that game is what strings it all together. Like your clan in Black Ops, the LBP community as a whole is like one giant gaming family. There are people who help each other create objects and levels as they continue to improve upon their last work. If a level needs improvements or features some major flaws? The creator isn’t flamed, but criticized constructively by their peers.

Comparing Call of Duty: Black Ops and LittleBigPlanet 2 may seem silly, but it goes to show there are two different worlds of gamers out there. And it has nothing to do with the genre, as I’ve seen many shooters that offer the same great community as a game like LBP2; Tribes 2 comes to mind immediately, as does a game like Team Fortress 2. You can find it in a lot of games, but it seems to be less common than it used to be.

Why do people keep coming back to MMOs? Why is the original Everquest still being played despite the fact that there are many other more polished and less-dated MMOs on the market? I think you know where I’m going with this. Black Ops may win in popularity, but people won’t be talking about it for nearly as long as they will about LittleBigPlanet 2.

inFamous 2, a game that we never thought would have any kind of potential for community building, offers players the ability to create their own missions and share them online. If you play the game while connected to PSN, you’ll be able to see missions created by other people all over the city. It’s hard to say how well it will work, but you can see just how developer Sucker Punch is taking the brilliant idea established by Media Molecule and expanding upon it to work with their game. It’s something that can carry it a long way.

It’s not about the multiplayer, and it’s not about the amount of modes and levels you have available. It’s about creating a game that allows players to attach to it in some way or another. It’s about filtering out the idiots who go out of their way to annoy and flame from the people who just want to have fun. LittleBigPlanet shows us this, and it allows us to go back to why we play games online in the first place: a proper sense of community.

Swarm

April 12, 2011

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Andrew Passafiume /

Hothead Games has become one of the few go-to developers for projects that seem similar to something you’ve played before, but offer distinctive takes on that familiarity. Swarm is another example of that, offering gameplay that seems like it might be similar to Lemmings, but with enough variety and (uneven) difficulty to mix things up.

You control a group of 50 creatures known as swarmites: small blue aliens that are very adorable, but not so adorable that you don’t mind watching them die in horrible ways. They are fairly dumb, so it’s your job to control them as a unit and to get them from one end of the level to the other. The other main goal is to reach a certain score by the end of the level in order to unlock the next one. Seems simple enough, right?

You have two main ways of earning points: killing your swarmites and collecting glowing swarmite food that you’ll find inside of boxes and other destructible objects scattered throughout each level. You also have a multiplier, which will continue to increase the more you pick up food and kill swarmites. You have to do whatever is necessary to get to the end of the level with at least one swarmite in tact while also maintaining your combo to achieve the highest score possible. It can be a bit hectic, to say the least.

The main problem is the difficulty, which reaches such a steep curve by the halfway point that most gamers might want to throw their controllers against the wall in frustration. The gameplay is oddly addictive. This is despite the sadistic nature of the level design and the manner in which you are meant to collect swarmite food while keeping some of your little blue friends alive. The game fails to reach a nice balance between the two, and you’ll find yourself often just achieving one or the other, not both.

It’s tough. And not in the way that makes you want to keep trying to improve your scores or get better at each level. You’ll reach a point where you’ll probably just stop caring. Each subsequent level requires you to move faster, doing whatever it takes to keep your combo going while the designers throw everything at you to make sure you lose. One of those things is a buggy camera, which will sometimes not follow your swarmites or only follow one or two of them instead of your entire group. This can lead to you running into deathtraps or off the edge of the level without realizing it until it’s too late.

The checkpoint system goes easy on you, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t finish the level with the necessary score. It works in some of the earlier levels, but others it just becomes tedious. Combine that with the game’s tendency to freeze often, and you have one interesting game in a technically-hampered package.

It’s hard to recommend Swarm. It is a very fun game that is brought down by some poor design choices and uneven difficulty. The core gameplay is functional and it does supply some very addictive gameplay, but it could have been so much better.

Pros: Solid controls; basic gameplay is functional and, at times, addictive

Cons: The difficulty curve is uneven; camera is unreliable; game locks up regularly

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