Max Anarchy (Anarchy Reigns) Demo Impressions

Over the past few years PlatinumGames and Sega have partnered to bring us crazy games like Mad World, Bayonetta, and Vanquish. Platinum has proven that they know how to put on the crazy while still creating engaging gameplay to go along with it.

Platinum's new game Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchy in Japan) continues their track record of sheer craziness. Much like Bayonetta and Mad world Anarchy Reigns is a brawler/action game. Interestingly enough it takes place in the same universe as Mad World and even focuses on some characters from that game, like the main character Jack. 

Anarchy Reigns was set to drop in the U.S. July 3rd and Europe a few days later, but now it's TBA in both territories. Just like all of Platinum's previous games Sega is publishing this one as well. It's no secret that Sega is in dire straights financially, so it's entirely possible that the game will only be released in Japan now. Platinum has stated multiple times that the game has been localized in it's entirety, so that information is keeping my hope alive.

Lucky for Japan their release date has not changed and the game will be released there on July 5th as planned. It's lame that it may not come out here, but the Japanese version is ripe for importing if you're into that kind of thing. For some odd reason the game will have the option for both English voices and text. Much to my surprise the demo that was put up on the Japanese PSN today had those English options as well. I immediately downloaded it, because I had to find out what it was all about.  

You can change it all to English!

Combat

First and foremost Anarahcy Reigns is a brawler, so the first thing I did in the demo was rush over to the training mode. I've watched my fair share of gameplay videos and I was eager to find it the gameplay felt as good as it looked and in my opinion it does.

Like most other brawlers Anarchy Reigns uses two main attack buttons. If you push square your character will bust out with a weak attack and if you push triangle they'll go with a heavy  attack. Creating combos is easy and they can get up to what seems like four consecutive hits. One, two, or three weak hits and then a heavy hit will make up a majority of what you're doing. You can vary the timing of the button presses and add directional inputs to change the attacks even further. This is basically how all brawlers work, but it's similar to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta in the way that your skill matters. If you get good enough you can do some really cool stuff. Learning to juggle opponents and how to get them into aerial combos seem to be a key parts of developing skill.

This video shows off a bit of training mode.

When you're fighting normal enemies you pretty much tear them apart. After two or three hits they'll explode and you can turn your sights to the next target. However, when it comes to fighting other characters and bosses it gets a whole lot more complex and fun. They won't just sit there and take your beatings. They'll hit you back and they'll hit hard. Blocking works well and it doesn't seem easy to abuse. Holding down R2 will set your character in place and they'll block incoming damage from the front. If you take too many hits the guard will break and you'll be susceptible to a lot of damage. If you notice your opponent start to block you can grab them out of it as well. 

The battles in Anarchy Reigns can get pretty hectic and blocking doesn't always work. In fact if an enemy hits you from behind you can be in pretty serious danger. Platinum took this into consideration and added a few things to help deal with those hectic situations. The first is the ability to do an area attack in exchange for some of your characters health. The attack will blow away all enemies around you so that you can escape and potentially avoid a great deal of damage.

If you're doing well enough in the battle an aura will appear around your character. If you then click in both sticks you'll enter rage mode. When in rage mode you'll attack much faster and be allowed to use your killer weapon without penalty. To use your killer weapon you'll need to hold the L2 button in conjunction with the light and heavy attacks. Attacking with the killer weapon is way more powerful. You can also use the killer weapon without rage mode, but it will take away your health.

Each character has a weapon. Jack uses a chainsaw, while Leo uses crazy leg swords.

The combat is well done and it seems like Platinum is trying to promote skilled play. Mashing buttons will do some damage, but if you time your hits and know what you're doing you'll kick some serious ass.

Single Player

I'm going to be honest when I say that I don't know what the hell was going on in the story of Anarchy Reigns, but I didn't care at all! It was straight up insanity. 

The game is going to feature two different campaigns, white and black. In the black campaign which I tried out first you play as Jack the main character from Mad World. It began with a ridiculous FMV video which looked beautiful. Blacker Baron, the pimp from mad world, and his consort Mathilda have tracked down Jack in order to take him down. 

This might sound a little bad, but I feel like this game is how Japanese people imagine American culture. Blacker Baron has an oddly high pitched voice and he says mother fucker, or fucker almost constantly. To top it off he has a grill that says fuck you on it. It's all ridiculous, but I love it. To make things even more odd almost all of the in game music is rap. With how weird everything is it all fits together well. The world they've created feels unique and definitely shows off a very Platinum style.

Jack is the main character if the black side, and Leo is the main character of the white side.

After a bit of talking a fight between Jack and the Baron takes place. It's what you'd expect, a battle. Near the end an event occurs that has bombs dropping down onto the stage. When you win you'll be given a score, which will translate into what level of medal you get. Platinum medals are the highest honor and it seems that the more points you get the more stuff you'll unlock in the game. 

On the white side you play as the cyborg Leo and his story is a lot less ridiculous. He walks out of a bar with his friends and is ambushed by a bunch of thugs. You then transition to gameplay, which allows you to roam around the immediate area. There are enemies to fight in order to get points, but the true goals are the pillars of light. Each pillar is a mission. Green pillars are free missions that you can do over and over to get points, while red pillars are main story missions. In Leo's he fights a weird lizard man. 

The look into the campaign isn't very deep, but what they showed has me very interested. Like all of Platinum's work the story seems to be bat shit crazy and I can't wait to see what else it has in store.

Multiplayer

I thought it was weird that Anarchy Reigns was going to have a large focus on Multiplayer when I first heard about it. Now that I've played it I still feel that way.

Games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry need precise timing to pull off the more advanced maneuvers and Anarchy Reigns is absolutely no different. When you introduce lag into the equation it loses some of it's functionality. Then when you add in four opposing players it loses even more than functionality.

I realize that I'm an American playing on a Japanese demo's server for an unreleased game, so I'm willing to cut the multiplayer a little slack, but I wasn't too keen on what I played.

The demo has two available modes for play. Death match, which has four players in a free-for-all and team death match, which has two teams of four players. I only played a few games of team death match, because that's what quick match throws you into. I played five matches and in four out of those five matches my team was mercilessly slaughtered. 

This was basically happening to me the entire time I played multiplayer.

Whenever I would spawn I'd find the nearest player and try to attack them. It almost never worked out in my favor. I'd try to block, but the delay made it so I didn't start blocking before they got me into an insane combo. There were times when I'd get into a fight with someone and it would go fairly well, but then I'd instantly die when someone attacked me from behind. Since the camera is positioned behind the back it's almost impossible to tell when someone is coming up from the back. 

To add to my woes I would get double teamed a lot. If two people attack you at the same time you're screwed. As far as I can tell there is no way to get around it. One person will combo you, then the other and it'll continue in an endless cycle until you're dead or they choose to leave you alone. This wouldn't be a problem if each team member fought someone, but I had a lot of people disconnecting. People were also using items to instantly kill me, which was getting extremely frustrating.

Before I played the game I expected the multiplayer to be pure chaos and it is, but not really in a good way. I kept getting super frustrated, because it felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do. The same solid base mechanics were still there, they just weren't working at the speeds I needed them to. 

The last match I played I ended up doing fairly well, but that was because half of the other team dropped out for some unknown reason and were replaced with computers who didn't move at all. When I was fighting people in that match everything seemed to be going well. At first I thought that the problem was just me, but it seems to be that whatever team gets a kill first either shuts out or decimates the other.

A lot goes in in a match of Anarchy Reigns.

In each multiplayer match you'll accumulate points, which seem to go towards some type of unlock system that isn't really present in the demo. At the start of a match you can pick an ability for your character that modifies something about their moves. There are only a handful to choose from in the demo, but there are a ton of locked boxes that I assume you get by gaining a whole bunch of points in the retail version.

I know I sound fairly dismissive of this, mainly because I am. The concept of a multiplayer brawler just doesn't play in my mind. The fact that I'm an American playing on a Japanese server doesn't help at all. If the game ever does come out in America I'll give the multiplayer a fair shot, but right now it's not looking too hot from my perspective. I'll try it out some more later this week to see if my opinion changes any. If it worked properly it could be super fun, because the core gameplay is fun.

Conclusion

I've been looking forward to Anarchy Reigns for a long time. I wasn't expecting it to be anything spectacular, but I came away from the demo liking it a whole lot. The combat is simple, but seems to have a lot of depth to it. It's not exactly like Bayonetta and DMC, but it's similar. In fact it reminds me a lot of God Hand. Even the overall style of the reminds me of God Hand. 

It sucks that it's not coming out here in July anymore, but it sucks even more that it might not come out here at all anymore. Sega isn't even going to be showing the game at E3 and it's completely finished. This may be the first game I ever import, because I just have to see what the final product is like.

The demo is definitely something you should try out if you've been interested in this game at all. It's really easy to set up a Japanese PSN account for free and you'll have no problem finding the demo. On the 360 the demo is restricted to Gold users right now, but tomorrow a free weekend is starting so you'll be able to pick it up then. 

I recommend giving it a try. It's fun at the very least. 

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/27/2012

It's ridiculously hot right now. No exaggeration, I can feel the moisture in the air. 

It may surprise you, but I have a hard time thinking of ways to start these. Since it's sweltering hot I don't especially feel like putting in the extra effort for a good intro, so I'm just going to jump right into it.

This past week I bought Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble (Almost wrote Jumble!), and Ghost Trick. I also played the new Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC Requiem of the Goddess.

Game Time is here once more!

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Lightning: Requiem of the Goddess

Man, video game names have been pretty bad lately huh? I realize this is DLC for an already poorly named game, but it's just an awful mouthful. 

I went into this DLC fully expecting it to be a complete piece of garbage, so it was a pleasant surprise when it wasn't. Unlike most or perhaps all of the previous DLC for Final Fantasy XIII-2 it actually adds on to the story. The part that makes me mad is that the information given in this DLC about the story definitely should have been in the game to begin with. It makes the ridiculous stuff that happens at the end of the game make a little bit more sense. This takes place after the game ends and while it's ending. I'm not going to talk about it here, because I already shit all over the story in another post. If you want to spoil everything feel free to take a look at that.

So what's this DLC all about you ask? Well, it's all about Lightning fighting Caius and that's it. This DLC costs 5 dollars and all you do is fight Caius. Typing it out like that makes it sound terrible, but it's actually pretty fun. I'm willing to admit that the battle system is the most fun part of the game and this DLC focuses entirely on that. 

If you want to pay $5 to fight Caius over and over this DLC is for you.

Instead of the tradition roles Lighting has far stronger roles at her disposal. The only role she doesn't have any access to is medic. Instead, she only has access to ten potions and a single elixir to heal herself with. With all of these tools at your disposal you'll fight a super buffed up version of Caius. At the start he will completely wreck you, but you'll still get some crystarium points. Once you lose a few times Lightning will level up, which makes her stronger and gives her access to new roles. This DLC isn't meant to be very long, so Lightning can only get to a max level of ten.

All you need to do in order to complete the DLC is beat Caius super quickly. If you do it fast enough he'll turn into Midnight Bahamut. If you can best Midnight Bahamut then you'll be rewarded with some story for your troubles. Overall I'd say that this is just a challenge for people who like battling in XIII-2. Since battles were my favorite part of the game I had a fun time for about an hour. If you didn't feel like me, then there is absolutely no reason for you try this out.

Oh yeah, Midnight Bahamut is in the DLC too.

Viewtiful Joe : Red Hot Rumble

I still have four Gamecube controllers. Granted not all of them are fully functional, but I still have them. This is one of the reasons I actively look out for fun multiplayer Gamecube games. I guess it also helps that there are three other people around for me to play with most of the time. In case you were wondering where I was going with this, then you'll be happy to know that Red Hot Rumble is one such game.

I've had my eyes peeled for a decent copy of Red Hot Rumble for a while now and this past weekend I finally found one. It's not exactly what I expected, but I think that ended up being a good thing. For some reason I didn't look up any gameplay beforehand, so I was under the impression that it was basically super smash with Viewtiful Joe characters.

After playing the game I still feel that it's kind of similar to Super Smash., but it's actually quite different. Instead of just mindlessly beating the living shit out of everyone on screen there are actually objectives in Red Hot Rumble. No matter what stage you choose there will be a variety of objectives you're supposed to complete. The objectives are all over the place. You might be beating up enemies, collecting gems, staying alive, capturing the flag and a bunch of other things I can't remember right now. 

Defeating bosses is also an objective.

The way you win in Red Hot Rumble is to have the most V coins at the end of a stage. When you complete an objective you'll get about 1,000 V coins, but they'll also show up randomly. This makes staying alive just as important as completing objectives, because if you die you'll lose a whole lot of coins and that's never a good thing. 

One of the things I don't like about Red Hot Rumble is that sometimes it's really hard to tell what's going on in the match, especially if there are four people playing at the same time. The stages are already fairly busy, so when you throw in enemies, four players, and a bunch of objects it can become a little much. Adding to the problem are the famous powers from Viewtiful Joe. When people are using mach speed, slow down, and zoom all over the place it gets way harder to get your bearings.

Red Hot Rumble is a great multiplayer game. It's fast paced, competitive, and ridiculous. It may help that I like the Viewtiful Joe Universe a whole bunch, but I think it's a solid game regardless.

There's a lot going on here and it's super blurry. Welcome to Red Hot Rumble!

Ghost Trick

As you may be aware, I am a big fan of the Phoenix Wright series. So when Ghost Trick came out and I found out it was made by the same team I knew that I had to have it. Unlucky for me the game got kind of rare, so I couldn't find it online for it's normal price and it wasn't available in any stores around me. 

This past weekend when I was out looking for Red Hot Rumble I came across a $20 dollar copy of Ghost Trick at one of my local Gamestop's. There are three around here, which is kind of dumb. Anyways, I found Ghost Trick with it's case and instruction manual for $20, but I didn't get it. For some stupid reason I decided to see if I could find it cheaper. 

The next day I knew I would regret it if I didn't buy it, so I went all the way back to Gamestop and bought it. I was a bit worried I wasn't going to like it very much, but after playing the game for five minutes I knew that wasn't the case. 

The dead man is Sissel and he's pretty cool.

I don't mean to sound crude here, but I fucking love Ghost Trick. In fact I'm upset that I didn't play it when it first came out. It took me eleven hours to beat the game and that was in just two sittings. I literally played the game for five and a half hours twice, because I wanted to see the ending so badly. 

In case you're unaware you play as a ghost named Sissel in Ghost Trick. He has recently died and doesn't remember anything about himself other than his name. He finds out that he has special powers known as ghost tricks. This allows him to move from object to object and manipulate them. He can also use phone lines to travel long distances. These are the tricks that are used to solve puzzles.

Sissel's other trick is that he can bring people back from the dead. If he can get to their body he can go back four minutes before they died and save them. It's unique, and engaging, and I absolutely love it.

The flaming blue dot is the object Sissel is possessing. The others are where he can go.

I'm still coming off of my Ghost Trick high, so as of right now I'm basically only going to be able to say how much I love it. To save you that repetition I won't dwell on it. 

Lately I've been slacking on doing reviews. I've had a lot less free time and I've been trying to use it to play games. This means that I haven't been writing as much, which is just plain wrong. That is why I am going to make the promise that I will review Ghost Trick by next week. It was awesome and I need to write up a review. So if you want to hear more about Ghost Trick check back later this week for a review.

IT'S SO HOT!

After proof reading this I noticed that it wasn't my best work and for that I apologize. However, in my defense my brain is pretty much melting in the heat. I really hope that this summer isn't consistently this hot, or I may just spend the entire summer sweating into the couch.

E3 is almost here and I'm super pumped. In order to stave off my excitement I have acquired the critically acclaimed DS RPG Radiant Historia. Apparently it's amazing, but I haven't started it yet because I've been playing and thinking about Ghost Trick (Which I will be reviewing this week). 

Hopefully I'll find some other stuff to check out, or maybe I'll just melt away in the heat. There's absolutely no way of knowing!

This has been another edition of Game Time. See you next week.

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/20/2012

I've played a few odd video games in my day, but this week I may have topped everything.

To start the week I got a ridiculous craving for some story based rhythm games. My personal favorite game of that type is Parappa. In an attempt to satiate that craving I picked up the PSP re-release of the PlayStation classic. It didn't exactly turn out the way I expected. 

Since Parappa didn't end up being what I wanted I needed another game. I ended up getting the PSP re-release of the PS2 game Gitaroo Man. Somehow I never ended up buying the PS2 version. It's a shame, because I thought the game was freaking awesome, but the PS2 version is super expensive now. It might be a bit weird, but it was just what I needed.

As if Gitaroo Man wasn't ridiculous enough I picked up the super obscure PS2 game Chulip. If you want to get a little crazy there should be a heart between the u and the l, but I'm not that intense so there will be no hearts here. I was trying to get rid of my unneeded bookmarks, when I came across the Amazon product page for the game. I bookmarked it my freshman year of college. After looking up a few videos I decided to take the plunge down into weird town and ordered it online. I don't want to talk it up, but I'm confident in saying it's the weirdest game I've ever played.

I don't know how this week ended up getting so weird, but it really did. So get ready for an all weird edition of Game Time.

Parappa The Rapper (PSP)

I love Parappa. What's more lovable than a rapping dog who's in love with a sunflower? The answer is nothing. 

All joking aside, I really like Parappa. It's super weird, but more than that it's creative. Like most rhythm games it would be absolutely nothing without good music. Each rap is about a different situation that Parappa needs to overcome and they're all fairly entertaining. In fact, I'm listening to Prince Fleaswallow's Rap now, and I recommend you do the same. 

For Some reason Parappa is attracted to a sunflower.

The gameplay of Parappa is very similar to Simon Says. The Master will do their verse first to demonstrate and as Parappa you must copy the button presses with the correct rhythm. It's exceedingly simple, so it may not be engaging for some people. This may be the reason why games of this type don't get released very often anymore. I think the reason Parappa got away with it was because of its sense of style. All of the character's are made to look like paper. When you pair that with the fact that it's based around animals rapping it's just an interesting experience.

Despite my love for Parappa I don't own a copy of the PS1 game. I did play it when I was younger though. I do however have Parappa 2, and the series spin-off Um Jammer Lammy. Since the PS1 version of Parappa is so expensive I thought I'd try to round out my collection with the PSP version. Much to my dismay I didn't have as much fun as I wanted to.

The PSP version of Parappa certainly doesn't have the funky flow.

The sense of style and the awesome music remained, but the gameplay just wasn't working for me at all. I passed the first level with flying colors, but the further into the game I got the worse I was. When I hit the 4th stage I hit a brick wall and couldn't pass it for hours. I thought that I was hitting every button at the exact time I was supposed to. The timing in Parappa is odd, but I could hear Parappa saying what he should have, when he needed to. I got so mad I thought about smashing my PSP, but instead I went to the internet to see what I was doing wrong.

It turns out that the PSP version of Parappa isn't a good port. In fact, it's downright bad. I found numerous forum topics and even a news story on Destructoid about how the timing wasn't right in most of the songs. I also found people saying that the delay was due to the PSP having low battery. Much to my amazement that was actually the problem. When I plugged in my PSP the game worked totally fine. I wasn't doing anything different, but I was passing all of the songs. This is simply inexcusable for a handheld game. You should definitely be able to play the game without having the battery charged fully.

Gitaroo Man Lives!

After my poor experience with the PSP version of Parappa I didn't have high hopes for the PSP version of Gitaroo Man, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I had never played Gitaroo man before this and now I'm upset that I didn't. As you'd imagine it's a rhythm game based around the guitar. It wouldn't be a proper rhythm game unless its story was utterly ridiculous bordering on nonsensical though. Gitaroo man has that going for it too.

This is Gitaroo Man. The game is just as ridiculous as he looks!

The story follows U-1 (A play on U-2) and he's basically a loser. He's trying to impress a girl, but he just can't seem to do it. While he's sulking in his room a weird little demon attacks him and his dog Puma gives him a guitar. The guitar is known as a Gitaroo and U-1 can wield it to become the mighty Gitaroo Man. When in his super form he can shred jammin' hot riffs in order to take down his enemies.

The story ends up taking him to planet Gitaroo, which is under the control of the evil Zowie ( A play on David Bowie). Since he's in possession of the last Gitaroo, U-1 must rise to the occasion and save the planet. In doing so he gains the courage to get with the girl he wanted. Typing the plot out like I just did makes it sound a lot less crazy than it actually is. You really have to play it, or see it to understand what I'm talking about. 

The gameplay of Gitaroo Man isn't like your average rhythm game. While you still need to push the buttons at the right time there's a bit more to it than that. Each song in Gitaroo Man is a battle. You'll start by charging up your health with the sweet sound of your guitar. A blue line will move towards the middle of the screen. Your job is to follow that line with the analog stick in order to activate it. Red circles will appear along the line and when they reach the middle you'll need to push circle in order to have U-1 play a note. If the circle extends you'll have to hold circle for that amount of time. This same method is used to do damage to your opponent. 

Things become more like a normal rhythm game when you're defending against enemy attacks. Buttons will fly towards the middle of the screen and if you time the presses right U-1 won't take any damage. The whole battle concept is interesting and it's executed fairly well. It makes you feel like you're doing more than just making the music keep going. 

Chulip

As I wrote up the previous two sections I realized that they don't sound super weird. While they are actually weird, you have to see them to understand. That's how I know Chulip is on a whole new level of craziness, because it still sounds weird even when it's typed out. It's a game based completely around kissing.

Yeah, that's right. It's a game about kissing. There is no combat, only exploration and kissing. You take the role of a boy who has just moved to a new town. He's recently had a dream about kissing his dream girl and it turns out she lives in town! Sadly she doesn't want to kiss him, because he's poor and has a bad reputation. Don't worry, it's just as shallow and ridiculous as it sounds. 

In order to kiss the dream girl under the tree of love (It's a normal tree with the face of an old man peeking out) the hero must first kiss other denizens of Long Life Town in order to get his reputation up. In order to keep the premise as weird and creepy as possible you have to name both the boy and the dream girl. If there's anyone you want to kiss really bad Chulip offers you the chance to creepily base your entire experience around them.

You're going to be kissing everyone in town with those sweet sweet lips.

Again. there is no combat in this game, only exploration, item collection, train riding, saving on the toilet, sleeping on the floor, and kissing. At the beginning of the game the hero has a weak heart. When people say mean things to him, you pick up poop out of a trash can, get rejected when trying to kiss someone, or get hit by something your heart will be broken. It starts at 5/5, but the more people you kiss the more you'll be able to take. Right now I'm up to 60/60 and I can take quite a bit of rejection and poop. 

So how do you kiss people? The easiest people to kiss are the citizens who live underground. At certain times or under certain conditions they'll dig up out of the ground. Fumes will circle their head and if you move too fast they'll beat the hell out of you and your heart will break. The key is to sneak up on them and wait until they're no longer angry. Eventually music notes will appear around their head and that means it's time to plant one on em'. Each time you successfully kiss someone you'll be rewarded with an exquisite scene. You and the character you kissed will spin around in space while the word CLEAR appears in all rainbow as fireworks go off. Oh yeah, also weirdly sensual saxophone music plays. 

Why yes, that is a man in a trash can he's kissing.

The other option is to kiss normal non-angry citizens. However, they're a lot tougher to handle. Instead of waiting for them to calm down you're going to have to do a quest for them. Most of them are super obscure and they're borderline impossible to figure out. The developers knew this, because the instruction manual doubles as a strategy guide, which is bananas. It's not a lame list of hints either. It literally tells you how to kiss everyone and complete everything. I wanted to try and play without using it, but after a certain point it was impossible. The game just doesn't give you enough information. I'm pretty close to the end and I've had to use the manual quite a bit.

For some reason I like this game in an un-ironic way. There's something relaxing about it. All you do is try to figure out how to kiss people. A lot of the game involves waiting and traveling. There are four areas and none of them are super large, but they're all interesting enough to explore. Since the game is so insane I still don't have a full grasp on it yet. If you want to see some of it for yourself I suggest looking up a lets play of it on Youtube. There are a few of them and they're quite funny.

SO WEIRD

I used to think Parappa was weird, but it pales in comparison to Chulip. I just don't understand how such a thing was created and I especially don't understand how or why it was every translated into English. I can almost guarantee it didn't sell well. At least they can say that the idea was original?

I still don't quite understand how I got sucked into this past week of weird gaming, but I kind of liked it. I can only hope that the trend continues on into the coming weeks.

This has been another edition of Game Time. Have a nice week and maybe try to kiss everyone in your town.

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/14/2012

Last week I didn't do much gaming, so I decided to skip a week of Game Time in order to have something to talk about. Instead of playing games I decided to watch every current episode of Community and see The Avengers. Both of them were awesome.

Enough of those non-video games though, because I haven't done this in two weeks. There are a bunch of games I've played and it's about time I talked about them. I played the new SSX DLC called Mt. Eddie, Awesomenauts, Trine 2, and Zack and Wiki. 

It's a solid bunch of old and new this week, so I hope you enjoy this edition of Game Time.

SSX DLC Mt. Eddie

On May 1st the debut DLC for SSX was released. Prior to it's release EA was teasing that it would be taking players on a trip down memory lane with some Tricky themes courses and visuals. Their teasing ended up becoming reality, because the DLC titled Mt. Eddie is decidedly reminiscent of SSX in it's Tricky days. I played enough of it to write up a review, which you can find here.

While the new SSX was fairly well received it left some players wanting more. Fans of the older games wanted courses that were less filled with holes and more focused on tricking. Mt. Eddie is exactly what those people were asking for. It's 9 drops down a trick oriented mountain. A few of the drops last for over 10 minutes, which makes the scoring potential insanely high.

Expect craziness like this from Mt. Eddie.

It takes everything I like about the new SSX and pairs it with the SSX days of old to deliver a very fun package. As I say in the review if you liked SSX, but wanted it to be more like the old games then this is exactly what you're looking for. You'll also like it if you were just craving more SSX.

Awesomenauts 

Even though it's publisher DTP Entertainment was facing liquidation Awesomenauts still managed to see the light of digital stores on May 1st. Prior to it's release I knew next to nothing about it, but I was interested in seeing what indie developer Ronimo Games has to offer. Out of curiosity I downloaded the game from PlayStation Plus, which I felt kind of odd about due to the position of the publisher.

Despite my momentary qualms about the free download I booted up the game and was surprised by what I found. Awesomenauts is a sidescrolling MOBA, which is an interesting change of pace from the RTS based MOBAS I've tried my hand at before. Instead of clicking a million times you're just going to be pushing a whole lot of buttons. It's basic platforming to get around and each face button corresponds to one of your skills.

Awesomenauts is exactly what you're looking for if you want a console MOBA.

In Awesomenauts you choose from one of six heroes before you go into a game. When everyone is all set you're launched into an arena on either the blue or red teams. After a few seconds your side will start spawning robots that advance towards the opposing side. Like all Moba's the goal is to defeat the opposing heroes, turrets, and robots while leveling up, gathering money (Solar), and purchasing skills. In order to achieve victory you'll have to make your way to the enemies base and destroy it.

After playing a few rounds of Awesomenauts I decided that I didn't want to play it any more. I had a decent amount of fun, but it helped me come to the conclusion that I'm not really a MOBA guy. For the past few years I've been around people who go crazy for League of Legends and I know a lot of people who swear by DOTA, but I never really liked either very much. I can see the appeal of Awesomenauts, but I just don't enjoy it as much as I'd like. To me it seems like Tug-of-War with skills and I just can't get super invested.

This just looks like the opening splash of a Saturday morning cartoon.

With that said I think that Awesomenauts is great. It has a sense of style that reminds me very much of a Saturday morning cartoon. It's neat to see a developer try to create a MOBA that can easily be played on consoles. Ronimo is bringing MOBAs to consoles for the first time and I can only imagine that it's doing very well for them. There's been a lot of buzz around the game and I personally know a lot of people who have bought it.

As long as they keep updating the game I can see it having a long life. The plans for the first two DLC heroes can already be found around the internet. I can only imagine that they're going to keep balancing the game and releasing content until the player base has died out. I might jump in if a hero I really like is released.

Trine 2

I've had my eye on Trine 2 for a while, but never got around to buying it. Now that it's free on PlaySation Plus I had no choice but to pick it up. I never played the first Trine, but after playing a bit of Trine 2 I now know why people seemed to like it so much.

Trine 2 is all about solving puzzles. You play as Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief who all have different abilities. You switch between the three in order to solve the game's many puzzles. Pontius is best suited for combat. He has a sword that heavily damages enemies and he can block almost all incoming damage with his shield. Zoya can lightly damage enemies and shoot switches with her bow and grapple onto wooden ledges with her grappling hook. The person you'll be spending the most time with is Amadeus. He's essentially the main puzzle solver. He can create boxes and levitate things.

Amadeus is the main puzzle solver in Trine 2.

I started playing Trine 2 with a friend of mine in local co-op. The first thing we realized is that the wizard can be used to bypass any puzzle in multiplayer. Each one is set up to be solved in a specific way. You're supposed to get from one point to another by switching between the three characters. However, when you're the wizard you can just levitate your partner on a box to wherever you need to go. Then if you switch to the wizard you can levitate your partner over in order to totally bypass the puzzle. Since this basically negates all of the challenge we tried to figure everything out the way we were supposed to.

I haven't tried to play the game single player yet, but I can only imagine that it's much more challenging. I'm going to give it a shot though, because Trine 2 has pulled me in. I really like it. I've always been a big fan of solving these types of puzzles, but paired with the music and visuals I may have fallen in love.

Trine 2 is straight up pretty to look at.

There's something about Trine 2 that's straight up charming. The voice over, visuals, and music come together to make it feel very much like an old-timey fantasy storybook. I didn't start playing the single player yet, but I did boot it up just to look and listen to the game for awhile. Now I might have to buy a copy of the first game, because I just want to consume as much of it as I can.

Zack and Wiki

The Wii seems like it would be a great place for point and click adventure games, but there really aren't that many. The few that exist are mostly relegated to downloadable titles. As far as I know Zack and Wiki is the only retail game of this type that exists, and that's okay. I bought the game a few years ago when a local video store was going out of business, but never got around tom playing it. For some reason I started playing it this past week and I've been playing it since.

I completely expected the game to be unoriginal and uninspired, but that was far from the truth. Very rarely is it that Capcom takes a chance on new IP's, but they hit it out of the park with Zack and Wiki. You control Zack the orphaned pirate boy and his friend the golden floating monkey Wiki. They have been taken in by the band of misfits known as the Sea Rabbits. As is the usual with pirate kids, Zack wants to be the greatest pirate in the world.

You'll be pointing the Wii Mote at everything you find on screen. It works surprisingly well.

Zack and Wiki is exactly as I described it. You point the Wii Remote at the screen and push A to interact with objects. Each stage you need to find a way to get to a golden chest. In order to do that you need to pick up various items and interact with your surroundings. What Zack and Wiki does differently is that you get a lot of your items from enemies. If you shake the Wii Remote then Wiki will turn into a bell and morph the enemy into  a useful item.

After playing for a few hours I became enamored with the fun and original puzzles. I remember there being a lot of buzz around the game when it was released, so I decided to see how well it was received. As I expected it did fairly well critically, but didn't sell well at all. For some reason the most interesting games review well, but sell terribly. It's a shame, because it discourages developers and publishers from going too far out of their comfort zone.

Video Games?

As you can see I've got a few games started up at the same time. It's a shame, because I don't know which one to try and finish first. Then there's the fact that I still haven't beaten Xenoblade. I made it right up to the point of no return, but decided I needed a break. Maybe I'll finish that this week? I don't want to wait too long and end up leaving that game behind. It's too good for that, so I need to get myself together.

It's been a barren few weeks as far as game releases go, but we're nearing an unusually high release time for summer. Diablo 3 comes out in 2 days, which I sadly won't be able to play due to the general awfulness of my laptop. Max Payne 3 comes out as well, which I may actually pick up. I'm kind of in the mood for shooting people while diving in slow motion.

I don't know what I'm going to play. Find out in the next edition of Game Time.

     -Manny

DLC Review of Mt. Eddie and Classic Characters Bundle Pack for SSX

This is a DLC review of the Mt. Eddie and Classic Characters Bundle Pack for SSX.

Score: 4/5


I really enjoyed the new SSX, but there were a fair number of people who wanted it to be more like Tricky and SSX 3. Lucky for them the development team heard their cries and decided to release Mt. Eddie, which is a clear homage to the SSX days of old.

One of the major complaints of the new SSX was that the drops were filled with too many random holes. At first it’s not that big a deal, but the further you delve into the game the worse it gets. This makes it so that you can’t truly focus on racing, or tricking. You constantly have to watch yourself in order to stay on the track, but Mt. Eddie gets rid of that. It’s either pure tricking, or pure racing. No longer are there gaping chasms to fall into.

As you can see there are tons of jumps.

Mt. Eddie is the ultimate spot for tricking. There are rails, jumps, and half-pipes everywhere. This gives the whole course a great flow. The only thing you have to figure out is where your next trick is coming from, and it ends up feeling great. To make things even better it’s always nighttime and fireworks are perpetually going off. The mountain has a lot more color than the rest of the game and it looks really cool.

The whole mountain has 9 different drops, which are distributed between trick and race events. The race events are okay, but just like in the main game they lose out to the trick events. It just seems weird to try and get down the mountain has fast as possible when there are so many opportunities for tricking. As you’d expect the trick events on Mt. Eddie are awesome. As I said there are places to trick everywhere and on top of that the events are all fairly long. The trick event at the top of the mountain can take 15-20 minutes to complete, which makes it more like the single mountains that old SSX games had.

Imagine something like this, but for 20 minutes.

In an attempt to cram more nostalgia into the game they also decided to add Classic Characters. This is the part of the DLC that totally lost me. It adds seven new characters to play as, but they’re not really new at all. Instead they’re just 7 different versions of characters the game already has. The only difference is that they look like they used to in SSX Tricky. This means that there are only technically 6 retro characters, because both versions of Eddie look almost exactly the same. What’s really lame is that since they’re separate characters you have to level them up again. It takes a really long time to level a character up to 11, so it’s not exactly worth it for that.

In order to offset the need to re-level each character they each get their own unique retro boards. They’re really good and most of them look pretty cool. It’s a nice attempt, but it still doesn’t make it worth re-leveling an alternate version of the same character. It may have been better if they added retro costumes instead of making separate characters.

I don't really prefer any of the classic looks to the new ones, but I'm sure some people feel differently.

The bundle is certainly worth it, because it’s only $7.99. If you buy the characters and Mt. Eddie separately they’re $5.99 a piece, which seems a little steep. Whether you’re looking for some old school SSX nostalgia or just looking to have more SSX content in your life then this pack is going to fit your needs. With the quality of Mt. Eddie there’s hope that all future DLC will be just as entertaining.