Game Review: Dead Space Mobile (Android)

I was planning on doing a full on review for Dead Space Mobile, but the more I thought about it, I felt that I was too close to this story and franchise.  If you've been reading our miniscule particle of the internet, you'll know that I love the first Dead Space game, which I came to five years after the rest of the world.  After finishing the game, I wanted to consume everything in the Dead Space universe although I was a little worried about the touch screen control scheme when I heard there was a mobile game.

Let me get this out of the way before I start gushing.  The touch screen controls work.  There were a number few times when I couldn't get Vandal (the main protagonist) to run, possibly because of the grease/sweat that found its way to the screen causing my thumb to slide or much up the contact.  I also chalk it up to the point of my thumb, as to its face only being in contact with the invisible directional pad.  It took some getting used to, but that is really my only criticism.  The point is, Dead Space Mobile is a great game.

"In Your Hands." Eh, eh!  Now that's, comedy.

Now, why I think it's a great game, but first some context.  You play as an engineer with the code name Vandal (given by a voice over the radio whom you are forced to take orders from through a series of events), is a recent convert to the Church of Unitology and is employed as an engineer on Titan Station (aka The Sprawl) prior to the events of Dead Space 2.

Being on a mobile device, I knew that the graphics were not going to be PC/console quality, but for a mobile game, the graphics looked good with smooth animations, the sound quality was crisp when it needed to be and muffled when it was supposed to be.  The only other negative thing I really have to say (aside from my sweaty palms) was a graphics/engine glitch that happened in the end of the game that I will get to later.

What I really want to talk about is how the game messed with the player in a way that I haven't felt since Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but in a less fun but not less entertaining way.  In Eternal Darkness, you had a visible sanity meter and you immediately knew (in most cases) that the game was messing with you.  Dead Space Mobile does not have a meter and all of the sanity events are programed to happen at a specific time and place.  Some of the events happen for a specific amount of time while others are triggered by your location and last until you leave that location.

Take the above screenshot for example.  Here the character Vandal is walking through a medical wing and I notice this other person on the other side of the glass.  I see them moving when I move and I think that it's a reflection, but it doesn't line up with where I am.  And, when I move, the character/reflection moves in the opposite direction.  That is it.  That is all that happens.  You can circle the window all you want and the reflection will always be there moving in the opposite direction, but nothing will happen.  It wasn't so much scary as it was confusing, intriguing and a little unnerving.

Another event happened when I passed through a door into a "plus" shaped room.  Upon looking around with only a single bloodied corpse, I noticed that where once there was only one corpse, three others had appeared.  Additionally, the door I came through had disappeared and was replaced by another corpse with "TAKE US" scrawled in blood above the body.  After taking out a couple of necromorphs in the room (one at a time), the room went dark and I found myself standing outside of the door I thought I had just entered.  It had been all in my head.  No sound cues to let me know that the bloodied room had been an illusion.  Just a shake and a holding of the head by Vandal.

There was another instance while walking down a hallway and directly under where I had my right thumb, the one that controls the aiming and firing of your weapon, a grotesque "evil" looking face faded on/into the screen.  When I noticed this visage, I pulled my right thumb away as if there was something physical on the screen for a few seconds before remembering that it was only an image and nothing physical that could actually do me harm.  And then I thought I was about to be ambushed by one or 73 necromorphs, but no.  Nothing came for me.

There was even a Lost Woods section while trying to get to Point B.  Unless you were to follow your RIG's locater mechanism (follow the glowing line projected onto the floor), you will walk around in circles, entering the same rooms even when going in a straight line.  When this is used in The Legend of Zelda, it somehow makes sense, that the forest is keeping you from finding your way to Point B.  In Dead Space Mobile however, I got the feeling that the ship was not trying to manipulate me (a la Event Horizon) but that this was all happening in my (Vandal) head.  To an observer, I'm sure that I would be seen walking through one door, turning around then come back or just walking around in circles in the same room.  It was very unsettling.

There was another instance where I walked through a door and all of a sudden I was somewhere else, off ship.  I walked forward as far as I could, thinking that the hallucination would eventually pass, but it didn't.  So I turned around the way I came and went back through the door, only to find that I was now on the other side of the hallway that I entered, as if I had walked in a straight line the whole time.

The only other negative thing that I alluded to happened during the boss fight (of all times and places).  About a minute into the fight, something emanated from the boss towards Vandal, but it was looked more like a smear of pixels and it didn't move so much as it shimmered.

By the end of the fight, almost half of the screen was being obscured by whatever glitch this was that kept up its fleshy colored shimmering undulations.  It was very distracting and if I hadn't just spent the last 30 minutes to get there, I would have turned the game off to restart the chapter (12:12).  Thankfully the glitch left enough room for me to be able to attack the boss' obvious glowing yellow puss filled weak points.

I should note that I played the game on whatever the equivalent of "Easy" is since I wasn't sure about the control scheme before starting to play, plus I just wanted to experience the story with just a the right amount of "Oh shit I'm going to die, I'm going to die."  There were still quite a few times that thought I was going to die.

So there!  I can't recommend Dead Space Mobile enough if you are in the market for a survival horror game in the truest sense of the term.  The game is reasonably priced (I happened to buy it when it went on sale) for having 12 chapters which take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to complete, depending on your desire to explore.  There is no saving aside from finishing a chapter, which might be a turn off to some people, but it was nice to know that with each chapter's length being fairly consistent, I knew how much time I could invest if I wanted/needed a half hour to kill.

Speaking of killing. . .

Now it is on to Dead Space 2, for which I am eagerly awaiting the same level of craftsmanship when it comes to "sanity effects," something I felt where the first game a bit lacking.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And Life We Joyfully Drink

Video Game Maps: Dragon Warrior 2 (NES)

As a sequel, Dragon Warrior 2 was a game that delivered.  Nowhere is this more clear than the Overworld map.  Allow me to... illustrate (pun intended.) Have a look at this:

In that little box there, is the original map from DW1.  Yes, not only did Dragon Warrior 2 introduce Enemy Groupings, a party of three characters to play and a ship to cross the sea, but it also expanded the world map, so greatly that the entire map of the original game is able to fit in one corner of our new, expanded world.  Each one of these additional continents is full of towns and dungeons for you to explore.  You just can't beat that.

Enix could easily have invented a new world, of comparable size to the original.  They could have introduced new features, or simple shuffled around the old ones.  Instead they built a much larger world around the location of the original map, the inclusion of which is not only great for the sense of scale, but also a sense of time and history (Dragon Warrior 2 takes place 100 years after the first game).

-D

P.S. There is some loss of detail between the two maps.  The continent of Alefgard is actually slightly smaller than in the first game.  Hills no longer slow you down as you walk. But these losses are small in comparison to the amount of real estate you gain.  

Video Game Maps: Dragon Warrior (NES)

Dragon Warrior was released in the US in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System [NES].  It was my first real taste of RPG gaming, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, whiling away many hours in the world of Alefgard.  While I completed the game more than once, many times I would play through only a portion of the game, walking the same areas, collecting the same item, defeating the dragon and rescuing the princess.  Repeat.  In my inaugural edition of the Video Game Maps segment, I'm actually going to focus on two games:  Dragon Warrior and Dragon Warrior 2*

Here is a map of Alefgard, the world of Dragon Warrior:

Cool enough world,  several continental shapes,  complete with geographic obstacles, and town tiles dotting the landscape. This seminal RPG took plenty of time to fight through.  Cleverly, the designers placed a key item at the furthest point counter clockwise from the start, only to send you back the other direction to get to the final battle. The difficulty of the enemies increases as you travel further from your starting point. Because you had limited supplies, it was necessary to return to towns periodically to resupply your healing items and magic points.  This leads to retreading a lot of ground, and an intimate familiarity with the landscape.  I can still, at a glance, pick out the little patch of woods where you harvest gold from the appropriately named Gold Man.   

Dragon Warrior featured a few landscape details. Water, can't walk on that.  Grass, standard walking speed.  Hills, slow walking speed. Swamp, damage every step.  Mountains were impassable.  Desert and forest were just like grass, as I recall.  However, in addition to appearance and walk-speed changes, different enemy encounters were often triggered by changes in landscape tiles.  There is a really cool map with enemy overlay that you should definitely check out if it sounds interesting to you.  That map and many other Dragon Warrior details can be found at The Almighty Guru. 

While assembling this post, I have enjoyed reveling in all these delightful details and memories.  Dragon Warrior is truly a game near and dear to my heart, and I must restrain my enthusiasm in order to stay on topic.  In my next edition of Video Game Maps, I will feature one of the best sequels of all time:  Dragon Warrior 2.   

-D


*please note:  I will be using the name 'Dragon Warrior' as opposed to 'Dragon Quest' because the games that I played, way back in the 80s, were called 'Dragon Warrior.'

Full Review: Portal 2

I just played through this game, so I suppose I should post about it.  Fun game.  Please play Portal 1 first.  In fact.  I am tempted to go back and play Portal 1, to compare the experience. But today I am talking about Portal 2, and in doing so, I will undoubtedly have some small *spoilers* that I am now alerting you to.   

Portal 2 spent a lot of time and effort on the quirky characters and storyline.  And I'll be honest with you:  I really liked Wheatley, right from the start.  The dramatic, destructive cinematics juxtaposed with his self depricating, uncertain humor were really entertaining.  I had thought he was Ricky Gervais based on the content of his humor, and I was close.  But not quite.

JK Simmons is always fantastic in everything he does.  However, I didn't particularly care for those sequences.  In fact, that section was exactly when I began to think the game was too long.  Like that last Batman movie.  But after a little while, I came to realize that the scope of the game was simply longer than I had anticipated, and then I got more comfortable with the length and forgave the designers for inspiring my earlier feelings of impatience.

To tell you the truth, Portal 2 is a game I wish would never end.  Portal 2 adds more features, but the core ideas are the same as the first.  And I wished it would never end either.  I have yet to explore any of the extra features, including the level editor.  Perhaps there is some good stuff there waiting for me.

GLaDOS is a great character.  In fact, part of why I want to play Portal 1 again is to compare her character.  I had originally thought her voice was entirely computer generated, but as it turns out, she was performed, in both games, by the same woman.  Her character growth in Portal 2 is most welcome, I thoroughly enjoyed our time together.  And while there are plot-based expansions on her character, I mostly appreciate her character for the dialogue.

But, ultimately, I do almost feel a bit of 'lacking' in Portal 2.  One example I can share is the various game locations in which you can see outside of the chamber you're in.  Sometimes you can see the edges of walls and other chambers, and there are machines lined up in grids, or large chambers in the distance.  And there was one particular sequence I remember when I got to put a portal on a wall that was so far away, the portal was just a dot.  That was awesome.  

While this is all super-cool environment building, I felt like it wasn't quite enough.  The designers clearly worked hard and got very creative.  And exploring the Portal 2 world gave me the urge to jump outside the levels and look around, which is a feeling that 3D games gave me from the very beginning.  And I think that's the thing that I'm missing in Portal 2:  exploration.  The first game... okay, spoiler alert!  stop reading right now if you haven't played through Portal 1.  I will not forgive myself if I ruin that game for you.  In fact, you shouldn't even be reading this at all if you haven't played through Portal 1 - go play it!

Anyhow.  The ending of Portal 1, or should I say, the 'ending sequence' of Portal 1 was a real treat.  All this time spent in Aperture Labs, with the cold and unfeeling laboratory designs, to suddenly be traveling around underground, behind the walls, it was such a thrill.  That sequence of the game delivered on all of the work I had done to get to that point.

Portal 2 never does that.  Now, don't get me wrong, there are bunches of, sort of 'travel' sequences that take you out of the testing realm to travel around, in a way that is very similar to the end of Portal 1.  I would guess that you experience the gameplay of that sequence about three or four times throughout Portal 2.  But what is missing is the contrast, the Payoff that the end of Portal 1 had.

The gameplay grows steadily, with very good pacing, all through the game.  You learn about newer features of the game, including laser triggers and that gel stuff.  The plot and characterization also grows with the gameplay.   Wheatley is dangerous, but then ultimately moronic, GLaDOS goes through her own growth leading to forgiveness of a sort.  But there is no real point of surprise and eye-widening, grin spreading potential that I felt when finishing Portal 1.

I think what would have done the trick would have been some non-linear or sandbox sequences.  Think about it - what could you do in a sandbox game with a portal gun?  A freaking PORTAL GUN!  But no, Portal 2 follows this basic formula:  Linear story sequences, Series of Test, Linear Story Sequences, Series of tests, until you get to the end.  And it's got a lot of fun, but it did make me a little impatient at times.

Also:  Do they ever explain why your character was back at Aperture Labs?  I mean, you escape in Portal 1, right?  Why would you ever go back?

So, don't get me wrong, Portal 2 is a great game.  I was on Cloud 9 through the first half of the game, right up until Wheatley takes over. I think I would have preferred a shorter game, or even an episodic release - two games at half the price.  The game took me 13.6 hours to complete.

The Game wowed me at first, but by halfway through I had settled into a comfort zone.  Portal 1 wowed me because the game concept is so awesome, then as it progressed I stayed with it, and then it totally wowed me at the end, big time!   I feel like Portal 1 left with so much potential, and Portal 2 was just a little superficial.  But still a great game.   Portal 1 gets an A and Portal 2 gets a B+  ... I think.  Maybe A+ and B+.  Sequels always have more to prove.  But sometimes they are better than the original.  It does happen.  

And though I am not anticipating a third portal game.  If it does come, I really hope for some open world exploration-type stuff.  Weee, Portals!

-D


P.S. I also want to mention that I bought Portal 2 on Steam as part of a 75% off deal that included Portal 1.  Gotta love that Steam!