Game Review: Dead Space 2 (PC)

I decided that, similar to what I did with the first Dead Space article, rather than do our semi-standard Full Review, I would simply talk about how I personally played the game as well as expanding upon my impressions from my first article.  There will be spoilers to some degree, so be warned that I may cover some story elements which, as far as I knew, were not common knowledge about the game.

Just your average run-of-the-mill space station city. . .smeared with the blood of convergence.

Since the first article and finishing Dead Space 2, I think I have come to a reason as to why I seemed to have enjoyed the first game more than the second.  In the first game, there was a fair amount of build up as to what was happening.  Yes, there was the initial sprinting through the Ishimura to escape from the necromorphs, but listening to people not know what was going on through their audio journals and text journals is what I loved and what drew me into the world.  In Dead Space 2, I did not get the same or similar sense of confusion on the part of the populace, which saddened me a bit considering that the majority of the game takes place in a metropolitan-style space station.  I felt that since Isaac had already been through a necromorph outbreak, there didn't need to be that same feeling  of confusion and slow build on the part of the populace.

Throughout the majority of the game, I felt lost.  With DS2 starting in a location that was unfamiliar to the player (as Isaac Clarke), it is only natural to feel a sense of disorientation, especially in Isaac's case having been in an induced coma/stasis for the last three years, but having a map function would have made the game more palatable. Even with the game being linear (walking through hallways, going down elevators and occasionally searching through a room on my way to another elevator, which I went down to exit into another hallway), it would have been nice at the very least to have seen a map to see where your destination was in relation to your current location.  Without a map, I might as well have been travelling in a straight line. At first I thought that the lack of map was part of the story, that I would come across a map function on my RIG (seeing as how you picked up the stasis field emitter and the kinesis  module), but the map was never a thing and this I feel is where the game began to lose me.

You ever wonder whose job it is to light all those damned candles?

I think what it boils down to is that in DS1, the necromorphs have had some time to calm down a bit.  The Ishimura had been attacked quite a while before Isaac and company arrive, but on Titan Station, the outbreak is happening right then and there.  I didn't get the feeling that stragglers/survivors had time to hang around in corridors banging their heads against walls or mumbling to themselves about seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth.  In DS2, there was not time for that, so people were just running around screaming.  This all means that DS2 is to DS1 what Resident Evil 4 was to Resident Evil 1.

About a third of the way through the game, Isaac finds himself in a massive Unitology church, which is even commented upon in-game as being itself an obscenely large church and adjoining buildings/rooms even for Unitology standards.  This area was one of the highlights for me.  You started out passing through the main doors and as you progressed through this stage, you unlocked previously closed doors and emerged in a familiar area so that you were able to get your bearings and you knew where you were within the confines of the church.  However, with your knowledge about the Marker from Aegis VII, Isaac Clarke even mentions that being surrounded by anything Unitology is about the last place that he wants to find himself and I could not agree more.

For at least the first half of the game, Isaac is following the directions of a woman whom I cannot even tell you her name it seems so unimportant.  Early on (maybe Chapter 3, I am not sure), I had forgotten why I was even trying to get to the woman.  All I knew was that she thought I was important somehow, but that seemed like an easy and cliched way to get the player to go along a set path.  Maybe it was to help me off of Titan Station, but I was not even  100% sure.  Since there was only one direction to go in, I figured she knew better than I did.  It was not a good feeling to have.

One last criticism about DS2 was that the diagnosis of "dementia" was thrown around a lot.  It is stated on a number of occasions that both Isaac Clarke and Nolan Stross (another escaped patient who received "treatments" along with Isaac) suffer from dementia, one of the affects of The Marker.  All of the symptoms that both Clarke and Stross exhibit, are not dementia.  While some of those experiencing influence from the Marker exhibit common symptoms of dementia such as restlessness, memory distortion (hallucination based), anxiety and agitation, I would not classify their diagnosis as dementia.  You could even say that they exhibit common symptoms of schizophrenia, but that word is never used (from what I could tell) throughout any of the games.  Something closer to "Marker Sickness" would be more appropriate, except that not believing that the Marker is the cause of the events is part of the lore in the game.  I do not have any answers, just criticisms it turns out.

Don't worry, it's all in your head. . .

Which brings me to how Isaac Clarke's hallucinations are manifested in-game.  Most of the time, there will be a flash, the screen will take on a yellowish-orange hue along with a shaky-cam effect and I would immediately think, "Oh, I'm hallucinating now."  What I liked about Dead Space Mobile was that it was not always apparent to Vandal that the hallucinations were indeed hallucinations.  Sure, when you see someone who looks to be you walking towards yourself in a hallway, there is a good chance that you are hallucinating.  But, without a visual and auditory cue, there is that split second where you are not sure if that person is you, or if it is a veiled necromorph slowly walking towards you.  Maybe it's another engineer in the same situation and they need your help?  Nope, it's a necromorph who needs it's limbs cut off.  Right?  A necromorph and. . . not another. . .fellow. . . engineer. . .right?  Sure some of the visuals were unsettling in DS2, like when Nicole would appear in an elevator right next to you with eyes and mouth flaring light and static while screaming about how you killed her, but again, you knew it was a hallucination.

Nolan Stross on the other hand was apparently having believable hallucinations.  Maybe subtlety was the key here and what Isaac Clarke was seeing was not subtle.  Sure, if that happened to any one of us in reality, I would need an entire wardrobe of brown pants, but in the context of a video game, someone decided that a visual cue was needed for the majority of Isaac's hallucinations.

Moving on.

It's always a good idea to check your ammunition stores before going through doors.  Always.

Like any good survival horror video game, ammunition in Dead Space 2 always seemed to be scarce.  For this playthrough, I focused on using the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun and the Ripper, although I did also purchase the Pulse Rifle, but mainly to take care of the numerous and annoying Swarmers and to conserve ammunition on the three primary weapons that I was modding with the Power Nodes.  Because of how much fun (and understanding) I had with the Ripper in Dead Space Mobile, I knew that I wanted to give this weapon/tool a go here and I was not disappointed.  The Line Gun I really only used when I needed to produce a wide beam of damaging plasma or throw, basically, a timed grenade that was more powerful than the one chucked out by the Plasma Rifle.  The Plasma Cutter was my go-to weapon for most of the game, but only when I had enough ammunition, which I always seemed to be running out of near save stations.  Bloody hell.

There was one other area aside from the Unitology Church area that I loved.  I felt that it recaptured what the feeling that was missing in this game.  I will not go into it because I feel that it is too much of a spoiler, but I will say that it was a great part of the game.

In closing, I think it is pretty apparent that I did not like Dead Space 2 as much as the first Dead Space, but I can promise you that I will be going through the game again in the future.  Maybe after I make my through Dead Space 3, which apparently is only available on PC through Origin, which is fine with me, because that is where I have it awaiting my attention.

. . . Well fuck. . .

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Your Circuit's Dead, There's Something Wrong

Game Review: RAGE (PC)

You know what, for games that have been out for a long time, I think I am just going to put out "Game Review" articles rather than the usual "Full Review."  I just find it easier to talk about how I played the game, what I liked about it than have a set form. . .although that sounds easier now that I think about it.  

Fuck it, game review it is!

The first time I booted up RAGE, I was unable to play it due to the game skipping every two or three seconds, which would make any game nigh on impossible to play.  Only after downloading an update for a number of my drivers was I able to play the game.  Prior playing though, I knew a bit of what I was getting myself into: a post apocalyptic FPS from the makers of Doom that included a driving element that received mixed reviews (the reviews that I read anyway).

Looking back at the game, there didn't really seem to be anything "breakthrough" about how the game played.  It was a basic FPS where you were supposed to kill anything when you weren't in a town and everything in the world was out to kill you.  There were a number of additions though to the standard FPS formula which included a few mini-games such as racing one of your three vehicles against computer controlled opponents and a game show where your kills earned you points resulting in monetary winnings.  The problem with the game-show portion was that you were required to use ammunition you bought and I often felt that the money I won from the show simply paid for the amount of ammunition I used.

There was a crafting system in the game that I used quite a bit and currently, that seems to be the "in" thing for adventure based video games.

There were hints of a larger story what with the Arcs (survival pod/structures designed to allow those inside to survive an near-extinction level event caused from the impact by the Apophis asteroid) that the Authority were trying to locate and who took on the roll of omnipresent antagonist who didn't really show up until the last quarter of the game.  The world however seemed to be a lot smaller and more canyon-like than I would have hoped for.  While you could travel between certain settlements and "dungeons," the paths were all very linear with not a whole lot of room for further exploration.  It was like being shown a map and told that you can only travel along the roads and the mountains are off limits.

Something that impressed me a bit was the enemy AI.  While a lot of their animations were programmed, they were still interesting to watch.  While hiding behind a crate, they would often peer over or around the box to get a better look at where you were then the would either lean out from behind the box and shoot at you, run to another source of cover, or just stick the gun out from cover and shoot in your general direction; or they might throw a grenade if they were written to have them equipped.  Even the different factions would have slightly different fighting styles.  The bandit group "The Ghosts" would often jump, roll and climb via monkey-bar-type bars around the stage while charging you making them more difficult to hit.

94.7% sure this is modeled after  Grand Central Station.

RAGE even managed to get around the disappearing bodies by having some of the enemies be mutants (due to crazy-radiation exposure I think) whose corpses would simply dissolve.  The downside to going up against mutants (who would only be in certain areas such as the game show and sewer/underground areas) was that they would never leave behind any loot.  They were fast little buggers too, but nothing a point blank shotgun blast to the face or a bladed boomerang couldn't fix.

So the driving element, I should talk about that before closing out.

Driving in RAGE is a semi-big part of the game as it allows you to get from one settlement/dungeon back to wherever your home base is.  The controls were pretty easy to get used to (WASD) and later vehicles (everything after the ATV here) had some sort of machine gun or rocket launcher.  There are a number of required driving story elements that while never too difficult (some races required repeat attempts), seemed a little bit out of place, but again, it was a nice element to see in an otherwise straight forward FPS.

The only other criticism I have with RAGE was that it seemed a bit short for the story they wanted to tell.  Okay, so ~30 hours may not seem like a short game, but I felt that the ending came rather abruptly and I was left hanging.  It was like finishing the last stage, being shown that you completed your objective. . .then what?  Was all right with the world?  I wanted to know more, or at the very least see a sequel that allowed for further exploration of the world.  Even with the Scorchers and Sewers DLC, I wanted more.

One aspect of the game that I did not explore was the online multiplayer.  It wasn't my sort of thing and I can only assume that one of the racing formats was included, the other being a deathmatch setup, possibly in the game-show arena setting.  I am just making conjectures here.

In the end, RAGE was definitely worth whatever I paid for it during a past Steam sale even without having played any of the multiplayer content because as you all know, that is just not my bag of Fritos.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Something With A Bit More Of A Beat

And they all lived happily ever after.  Right?

Game Review: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)

This article started out as a "First Impressions," but 52 hours later, I feel like I have gone a bit beyond simply "first" and now I am into full on "Game Review" mode, but not a "Full Review."

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call is the sequel to the 3DS music/rhythm game Theatrhythm Final Fantasy that was released by Square Enix back in 2012.  I reviewed that game and was apparently pretty harsh (or at least I think I was), but since then, I grew to love that first game and almost everything that is done here in the sequel has been an improvement over the first game.

First off, if you have not purchased either game and you are on the fence, I would recommend buying only Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (hereafter referred to as TFFCC), not because the TFF is a inferior game, but because TFFCC does everything that TFF does but it also gives you access to over 100 songs right off the bat.  By the time you reach roughly eight to ten hours, you will have unlocked all 221 songs, whereas in TFF you have access to about 80 songs.

TFFCC also pulls music from a lot more sources than the first game.  New to the sequel are songs from Final Fantasy I - XIV, Final Fantasy Tactics, Mystic Quest, Crystal Chronicles, X-2, Advent Children, Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, Dissidia and Dissidia 012 [duodecim], Type-0, XIII-2, Lightning Returns.  There are downloadable songs which you can purchase at $0.99 a piece, but are from various Square Enix games like Xenogears, The World Ends With You, Chrono Trigger, Romancing SaGa 1 - 3, SaGa Frontier, Final Fantasy Adventure, Seiken Densetsu 3, Secret of Mana and Bravely Default.

The mode of play is pretty much identical to TFF although I have noticed that battle music stages (usually battle music) seem easier while the field music stages (typically overworld and dungeon music) and the event music stages (themes played over in-game cinematics) are more difficult.  I've noticed that I have received a "Bad" rating while holding my stylus over the green slider (the one where you hold and follow the path during the field music stages), possibly because I wasn't holding the target up/down enough in the direction that the path was going (??).  

Another addition that I did not think that I would initially like is the online battle system where you can engage in a 1:1 battle with another player either locally, domestically, internationally, or against a computer AI if you are unable to connect with other players (or if you just do not want to).  Battles are run like a standard battle music stage with your party of four characters going up against random monsters as well as a boss-type monster (Kefka, Cagnazzo, The Undying, et cetera).  After a certain number of successful hits, you perform one of nine attacks on the other player that have varying effects such as having the notes/triggers move faster, having them move at varying speeds; needing to hit the note/trigger precisely (critical hit) otherwise it is counted as "Bad;" having the notes/triggers show a question mark until right before you have to tap them so you don't know if it's a regular tap or an arrow swipe; having the arrow triggers spin which makes anticipating which direction they will be pointing when you have to swipe them pretty difficult.  Basically you are messing with the other person while they mess with you and whomever has the most points at the end of the battle wins points (bragging points) and in-game collectable cards.

In TFFCC, I have noticed that some songs are used in the BMS's such as "Aerith's Theme" or "Final Fantasy Theme (FF XII Version)" which are not battle themes, but I am guessing were included in this category so you could use them in battles.

In TFFCC, cinematics were removed from a lot of the games in the series (FF I - XIII), but some of those that were included (Final Fantasy Tactics) were very short, lasting less than two minutes and having just over 50 notes to tap, which seemed kind of sad and useless.  Another criticism I have is that while there are a lot more characters to choose from, there are some characters that have doubles due to them appearing different in different games (Tifa from FF VII and the film Advent Children; Lightning from FF XIII and FF XIII-2).  Personally I would have like to have had additional characters from Final Fantasy (White Mage), Final Fantasy IV (Cid or Yang), Final Fantasy VI (Shadow, Setzer or Realm), or Final Fantasy VII (Red XIII).

Overall, I love this game and listening to the music from a number of the games in the Final Fantasy series that I have not played (VIII, X, X-2, XIII, Chocobo Dungeons, Type-0, Crystal Chronicles) definitely makes me want to go back and play these games.  Well played Square Enix marketing department.  Additionally, I began thinking of all the Nintendo game series that have great music that I would love to see implemented in this style: Dragon Quest/Warrior, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong (Donkey Konga does not count).  Granted there would have to be some tweaking since not all are turn-based RPGs, but something similar could be thought of for any one of these games and I, along with a good portion of the video game music loving community who own 3DS', would buy these games up in very near to a heartbeat.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Realm of the King of Fantasy

Game Review: Wizorb (PC)

Wizorb is a game that came bundled with Humble Indie Bundle 6 over a year ago and based on it's premise of a conglomeration of Breakout and a Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy NES era RPG, this game should be right up my alley.

First off, I am not particularly great at Breakout and its many clones.  No, this does not mean that I suck at video games.  As it happens, I apparently do not have the stamina to play multiple levels of Breakout with a limited number of lives.

In Wizorb, you take on the role of Cyrus, a wizard tasked with saving the kingdom, or the world, I am not too sure on that point.  Once the story portion is completed, you are sent out to reclaim what was rightfully, someone elses, I think.  The plot, as far as I can tell, is a pretty generic JRPG plot but instead of playing a strapping young lad kicked out of his respective village, you play as an old man wizard/sorcerer/mage.  Maybe you have to rescue your daughter?  Suffice it to say, I do not expect any significant plot twists to occur.  Maybe the main villain is your son?  We will have to just wait and see.

After the not too long/deep story/exposition part of the game, you are then taken to the level where the Breakout-ness happens.  As you break blocks to clear the stage, you are often awarded with either nothing, gold, gems for store purchases, extra lives, vials that refill your magic meter, and eventually magical bits that can temporarily slow you down or reduce the size of your wand/paddle.  Magic is used to cast spells, the first two being a wind spell that moves your magical projectile (the ball) in the opposite direction and the other spell being a fireball that causes damage just like your blue ball of magical goodness.

So far, the game should not be too difficult, but often completing a stage requires additional support.  Throughout the stages, you can find shops to purchase temporary upgrades to your staff/bar-thing, extra lives or vials to refill your magic meter.  One time I bought a staff upgrade thinking that it would be permanent, but it turned out to only last the length of the stage and my staff was back to its normal size (after four hours) at the beginning of the next stage.  All the other times I have purchased extra lives in the store as I have found them to be much more valuable.  Apparently there is also a magnet of some-sort, but as I have never purchased it, I could not tell you what its application is.  Maybe it does not bounce the ball but just grabs and holds on to it instead?

So keeping all of this in mind, my initial impression was that I did not like the game.  I loved the visual aesthetic and the newish take on Breakout, but I found the level to be comprised of too many stages to be able to progress through to and defeat the level boss.  Being able to make it through I-do-not-know-how-many stages in each level and defeat a boss was too much for me the three or four times I tried out the game.  A few months later I came back and decided to give the game another go.  This time I used a controller and I noticed that if I did not make it to the boss, I did not have to start back at Stage 1 of Level 1, but I started whatever stage I was currently on, but with all of the blocks back in their original starting position.  I believe the game must have updated at some point, for which I am very thankful.  

It is also highly probable that the game has always operated this way and I just did not notice, but which is sad because since finding this game-saving-fact out, I have put in two hours into the game.  I find that I play a lot better with a controller and not playing through out TV set.  Something about the distance away from the screen seems to give me less time to react to where the goody magical blue ball is going to land.

So after as semi-disastrous first impression of Wizorb, I definitely plan on giving the game the time it deserves.  At least until I become so frustrated/aggravated/annoyed with my general lack of skill in the game that I give up entirely.

Happy Monday!



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconain
Igniting the Paralyzed Soil

Full Review: Alone in the Dark (DOS/PC)

So a few weeks back I gave Alone in the Dark a spin because 1) I bought during Gog.com's winter sale earlier in the year and 2) I wanted to play something that I have never played before and 3) a game that I had through my Gog.com account that I did not have access to on my Steam account.

First off, before beginning to play, you have the option to play the game as either private investigator Edward Carnby or the daughter of the recently late Jeremy Hartwood,  Emily Hartwood.  From what I can tell, the game does not change at all depending on whom you choose to play, but that may not actually be the case as I have only gone through the game once and with Edward Carnby.

Some background first though.

Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 by Infogrames originally using the DOS operating system, later ported to 3DO, Mac and RISC.  I played the DOS version of the game and upon opening the game (post installation), it automatically opened up DOSBox and I had no issues at all with the game running an it never onced crashed.  I had some issues with the controls, but I will get to that later on.  One thing that surprised me was that the game was already in a semi-wide screen mode, although I am not sure as to the specific aspect ratio, but it was wider than the standard 4:3.

If you are anything like me, you probably have not played Alone in the Dark, but are aware of its existence as a video game.  I also knew that it was a horror game of some sort and only right before purchasing the game did I learn that it was the progenitor to the Resident Evil series of video games (1 through Code Veronica X anyway).  Yes, I know that Sweet Home is the granddaddy of survival horror, but as far as a "haunted" house with a person locked inside full of creatures, puzzles, fixed camera angles and plenty of instant death events.

The first of many times you can die instantly.

STORY
Regardless of whom you choose to play as, your initial motivation for entering the massive house (named "Decerto") is to locate a piano that either has immense value or was a family heirloom, again depending on your choice of characters.  Once you find yourself locked inside the mansion, your sole objective is to escape by solving a number of puzzles involving found items throughout the mansion.  You know, like in Resident Evil.

The depth of the story however is found by reading/listening to journal and diary entries found throughout the mansion.  With the exception of only a couple of books, these journals are not required to further the actual game play, so you could hypothetically go through the entire game without knowing anything about any of the characters, monsters, villains or the motivation behind anything else that is going on.  Combined that with the fact that you have a limited inventory, there is a good chance that a book picked up will immediately be put back down to make room for an item that might be needed later on.

One thing that I picked up on was how much of the material was reminiscent or directly borrowed from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.  The "that book" that is brought up in the book (on the right) is later told to be the Necronomicon, a fictional demonic book created by Lovecraft.  Even the name "Abdul Al Azred" is a variation on the pseudonym that Lovecraft created when he was five years old after reading 1001 Arabian Nights.  Fellow weird author Arthur Machen (whose stories and autobiographies I love) is also referenced as the editor of one of the books in the game.  It is little details like this that I love to see in video games.

GAMEPLAY

How to play the game is probably what took me the most getting used to.  Keeping in mind that the game was played through DOSBox meant that moving was with the arrow keys and the controls were not customizable.  It actually reminded me a lot of how the first Resident Evil played, if you were forced to use a keyboard instead of a controller.  I am not 100% sure when WASD became the mainstay for pc gaming, but Alone in the Dark used the "more traditional" arrow keys to move around (I know now).  Moving around is what I did for about 90% of the time.  

Running though is probably what caused me the most problems, with reference to a couple of specific areas.  In one particular stage, your character is required to run across a bridge that begins to crumble and fall once it is touched.  Thankfully there was a bit of space to start running on approach to the bridge.  In one instance it took me 2m45s (I used a timer) before I could start running.  Running is achieved by pressing up a second time after your character is already walking.  The problem (apparently from what I have read) is that modern computers run faster than those of 1992 so it is not as simple as pressing Up Arrow twice, but has to be timed correctly.

Actions in the game, such as picking up items, opening doors, searching objects was all done with the spacebar, but each action had to be selected separately via the ingame menu.  Later in the game, jumping became an available action which, again, had to be individually selected by going to the menu, highlighting actions then going down to "Jump," going back to the play screen and pressing the spacebar when you wanted to jump.  This aspect of the game took quite a bit to get used to, especially when faced with a killable monster.  Oh yes, some of the monsters were either impossible to kill with your conventional weapons (Saber, shotgun, revolver, dagger) and had to be killed via solving a puzzle, such as placing a mirror in front of a Gorgon-like demon.  

The biggest problem that the controls presented was that timing when attacking enemies was crucial.  When swinging a knife/sword, the character would bring the weapon back and somewhat slowly, swing the weapon in the facing direction.  A miss would often mean that the monster would get their attack in first and since the character staggers with each hit, will usually mean that escape is impossible as their attacks happen faster than you can recover from their initial attack.

Losing key story items, or placing an item down that I felt was not useful was something that I constantly feared.  Granted items that I placed on the ground could be retrieved later, but finding out which room that knife that I thought I no longer needed was something that I rather would not do.  

GRAPHICS
As you can tell from the the previous pictures, the graphics for the game are antiquated by the graphical standards of today.

But keeping in mind that Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 and that the file size for the entirety of the game is 253 MB in size.  That the game could fit on four hard floppies.  You know, a 3.5 floppy.  However, after a few minutes I was able to acclimate to the graphics pretty quickly and I was not bothered by the sharp angled pixeliness of the world I was playing.  

There were only a couple of screens where Mr. Carnby was so far away from the camera that he appeared to be only a colored mass of pixels with little resemblance to his actual body shape.

SOUND & MUSIC
The music for Alone in the Dark was composed by French composer Philippe Vachey.  Unlike a lot of the previous survival horror games I have recently gone through (Outlast, Penumbra, Dead Space), the music here is somewhat more memorable, not that I could immediately recall a song without listening to the soundtrack, but after listening through the entirety of the 28 minute album, I can recall specific cases when the music was cued up.

There were a couple of purely atmospheric tracks such as "Growing Fear," "Terror" and "Watery," but that is to be expected, especially in a survival horror world.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I really enjoyed playing Alone in the Dark and from beginning to end I probably spent about three hours playing, even with the frequent instant deaths just from exploring.  I quickly learned that I needed to save after I did almost anything that required the use of an item.

I will confess that I used GameFAQs a bit while going through simply because I did not want to screw over myself by running out of lantern oil, of which there was a limited supply and at least three rooms/areas in the game that required you to have your lantern lit otherwise the game would not let you enter those rooms.  I did not feel like I was cheating, with the exception of looking at a four screen map that I had to navigate by lantern in an otherwise blacked out maze with the only lit area being a circle around you, Dragon Quest style.  There were additionally a few puzzles that I could not solve without ManiacMansionFan's help, but I still see it as asking another person, in-person, for help or advice, like what we used to do with NES and SNES games.  But in the end, I still feel good about myself, so it could not have been that big of a transgression.

In the end, I am glad that I played through Alone in the Dark despite its graphical and control limitations due to the time the game came out.  It is like going back and watching the first season of The Simpsons, you know it is that you are watching and even though it is still pretty rough around the edges, it is a fun game that helped create a genre that I absolutely love.  And soon I will get to Alone in the Dark 2.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Vengeance from the Grave


P.S.  I thought I would leave you with a screenshot of how I felt upon safely completing the game.

Yes, it's the classic 1980's jump of victory!

Game Review: Spirit Stones (Mobile)

Spirit Stones is a mobile phone game from Korean developer Gamevil.  Salty Liver's fiance introduced this game to Conklederp and myself about a month back.  Before we get down to it, I want to say that I do not take this game seriously at all.  I find the combination of match three with a trading card game with a turn based RPG very refreshing as far as mobile phone games go, although I know there are other options our there.  The fact that the game is free too is an added bonus.  These are aspects of this game that I really like, especially the way the game mechanic is constructed, but it is how the game is executed that I would like to get into now.

Spirit Stones is a great example of all the sexist and misogynistic views that is wrong in the video game industry.  As the people at Extra Credits have said, a lot of people in the industry are awaiting the time when video games as a medium are taken, at least as seriously as the movie industry is to the rest of the world.  The games take on female sexuality is pretty bad in the fantasy adventure setting with its sadly common take on female armor.  In Spirit Stones, a card you have can be combined with another identical card to evolve into a more powerful card along the same character lines.  Often times, that evolution to a new card means that the female becomes more scantily clad.

While there are some male cards that the same effect happens to, there are clearly more female cards than there are male cards and some of those male cards depict beasts-type-creatures that appear male, but only because they have bulging muscles and no breasts.

I feel like it has taken the fantasy genre of video games a long time to get to the point where armor for women is comparable visually to that of their male counterparts.  Breastplates no longer just cover the breasts and groinal region, but all vulnerable areas as in, the entire body.  You know, like armor is supposed to do.  The visual depiction of women in this game I feel is a big step backwards.

And yet, I keep playing.  Why?

Like I mentioned earlier, the mechanics that make this game I enjoy in a mobile game.  

First off, it combines the match three aspect that sky rocketed the Candy Crush games to their current popularity.  

Secondly, there is the key aspect of the game, which is the TCG, although the "trading" part is welcomely absent.  I am unable to trade cards with Conklederp or Salty Liver if either of has a card that the other does not.  There is no way to create multiple accounts in order to overpower a single account.  Players can help out in timed mega boss battles, but rewards are in items that can be used to refill stamina or "buy cards."  

The third aspect to the game that I like is the turn based RPG battle.  Each on the continent map is made up of six individual stages which in turn have six levels.  Levels 1, 2, 3 & 5 are made up of a three round battle against a set number of monsters while levels 4 & 6 are made up of a five round battle with the last battle in the sixth stage being a boss battle.  Damage is determined by the match three puzzle and each board contains bonus "gems" that help clear out more "gems" which in turn do additional damage.  There are complications though that crop up on boards such as unmovable blocks that are unaffected by the removal of gems.  There are also objects that will hold onto and spread amongst the gems which are only removable by normal gem selection.  There are even Skull blocks that damage the players if not removed from the board in a certain amount of turns passes first.  At the end of each level, you have to fight a boss who has significantly more hit points than the previous monsters and often a reduced timer to attack (usually 2 - 3 turns).

While there are all of these positive aspects of Spirit Stones that are enjoyable, the over sexualized depiction of women overshadows the game quite a bit.  Even though I have not experienced any other overtly sexual instances in the game (innuendos and such), I cannot say that they do not exist in the game.  Maybe they were just too subtle?

During the process of writing this article I have come to the conclusion that I will be looking into other mobile games, albeit free games, to replace Spirit Stones.  Now I just have to hope that the other people I know who play this will not be too upset by my inevitable absence, but maybe I will be able to find something else for everyone else to become addicted to, because there is nothing quite like infecting your friends with video game awesomeness.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Light That Ass On Fire