Top Ten Games of 2012

2012 is ending and that means that another year in gaming has come and gone. Initially I thought that this year had been disappointing for me, but when it came time to make my game of the year list I had quite a bit of trouble deciding on the ten games I thought were the best.

The following is the final list of games that I came up with. Keep in mind that these are my opinions, but I still think you should check these games out if you haven't yet. We'll start from ten and work out way down to number one.

10. Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's still a competent kart racer. Like the previous installment it feels different enough from Mario Kart to justify its existence. Every race is all about the drifting. Sadly drifting doesn't feel as tight when you're a boat or a plane, but at least those additions add something more than new tracks and characters.

It's a whole lot of fun and at the budget price of $40 it's worth checking out.

9. The Last Story

Much like Resonance of Fate a few years ago The Last Story is one of the few JRPGs that has a unique battle system. It's a third person shooter, but with swords and magic. You're supposed to use strategy to beat your opponents, but the strategy element of the game never quite takes off. Despite that the battles are still fun.

The story and characters are memorable to boot. The game clocks in at around 20 hours to complete, which is good because it doesn't give you enough time to tire of anything.

The visuals push the Wii to its limits, which can sometimes make the frame rate less than desirable. Don't let that discourage you though. If you have a Wii The Last Story is definitely something you should check out.

8. Asura's Wrath

Quick time events are often lame, or at the very least implemented poorly. Asura's Wrath is the exact opposite. The entire game is basically a string of quick time events and it couldn't possibly be any more awesome.

Asura's wrath is balls out anime craziness. It's more or less an interactive movie, but somehow it feels like you're actually doing your fair share to help out in the madness. It's super satisfying to nail every single quick time event and have Asura burst in order to pummel his enemies into the ground. The action is non-stop and it's always complete insanity.

YOU STAB THROUGH THE EARTH WITH A SWORD!

7. Pokemon White/Black 2

Every year a new Pokemon game comes out and every year I play a whole bunch of it. I'm 22 years old and I still love Pokemon games. I almost feel bad for putting it on a game of the year list time and time again, but it needs to be done.

While games that rehash the same thing year in and year out get old that never happens to Pokemon for me. They change enough to keep me coming back every single time. In fact with Pokemon Black and White 2 I think Game Freak outdid themselves. Sure, people who casually play the games might not notice, but as a long time fan I appreciate it. It's cool that I can fight every gym leader in a world tournament, or actually fight Pokemon higher than the mid-50's after I've completed the game.

Game Freak and Nintendo know what they're doing, so get ready to see another one of these next year.

6. Xenoblade Chronicles

It may have taken NOA a while to bring it to the US, but we finally got Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii. It was certainly worth the wait.

I played Xenoblade so much that I burned out on it and wasn't able to complete it until months after my initial binge. My final save ended up being around 113 hours ,which is a pretty sizable chunk of time. I now know why people worked so hard to bring it over here.

It's not a revolutionary JRPG, but it takes steps forward for the genre. A lot of JRPG mechanics are contrived now and Xenoblade tries to remedy some of those issues. Everything is streamlined and as user friendly as possible. The game works hard to keep you engaged with its fast paced battles and easily navigable menus.

The plot and characters of Xenoblade are memorable, but still a bit cliche. The game will be remembered for its combat and the way it tried to modernize the genre.

It looked and played incredibly for a Wii game, which makes me excited to see what Monolith is going to be able to do on the Wii-U

5. SSX

SSX is back! While it may not be better than ever EA still made a decent attempt reviving a dormant franchise. SSX is just pure fun for me. Racing down a snow covered mountain while jumping off of everything in sight gives off an incredible sense of speed. The controls are tight and feel just right for the fine movements the game requires.

While the new survival tracks aren't the best part of the game they add something new to the SSX formula that can hopefully be improved upon in new releases. Overall I think that this SSX reboot was well done and hope to see EA do some more with it in the future.

4. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy

I was expecting absolutely nothing from Theatrhythm, but I had to find out what it was all about. As you might be able to gather from its position on this list I ended up enjoying it a whole lot more than I ever imagined.

Rhythm games tend to have a short lifespan by nature. You play through all the songs a few times and then you're done. Well I somehow ended up playing Theatrhythm for over 26 hours. There were so many things to keep me coming back. Multiple difficulties, an RPG leveling mechanic, character unlocks, song unlocks, and even equipment.

Even more than that the gameplay is fun. Tapping and sliding the stylus along to the many classic Final Fantasy tunes in the game works amazingly well. Theatrhythm  was clearly crafted with a love that I didn't think Square Enix had in them anymore.

3. Borderlands 2

I played an obscene amount of the original Borderlands and the amount of time I spent with Borderlands 2 is no different. I don't particularly like First person shooters, but when paired with loot and RPG mechanics of Borderlands I can't seem to get enough.

Gearbox hit it out of the park for me on this one. The gameplay was improved in almost every way from the original. The game as a whole ran a lot smoother and everything just seemed to work better in general. Gearbox heard what fans had to say about the original and took it all to heart.

It's fun to play alone or co-op. Whichever way you like to play don't miss out on this great game.

2. The Walking Dead

I don't like zombies at all. In fact when zombies are involved in anything I almost immediately write it off as being something I'm not interested in. For some reason I decided to give the first episode of The Walking Dead a chance and was completely blown away.

Even if you don't like adventure games The Walking Dead is something that I think everyone has to play. It shows that choice in video games can actually work to great success. Every choice you're given seems like it matters, whether or not it actually does. This is amplified by the fact that the story if actually emotionally affecting. The characters are some of the most memorable I've ever come across. Somehow they actually managed to make a likable child character!

Words are not enough to explain the majesty that is The Walking Dead. If you like video games do yourself a favor and check out what it brings to the table. You won't be disappointed.

1. Mass Efffect 3

I don't care what anyone says about Mass Effect 3. Sure, the ending wasn't as desirable as I would have liked it to be and there were too many half-assed sidequests, but the journey as a whole was still outstanding.

I enjoyed the time I had with Mass Effect 3. The universe still managed to hold every ounce of my attention as I flew to every single planet and talked to every person I possibly could. No matter how much I disliked the ending nothing can take away the love that I have for the Mass Effect Universe and its characters.

Mass Effect 3 ended the story of Commander Shepard. I'll never be able to forget the time I spent with it, so that's why its my favorite game of 2012.

     -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.

Game Time - 4/15/2012

Another week has passed and it's time for another issue of Game Time.

Much to my dismay I still do not have Xenoblade. Nintendo and UPS both claim that it will be arriving tomorrow, so I hope that's true. However, my dismay was not enough to keep me from playing a few other games.

This entry is going to be a bit short, because I ended up playing a lot of what I played last week. SSX and Kid Icarus are still at the top of my gaming list, but I also got in a whole bunch of Skullgirls.

Skullgirls


My brother loves fighting games. Prior to this week he was watching all the Skullgirls streams that he could possibly consume at once. By the time Tuesday rolled around he was basically losing his mind with excitement. Personally I was on the fence about Skullgirls, because I wasn't convinced by what they were showing.


My brother plays on 360, so he was going to have to wait until Wednesday. I decided to buy it, because indie fighting games are few and far between. We both ended up loving the game. The initial reason that I didn't want to buy Skullgirls was because of the art style. It's a combination between 1940's Disney cartoons and hyper-sexualized anime. It really weirds me out when cartoon girls have their boobs spilling out over their tops.

Valentine is exactly what I don't like about the art style, but I use her anyways. 

While I still don't like the art of Skullgirls, I like almost everything else about the game. What's cool about the game is that it was built by extreme fighting game fans for fighting game fans. Mike Z, one of the main people who worked on the game plays Blazblue at tournament level. Due to this fact the game does a lot of things that people who really like fighting game fans will go bananas over, but casual players won't care about at all.

In fighting game tournaments if the pause button is pressed the perpetrator loses. This can totally break up the match, so the penalty is completely justified. Sometimes the button can be pressed on accident and Skullgirls totally gets around that. In order to pause the game you have to hold start. To the average gamer this might be frustrating, but it;s a very cool feature. The game is chock full of little things like that to make it feel polished. You can edit the buttons from the character select screen, there's a system to protect against infinites, and a whole lot more.

There are only eight characters in Skullgirls, but they're all unique.

I play a lot of fighting games, but I'm not super hardcore like my brother. The reason I like Skullgirls is because I really like how it plays. Games that have 1 frame links like Street Fighter IV make it hard to do combos. Skullgirls is all about pushing the buttons fast, so I can actually do fairly decent combos. It doesn't make me feel like a failure and that's cool.

On top of all that the game has a great tutorial that does a pretty good job of teaching the basics. The skills that the game teaches can be applied to all fighting games. It's really the first real tutorial seen in a fighting game and it's something that a lot of games could learn from.

SSX


It's been a week and I still think SSX is awesome. Even though I beat the campaign and reviewed the game I still had to keep playing. It definitely helped that one of my friends bought the game. SSX has a system called Rider Net, which is essentially the auto-log from Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. If your friends beat your scores in global events or explore mode drops you'll be challenged.

For some reason I had to beat every single challenge that I was given, which ended up being 50 or so. Some of them were crazy, but I still ended up beating them. The competition is prolonging the life of the game for me. Normally I would have moved on, but the challenges are keeping me coming back for more. Since I the challenges keep going back and forth I'll most likely be doing this for a long time, especially since I'm still having a boatload of fun.

Tomorrow EA is going to announce what the first SSX dlc is, so my fun might be extended. They released a promo picture that looks a whole lot like SSX Tricky. I can only hope that the SSX Tricky mountain is being added as DLC. It would be even better if they threw in some new clothes that were reminiscent of the Tricky costumes.

This looks a lot like SSX Tricky. 

Kid Icarus: Uprising

I really wanted to have a review of Kid Icarus up last week, but I didn't end up finishing it. Initially I thought it was super short, but it ended up being much longer than I expected. The first few chapters flew by and only took twenty minutes at most. Now the chapters are taking an hour or more a piece to complete and I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's way longer than I thought.

Initially I thought the overall plot of Kid Icarus was basically non-existent. It seemed to be a bunch of referential jokes and a whole lot of witty banter. I'm nearing the end of the game and all of that is still there, but now there is an overarching plot and I'm really liking it. There were a few plot twists that I didn't see coming. While the plot may not be a masterpiece I think that it's got a lot of charm. Iwata's sense of style really shows in this game.

Last week I talked about how uncomfortable I thought the controls were and I'm going to have to take that back now. At a juncture that I can't pinpoint I felt totally fine playing the game. The controls even began to feel right. I'm no longer having trouble doing what I want and I'm dying far less often, which is weird because I'm getting farther into everything while slowly ratcheting up the difficulty.

I want my Xenoblade

I have been wanting to play a new JRPG for quite some time, so its great that Xenoblade should be coming tomorrow. If all goes as planned it will consume my gaming life for the next week. If I can tear myself away from it for long enough (If it even comes) I'll try to finish up Kid Icarus and throw up a review, but I promise nothing.

That's what I played this past week. Get ready to hear about a whole lot of Xenoblade next week. I'm starting to get pretty excited about it. What's not to get exited about? It's a recent Wii release that doesn't suck. 

With that final thought I leave you to pursue another week of video gaming.

     -Manny

Game Time - 4/8/2012

Happy Easter everyone! While it may be a holiday that doesn't change the fact that it's game time.

Last week I dipped into my backlog of games to try and clear some of them out. I wasn't expecting to get anything new until Xenoblade (Which I still don't have). Much to my surprise I was able to pick up two new games this week thanks to an awesome Best Buy sale. I've been waiting for Kid Icarus and SSX to go on sale, so it was great to get them for $30 each.

Needless to say I spent most of my free time playing both of them. While I'd like to say I played them both equally, I didn't. SSX turned out to be way more fun than I expected, so Kid Icarus had to take a back seat.

Oh yeah, I played a bunch of Skyrim too. Let's break it down!

Skyrim

My Skyrim madness continued into this week. I truly did get hooked on Skyrim again. Initially I only wanted to beat the main quest line, but it ended up being much more than that. I did beat the main quest line and I didn't think it was that great overall. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll just say I had to kill a bunch of Dragons. For some reason it seems like an Elder Scrolls tradition to have the guild quests far outshine the main quests. You'd think that it would be completely the opposite, but you'd be very wrong.

Once I beat the main quest I couldn't stop for some reason, so I decided to try and get every trophy in the game while doing a whole bunch of random stuff.  I'm not exaggerating at all. I literally did completely random things and I had fun while doing them. I got married, became obsessed with collecting books, ran to every place on the map that I hadn't explored, stole from everyone I saw, learned shouts, crafted weapons, and did some sidequests. There's something awesome about running around a huge world as a cat man dressed like Batman and doing whatever the hell I want.

My cat man married Aela. She can't die, so that's pretty cool.

The thing that draws me to Skyrim is that you actually can go anywhere you want. It's a living, breathing world that my character can truly influence. It's easy to get immersed, because there's just so much to it. It's hard to imagine that there is so much lore to read into. There's an actual history to the land of Tamriel and I really love that. It's one of the reasons I get so easily sidetracked in the game. It's constantly throwing so much at you that it's hard to focus on a single task. I don't mean that in a bad way. Unlike most games I find the totally random quests to be interesting. While they may not reward you with the best gear there's always that chance that you could get something.

So yeah, I got sidetracked in Skyrim. It's still awesome. I didn't get all the trophies, but I'm damn close. I've got some new games now and I've completed the main quest, so I won't come back to it for a while. However, I will certainly return to Skyrim when I have the time, or when they release the inevitable DLC.

SSX

I bought SSX on Tuesday and threw up my review on Friday. Somehow I managed to cram in a ridiculous amount of SSX into four days. Since I wrote a review I don't want to rehash my experience too much, but there are some things I feel need to be said about SSX.

I'm going to come right out and say that I think SSX is awesome. It's one of the most purely fun games I've played in a long time. Longtime fans of the series seem to have mixed feelings on this reboot. The crazy characters and locales have been toned down quite a bit for this brand new entry in the series. While I can see how that's a bad thing, it's not necessarily the worst thing ever. In games like SSX specifically I think the gameplay is the most important part of the game and SSX delivers in that department.

In real life this stunt could only end in tragedy.
This is SSX, so it can only end in awesome.

Like I said, SSX is fun. I played a whole shit ton of it. I beat the campaign, completed half of the drops, competed against my friends times/scores, and competed in global events. Most of the events I played were basically the same, but I had fun playing every single one of them. There's something almost magical about speeding down a snow covered mountain at full speed tricking off of everything. The game has a great sense of speed and it controls very smoothly. Almost everything about the movement and handling of the game defies reality, but that's what extreme sports games are all about. I'm sure someone out there would prefer a snowboarding game that parallels reality, but I'm not that person so I love everything about how SSX handles itself.

To enhance the experience even further the music goes along with everything you're doing while going down the mountain. The music changes tempo, volume, and even adds in some crazy bass. I still don't quite believe it, but this works amazingly well even with custom soundtracks. It's like having a DJ remix your songs, but it's the game and it doesn't sound like total shit. Somehow it manages to make any kind of music sound like it fits in with the game.

In case you didn't notice I think SSX is awesome. I highly recommend it.

Kid Icarus: Uprising

As a kid I never had a NES. I never played Kid Icarus. My first exposure to the series was when Nintendo decided to put Pit into Brawl. All I really knew about the game was that there was an eggplant wizard, but I had never seen it. Despite my lack of knowledge I wanted to pick up Kid Icarus Uprising for the 3DS, which I did.

I have a ton of feelings on Kid Icarus: Uprising and I've yet to sort them all out. What stands out the most to me is how uncomfortable the game is to play. When I first heard the game came with a 3DS stand I thought it was a joke. The game actually comes with a stand, because apparently they realized how uncomfortable the entire thing was. The 3DS isn't very ergonomic to begin with and it doesn't help that I have giant hands. You're expected to hold the 3DS with your left hand to use the circle pad and the L button. With your right hand you use the stylus to control the camera and aim Pit's shots. The pad is supposed to help take the pain out of holding the 3DS, but it seems useless unless you're at a desk. When you get used to the controls they're not awful, but I still haven't ever found myself in a comfortable position.

Outside of the control I generally like the game. It's just straight up weird. Pit and the Goddess Palutena are trying to take down the evil Medusa, who's apparently back from the first game. While you're fighting enemies everyone will talk constantly. I'm not even kidding I don't think there has been a point in the 5 hours I've played the game where someone wasn't talking. Normally that would make me want to smash a game into a million pieces, but the dialogue is actually entertaining. Self referential jokes are constantly being made. Games and game mechanics are referred to and joked about, which leads to some interesting dialogue. It seems like the witty banter it going to continue for the whole game, so hopefully I won't get sick of it.

While playing Kid Icarus: Uprising I've been getting pangs of nostalgia, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why until earlier today. Nintendo mainstay Masahiro Sakurai was the mind behind this game and coincidentally he was behind Kirby as well. When I thought about that it all started to make sense. It's got so many similarities to Kirby's Air Ride! Both games look similar graphically (At least I think so), both games have unlock grids, and both games have grind rails. In Kirby's Air Ride you're primarily piloting stars. In Uprising there are vehicles that handle very much like the stars in Air Ride! Even the menus look alike. Maybe I'm crazy, but they seem like they have a lot in common to me.

Parts of Kid Icarus have looked a whole lot like this...

All I know is that Kid Icarus is a crazy game. It's got a butt load of content and it's chock full of style. I'm certainly going to finish it, so hopefully I'll be able to review it in the near future.

I Didn't Play Xenoblade...

Xenoblade Chronicles was finally released in America this past Friday the 6th. Many people have been playing it, sadly I am not one of those people. I pre-ordered my copy from Nintendo's website long ago. I thought that it would be nice to order directly from Nintendo, but apparently that was dumb. My order still hasn't shipped and I get the feeling it won't for a while. I thought about cancelling the order and picking it up at Gamestop since they apparently got a ton of copies, but that didn't quite pan out. Nintendo has already charged my card for the game... Hopefully I get it soon, because it looks amazing. I could use a solid JRPG to play.

Other than not playing Xenoblade I played a bit of Skylanders this week. While at Best Buy I picked up Stealth Elf. For some reason I told myself I wasn't going to play any more Skylanders until I got one of every type. I only needed a life type and I had my heart set on Stealth Elf. Lucky for me she was one of the most sought after toys, so she was always sold out. I think she looks cool and now that I've got her she's my favorite Skylander. I leveled her up a bit and I'll probably end up finishing the game sometime this week.

She's clearly the best Skylander. She fights with teeth.

In the midst of a game drought I somehow managed to pick up a bunch of new stuff. Perhaps it's good that Nintendo decided not to ship my copy of Xenoblade when they were supposed to. Now I can finish Kid Icarus and mess around with Skylanders some more.

Well I hope you enjoyed this week's Game Time. See you next week.

     -Manny

Review of SSX

This review is based on my experience with the PS3 version of SSX.

Score: 4/5

Twelve years after its inception the SSX series has been rebooted with the highly creative title of SSX. Fans of the SSX franchise have been waiting five years to test their gravity defying snowboard skills on a new game and it has finally arrived. With the death of EA Sports BIG, EA Canada has attempted to breathe new life into the series. The result is a game that feels very familiar, while feeling completely new at the same time. Some changes made may upset long time fans, but there’s no denying that the final product is jam packed with insane snowboarding action. 

When the new SSX teaser first debuted during the 2010 Spike Game Awards the reaction was tepid at best. It was going by the name SSX: Deadly Descents. It depicted players dropping from helicopters onto real mountains trying to escape hazards like avalanches. In the past every slope was custom made and memorable, while all the characters were basically overblown caricatures. Those things paired with the insane snowboarding made SSX iconic.  The Deadly Descents trailer looked very dark and realistic, which garnered a lot of negative reaction.

The final product is halfway between the SSX of old and the Deadly Descents teaser. It’s not quite as over the top as it used to be, but it’s not overly realistic either. Familiar characters such as Mac, Zoe, Elise, and many others return in a much more muted form. They don’t talk very much during gameplay and aren’t as cartoony so a lot of their personalities aren’t totally apparent. The same thing can be said about the drops. They’re all based off of real mountains with procedurally generated jumps and grind rails. While they function well enough in the game they don’t feel very unique. The reboot tries to strike a balance between realism and the SSX style of old. It ends up straddling an odd line that makes me wish they went farther in either direction.

Franchise mainstays like Mac return in a much more muted form.

One of the things that makes me wish they went farther is the story. For the campaign you’ll be following snowboarding team SSX as they attempt to conquer the world’s deadliest mountains, known as deadly descents. They’ve been dormant for a while, so they have to take on dangerous drops to get back into the spotlight. These deadly descents are an interesting new game type that sees you rider trying to survive as opposed to getting points or a fast time. The entire goal is to make it to the bottom alive, which is sometimes quite challenging. In order to do so you’ll need to equip the riders with specific gear. Armor will help you survive an avalanche, while a headlamp will allow you to see in pitch black caves. There are nine deadly descents to get through. Although they’re cool to experience once it’s much more appealing to play race and trick events. There isn’t enough of a story to make the campaign worth playing through multiple times.

Admittedly most people don’t come to SSX for its’ riveting story. The most important part of the game, the gameplay, is still great. You can choose from two control schemes. Classic is just like it used to be. The face buttons will be used to do tricks, while the shoulder buttons are used to boost. Alternatively you can use the right stick for all your tricking needs much like modern skateboarding games. It’s all about your preference and what’s the most comfortable. SSX is all about doing tricks. They’re almost always the key to success. In trick events they’ll obviously net you score and in race events they’ll get you boost to go faster. When you do a certain amount of tricks in a row you’ll enter tricky, which allows for unlimited boost. Chaining tricks together also boosts a multiplier, which combines with a trick counter in order to give you ridiculous amounts of points.

You're going to want to be tricking all the time.

In SSX it’s all about flow. When you’re going down the mountain at a super fast speed tricking off of everything it’s exhilarating. A cool feature of the game is the way it changes the music depending on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. The in game soundtrack will rise, fall, and distort in various ways as you move down the mountain. Somehow the game even does a good job of distorting custom music, this means that anything sounds good. I highly recommend putting your own music in, because it sounds great and adds a lot to the experience. When you wreck the music screeches to a halt along with your scoring capabilities.

While the gameplay is super fun and fast paced, it can often be just as unforgiving. Wrecking can be devastating and sometimes ruin an entire run. In an attempt to ease this problem a rewind feature was added, which might as well not even be in the game. If you rewind during a race your opponents will continue moving and if you rewind in a trick event you’ll lose a whole lot of score. It just doesn’t make any real sense to rewind, unless you want to place a geo tag. Geo tags are collectibles you can place only when rewinding to try and get in game currency. If you place them in a good spot you’ll get the maximum amount of credits. Since rewind is basically useless this means that doing the drops over and over for incremental improvement is necessary. In order to help this process along SSX has an interesting pseudo multiplayer.

When it was announced that the game wouldn’t have honest to goodness multiplayer fans were understandably upset. The alternative isn’t all that bad and is in fact quite fun. It’s all very reminiscent of the speed log from Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Outside of the campaign in explore mode there are 149 or so drops to choose from. When you complete a run your ghost will be uploaded for your friends to compete against. When they lose you’ll gain in game currency. There are also massive global events to compete in. Some are free, while you have to buy into others. You’ll compete on a drop and try to do as well as you can. In the end you’ll be placed into a scoring bracket and you’ll be paid accordingly. 

You can choose any drop as a global event, but you might have to pay an entry fee.

So what’s good about in game currency? You can buy equipment for your character. As you doe events your characters will level up. Depending on what level they are you have access to buying certain gear. You can buy boards, mods, and equipment to help you do better in events. To make the system interesting an MMO style color coding system is used. If you’re the kind of person who likes a lot of loot then you’ll be right at home with this system. It’s a new concept for an extreme sports game.

Extreme sports have fallen off in recent years, so it’s nice to see this series getting a fresh coat of paint. For a reboot SSX tries quite a few interesting things. While they don’t all work, I think that they leave room for an interesting sequel should there be one. This iteration may not be exactly like the others, but it’s incredibly fun. Like I said SSX is all about flow. Speeding down a drop tricking off of everything while shooting for a perfect run feels incredible. A lot of the elements of SSX make it incredibly easy to get absorbed in competing with your friends.  Even if you don’t have any friends to play against SSX is still an incredibly fun game. There’s something magical about it and I can’t recommend it enough. 

The future of the SSX is bright and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

     -Manny