Controversy & Cleavage: Dragon's Crown REVIEWAugust 14, 2013 by















Overall:  8.5/10

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Top 10 Games of 2012 (I Wish I Played)December 27, 2012 by

It's that time of year where everyone's making up their tops and their bottoms for games of 2012.  However, I decided why talk about the games that everyone else?  Why not make a list for the titles that I wanted to play, but didn't for one reason another.  Not just to be clear, these are games that came out this year, no delayed titles like Tomb Raider.  Also, no remakes, only original titles so don't expect to see Zone of The Enders HD or Rayman Origins Vita.  With that said, these are the Top 10 Games of 2012 I Wish I Played.

10 - Fez

So you take a visual design similar to Cave Story, a mechanic reminiscent of Wario Land by switching dimensions and mix it in with some fresh new ideas and you get Fez.  So why didn't I play this one?  Well aside from the creator's racist comments about the Japanese and another developer's attack on a certain Western RPG series and me not wanting to support either of them, I just feel the whole new-retro  movement is overstaying its welcome and Fez, as good as it may be, may just be its endpoint.

9 - Hitman Absolution

So Agent 47 is back, and let's make this quick:  The answer to why I didn't give this one a shot is, admittedly a bit immature, but it's five words:  The Summer of Square Enix.  After slogging through 9 titles (and a tenth one that will remain unnamed as a cancelled bonus)  I was burnt out from anything from Square Enix.  Everything that could have gone wrong did and events kept unfolding, making it a very awkward summer for me indeed.  Also, what was up with that trailer?  Who taught these nuns to be such lethal assassins?

8 - Professor Layton & The Miracle Mask: 

If there was one series on this list that had a perfect balance to storytelling and intelligent design, that would be the Professor Layton series.  The good ol' professor and his sidekick finally jumped into 3D... and i'll be one hundred percent honest, I was not a fan of it.  It didn't look bad, heck it looked pretty darn good.  But there was something about it, something off that kept me from picking it up and experiencing the professor's 3D debut and instead continue to wait for Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright's worlds to collide.  Man, it's gonna take a miracle to get that game out of Japan.

7 - Dishonoured: 

After Skyrim, Bethesesda had me drooling all over their titles, making me anticipate their next title with baited breathe.  And then they made a first person adventure title where you stab people.  In the first person.  Sign me up!  Only one problem, I had no idea if an idea like this could or would work, and anyone who knows me knows I don't read reviews on titles i'm interested in to go into them with a fresh, non-bias mind when they first come out so I passed on it for the time being.  That and the developers, Arkane Studios helped design the levels in Bioshock 2 so... not exactly impressive but not exactly shameful, it didn't help their case.  Now that Bethesda is making this into a franchise, hopefully Dishonoured .  Though here's a tip for the future Bethesda and Arkane Studios, stop making your main characters prisoners!  Seriously, is there a fetish for the incarcerated that I don't know about?

6 - Mass Effect 3: 

Ironically, the highest rated game by critics (certainly not by gamers) is the middle point here.  I'll admit, the reason why I didn't play it was because... how do I put this lightly... the fans poor reception to the ending and the movement following said reception took away my enthusiasm for Shepherd and crew.  Look, say what you will about the ending and the Mass Effect movement but the whole fanbase backlash just got sickening to hear on both sides.  It ruined my experience as a casual fan and took away what interest I had in completing my previous Mass Effect adventures.  Seeing how much fuss was made over a game's story, I felt that I didn't want to be a part of the fanbase nor be associated with such. Sorry guys, but this Earth was not worth retaking.

5 - Retro City Rampage: 

Imagine River City Ransom combined with Grand Theft Auto.  Sounds good right?  Well that's exactly what Retro City Rampage was.  An homage to the classics and a parody of titles like Splosion Man, Retro City Rampage had everything going for it to be a fun do what you want when you want chaotic title.  What more is there to say?

4 - XCom:  Enemy Unknown:  

I have no excuse for this game.  A return of a classic strategy series because of the backlash from the Bioshock-like first-person shooter, and it was supposedly really good?  How did I not this game up?  I don't know and frankly, i'm ashamed I haven't picked it up yet.  If you're curious as to what I think of that reboot, i'm not looking forward to the first person shooter Xcom, but it still looks like there's something special about it.  For now though, Xcom Enemy Unknown is on my grid.

3 - Playstation Vita

Ok, this is cheating seeing how it's a console and not a game, but I feel that that Sony's new handheld deserves a spot on this list.  New technology is always a nice thing and between the Wii U, I was honestly more interested in the Vita's tech than Nintendo's new console with a name that sounds like the sound a firetruck makes.  Aside from the phenomenal specs, the Vita sported a lot of great technology like a pair of sticks, a gyroscope, and a two touch screens on the front and back that gave Nintendo a run for its money on handheld dominance.  What it lacked were games that were worth purchasing the system for.  Don't get me wrong, some of them were interesting, like Uncharted:  Golden Abyss, but none of them felt like they were necessary enough for me to have them on the go, they felt like inferior versions of console experiences, so why not play them on a console for a couple of bucks more?  Besides, announcing a price cut for 2013 before 2013?  Not a smart move.  That being said, the game for the Vita I was looking most forward to was Assassin's Creed 3:  Liberation, a sort of interesting take on the female side of the American Revolution while preserving the Assassin in Assassin's Creed, so if you have a problem with me putting a system in this slot, hey, consider that the entry on my list.  The PS Vita may be on life support, but competition drives others to do better, right guys?

2 - Kingdoms of Amalur - Reckoning:  

After Skyrim was released, there were two titles that came to challenge its dominance in western free roaming RPGs:  Dragon's Dogma and Kingdoms of Amalur.  Between the two, Kingdoms of Amalur had the most appeal with its more colorful environments, excellent combat and not being made by a company run by monkeys.  However, the interest in Amalur reaches far beyond just the game, but the whole legal issues and financial troubles of 38 Studios, and their unfortunate closing in Rhode Island.  The story of Kingdom of Amalur and 38 Studio's bankruptcy was by far the saddest and the biggest this year:  One studio, one new game that critics and gamers loved but just didn't sell enough and now, 38 Studios is no more and pitcher Curt Schilling.  Thankfully, Epic hired a few of the former employees but to those have been lest fortune to you, I hope for the best for you.  Oh and in case the governor of Rhode Island does come across this for some unknown reason, maybe you shouldn't have wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars investing in the studio in the first place.  Hey, the situation isn't black and white, there's blame to go around on all parts but there's a beginning to this chain of events.  That really grinds my gears.

1 - The Last Story:  

 If there's one thing you need to know about me and my love for games is that I love -RPGs.  Specifically, Japanese RPGs.  However this generation started to remove my passion for the genre as more and more games in the genre became less interesting.  There are of course exceptions but on the whole, the genre seemed to be more about the narrative than about the gameplay with no regard for quality for either aspect.  Even Japanese RPGs that i've come to appreciate this generation, I have to admit, a fair amount of them suffer from this favouring of style over actual substance, characters that became more dark, angst-y and all-around less likeable, stagnant and repetitive gameplay and plots so predictable you can point out every character's role in the first five minutes.  I may love JRPGs but I also love to see change, to see the genre evolve and improve over the years from its roots rather than stay at the same level it's been on for years.  And that is where The Last Story comes in.  It had everything.  Legendary designer Hironobu Sakaguchi, composer Nobuo Uematsu, the talented folks at Mistwalker responsible for ASH and AQ Interactive, all behind this new JRPG series with a romantic tale fit for classic Final Fantasy.  While Xenoblade Chronicles looked to put an interesting twist on real-time battles and Kingdom Of Amalur:  Reckoning and 38 Studio's subsequent demise may have been the biggest gaming story this year, to me, the biggest event that happened was the release of The Last Story, a game that had a vast amount issues coming out to the West.  While the original Japanese releases of The Last Story and two other titles, Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora's Tower, were published by Nintendo, in North America, Nintendo had stated that they had no plans to release any of the titles any time soon.  Their choice lead to a group of fans getting together and forming a group called Operation Rainfall.  Through a letter campaign, Amazon sales and other means, they tried to convince Nintendo there was enough of a market to be profitable enough for them to bring the games over.  And it worked.  As of now, two of the three games have been released.  Though The Last Story was localized by X-Seed instead of the Big N, it was still brought over to the West.  The whole Operation Rainfall movement was inspirational, that so many people could come together and get these not just one but three games brought over for people to experience it.  It inspired me to get more involved in the gaming community and to return to reviewing games.  But most importantly, I wanted to see to it that the Wii's swan song would get the attention it deserved from me and everyone else.

But I never reviewed The Last Story, or Xenoblade Chronicles nor did I mentioned either of them at all.  So... why didn't I pick it up?   What is wrong with me for passing up this much anticipated title?  In all honesty, I just I don't know why.  For what can only be described as what Final Fantasy would be if Hironobu Sakaguchi stayed with Square, The Last Story is the last game on this list of regrets.  So that's my list, were there any games you wanted to play but didn't?  Sound off in the comments below.  Until next time, game on my friends.

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Happy Halloween! (Zero Escape Review)October 31, 2012 by

Happy Halloween my ChIGNldren of the night and welcome to this year's Halloween special.  This year, we tackle the newest horrific release for the 3DS:  Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Stand.  First, let's get the elephant in the room out of here.  As of now, I have not played 999, the title which preceded today's title.  For those who don't know, 999:  Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors was a visual novel on the Nintendo DS that became a cult hit when it was released in 2010.  It became so beloved and so popular that the developer decided to announce a sequel less than a year after its North American launch and even before Zero Escape reached our shores, Chunsoft has already talked about yet another sequel.  Anyway, to prepare myself for this game, I tried my hardest to get my hands on a copy of 999, but as I said earlier, it was all for naught.  However, I did talk to one of my good friends who had played the game and this is what he had to say " The gameplay was minimal as expected for a visual novel, but the story was very good.  It had a good plot and that's all it had going for it".  Well spoken.  I should mention at this point that you don't need to play the first game in the series in order to enjoy the second, it may help at points, but we'll get into that later in the story.  Also, subtle much?  Might as well play Iron Maiden for the theme.

So yes, I never did get to play 999 before this review though I plan to in the future.  For now, we have to ask:  Is Zero Escape a rewarding new experience?  Or should this be Chunsoft's last stand?  Let's find out.

the story goes like this.  You and eight other people were kidnapped and placed into a facility to play "a game", unbeknownst as to why they were chosen.  The goal of this "game" is to get enough points in order to open up a door with the number nine.  In order to do that, you and eight other people need to team up in groups and solve a series of puzzles.  All the while, the mastermind behind this game is a player just like you, but you don't know who it is, it could be anyone.  Even you.  It's easy to compare the plot to Saw, except Zero Escape is more experimental on the selfish nature of humanity and less... torture porn.  As expected for a visual novel, there is alot of story and choices to make.  The plot gets pretty complicated at some points (believe me, any game that involves multiverse theory and Schrödinger's Cat for thematic purposes is anything but simple) though in all honesty, it's really easy to follow the story.  The characters are all distinct and they really do make choosing sides all the more difficult in a game fuelled by trust.  The only aspect of the narrative that I doesn't work was you... or rather the character you plays as named Sigma.  In such a serious situation, it's amazing that he comes off as the one you wish would die as he constantly tries to get some cheap perverted thrill when everyone including himself could die or worse yet, forced to lie in some unknown facility for the rest of his life.  There's also one character who tries way too hard to be memorable and funny and fails at both aspects.  I won't say who it is, bunny's not funny at all.  Not a bad character, they just come off as trying way too hard.  Aside from the very unlikable protagonist and this other character, the rest of the cast is full of players with unique and distinct personalities; you're sure to have your favourites during your time in the facility, mine are Clover, Phi and K, and you'll want to see them make it to the end with you.  Their voice actors sell their part at their worst but at their best, they capture the mood of being trapped in a facility where the people you're working with may kill you just to save themselves. There's also some genuinely funny moments in Zero Escape, mainly from its twisted dark humour that really works.  The premise is fantastic and Zero Escape executes it almost perfectly.  There's a ton of story to enjoy, and I do mean plenty.  There's a plethora of multiple endings, most of which tend to end either horrifically or tragically, but they do encourage you to play through the multiple paths and uncover every little spec that you can in this facility.  There's plot twists in every branching story path  that always keep you guessing while filling you in on important details in other parts that drives you to keep playing to unravel the entire story.  Best of all, you don't need to play 999 in order to enjoy the narrative!  I'm sure veteran Nonary players will understand key elements of the plot more than those that haven't and be able to answer some of the many questions you'll be asking yourself during the events in the plot, but anyone can jump right in without any knowledge of the previous game and enjoy a fascinating mystery horror, the selfish characteristic of human nature and a truly horrific game that is most definitely a game of life or death. 

As good as the plot is for Zero Escape, a game is only as good as the sum of its parts.  As far as the gameplay goes, Zero Escape is a puzzler.  Quite literally, it's all about interacting with the environment, collecting clues and items to solve a smaller puzzle and escape from a locked room.  In order to escape, you need to find a password and unlock a safe with the key that will let you escape and that's where what you collect comes in handy. Sometimes, items need to be examined, flipped around, combined with another item or even taken apart.  They're usually necessary in order to find and solve a smaller puzzle, like adding up numbers in a specific order to 91 or figuring out the weight of coins.  The puzzles are fun and incomparable, no two ever play the same, and they get very challenging, so luckily you can switch between Hard and Easy Mode. Depending on your difficulty you'll get different rewards and unlock different secrets for your enjoyment.  But be warned, once you change to easy you can't change back until after you exit the room, so if you want to get the best secrets, you're going to have quite the challenge on your hands.  And then there's the Ambidex Game.  It's rather simple, you either choose to either Ally or Betray your opponent, which leads to you gaining or losing points in the Nonary game and branches off paths in the game's multiple ending.  Speaking of multiple endings, Zero Escape's path changes depending on key decisions you make in the Nonary Game.  Who you choose to go with in the round, who you ally or betray, and so on and so forth.  It adds alot of replay value to the game, you're sure to get at least 30 hours out of it and even more if you want to get every single secret from every safe.

With such a vast amount of play time, thoughtful puzzles all tied together with a horrific mystery tale, you have to ask yourself, are there any vices in Virtue's Last Reward?

There's only one, and that would be that the game simply has too much story relative to its gameplay.  I know that in the visual novel genre, gameplay isn't the major focus, but still, that's not my point.  I play a game for the experience of the gameplay.  Out of the 30 or so hours, I believe only 9 and a half or so were actually me solving puzzles as opposed to watching the story unfold.  Even when a game has a wonderful story such as this one, when there's not alot of gameplay to actually play,  then there's a lack of substance to break up the story.  and that can get pretty annoying when the cutscenes are taking up the majority of your play-time.  What gameplay exists is fantastic.  I just felt there could have been just a little bit more put in during certain parts.  Other than that, I don't have much else to complain about, most of my other problems are minor nitpicks, like why do you have to choose your language every time you boot up the game, why not have an option button to just switch it if you change your mind?  In fact, why do you need to select a file when you only have one save file to choose from? That's just... dumb...  Just have a new game and continue option.  Simple as that.  Also, (big shock), the 3D doesn't add anything during cutscenes or puzzles, though in all fairness, it is a multi-platform title so I didn't expect it to do much in the first place.

It's a bit of a shame, because the story and gameplay are interwoven quite well, but there's just not a ton of gameplay shoved into there.  To me, the game mechanics comes first and story comes second, if there is one.  Even though Zero Escape has fantastic gameplay, it could have benefitted from just a little more.  That's not to say you won't enjoy it, the environment puzzles are well done.  It's just a shame that there's not more of it.

Finally, the presentation.  I can't speak for the Vita version, but on the 3DS, Zero Escape is pretty solid.  Admittedly, most of the environments are grey and unappealing but character models but there are a few standouts that look quite good.  Character models look unique and expressive, though they don't  move around more than just act as icons.  As for voices, you have the option to choose Japanese or English which is a nice option.  The English voice actors range from decent to great.  The sound quality of the voice work itself is questionable, it's especially noticeable whenever an s sound is made.  The lip sync hits more than misses but it does looks off at times.  Oh, and if you're wondering about  that animated video, it never shows up once.  There's some in-game cutscenes, but that's about it.  But the best part of the game's presentation is the soundtrack.  It's a truly haunting and downright creepy that's absolutely perfect in setting the tone of a scene and capturing the foreboding atmosphere in this gloomy scenario.  These compositions get your blood pumping and the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it's simply fantastic.  Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward has its ups and downs in its presentation but never fails to be anything less than good.

Overall, Zero Escape is a surprisingly chilling title and a downright brilliant visual novel, scoring eight of ten points from me.  Now I wanted to give this game a higher score, but what it all came down to was that as much fun I had with the puzzles and as much as I enjoyed the story, I just couldn't forgive how much more narrative there was.  If you love a good story and some great puzzles, I shouldn't even have to tell you that you'll love this game.  However, if you're new to the visual novel and you're looking something a little darker, then give Zero Escape a chance.  Well children of the night, that's all for this Hollow's Eve.  Until next time, game on my friends!

And words of advice my children:  Memento Mori.


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