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Sunday

Battlefield: Hardline Review


The felons and thieves of Battlefield: Hardline are like weak-willed vampires. A quick reveal of a police badge and a yell of "Freeze!" is akin to holding up a holy cross in their faces. They surrender despite being armed with semi-automatic rifles, and protected by bulletproof vests. They surrender despite outnumbering you three to one. On the other hand, if you're slow on the draw with your badge, these offenders become as lethal as any Battlefield opponent you've previously faced. There's no middle ground between their willingness to capitulate and their cold-blooded ruthlessness--and it's hilarious. Looking for more consistently challenging opponents? That's what Hardline's multiplayer is for, with maps and modes that capture Battlefield's distinct combined-arms warfare, despite the shift away from traditional combat-ready zones toward civilian locales.
The episodic structure of Hardline's campaign is hardly unusual. Chapters are framed with recaps and coming-soon montages, reminiscent of games like Alan Wake and Split/Second, which, incidentally, were released the same day in 2010. To appreciate Hardline's contemporary style, you simply reach the end of any episode, where you're greeted by an image that is apparently inspired by Netflix's streaming service: the next-episode countdown timer. The only feature that's lacking is a 13-episode season; this campaign only has 10, plus a prologue.
A proper criminal takes what isn't his.
Hardline's story is intended to be appreciated as a TV action drama, though its safe, middle-of-the-road appeal makes it more suited for the USA Network than for Netflix Original Programming. This risk-averse narrative is underscored by its protagonist, Nick Mendoza, your standard issue, incorruptible, straight-and-narrow cop. Just because this medium runs the risk of anti-hero burnout doesn't excuse Nick from being "the boring one" in an ensemble cast with more interesting characters. In defense of Hardline's writers, at least Nick's story isn't the generic drug supply chain investigation that the initial chapters lead you to believe.
It would be a mistake to approach Hardline's campaign in the same way as the straightforward single-player modes of Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. Hardline's world is a complicated one, where its dangers and hostility encourage tactful stealth while your all-powerful badge presents tempting opportunities to be more out in the open. Staying hidden means you get to work against some of the most oblivious criminals you'll face in a first-person shooter. For every guard who moves back and forth in a patrol path, you have one who stands in one spot forever, making the latter a laughably easy target. All that you need to survive is a basic level of competence in studying their field-of-vision cones on the minimap.
Excuse me, officer, but could you please watch where your hand roams?
Unless you are a Solid Snake savant, you will be spotted from time to time, and the ensuing shootouts are typical of Battlefield campaigns. Enemies move with enough unpredictability to keep you on your toes, but not so erratically as to frustrate you. More importantly, the levels are wide enough that you're subconsciously encouraged to try different routes should you keep dying in any given section. Enemies react to your last known position, so flanking opportunities abound and the results can be thrilling if you manage to outsmart the AI.
Half of the outposts you infiltrate are wired with alarm systems, the kind that call forth reinforcements if you manage to get spotted. If you're not into prolonged shootouts, it's in your best interest to disable these alarms, so not only does Hardline present a dumbed-down version of Metal Gear Solid's radar-based stealth, but it can also be appropriately described as Far Cry 4 with training wheels. It teaches the basics of surveying an area, marking alarm components, and spotting patrolling enemies. Despite the ease, there's an inherent pleasure in clearing an area undetected, just as getting spotted may cause you to kick yourself out of self-imposed frustration.

Who needs sneaking when you can sprint toward enemies in broad daylight and yell "Freeze!" well before they notice you?
Along with the vision cone, a Splinter Cell-inspired detection ring thickens when you remain in a felon's field of vision, with the potential of going full alert. This would add palpable tension if not for the fact that these enemies suffer from a combination of poor eyesight and abysmal reactive abilities. Who needs sneaking when you can sprint toward enemies in broad daylight and yell "Freeze!" well before they notice you? While it's laughably unrealistic, the negative impact isn't too distracting, at least not during the initial playthrough. That's partly because arrests yield the most points toward the campaign's character progression system. Perhaps this reward is a statement by developer Visceral Games that it's more worthwhile to arrest someone than it is to kill him, but even so, the steps it takes to cuff someone without being detected aren't significantly more challenging than surviving a shootout. The only issue with this points system is that it diminishes the value of replaying the campaign. By arresting roughly two out of every three perps, you can easily reach the level cap of 15 long before the final chapter, thereby removing that particular incentive to play through the story again. Retrieving evidence, on the other hand, has multiplayer repercussions, so you may still wish to make a return trip.
For as much as Electronic Arts has flaunted Hardline as "The Fastest Battlefield Ever," the need for speed is not satisfied during the campaign's driving sequences. Whether it's a daring escape or an equally heated pursuit, these chases are largely forgettable despite the spectacle of ramp jumps and dodging rockets fired from vans. The helicopter takedown during the first driving sequence of Battlefield 4 was more stimulating. Ironically, the only pleasing moments behind the wheel are the few periods when you don't have to make a getaway, when the characters in the car are naturally making small talk--trivial but nonetheless engaging chit-chat that you wouldn't hear in the dramatic war scenarios of Battlefield 3 or 4.
By arresting roughly two out of every three perps, you can easily reach the level cap of 15 long before the final chapter.
Speed is instead found in two of Hardline's multiplayer modes, Hotwire and Blood Money. Battlefield vehicles finally get to be more than just death dealers and efficient transports, though Hardline doesn't fully break free from the chains of tradition, including both Conquest and Team Deathmatch in its rotation of modes.
In Hotwire, vehicles function as mobile capture points to the players who manage to get behind the wheel. You can't exploit the system by hiding your stolen car in a garage; points are only awarded when you're traveling at speed. This kind of vehicular keep-away is reminiscent of the standout multiplayer events of Driver: San Francisco and Watch Dogs. When you're flooring it, these maps can feel small. Unless you're adept at keeping one eye on the road and another on the minimap, you will inevitably break past the maps' boundaries in the first few rounds, often dying before you have the chance to correct your mistake. Once you're used to a given map's general layout, the conservative approach is to drive laps around the map's outer lanes. While this might keep your top speed high, it can make you a predictable target, especially against a rocket-propelled grenade.

Blood Money effectively captures the time urgency depicted in countless robbery films.
Vehicles have been synonymous with Battlefield since its inception, so placing the series in the context of the modern-day heist makes a lot of sense, especially given the ubiquity of getaway vans. An escape vehicle is essential in Blood Money, a mode in which both the cops and robbers are looting an evidence vault of cash at the center of the map. The importance of a getaway vehicle near the vault can't be understated, since a packed van of proper villains with bags of loot can turn the tide in the brief time span of a single cash delivery. It effectively captures the time urgency depicted in countless robbery films. Team members can be meaningful contributors by ignoring the cash and instead focusing on being efficient wheelmen (though anyone with money can also drive the van). If you find yourself yelling, "Get in the van! We gotta go!", simply embrace the fact that you've become a crime movie cliche. Stakes are higher particularly in maps with helicopters, where deliveries are even quicker provided the competition doesn't have a rocket with your name on it.
This emphasis on teamwork highlights one of the core values of Battlefield, a series that popularized rewarding players for contributions beyond mere kill counts and other individual achievements. Wheelmen who stay close to players making cash deposits are awarded proximity bonuses. It's rare to get this much gratification from being a mere shuttle driver going back and forth between two points. In Hotwire, a packed van can last a long time if you have enough teammates firing back at pursuers and at least one buddy constantly repairing the van while inside of it.
The tension mounts.
What makes Blood Money more than just a race to collect the most money from a neutral vault is the option to raid the opposition's vault as well. This can be a headache for teams that don't know how to multitask and divvy up responsibilities. Imagine hauling a big score to your home base only find yourself at the receiving end of a shotgun blast. As your new sworn enemy collects the cash from your vault (and your corpse) and heads for the getaway van, you're anxiously counting the seconds before respawning. Any reasonable thief wouldn't blame you for taking this personally. A thirst for vengeance plus a set of wheels equals a beeline to the opponent's base for the opportunity of justified retribution.
The influence of e-sports is felt in Hardline's two five-versus-five modes, Crosshair and Rescue. Both offer multiple conditions for victory, which leads to multiple team-driven strategies. You cannot respawn in these two modes, so eliminating the entire team in order to win is certainly an option. Rescue is a well-designed retrieval mode in which the law enforcement side has to save one hostage at the other end of the map. Visceral Games wisely provided two hostages to choose from per round, a design choice that helps spread out the hostage takers, thereby balancing sides in an otherwise lopsided mode. Equally unpredictable is Crosshair, in which the police are tasked with escorting an informant to a rendezvous point. Given that the cops do not have to stick together and the VIP is well armed (with a potent golden gun, no less), Crosshair often turns into an engaging guessing game for those hunting the snitch.

For every guard who moves back and forth in a patrol path, you have one who stands in one spot forever.
These opportunities to outthink enemies strike at the core of these Battlefield modes unique to Hardline and go hand-in-hand with countless opportunities for risk assessment. Camping at the VIP's escape point might be a sneaky tactic in Crosshair, but how does that help when your team in the field is now one man short and respawns aren't allowed? One of the smartest things you can do in Blood Money is driving a mobile spawn point to an inconspicuous spot close to the vault. Novice teams will wonder why your side manages to dominate the match despite the kills piling up equally on both sides. Furthermore, the more teammates you have collecting cash evidence, the faster you're able to amass Benjamins individually. Greed sets in, and you wonder if you can stick around and grab one more handful before stiff opposition arrives to kill you all. Do you have a personal cut-off of five handfuls, or do you max out at ten? Temptation weighs heavily on you in Blood Money.
The simplicity of the campaign's stealth gameplay and the enemies' readiness to submit at the sound of "Freeze!" is comical, though the silliness was not likely Visceral's intention. Even in Battlefield: Hardline, multiplayer competition remains the series' heart and soul. It wasn't that long ago that the ability to eject from a fighter plane and seamlessly continue the battle on foot was one of the most awe-inspiring things you can do in an online shooter. That's why many gravitated to the Battlefield series in the first place, and Hardline isn't short of similar transitional vehicular moments. You can spawn in a chopper, do your part as a gunner to take out valued targets on that ground, and then jump out with a parachute so you can capture a marked car. This isn't Iwo Jima or an Arabian oil field--but it's still pure Battlefield.

Friday

Shelter 2 Review


Nothing is ever so frustrating as watching a good idea go to waste. Well, the original Shelter wasn't necessarily a waste so much as a wonderful idea that felt hamstrung by playing it safe. You played as a mother badger just trying to feed her kids and keep them alive through a host of natural dangers. The game's problems were its linearity and short length. There was no room for improvisation or exploration in Shelter. It was the Disney World on-rails version of what it was like to be prey in a world full of predators. And yet, it's an idea we don't see enough of, especially in the wake of something like Goat Simulator, which aims for humor rather than the simple, silent drama that is nature doing its thing. In addition, Shelter had a unique art style, that looked like the whole thing took place on a quilt that someone built a papercraft forest on, while gentle string instruments provided the score. It had a National Geographic Presents: Tearaway vibe that caught the eyes and ears. It was an idea that had room to grow.
Shelter 2 would seem to have everything that the first game needed to be something special. The art design and musical motifs set by the first game remain the same. However, Shelter 2 has you playing as a lynx, which places you smack dab in the middle of the food chain, meaning you can be both predator or prey at any given moment. After the game's intro, where a mother lynx gives birth to four adorable cubs, instead of being blatantly urged on down a grassy corridor, you're set loose on a huge, forested open world to hunt for food to bring back to your mewling brood until they're grown enough to follow you out.
Soft kitty, warm kitty....
It's still a simple, functional set of mechanics powering the game. One button runs, as long as you have the stamina to do so; one button bites and roars to call your brood to you; and one button allows you to sniff the air and see prey highlighted in red in front of you if you hold it, and allows you to eat and drink if you just tap it. If you do break into a sprint, there's a button that allows you to leap. There's a map that works in an abstract sense, where blank space fills out with a sort of aboriginal representation of the terrain as you travel.
Life as a lynx primarily involves stalking prey and making sure all your cubs stay fed, Periodic title cards, representing this game's stages, come up over time explaining the lifecycle of your brood from clumsy cubs to lithe, confident teenagers who chase down prey on their own during your journey. Finally, your fully grown progeny splits entirely from you, their mother, leaving you to return to the original den on your own. Despite the open world, there's really only one other thing to do besides eat in this game, and that's follow the marks in your sniffing mode, telling you where the next area is, meaning once again, Shelter is a walking and eating simulator, with very little to break the cycle. You can pick which direction you can start out in, but all it does is bring you through the same areas in a different direction.
….little ball of fur....….happy kitty, sleepy kitty....
The new challenges come mostly from your food. Unlike the first game, your prey is very much alive, and it is literally fast food. There's no targeting button. There's no button allowing your lynx to stalk through underbrush, though the game will inconsistently do it for you if you get close enough, and if there are bushes in the terrain, you can use them for stealth as well. Most of the time, however, you're just breaking into a sprint, and hoping your meal doesn't outrun you or take a sudden, sharp left turn to where you can't track them. Bigger prey like deer show themselves early on, and smaller animals involve just taking a swipe as you get close; bigger animals require a full on leaping takedown, which is probably the most fun part of the game, but it happens infrequently. The placement of prey appears to be randomized each playthrough, meaning the frozen lake where the deer are drinking in one playthrough may be a barren, foodless waste of time the next.
Therein lies most of the tension in Shelter 2. The open world allows the mother and her brood to traverse the landscape in whatever pattern they wish, and while it means there's plenty of room to chase around prey and explore, it also means long stretches where there's no prey at all, where all you can really do is hope that the kids hold out until their next meal. This is never under your control. You can tell when hunger's starting to set in by how whiny the cubs start to get--and the whine when one of them finally collapses from starvation is a heartbreaking one--but there's no surefire way to really rectify that situation because you never know what's over the next ridge. It could be a nest of delicious, life-sustaining rabbits. It could be absolutely nothing, meaning you've wasted precious stamina you'll need to chase down actual food when it shows up.
The rest of the tension comes later, when you hear the howling of wolves in the distance, which means it's time to run like hell for higher ground. Without fail, I've lost at least one cub every time I've reached the wolves, and yet each time, I've never seen exactly which wolves took it down. I can't tell if that's more frightening or not.
...purr, purr, purr.
Shelter 2 places you smack dab in the middle of the food chain, meaning you can be both predator or prey at any given moment.
None of this is particularly bad, but it's also painfully simple. There's a cycle of seasons and time in the game, so when the ground and trees turn white and the waters freeze, my instinct is to find actual shelter for the pack, not realizing that that's an easy way to starve to death, since leaving the initial area usually involves a 10-minute push back to the starting point. When my prey ran off into the forest, my response was to try climbing into the trees to pounce from above. Also not an option. There's a not-really-explained mechanic when you've killed an animal that appears to allow you to cover up the remains, which I figured would come into play later to prevent the wolves from tracking the rest of my pack, but sure enough, they found me, a few minutes later, despite this. The original Shelter's problems have not been fixed. In giving us a far more complex but familiar creature, Shelter's ambitions have grown, but the execution has not grown with them. This big, beautiful open world that's been created is prime to do something with a sandbox besides cramming it with minigames, but it's never taken advantage of. And just like the first game, it's over right as it feels like it begins, a shade over an hour total from beginning to end, though with no poetic post-script this time to dull the disappointment.
And so, we're left with a game that woefully undercooks its concept, a partial success in that nothing that the game does is particularly bad, but for a concept that has always felt like a no-brainer, "why didn't somebody think of that before" situation, the fact that it doesn't do some fairly obviously things to make the game earn its price tag is disheartening. Shelter, as a series, has the right spirit, the right ideas, and it is once again hamstrung by its inability to go the extra, needed mile to do them justice.

Homeworld Remastered Collection Review

Outer space has been famously referred to as the final frontier, but it's a well-worn setting in video games at this stage--even in real-time strategy games. Yet Homeworld refuses to be outdone, beautifully capturing the loneliness of the black void, and then disturbing its eerie allure with the light trails of starfighters engaged in conflict. Returning to this universe in Homeworld Remastered Collection illustrates the series' timelessness. The Homeworld games--and the original in particular--are not just classics in our mind, but classics in practice, standing tall beside any strategy game that dares draw comparisons by being set deep in the cosmos.
Like many games set in space, Homeworld and Homeworld 2 remain attractive even through a modern lens, though directly comparing them to their remastered versions reveal their ages. You can still play thos e original versions in this remastered collection, though the vibrancy of the newly textured ships and sumptuous backgrounds are an inescapable lure. The mothership--your base of operations in any given Homeworld mission or skirmish--is a particular wonder. It creates a striking parabolic silhouette against the starry background, and its center pylon, which is covered with individual light sources, looks like it must house a vast network of engineers and operators. At least, that's true of the original's mothership; Homeworld 2's vast vessel fills in architectural spaces left open in the original, and looks more structurally sound and elegant, prizing practicality over mystery.
It is a place to live, but it is not a home.
This sense of mystery is paramount to Homeworld's success. The song by Yes that closed the original Homeworld is gone, though I hardly miss it. The game's true sonic successes were the work of composer Paul Ruskay and an audio team that created a wondrous sound that far surpasses the science fiction New Age cliches that occasionally plague games set in space. The Turanic battle music remains a highlight: Rhythmic drums and nasal reeds pierce through droning electronic tones, impressing upon you the otherworldly nature of your newfound foes--quite a feat given a setting that is, by nature, already otherworldly. Individual sound effects take on similar meaning. Entering and exiting hyperspace emits a sustained, pulsing buzz that becomes the series' call to adventure. The hushed groan and persistent beeps that arise when you press the spacebar to view the o verall map emphasizes your place as a commander, drawing parallels to undersea exploration by evoking its sounds. This is iconic audio, immediately recognizable to anyone fortunate enough to play.
You may say that it is the gameplay that matters, but this collection's look and sound is vital to each mission's overall feel. Just as the soundtrack slowly unfurls, so too does resource collection. It's a sensibly measured start, given the state of the RTS when Homeworld was released in 1999. Action wasn't typically immediate; World in Conflict hadn't yet been made, and the action-first mentality had yet to overwhelm the genre. This progression is entirely suitable for Homeworld. There's a dreaminess to commanding your resource collectors to mine the nearest asteroids while you cue up your build order and scout out nearby space. Your remaining units transfer from one campaign mission to the next, and reaching your missi on objective takes additional time. This gives you a chance to zoom in and admire your bombers as they flit about, and keep an eye on your capital ships as they meander towards their targets.
Returning to this universe in Homeworld Remastered Collection illustrates the series' timelessness.
Engagements are not over quickly in the remastered original. Even when one force is sure to overpower the other, combat is sustained and vibrant. Swarms of corvettes look like flies buzzing around their quarry, though combining individual units into strike groups makes it easy to keep track of even the lowliest scouts. Once the big guns arrive, the comparisons to naval combat become more pronounced: Frigates line up like battleships, focusing their fire on the enemy's most powerful vessels. Don't let the similarities to naval combat fool you, however. You utilize all three dimen sions of space; The gameplay map is an entire sphere, not a 2D grid that fools you into thinking the Z axis has meaningful repercussions on gameplay.
Mission pacing builds gradually, requiring you to manage multiple strike groups and be cognizant of each unit's strengths and weaknesses. Some missions are duds, such as a frustrating defensive objective that requires you to destroy asteroids as they approach the mothership. It's a difficult mission, but it's also flat and uninteresting because the tempo remains constant--and because asteroids make for boring enemies when there are entire battalions out in space waiting to be demolished. On the other hand, successfully rescuing friendly forces from a sea of red icons is a rewarding accomplishment, as is wearing down an opposing mothership until it explodes in a flash of particles and fire. (It may not be a realistic depiction of space, but it is certainly a colorful one.) Homeworld introduces new techno logy and units at a manageable rate, so while there are challenges to face, you're always equipped with the knowledge you need to triumph.
Subsystems damage is Homeworld 2's most enjoyable addition.
The action isn't exactly as you remembered, as it happens. Perhaps the biggest change is the loss of fuel as a strategic consideration. If your memories of the original game's specifics have dissipate d, this may not be a bothersome loss, but infinite fuel means fewer nails bitten when the action heats up. It also makes the presence of Kadeshi fuel pods less sensible: why does the enemy still need to be concerned with refueling, when you do not? Formations don't work as you remember either, with the biggest loss lying with the sphere formation, which now no longer allows you to embed larger ships within an orb of death. Repair ships, meanwhile, must be micromanaged, as they cannot be trusted to provide services of their own accord. This is the original Homeworld viewed through the filter of Homeworld 2, which implemented changes to pathing and projectile damage that don't always feel logical in the earlier game.
Moving from Homeworld 1 to Homeworld 2 is a smooth transition, in any case. There are differences, of course: Homeworld 2 was a full-fledged sequel, as opposed to the Cataclysm add-on, which supplemented the first Homeworld, and is sadly m issing from this collection. You do not build individual fighters, for instance, but multi-fighter squadrons, and there are more upgrade branches to consider when determining how to spend accumulated credits. Some changes are for the better: You can target individual ship systems, for example, shutting down the opposition's fighter facilities so that they can no longer produce strike craft, or slowing their roll by demolishing the engines.
This is the original Homeworld viewed through the filter of Homeworld 2, which implemented changes to pathing and projectile damage that don't always feel logical in the earlier game.
Homeworld 2 cuts the original game's post-game resource collection as well, slurping resource units up automatically when the mission ends. The remastered Homeworld allows you to do this as well, granting you nearby resources when you auto-dock and get on your way, though it doesn't always collect everything from the map, so you may still be inclined to send out your collectors to reap. This process isn't exciting, but I find it soothing to relax in this way after a tight series of battles, and then to watch my fighters and ion frigates make their way back to the mothership for manual docking. It emphasizes the melancholy nature of the Hiigaran quest for identity, much of which plays out in poignant black-and-white cinematics. There are scenes of great loss that earn even greater power when the even-voiced narrator breaks his monotone ever so slightly. The Homeworld story is sorrowful at heart, making the coldness of surrounding space a surreal contrast.
You can compare the originals with their remasters in this collection, and if you have the gumption to sign up for yet another unnecessary online service, you can also play the multiplayer beta, which, because it is officially still in testing phase, falls outside of the scope of this review. The Homeworld series' legacy, however, has always lain within its story-focused campaigns, whose excellent action and inherent beauty endure and excel, even in light of the 16 years that have passed since the original's arrival. It is a huge universe out there, but Homeworld Remastered Collection makes a great case for asserting your presence within it.

OlliOlli2 Review


You push off to get some extra speed. You jump, pulling off a great move in the air, maybe even working in a spin. You grind on a handrail, jump again, try to land, and...whoops. You hit the analog stick as if you were trying to grind instead of land, which sends you flying off your board and down several flights of stairs.
These moments can be frustrating, but with the tap of a button you're back to try again, which helps make OlliOlli2 just as absorbing as (if not much different from) its predecessor.
Like the first game, OlliOlli2 is a 2D skateboarding game that sports simple controls but demands quick reflexes for success. Imagine a cross between the Tony Hawk games' tricks and the sidescrolling action of Canabalt, and you'll have some idea of what OlliOlli2 is like in motion. You automatically skate to the right of the screen and are unable to stop or go backward. As soon as you crash, your run is over, meaning that you're always weighing the risk of longer combos with the reward of a higher score.
The majority of your actions are performed with the left analog stick. When on the ground, tilting or rotating the stick in any direction essentially "readies" a trick. Let go of the stick, and you'll leap into the air and perform said trick. Grinding works the same way, with you moving the stick in any direction to perform different grinds on applicable surfaces.
Pulling off even complex tricks in OlliOlli isn't usually too difficult; it's landing that's the problem. To land, you have to hit the X button right before you hit the ground, otherwise you'll get a "sloppy" landing at best, greatly reducing any points you may have been trying to earn. Grinding requires similar timing, and the highest scores will go to those who can chain together jumps and grinds before pulling it all together with a perfect landing.
Imagine a cross between the Tony Hawk games' tricks and the sidescrolling action of Canabalt, and you'll have some idea of what OlliOlli is like in motion.
The biggest additions to the skateboarding action in OlliOlli2 are manuals, reverts, and revert manuals. Pulling these moves off requires even more concentration when it comes to landing, but doing so allows you to keep a combo going even when there are no grind-able surfaces in reach. This places a bigger emphasis on completing stages in one uninterrupted combo in OlliOlli2 than in the previous game, which is rarely easy but immensely satisfying when you finally pull it off. They're small additions on the surface, but manuals and reverts add a lot of depth to the experience, allowing you to transform a run from a bunch of little combos to one long, fluid performance.
OlliOlli2 takes you to more exotic locations than the first game (like the wild west and an Aztec temple), but its structure is exactly the same. Simply completing a level without crashing can be tricky in and of itself, but eventually, you'll want to focus on each stage's challenges. There are five in each level, and while many of them are basic point goals or item collection tasks, others will test your abilities by asking you to chain specific tricks together or forcing you to make every manual, grind, and landing perfect.
Skateboarding is really hot these days.
There's a particular headspace, a certain rhythm you have to get in to succeed in OlliOlli. When you're there, the action is blissful. When you've nailed the timing and are performing perfect grinds and manuals through even the most complex environments, the chase for higher and higher scores is addictive. Levels are short, making it really easy to say, "I'll just do one more of these," over and over again.
But there are also frustrations to be had, especially when you're not in that groove. It can be infuriating to struggle with a section at the very end of a level, forcing you to replay the earlier parts over and over again. There are also a few (fortunately not many) instances where level memorization is more useful than quick reflexes, which strikes me as antithetical to the rest of the experience. Being able to restart a level at the tap of a button helps alleviate these problems, but these issues can still hamper the enjoyment.
The biggest additions to the skateboarding action in OlliOlli2 are manuals, reverts, and revert manuals.
Even with its new tricks, it's hard to look at OlliOlli2 as not just "more OlliOlli." If you weren't into the action the first time around, or if you've already had your fill of it, there is nothing here to win you over. One of the few features that could help differentiate the sequel, local multiplayer, isn't in the game at launch (but will be patched in later), and, slight graphical improvements aside, you might be able to watch over someone's shoulder and not be sure whether they're playing OlliOlli2 or its predecessor.
If you missed the first game, though, this is the better of the two, and the tutorial will ease you into what its 2D skateboarding is all about. And if you loved it the first time around, "more OlliOlli" shouldn't sound like a bad thing. Provided you can get over the difficulty hump, you'll find a great high score chase in OlliOlli2.

Thursday

Lords of the Fallen - Ancient Labyrinth Review


Lords of the Fallen cannot escape Dark Souls' shadow, but its weighty combat and impossibly chunky art style still give it an identity of its own. Yet the shadow still looms, and in the case of Lords of the Fallen's newest add-on, Ancient Labyrinth, it wholly swallows its imitator. That Ancient Labyrinth is so short is not, in itself, a fundamental flaw. That it is devoid of imagination and betrays the exploratory wonder of the main game, however, is unforgivable. This tiny, throwaway slice of action is a rude return to a world with far better stories to tell.
The eight-dollar asking price may sound reasonable, but it is important to understand what you are getting: a skimpy maze that amounts to three hallways, a few levers to pull, some skeletal archers, and a few other cronies to defeat. A difficult boss battle puts the cap on this miniature adventure, which includes about 30 minutes of content and a finale that stretches that half-hour into a masochistic stretch of trial-and-error bashing and blocking that could substantially extend your play time, depending on how quickly you learn The Keeper's tricks, and how flawlessly you execute your attacks. The skimpy gameplay leading to that battle is so forgettable as to be barely worth detailing: A secretive stranger--that Lords of the Fallen storytelling staple--sends you into the maze of monsters, hoping that you might defeat The Keeper hidden within and thus free him of his torment. Calling the three, tight, same-ish corridors you traipse through a "labyrinth" is laughable, sadly, as would calling the ensuing lever-pulling "puzzles." Your greatest challenge within the gothic stone halls is the collection of creatures that patrol them: Ghostly warriors, translucent wizards, and those pesky undead archers pester you on your lever quest, and you apply the same blocking-rolling-swinging-spellcasting techniques to off them as you do elsewhere in Lords of the Fallen.
The DLC knows how to make an entrance. But it's all downhill from here.
You might have expected a grander journey, not simply because Lords of the Fallen itself provided one, but because the first glimpse of the labyrinth from the staircase leading there is so dramatic. Slabs of rock hover over the menacing maze, and ribbons of flame and lightning warn you of the danger waiting within. Pulling a lever causes the maze's circular walls to rotate and reveal entrances, which produces a satisfying sound of grinding and a conclusive thud. There's little fault to find in the presentation, presuming you take to this particularly exaggerated art style, in which every surface and every piece of armor is covered with sharp edges and intricate carving. Draw too near, and some part of your anatomy would surely be punctured.
Alas, the first boss is the only boss, and a troublesome one at that. Like The Worshiper from the main game, The Keeper employs an instakill area-of-effect attack that requires speed and care to avoid. Determining how to survive the explosion is your first task; actually performing the required tactics is the other. If you have built player-character Harkyn for bulk and not for speed, you may have a tough time of it, though there is a magical trick you can pull off to ease your troubles. The boss has four stages, the third of which breaks the rules the battle previously established regarding how and when the explosive attack occurs--a deviation likely to result in a torrent of profane language. The fourth stage, on the other hand, is easily exploited with particular types of magic, like Ram. It's an unrewarding gameplay arc for a boss fight, ending with the easiest form, rather than building the challenge to a proper climax.
And so you reach the center of three hallways called a labyrinth.
And then your task is complete. A shield of your choice is the reward, along with a few other odds and ends, and you may then return to the monastery, or wherever else you might have been exploring. "Is that it?" you may ask , though not just because the add-on is so short. No--that reaction is born of what a droplet of nothing this long-awaited return to Lords of the Fallen is. It is a miniscule stroll, made to feel longer by gating its ending behind tedious lever-pulling and a trial-and-error boss battle. With Ancient Labyrinth, Lords of the Fallen doesn't just fail to take a step forward: It takes a momentous leap backwards.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars Review


Great puzzles all have one thing in common: they present a conundrum bound by defined rules and then give you the tools to craft a plan to conquer this obstacle. Trial and error is ultimately part of the thrill of overcoming these challenges, but the truly brilliant puzzles can't be conquered by brute-forcing a million little experiments, or sliding tile puzzle pieces around: You have to actually figure out an answer to beat them. At its best, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars understands this, forcing you to create elaborate and dynamic Rube Goldberg machines to achieve victory. Unfortunately, it takes far too long for the most devilish puzzles to rear their heads.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is equal parts Lemmings and World of Goo. The main campaign consists of six worlds of eight levels in which the goal is to guide mindless wind-up Marios (and assorted Mario universe crew members) through a gauntlet of spike pits, Shy Guys, Donkey Kongs, and fire-breathing piranha plants by placing player-crafted paths and machinery at the door(s) at the end of each level while also picking up each coin and token for maximum points at the level's end. By clicking on paths, jump-pads, tunnels, walkways, and lifts, you gain resources that can then be placed on marked points on the map to create your tools for victory.

There's too much of a time investment before the game reveals its real potential.
This might sound simple in concept, but Tipping Stars knows how to complicate its premise. One of the key complications of any map is that, barring levels where each figure has its own separate door, all the characters must enter the final door within a short timeframe of each other. Once a character is awakened, it only travels in a single direction--turning around if it hits a wall--and if characters are spaced out around the entire map and facing opposing directions, it's as much of a challenge to get them facing the same way and close to one another as it is to collect all the coins and reach the level's door.
Each world introduces a new fundamental mechanic. The first zone is the simplest, and allows you to drag red girder beams to make walls, ramps, and paths. You'll likely get the gold trophy--calculated by how quickly you can finish the level--on your first try for most of the early levels. Each world then brings in something new without abandoning the tricks of earlier worlds, until you're forced to think about how to use this path to most effectively utilize the lift so you can get the highest bounce off the jump pad. It's a shame, then, that it isn't until World 5 that any of the puzzles have the slightest amount of bite.

You'll likely get the gold trophy--calculated by how quickly you can finish the level--on your first try for most of the early levels.
If you want a game to test your children's spatial logic and reasoning skills, Tipping Stars might be a good choice, though the complex later puzzles can prove frustrating. But in 2015, there are too many, more challenging options for adults looking to have their brains stretched for Tipping Stars to feel like a worthy investment. Once you do reach the more challenging puzzles, they are wicked. The main campaign is short--it takes less than four hours to complete--but there are 24 bonus levels in the game, and, right out of the gate, they not only stretch your problem-solving skills to their limits, they continue to introduce new mechanics to the game, including magnetized walkways. But there's too much of a time investment before the game reveals its real potential. Tipping Stars does offer you the tools to create your own levels so the most dedicated puzzle fans could rise to the challenge and create their own complex worlds for players to explore, although it's hard to gauge what that community is going to accomplish at this time.
Between its lackluster introductions and almost total lack of context for why you're doing anything in the game, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars feels more like a particularly robust tech demo than a proper full-release. As a cross-buy title, it can be played on both the Wii U and the 3DS, but since you only use the Wii U Gamepad while playing, there's little reason to play it on anything other than the 3DS if you own both. If you have the patience to stick around for the game's true challenges, Tipping Stars is worth an inspection, but you have to slog through a lot of tedium to get there.

Slender: The Arrival Review


Slender Man has captured a large part of the popular psyche--large enough that two girls stabbed a third girl 19 times, and other children commit acts of arson, all in his name. I can't help but blend those headlines with subsequent forays into the Slender Man mythos. Although he is without a doubt fictitious--a legend manufactured wholecloth in full view of the internet's many denizens--he's transcended himself. He's now a self-reinforcing curiosity of the modern era, reflecting the deep-seated fears of our connected culture.
For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, Slendy, as some affectionately call him, was born on the internet forums of the 21st century. A few Photoshop projects featured a thin, suited figure without an apparent face. The first few images of him depicted children running away--and right there, we have the seeds for a great ghost story. He is the embodiment of the unknown, and he preys on the weakest among us--children. From that point on, he became a meme in the truest sense of the word, evolving and changing to suit whatever the population thought would yield the most easily shared terror.

Slender Man is now a self-reinforcing curiosity of the modern era, reflecting the deep-seated fears of our connected culture.
So how does he terrorize us now? When he approaches, he causes electronics, particularly cameras, to malfunction and glitch out. He causes his victims to go mad. He's most aggressive when you're trying to look straight at him. Perhaps most tellingly, he tends to stick to rural areas.
Again, all this is purely fictitious, but it's interesting that so many of these individual threads converged into a single vision coherent enough to yield a substantive game in Slender: The Arrival. This coalescence of traits creates a compelling antagonist that preys on the modern. In our metropolitan world of smartphone cameras and nearly ubiquitous connections, a mysterious figure that resists investigation and cuts us off from our technological safety net is the ultimate terror.
Arrival benefits from these fears and pulls every psychological string. However, that's all it can do. From a play perspective, it's about as minimal as they come. You can pick up pages and notes strewn about the various levels; after the preface, you can pick up a simple flashlight. That lack of agency is powerful, though. From its nascent stages, it's clear that you're struggling to survive in the shadow of beings that sap all hope. Slender Man and his several proxies--corrupted and insane people he's brought under his influence--are cold and uncaring. They have no clear motive other than your defilement, and they are omnipotent. Slender Man, for example, can teleport, and there's nothing you can do to defend yourself from his tentacle-y arms but turn and run away. It's an impressive foundation, and it fills me with dread to this day.

Slender Man and his several proxies are cold and uncaring. They have no clear motive other than your defilement, and they are omnipotent.
I've played Slender and its expanded pseudo-sequel Arrival before, but when I ran through it again, that prior experience didn't help ease my fears. The world is cloaked in darkness, and all you have to push away a small sliver of that enveloping black is a small, barely functional flashlight. Against the dark, Slender Man's blank, white visage creates an arresting contrast every time he appears. The system creates procedurally generated jump scares using a weighty, pervasive atmosphere of vulnerability and helplessness. The same system went on to birth the popular Five Nights at Freddy's series.
Player death in Arrival takes on a whole new meaning without the predictability of those frights. I found myself afraid of being afraid, eager to see the game end so I could at last take a breath, relieved to be safe once again.
That near-constant level of stress would doom a longer game, but Arrival clocks in at just two hours. The console versions add a few extra levels that weren't present in the original PC release, and they pad out the tension with just a bit of calm to keep players from growing exhausted. On the flip side, the added sections dilute Arrival's already-tight focus. In its original incarnation, Arrival was an agonizing, frantic mystery. You stepped into the body of Lauren, a woman desperate to find any clues regarding the disappearance of her friend Kate. As you poked about Kate's house, you could gathered snippets of information suggesting that her mother had passed away and that her family had been facing financial trouble--leaving the possibility open for suicide. The more you learned, though, the grimmer the reality became.

The added sections dilute Arrival's already-tight focus.
A few side characters were present that were hinted to be the Slender Man. Because just moving around in any given level could prompt the appearance of the Slender Man, you always felt that the answers were out there, but you could never quite piece it all together. With the new areas, some of that mystery is gone, and Slender Man is established as some otherworldly being. That spoils a bit of the fun and raises plenty of questions about why Slender now attacks people, where he was before, how he came to be, etc. Without a plausible in-universe explanation, he loses just a bit of his mystique.
Despite that, Slender: The Arrival still got under my skin. I'm not quite as warm to it as I was before, but it's an eerie experience that's seeped into my real life. Now, on long car rides or when I'm in a sparsely populated area in the dead of night, I'll catch glints of light and my heart will stutter at the thought that Slender Man could be at the edge of my periphery. All I can do is turn away and keep walking.

Wednesday

Ori and the Blind Forest Review


The first ten minutes of Ori and the Blind Forest depict a beautiful and soul-crushing story of friendship, selflessness, and loss. They recall the opening minutes of Pixar's Up! in their melancholy, and like in Up!, the introduction provides an emotional foundation for the life-affirming journey that follows. It is a phenomenal opening--a short and wordless tale, playacted by two expressive characters who move with purpose and demonstrate pure affection towards each other.
There's a certain elegance to the game's initial sorrow, and it translates to the way you move through this exquisite 2D platformer. Ori and The Blind Forest is, on a fundamental level, structured as so many other platformers are; It springs from the Metroid and Castlevania tradition, gating your progress behind doors that can only be opened once you have learned a particular skill. As the nimble, lemurlike Ori, you leap and flit about with fantastic grace, and as Ori's abilities improve, so do the joys of navigating his world. When you learn how to climb walls, Ori responds wonderfully to subtle movements of the analog stick, allowing you to finesse him into exactly the right place, such as a sliver of stone embedded within a sea of lava. When you earn your double-jump, Ori somersaults like an acrobat and reacts in mid-air to your aftertouch. What a delight to have such fine control over a character this agile.
Don't be too distracted by the beauty: The sequence that follows is deadly enough.
One by one, you learn new skills, and new challenges arrive with them. Ori can fire energy orbs at nearby foes when he isn't avoiding them completely, and those creatures can be difficult to overcome. The blobs that stick to walls and ceilings? They aren't much of a hassle, at least until they coat the surfaces you need to cross and spit acid onto the ground. They won't let you stay still: You must take advantage of Ori's dexterity, by leaping over acidic pustules, jumping from wall to wall, or putting the other abilities you have to good use. For instance, you ultimately learn how to deflect projectiles, aiming them back at your foes while propelling yourself in the opposite direction. Turning an oncoming ball of fire back towards its owner is fun, but if you don't pay attention, you could thrust Ori into a wall of spikes, or into a crow hovering nearby.
Propelling yourself through the sky in this manner becomes one of Ori and the Blind Forest's most vital maneuvers. When you first learn it, you typically use the glowing lanterns that dangle from overhangs. Soon, however, you must fire Ori through treacherous areas replete with fiery spheres and those pesky crows, which hurl towards you as if launched from a slingshot. Timing is crucial, as is quickly determining the safest trajectory that still delivers you to your destination. That mid-air fling is at the heart of one of the game's most thrilling scenes: a difficult escape from roaring tides that swallow you whole should you make a single grievous error.
Ancient contraptions provide an air of mystery and wonder.
The trial and error this scene and others require can prove frustrating if you prefer to move on to the next area rather than discover, learn, and adapt. I admit to shouting a few expletives when unforeseen circumstances cut my attempts short, falling boulders with crystalline spikes covering their undersides and perilous geysers that spurted from the walls among them. But what a feeling it is to overcome these challenges. The tightly timed retreats that close each chapter are among the finest joys in any platformer--or any game at all--released in recent years. If Ori were clumsy, or if these sequences weren't timed so precisely, these moments would be simply annoying. But in Ori and the Blind Forest, each element harmonizes with every other. If you run into trouble, the game's save system eases the pain. You gather crystals as you play that function as checkpoints, allowing you to determine where you will respawn if you succumb to a bile-spewing frog. You must take care, however, not to drop these crystals everywhere you go, since you can only carry so many.
Those pulse-pounding escapes are complemented by moments of quiet bliss. In time, Ori can break his fall with a leafy parachute, gliding across the screen like a flower petal on the wind. During these moments, it's easy to appreciate the game's visual artistry. Multiple layers give each environment a lovely sense of depth. As you cross a log that bridges one tunnel to the next, thick trees rise in the background. Embers and fire crackle behind you, giving your trek across the troubled world a sense of urgency and purpose. Luminescent blue plants alternately close and unfurl with each jump, shining and glittering even as they become your next cause of death. It is a fairy tale come to life, a description that has rightfully earned "cliche" status--yet rarely is the description so apt as it is in Ori and the Blind Forest.
This is one of many sequences that combine the glee of motion with a tricky mechanic.
It isn't just the vibrant art and lush orchestral soundtrack that furnish a storybook mood. It's also the story, which is infrequently told to you via subtitles, accompanied by a narrator who chants along in an unknown language, in the style of Okami, or Panzer Dragoon Orta. It is a simple fable about the renewal of a ravaged land; It is in the details that you find the delights worth prizing. A critter that absconds with an important artifact gains importance you don't initially expect, revealing loneliness, fear, and tenderness not with words, but with exaggerated bows and nods. If there is any blight on this atmospheric transcendence, it is the frame rate, which occasionally falters, ever so slightly, in the final hours.
It's important, however, not to mistake Ori and the Blind Forest for being simply beautiful. It certainly is--but it is also unceasingly clever. It consistently surprises you with new tricks: gravitational divergences, new ways to move through its spaces, and carefully designed levels that require you to think quickly and respond. It is not as snappy as, say, a typical Mario platformer, seeking instead a broader gameplay arc stretching across a single, interconnected world. It's a superb and thematically consistent approach that allows Ori and the Blind Forest to build joy on a bed of heartache, adding a new layer of mechanical complexity with each ray of hope.

Emoji Quiz by Mangoo Games Answers 51-100




Good lord, this game is difficult! Even with the coins for hints and answers, I struggled. The game is fun though, and the feeling you get when you complete the levels, is absoluety awesome. If you're stuck somewhere, feel free to use this guide!
 

EMOJI QUIZ LEVELS 51-100:

51: Zebra
52: Insomnia
53: Japan
54: Aurora Borealis
55: Planet of the Apes
56: Hulk
57: Tour De France
58: The Laughing Cow
59: Milka
60: Dodge
61: Mars
62: Cold Shower
63: Dead Sea
64: Kiss of the Dragon
65: Hot Water
66: Maternity Leave
67: Jungle Book
68: Brokeback Mountain
69: Catfish
70: Library
71: Cherry Tomato
72: Muay Thai
73: Black Sheep
74: Pain Au Chocolat
75: Fruit Ninja
76: Conducter
77: Nuclear Bomb
78: Psycho
79: NBA
80: Gravity
81: Catwoman
82: Dumbo
83: World Cup
84: Pearl Harbor
85:Nail Clippers
86:Spider Man
87: Las Vegas
88: Anti-Aging
89: Lock
90: Oktoberfest
91: Jackpot
92: Jockey
93: Green Fingered
94: Toilet Paper
95: Rice Pudding
96: Giuseppe Arcimboldo
97: Hot Chocolate
98: Magician
99: New York
100: Grandparents
I hope you enjoyed and got help from my Emoji Quiz guide

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Jaws of Hakkon Review


It's been about four months since I've spent quality time in the world of Thedas--nearly 70 hours' worth of it. This week's content release for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Jaws of Hakkon, may have jump started my engine, reminding me what I love most about the core game: the sense of wonder, the thematic richness, a fantastic sense of place and personality. The new adventure becomes available in the second act of the game, taking your Inquisitor to the Frostback Basin, the foothills and valley near the mountain range at the southern end of Thedas. You've been called in to provide support for an archaeological survey of the region that is searching for the final resting place of the world's last Inquisitor, Ameridan. While piecing together the mystery of Ameridan, you'll have to navigate the region's complex geography and even more complex sociopolitical relationships.
The Frostback Basin is a deceptively big zone. What seems easily conquerable on the map screen is actually a sizable and intricate mix of environments. Foothills open up into plateaus, which feature deep, dangerous pits. A lakeshore runs into the bubbling, muddy shallows of the basin, and those turn into misty swamplands and damp jungles. It's all brought to life with vibrant color and fresh ambient sounds. The Frostback Basin feels distinct from the game's other zones, and it's mostly a joy to explore.
The environments in Jaws of Hakkon really show off Inquisition's lighting engine.
I say "mostly," because sometimes it feels like BioWare is trying to stretch out the available content in Jaws of Hakkon. Over the course of eight hours in the Frostback Basin, five different missions make you "follow the trail" across territory you've already explored thoroughly in the course of doing other missions. Most egregious is a mission that sends you around to flip a number of switches scattered across the northern half of the zone. For the previous six hours of play, these switches had been visible but inactive, and I knew that they'd send me back eventually. They did. This decision is particularly strange because Hakkon doesn't need to be stretched in any way. The Frostback Basin is packed with all of the elements that made me love Inquisition to begin with: smart characterization, interesting combat encounters, and carefully written lore.
The Frostback Basin is home to two rival tribes of the Avvar, a human society that briefly pops up early on in Inquisition. The development of these groups (and of the region's history in general) is the high point of Hakkon, and you'll get the most out of this DLC if you dig into the lore about these people and their culture and religion. Dragon Age has always been at its best when the stories it tells are multifaceted and mysterious, and the same is true here: Religious iconography blurs together; magical traditions are at once remarkably similar and fundamentally different; and the final, "true" history is often left unknown.
What's better than hanging out on a moonlit beach with some buds?
Best of all, the Avvar work to break apart the classic binaries that show up throughout the Dragon Age series. They share the Elven relationship to nature, but are human. They're human, but don't belong to any of the major political powers. They're deeply spiritual, but also incredibly practical. They have a strict system to govern the use of magic, but use terms and concepts to explain the magical world that are entirely different than those used by the Templars and Circle of Mages. All of this works to complicate the world of Thedas by providing yet another potential perspective to consider.
This makes it extra frustrating that so little of Jaws of Hakkon shares the cinematic sheen of the rest of Inquisition. Most other zones in the world of Thedas have a mix of two different sorts of quests. Firstly, there are the little, MMOG-style missions you complete for this or that character: kill ten bears, or recover a missing satchel, or perform some other small task. Secondly, there are the major story missions that take you out of the third-person perspective and into a cutscene view, where dramatic music supports characters who emote and animate as the plot unfolds. In Hakkon, only the very beginning and very end of the main questline offer this second sort of storytelling. Throughout the rest of my eight hours, I watched as world-shaking information was delivered without any pomp or luster.
Learning about the Avvar culture is a highlight.
If you told me last week that this would bother me, I'd tell you that you'd be absolutely wrong. But here I am, missing the intimate close-ups and the sweeping vistas. (Maybe this shouldn't be be surprising: Imagine an episode of Game of Thrones that never shows the detail of a character's face.) Over the course of the previous 70 hours, Dragon Age: Inquisition had quietly taught me to expect a certain rhythm: I'd meander around a zone until I was ready to commit to one of the many "big" story events. There was a sort of storytelling grammar at work, and by reducing the use of that grammar, Hakkon rarely feels as substantial as it should. Thankfully, the final hour or so of Hakkon does utilize those storytelling tools to great effect, and it joins them with some new, unique mechanics in a series of major combat encounters that build momentum and velocity until an explosive climax.
Though I wish that Jaws of Hakkon was less bloated, and though I miss the cinematic flair of the rest of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I know that in a month I'll have forgotten these quibbles. Instead, I'll remember my time spent in Frostback Basin fondly. I'll remember the sharp wit of Svarah Sun-Hair, the leader of the local Avvar clan. I'll remember the holy symbols that blur the line between competing faiths. I'll remember the mist and the mountains and the sun's light through the trees. I'll remember confronting legendary foes, and the time I got to spend with some of my favorite characters in video games.