PC

Magicka

February 2, 2011

PC / Reviews / by Graham Russell Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Magicka is a ridiculous, broken game. It’s also a blast to play. 

In the game, you play as a wizard, combining elements and casting spells to get through levels of enemies. You can use the spells to make beams, heal yourself, build barriers and accidentally kill yourself and others. (That last one happens most often.) It’s a matter of trial and error for the most part beyond the basics the tutorial shows off, and that’s by design. “Hey, what does this do” is basically this game’s slogan. 

While playable with one player, Magicka is clearly designed for multiplayer, as up to four wizards can jump in, shooting spells, combining spells, killing their friends, stealing the cool objects they just picked up and shocking themselves to death trying to revive them again.

In addition to the random beam you come up with to shoot enemies with, there are spellbooks throughout the game that give you access to a special move, be it a powerful one-hit thunder bolt, a fiery wave or simply a strategic time-slowing spell. Watch out, though, because you can’t use lightning while you’re wet or it will hurt you and fizzle. To dry off, you have to use fire, which will hurt you. When you’re on fire, you’ll need to put it out with water, which will hurt you. Did we mention that the revive spell uses lightning? Yeah, you’ll accidentally kill yourself every so often when you don’t realize you were just rained on. 

The game is full of ridiculous geeky references, and it isn’t shy about them either. No, Magicka piles on references to Star Wars, Star Trek, 300, Lord of the Rings and even Rambo to the point where, when you meet a character named “Admiral Agnar,” you know what’s coming next.

Now for the bad part: Magicka launched as possibly the buggiest game in the history of the medium. The Arrowhead Studios team has been patching like mad, and it’s fairly stable at this point, but it’s still likely to crash at any moment, make characters float above buildings, get enemies stuck off-screen so you can’t continue and cut off online connections. So yeah, that’s a bit tough to deal with. In the week we’ve played it, though, it’s improved enough to be bearable, and the offline component has been in a playable state since day one. It might be something that will keep players away, though.

Do you like your games to be tightly-designed experiences with engrossing stories? Well… you may not like Magicka. If, on the other hand, you like games that just ooze fun while basically forgetting everything else, this one will make your day.

Poker Night at the Inventory

January 12, 2011

PC / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Poker Night at the Inventory is nothing other than what it pretends to be: Texas Hold ‘Em poker against four A.I. characters. If you’ve got a rudimentary understanding of poker you won’t find the game too challenging, even on hard mode. However, if you don’t understand some theories or basic principles, you may feel the A.I. cheats.

While I was playing my opponents got some hands that felt unfair, but in the long run I got just as many hands that felt likewise, such as when I won an all-in hand from a three-of-a-kind that beat a two pair formed with the river’s highest cards.

On the subject of poker there isn’t anything else to say, as it is a simple card game with no multiplayer options. But that of course isn’t the reason you’d buy Poker Night at the Inventory. You’d buy it for the content: watching the Heavy from Team Fortress 2, Max from the Sam and Max series, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner and Tycho from Penny Arcade trade barbs and banter with you and with each other.

On the plus side, your opponents are well-presented. Every sight and sound make for accurate and faithful representations and not once did I ever think the characters weren’t true to form. But they still generally aren’t that funny, and you will get your first repeated comment within your first hour. At that point, it becomes a grind to hear everything that gets said. By two hours you’ve heard plenty of repetition. Many of the jokes get ruined by incomplementary delivery or the flat way they end. 

It isn’t entirely without worth. Particularly funny are when Tycho asks Max whether he hooked up with a special someone, or when Strong Bad asks the Heavy if he knows of any hot spies. Strong Bad’s one-liner insults are often dead-on in delivery (“Those are your cards? I feel bad for your mother”), and the Heavy is sincere as always. Tycho is simply creepy, crude, condescending, and nerdy, and even fans of Penny Arcade might find him a bore (I am a fan, and I did). Max is his usual self but doesn’t mix well, mostly talking to himself. I personally find his world and his partner Sam a better companion for him.  

It’s five bucks when it’s not on sale and it’ll easily pass a few hours, but it’s the kind of game you’d play when you don’t want to try hard in order to see content or get to the next thing. Personally, I play games to either further a plot or to beat a challenge, and if that’s why you play this game might not be it for you. As for the content, it’s simply a slideshow of clips, not that it pretended to be otherwise. The humor is a bit juvenile and crude, and if you are into insults and trash-talking you might give this one a whirl. 

Pros: faithful adaptation of characters, good mix of personalities, well-presented scenery

Cons: Juvenile humor and some flat deliveries and punchlines, repetition starts early

 

Back to the Future: The Game (Episode 1)

January 5, 2011

PC / Reviews / by Graham Russell Make a comment! / Tweet it!

A blast from the past in more ways than one, Telltale’s new Back to the Future episodic adventure may be the most high-profile series the company has had. After all, as big as Monkey Island and Sam and Max are in the gaming community, there aren’t many out there that don’t know of Doc Brown and Marty McFly. The resulting game, though, is pure Telltale, for good and bad.

The first episode (considering all the promotion, aptly-titled “It’s About Time”) starts out in 1986, with a missing Doc and Marty setting out to find him. We won’t spoil any more than we have to, but most of the action takes place in a Prohibition-era Hill Valley, a place dominated by mob boss Kid Tannen. Just like the movie sequels, this time has its own timid McFly, its own goons following around the Tannen of the time and its own subtle-yet-familiar changes to the signature town square. Telltale did a lot to appeal to fans, including running gags from the films (“Think, McFly, think,” a manure truck, etc.) and spot-on voice acting from Christopher Lloyd and A.J. LoCascio. Lloyd does his Doc as well as he did 25 years ago, and while LoCascio tries a little too hard to emulate Michael J. Fox’s Marty voice, he’s virtually indistinguishable in moments of panic or excitement.

The game plays like any other Telltale game, really. You walk around limited spaces, clicking on things to use inventory items and selecting dialogue options with NPCs. The characters feel a little off from their  cinematic counterparts, as they all would do just fine dropped into the world of Sam and Max. If just a bit more were done to make the presentation seem more epic and the wisecracks were kept to a minimum, it’d be for the better. 

There’s a little bit of rewriting history to make the game how they wanted: the Mr. Fusion-powered DeLorean is back, presumably because Telltale just couldn’t make the story work with the Time Train and Doc’s wife and kids. (We hope this will be addressed later in the season.) The seemingly-mellowed 1985 Biff is a little more mischievous than you’d expect, and there are other minor changes made to keep the story simple. 

If you like Telltale games and you like Back to the Future, you’ll be very happy. If you like just one, it’s probably still worth checking out. This isn’t an engrossing world to lose yourself in, so don’t expect that, but it’s a fun little popcorn experience.

Super Meat Boy

December 12, 2010

PC / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

I get really excited about a game maybe once every year. Maybe only twice every three years. So when I say you must buy Super Meat Boy, I’m not saying it’s the best game I’ve played in a few months, or the first game to scratch an itch that’s needed scratching for a while. I’m saying this is one of the best games to be released for any platform in a long, long time.

If you don’t know, Super Meat Boy is a platformer. Originally released on XBLA, the PC version has more content, and developers promise more updates for this version. 

You play as Meat Boy, a red square, and you must save your girlfriend, Bandage Girl, a pink square, from Dr. Fetus, a mean fetus that operates a suit. The game has over 100 levels, and each is frenetic and challenging. Think N+ with higher speed and less-floaty jumps. There are falls, wall jumps, speed runs, well-timed obstacles that are hard to dodge, missiles, flying jaws that explode into other jaws and moving buzzsaws.

I probably missed something.

There are an additional 120 (or whatever) levels that are the “dark world”. These levels are similar but much harder than their original counterparts. There are also warp zones to be discovered and pockets of three levels for which only three lives are given for each level (the regular game has no “lives”, you just try over and over again). There are over 10 other characters to be discovered with different specialties to use, too. Having the options make the game much more fun. So does having a replay at the end of every level with an option to save that shows all your failed attempts and one successful attempt at the same time. Twenty-five headcrabs flying across the room is a sight to behold. 

The graphics are simple, but the animation is highly crisp, which makes the game feel new and classic at the same time. The music is mainly metal in order to match the pace of the game.  

I thought it was impossible for developers to make games that make challenges rewarding for their own sake. Not for the sake of content, completionism, achievements, or competition (though SMB has all those elements) but just its own sake. I took the trip and somehow, I feel like a satisfied person for it. Almost like I did something meaningful. Better than a Mega Man ever made me feel. What games do that anymore?

Note: The game warns you to use a controller. This is advice you ignore at your peril. This game will ruin your hands if you let it, even with a controller. You won’t get very far using the keyboard.

Pros: Funny, well-executed, engrossing, highly challenging while feeling fair, well-presented

Cons: somewhat buggy, practically demands a controller

 

World Supremacy

December 6, 2010

PC / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

I’m not really sure who World Supremacy is supposed to wow over. Low-budget turn-based strategy titles need two things to be worth the time: they need to be well-designed and they need just one other rewarding variable, some sort of gravy to go with the meat. That gravy could be effective multiplayer options, a challenging computer opponent, a single-player campaign with a rewarding storyline, or involving graphics and sound. Something, anything. While World Supremacy as a game is well-designed (it borrows heavily from the always-enjoyable Axis and Allies), it doesn’t have any other necessary rewards to make it worth picking up, though not for lack of trying.

The biggest difference between World Supremacy and Axis and Allies is that World Supremacy has simplified Advance Wars-style combat for every time there is a battle. Units come on screen in the order of their having arrived at the space. The attacker moves and attacks with all his units first. Units are on a grid and have varying attack ranges. Units die in entire pieces. If you have 3 tanks and your 6 infantry units don’t quite kill a single tank, there is no damage or life that carries over to the next battle. Against the computer, you simply get to the middle first, wait for them for a turn or two so you get the first hit, and you always have the advantage. Why not just roll the dice and let the stats grind it out? The combat is not very satisfying either, as Advance Wars and its imitators have fog of war, special abilities, and the map is the combat. Here, the map is the map, and combat only happens when one space moves to another. It’s an ambitious change, but does not mix well with the rest of the game.

There are optional neutral countries to liven the game up, as well as a random map generator, which is always a plus. Choose as many players and as large of a map as you want–with saved games, you can make an extremely large or small game. While these are better features than the managed combats, these elements also don’t mesh well, since the only multiplayer options are hotseat (which doesn’t mix well with either the optional fog of war and the non-optional manually fought battles) and TCP/IP. That’s right, TCP/IP. Is this a game for only one opponent?   

World Supremacy also has more units than Axis & Allies, which are upgradable. You can also build cities, which up your money count without you having to grab new territories. There are also nukes, which is a different and admirably bold idea.

Ultimately, most of these features don’t matter, even though some are well-implemented. The computer is predictable, boring, and easy to stomp, there are no advanced graphics, sounds, or storylines, and the multiplayer options are not friendly. The elements of design as a board and strategy game are done well in World Supremacy, but all the mixed signals and flaws of all the bonus features make for a boring and uninteresting experience. No gravy here.

Pros: customizability, simplicity, randomly generated maps, unit depth and options

Cons: No multiplayer community features, poor UI, overpriced ($30), absolute lack of graphics and sound make it feel like a mod / free-to-play game, the combat sequences

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