PC

Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3

January 10, 2010

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

Tales of Monkey Island is everything I loved about adventure games as a kid, but streamlined and available in bite-sized chunks once a month. This means that the puzzles are a little less obtuse since you can’t pick something up that you’ll need 12 hours later and the map is smaller so that if you do get stuck there are fewer things to try every item in your inventory on. Story-wise, when last we saw Guybrush he had just been eaten by a manatee, and that scenario is exactly how chapter 3 opens. That’s right, you start the game inside a giant manatee. Each new chapter of Tales of Monkey Island is a little bit stranger than the last, and I’ll take it because they’re all well-made and funny to boot.

Lair of the Leviathan looks and sounds like its two predecessors so if you’ve played them (and you should) you won’t be in for any graphical or aural surprises here. And that’s not a bad thing – the first two Tales chapters are beautiful and convey just enough of that classic “Monkey Island is a pirate cartoon that you control” feeling. Where Telltale’s chapters make an advancement though is the hint system. If you get stuck on a puzzle the game will slowly nudge you in the right direction getting more and more blatant as you spend more and more time on the puzzles. Be careful though, the hint system is usually talking about the closes puzzle to you geographically and not necessarily the most useful puzzle to you from a narrative perspective. 

In terms of difficulty, chapter 1 was middle of the road, chapter 2 was a bit on the easy side, and now chapter 3 has swung in the other direction. The aforementioned hint system is nice, but be warned – this is probably the most tricky of the three chapters released so far. As a bonus there are no map puzzles where you follow the appropriate sound from place to place. Each of the voice actors fall into their roles a little bit more with each new episode, and this time Guybrush’s actor stole the show. You can really tell that the actor is having a ball with the part (just like you could hear Mark Hamill having fun as Joker in Batman: Arkham Asylum).

My only complaint with the series is that I think I would enjoy it even more if I had the entire story and could play it over the course of a weekend. And I think that is more of a personality quirk for me than a slam against episodic gaming because if any developer out there has really embraced the concept it is Telltale and their quick release schedule for episodes. If only other developers who claim to be going episodic would follow their example (cough *Valve* cough). If you enjoyed adventure games as a kid, like pirates, or have any sense of humor at all then you are the target audience for the Tales of Monkey Island games.

Pros: Funny, good hint system, great voice acting

Cons: You have to wait a month to continue the story

Plays Like: Tales of Monkey Island Chapters 1 & 2

 

Madballs in…Babo: Invasion

November 4, 2009

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

Madballs in…Babo: Invasion has a weird title, so you’d think it’s one of those indie titles that tries to break the mold by doing something extremely weird and abstract.

It is not one of “those titles”, though. It may seem a curious comparision, but I’ll make it now—it’s a game that is not “retro” as it’s not patterned after games from the 80s and early 90s, but it does hearken to the days of the N64 and the PS1. The madballs are like the products of the 80s, large balls with a face on them.

In this title, the balls are characters that are part of two warring factions, and they shoot each other with lasers, machine guns, rockets, and your other standard projectile fare. For the single player fare, there are two campaigns that last a few hours. The sprites and backgrounds look really good for a budget game that take up only 400 MB. They are bright, colorful, varied, and original. The levels are linear in design but not in geometry, with a few sections requiring Sonic-style bursts of speed over twisting curves, others requiring jumps on to platforms, and yet others having mini-puzzles such as pressing buttons in the correct sequence.

The star of the campaigns, though, are the bosses. They have a lot of flair and character to them, and they have the enjoyable old-school flavors of shoot, dodge, shoot, dodge, and “figure out the weakness” to them. The challenge with these bosses (and the levels) is only moderate, with the focus appearing to be on high scores rather than on whether you can beat it. The ride is enjoyable, even though the levels are blazed through. Online co-op is not featured in enough games, either, and this game has it, thankfully.

Multiplayer has potential but ultimately falls flat. There are a handful of levels and modes, but it is poorly balanced, with some heroes and weapons generally being superior. Certain levels especially favor certain strategies, making the competition feel less about skill and strategy and more about uncontrolled chaos. Even worse, it requires plenty of play in single and/or multiplayer to unlock all the weapons and characters. Weapons and loadouts can be changed in between deaths, like in many FPS titles.

I played the demo on Xbox LIVE. The unfortunate thing is that the mouse provides much smoother control and precise aiming, but the console is where all the players are, whether it’s for co-op or versus modes. At either rate, Madballs price-tag is highly reasonable (ten dollars eitherway) and you get a very polished and original take on gun-based action, if not challenging or competitive.

ESRB: E10+ for balls shooting at each other in a cartoony context

Pros: Has co-op, original, lots of content for the money, well-polished

Cons: Community is lacking in Steam when mice are better, versus modes have balance issues, too many unlockables take too much time

 

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal

September 15, 2009

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

Telltale is something of an anomaly in the games industry. Why? They are making point and click adventure games. Bone episodes, Sam & Max seasons, Wallace & Gromit, and now Tales of Monkey Island. Telltale has found a winning formula with episodic adventure games. Not only does this model allow the player to check out the first entry cheaply, but it also stops the adventure games from becoming too cumbersome. There is no pie to pick up in the first 20 minutes of gameplay that won’t be used until eight hours later precisely because there is no eight hours later. The bite-sized nature of episodic gaming lends itself extremely well to the core concepts of Monkey Island.

Mechanically, Screaming Narwhal deviates from Telltale’s other games. No longer will you point and click to move. Click and hold anywhere on the screen and then move the mouse in the direction you would like to move. The system takes a little getting used to, but once you do it works really well and feels much more natural than clicking at random and watching the main character move around. It also easily facilitates quick movement by holding both mouse buttons instead of just the left to run. Picking up, combining, and using items are all straight-forward. Click on an item to pick it up, click on another item with that item to use it, or put two items in the combiner on the inventory screen to combine them.

Screaming Narwhal manages to keep my favorite part of the old Monkey Island games alive and well – their humor. There is no insult swordfighting, but you will take part in a bar brawl, help an action figure aficionado, and follow a couple truly bizarre maps. As the game opens, Guybrush is set to finish off LeChuck for good, rescue Elaine, and sail off into the sunset on a ship full of pirate booty. Bumbler that he is, Guybrush manages to foul things up and get himself stranded on Flotsam Island. The puzzles you will find on Flotsam are well thought out, and the map puzzles, in particular, are great.

It is difficult to talk about a story and puzzle-centric game without giving things away so I won’t. All I can really say is that both are worth experiencing, and if you are a fan of the genre then you won’t come away from Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 – Launch of the Screaming Narwhal disappointed.

Plays Like: Sam & Max seasons, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures

Pros: Clever puzzles, funny story

Cons: Low replayability (inherent in the genre)

ESRB: E10+ for alcohol reference, comic mischief, mild language, and mild suggestive themes – by the time you can solve the puzzles without opening up a browser and heading to GameFAQs the content is not inappropriate

Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures

September 10, 2009

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

Wallace and Gromit are by no stretch of the imagination new characters, and controlling them in Telltale’s four-part adventure series is just as nostalgic as it is entertaining. From claymation shorts to full-length movies to video games, Wallace and Gromit have been entertaining us for years. Telltale’s engine (which you should recognize from Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island) really lends itself well to the duo’s unique aesthetic and makes the game feel like a collection of shorts that you get to control rather than a video game based on those shorts.

Carrying a theme from the shorts through into the games Wallace & Gromit are more prone to solve problems through invention than by simply using one inventory on a piece of the scenery. This not only makes Grand Adventures feel true to the source material but also makes the solutions to puzzles (particularly those in later episodes) feel extremely satisfying. Controls are simple – arrow keys move Wallace, and the mouse pointer interacts with objects on screen which highlight when the mouse is over them. The scroll wheel cycles through inventory items, and that’s it.

So, what are these grand adventures? First there is Fright of the Bumblebees, which is about a get-rich-quick scheme that just plain doesn’t work. This first episode does a great job of introducing Wallace and Gromit to an audience who may be unfamiliar with them. There are outlandish inventions, Wallace wearing his green sweater, Wallace getting into trouble, and Gromit shirking his canine sensibilities to shoulder the load and help his human master out of a jam. Last Resort comes next, and it brings with it a quickened pace but lacks a unifying plot. Grand Adventures’ second episode feels like a collection of mini-episodes itself which keeps objectives short and simple while not sacrificing length. Episode 2 also features some classic “Whodunit?” elements which I enjoyed immensely. In the third episode, Muzzled, you will primarily control Gromit as you endeavor to stop the scheming machinations of Monty Muzzle. It is clear to Gromit that Monty has no intention of raising money for homeless dogs, and getting to know and eventually taking down such a well-written and well-acted villain makes Muzzled my favorite of the season. The finale, The Bogey Man, sees you finally leaving Wallace’s stomping grounds of Wallaby Lane. Muzzles may be my favorite of the series due to its narrative, but Bogey Man has the best puzzles of the four.

Telltale did a great job with Wallace and Gromit. The four episodes are obviously related but manage to stand well on their own. Inventory does not transfer from episode to episode so it is not necessary to play all four parts, but it is recommended just because they are all so fun. Grand Adventures’ only real flaw is that there is not a lot of replay value, but I am comfortable chalking that up to genre shortcoming more than anything else. If you’re a fan of adventure games or Wallace and Gromit then the entire season belongs in your collection.

Plays Like: Sam & Max seasons, Tales of Monkey Island
Pros: well-written, well-acted, feels like an interactive Wallace and Gromit short
Cons: no replay value
ESRB: E for everyone – seriously, everyone should love Wallace and Gromit

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

June 11, 2009

PC / Reviews / by Tony DuLac Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Like most good sequels, Sacred 2 pulls double-duty, revealing that it has incorporated positive aspects from past iterations while delivering entirely new gameplay ideas. Crafting the perfect follow-up title is definitely no easy task – after all, there’s always something that could be tweaked or improved from the original, but the key is in knowing where to stop fiddling and when to let the game become its own unique design. Ascaron Entertainment, Sacred 2’s UK-based development team has put together a remarkably enjoyable sequel that neatly captures that “one-more-level” mindset so crucial to action-based role-playing games. Let’s take a look at why each version is purchase-worthy and also where Ascaron may have dropped the ball a bit.

Any action/RPG hybrid, such as Diablo 1 & 2 (the true fathers of the genre) or more recently, the under-appreciated Titan Quest, need to score well in three key areas to really succeed in their genre: story/setting, interface (including camera & player character controls, and Inventory/Quest management), and combat. Too often these types of games focus on one element to the detriment of others. Thankfully, Sacred 2, on both platforms, successfully nails the run-up, routine, and the dismount with only a modicum of wobbling along the way.

Perhaps the most obvious observation for long-time Sacred fans is that this game is graphically leaps and bounds ahead of its older brother and any other action/RPG for that matter. The higher resolutions on the PC give it a slight edge over the 360 version but you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how attractive the game is on the Xbox even when viewed in Standard-definition. Chalk this up to extremely competent use of colored lighting, detailed outdoor scenery (including wildlife, swaying leaves and grass, footprints in the sand, etc…), and really cool architectural designs. Particularly cool are the weapon special status animations. For example, if a sword is imbued with flame damage it may sport a fiery corona blazing along the blade’s shaft. Also, anything worn immediately appears on your character for your viewing pleasure (or chagrin). The game’s equivalent of extra abilities or spells, known as “Combat Arts”, are wonderfully realized graphically; they’re both colorful and unique, offering distinctly different visual cues and animations for each of the game’s six character classes – Seraphim (angelic medium-ranged magic and melee specialists), High Elves (haughty wizards), Inquisitors (evil sorcerers), Dryads (tree-hugging ranged warriors), Shadow Warriors (undead close-range fighters), and Temple Guardians (long and short-range robot fighters).

While setting and story won’t drag a great game down as quickly as a bad interface, they’re still key elements that enhance and refine the overall role-playing experience (limited as it may be in an action-based environment). In this regard, Sacred 2 falls a wee bit flat – particularly for those seeking realistic or clever dialogue and scripting with their adventures. Voice-acting is spotty in some places but great in others while an unfortunate number of quests appear to have drawn their inspiration from the MMORPG template (fetch 10 rat hides, 20 bat wings, etc…). However, for every paint-by-numbers mission, there are an equal amount of creative and somewhat intriguing quests – especially note-worthy are the class-based quests which flesh out character development. The main storyline revolves around the use and abuse of T-Energy, the simplistically named energy that permeates much of Ancaria and while lively enough, didn’t feel as interesting as the character-specific quest storylines.

The third and possibly most important pillar of Action/RPG game design is the User Interface. Players spend copious amounts of game-time interacting with their inventories and the game’s inhabitants; in order to keep things copacetic, developers need to have a snappy, useful, and feature-filled interface. Sacred 2 offers precisely that, for the most part.

Camera control can be tethered to a player (occasionally causing some wonkiness during battles inside interior locations) or set to Free Mode, allowing you to adjust it on the fly (which helped avoid the aforementioned wonkiness). Inventory management on PC is enhanced by an auto-sort button (both horizontally and vertically) and, perhaps more intriguingly, both versions provide a cash-in now button that allows you to sell loot even when you’re nowhere near a Trade Merchant, albeit for a lesser price. This helps alleviate loot angst when your inventory is filling up but you can’t be bothered to interrupt your current questing just to make a run back to the nearest Merchant in town. It’s a thoughtful feature and one that more games should offer. The interface also allows you to swap between weapons, spell combos (called Combat Arts), Resistances (via RuneStones), Buffs, and Potions, granting more slots as you level-up on the PC version.

The 360 version suffers a bit in this respect as the developers were limited to the button sets rather than an entire keyboard/mouse combo but it still works pretty well. You’re can link actions to the X,Y,A, and B buttons, the Gamepad, or an Alternate set of X,Y,A, and B buttons via the shoulder triggers. It’s functional but less effective overall and more limited than the PC’s excellent interface, which clearly suits this game a bit more naturally. The 360’s inventory management screens are definitely clunky at worst and adequate at best.

One troublesome issue for 360 users is that on SDTV resolutions, the text can be rather difficult to discern, leading to no small amount of eye-strain. Of course, running on HDTV settings removes this issue entirely. One disappointment, endemic to both platforms, is the limited manual which isn’t quite as thorough as could be expected. It’s not a deal-breaker but you’ll occasionally wonder why or how something works (an item bonus, potion, or combat modifier, to name a few things) since the manual leaves you to your own devices at times. Most things are clearly explained in-game so it’s a fairly rare hassle but it bears mentioning.

Multiplayer is provided for both platforms with the trade-off between easy online functionality for 360 users via Xbox Live versus more options available for PC gamers. The 360 version offers co-op both online or in person on the same screen as well as PvP and normal multiplayer modes. The PC version doesn’t offer co-op on the same screen but it does offer basically everything else. I did run into some Firewall issues that prevented me from joining a friend on an Open Server (where your character is saved on your own PC) but we were able to hack-n-slash on the Closed Servers (where your character is saved on Ascaron’s servers for cheat-prevention purposes). PvP was more of a novelty experience than anything terribly life-changing, though it was nice to see it offered at least, for those who wanted it. For those tough-as-nails players, with a chip on their collective shoulders, there is a Hardcore mode where death is a one-time, permanent affair. Die in Hardcore mode and it’s time to roll-up a new character. Not everyone’s bag of tea, but again, nice to have the option at least. One other game-design oddity is that player characters, NPCs, and even tombstones, will occasionally break the fourth-wall and address the player him or herself. It’s totally tongue in cheek and in keeping with the game’s lively sense of humor (which also adds to Sacred 2’s fresh feel) but it’s a bit off-putting at first for those not expecting it. One final, impressive note, is that the game world is huge and the incredible variety and landscape sprawl really does lend something of an epic feel to your adventuring.

Strong sequels like Sacred 2 have that rare ability to remind us of fond gaming moments spent with their forefathers while pushing us forward into a fun new future. But what really makes Sacred 2 stand successfully as its own game, is how well each of the three key elements of good Action/RPG game design have been catered to and deftly layered into an enjoyably addictive, index finger-exhausting experience. It’s a game that already has me asking for a sequel, in fact.

Plays Like: Diablo or Titan Quest
ESRB: Mature – Violence, Blood & Gore
Pros: Pretty graphics, satisfying combat, cool loot, interesting and huge game-world.
Cons: Wimpy manual, can get repetitive in places, main story arc isn’t as awesome as it could have been, some tricky firewall & server issues with PC multi-player.

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