Video Game Assessment: Until Dawn (2015)

Hey.

It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Whoops. I seem to have forgotten all about this blog for a great deal longer than I wanted to.

Anyway, getting back into the swing of things can be trying at the best of times, and these are certainly not the best of times. It's been nearly a year since I mysteriously disappeared, reemerging only now for October 1st- and (perhaps) more of October than that even? Who's to say?

I can't promise anything right now. My schedule and my life are way up in the air right now, but I'm going to endeavor to get at least some reviews up this October. Because October Nights is an important series for me. And I care about giving opinions about horror. I think this will be the second year in a row where I don't review something every single day in October, but again, I have no idea what's going to happen. I'm simply going to write opinions and see what happens. No promises though!

So, getting off of all of that trite conversation, let's talk about Until Dawn, the game where you try to get eight playable characters to- you guessed it- survive, UNTIL DAWN.

It is a horror video game of several different genres of horror. It involves eight "teenagers" (and since most of the actors are not even remotely teens, my head-canon is that they're all like mid-twenties) that have seen a fairly awful tragedy strike their group of friends about a year previously. Namely the two sisters of one of the eight characters disappear under mysterious circumstances after a nasty and very mean prank gone wrong.

The whole premise sounds like a crazy and very bad teenage slasher film rip-off. And it kind of is for part of the game. We have a "mystery man," a bunch of clues to find and extrapolate from, and a seemingly deranged killer on the loose. It plays more like a mystery game from the start, following more of an adventure game premise at first, rather than the full survival horror game it kind of becomes in the latter half of the game.

I really don't want to spoil the game, so I'm going to have fairly tight fingers in this review. Don't expect a ten-page diatribe about why _____'s character is extremely tragic or that the _____ design is really creepy and well put together. I'm certainly not going to talk about ______ __________ and his absolute obsession with ______ so much so that he made the movies ________ (2001) and ___ ____ _______ (2006) about the _______ that are so prominent in this particular narrative. Also, Saw (2003) and similar types of movies have has a fairly decent influence on what Until Dawn is.

And it's actually quite good for what it is. While I figured out the entirety of the plot within my first ten minutes of playing, I also found the characters interesting, the plot well put together, and horror very well played in the latter parts of the game. It can be easily compared to other games of similar play-types and genre, like Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and even Telltale's The Walking Dead (with Clementine and Lee), but it really does stand apart from them on a fundamental level, up to and including that, I believe, this particular game is much better for this type of gameplay and style than any of the other previous games like it. There's a great deal of narrative choice and input from the player to get the kind of story desired. The more you put into exploration the higher the chances are that your characters will survive and have knowledge of what's actually going on. Limited exploration puts the entire cast at risk and leads to a narrative that might make much less sense as well. I like gameplay rewarding narrative though.

The game puts this idea out there that choice is ultimately up to the player. This means that what happens in the plot, how characters react to one another, and the information found out and talked about are all up to the player, who can decide some aspects of the direction the game will take. While it is a fairly simplistic system here, it is much better implemented than a great deal of games of a similar type. I really like choice systems in games especially when the outcome can be extremely varied. RPGs tend to do it best, but even RPGs tend to not go very deep into the system. It's overly complicated to program, I get that, but the payoff is so good when it works right.

Until Dawn takes some time for the plot to get moving, but when it does finally get there, it also never stops. As a horror game, it has everything you might expect, from abandoned mental institutions to abandoned hotels. It has everything from a nearly abandoned ski lodge to a completely abandoned creepy mine. There's also an abandoned fire tower, abandoned ski lift depots, and a nearly entirely abandoned mountain.

So- uh- I think "abandoned" might be the word of the day today.

Just like a slasher movie, certain characters are more likely to die than others. The flirtatious and playful blonde girl who talks about sex more than the other characters, and then screams she is going to have a very good time sexing her boyfriend, is more likely to die than the girl who never talks about sex at all in any context. The (sorry to even bring this up) black guy character is more likely to die and be forgotten than any other character period, especially when a player decides to screw with ______ like the game explicitly tells you not to. The guy and gal that are more central to the plot though, the heroic antihero of questionable values and the brave but detached heroine, tend to both have the most screentime and the highest chance of surviving the night.

The other characters are the two (movie-styled) geeks who are supposedly perfect for one another, the grade-A witch of a girl who constantly browbeats her boyfriend, but has the best gameplay sequence in the game, and the troubled brother of the two sisters who died the previous year. The two geeks are pretty fun, but their whole story relies upon the other.The grade-A witch has the most conflicted nature to the narrative in terms of playable character, but also the most information revealed to her. And the brother of the two missing/dead sisters is a bit of an oddball with some of the most creative pieces of the narrative attributed to him.

A great deal of combinations of these characters can survive or die in the course of the story, including the entire cast or none of our "teens." While this latter outcome can be considered the best ending, it isn't necessarily the end of the story, for good or ill.

The changeable aspects of the genre are also probably the most interesting piece of the game to me. It switches genre constantly, and this is where I'm going to get just slightly spoiler-y, so there's your warning in advance. Jump out of this review with a hearty recommendation from your pal Saquarry if you don't want spoilers.

The game starts out with the isolationist vibe. While it never strays from that, there are certainly moments when you start seeing a larger world, most notably in trying to get some outside help and learning about what befell the inhabitants of this seemingly cursed mountain. There are also a great deal of jump scares in the beginning parts of the game, most of them, I hope, purposefully poorly handled. It seems to me that the game seems to want you off-balance constantly, and the characters are even willing to put each other off-balance for the desired results. Jump scares aside, the game delves into survival horror, supernatural horror, mystery horror, revenge narrative, slasher horror, and psychological horror at any given time. These all can pop up throughout the story, giving the whole thing a very off-kilter vibe to it. I certainly like it. It shows the metamorphosis of the narrative, starting at a place of ignorance and ending at a place that could be called "understanding."

The game itself follows that pattern, showing more fake horror in the beginning, evolving into something much more psychological and not shown, and finally ending on both understanding and a kind of body horror with supernatural elements that explains some things, but leaves enough ambiguity as to be worth exploring later (mostly after one is finished playing the game). That might be an overly complex way of saying that the game starts out with cheap scares, goes for a strong atmospheric feeling in the center part of the game, and finishes out with existential questions and outstanding visual designs.

The understanding the game gives to you in the end isn't just of the plot, but rather of the other characters, the supernatural elements, and the history behind everything around this mountain. The understanding changes the genre, and that is such a cool transition of genre, such a valid way of using genre like a tool to get a desired result.

Again, I'm not going to spoil very much else. Until Dawn is very good as a horror game. While the gameplay can be awkward, don't let that stop you from trying it out or from watching somebody else play it. It has quick-time events (QTEs) and plays very similarly to something like the David Cage games of Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls, the two closest comparison pieces. But I think it would be unfair to compare this game to those, if only because the quality and polish of this game is much stronger than those others.

I really enjoyed the game. It was thought-provoking, very creepy, and also very fun. The narrative left me wanting more. I want more games like this, more games that try to scare, but also try to do something beyond simply scaring.

I don't have much else to say other than recommending it. It is one of the best horror games of recent memory. It is also part of a string of horror games that have come out or that are coming out that have been or seem like they will be very, very solid entries into the genre.




I guess I do have a postscript to the review in the form of a little story. When I went out to buy this game the first day it had come out, I was nearly left wanting. I hadn't pre-ordered it because the previews had not impressed me even slightly. I saw a few good reviews come out, and decided that I would go pick it up because (and I even said this at the time I'm so ashamed) YOLO. The problem was I had a gift card at a particular video game store. I wanted to spend as little actual money as I could mitigate, so I found it necessary to go to this EXTREMELY POPULAR game stop if you will to find the game.

The problem arose that the first four stores I went to did not have the game at all. Somehow a video game that shouldn't have ANY scarcity somehow definitely had it. I was shocked at the first store not having it, in awe that the second didn't have it, and actively annoyed and peeved that the others didn't have it either. Okay, the game might be popular for some reason on the first day it's out, but they must have known what kind of response a fairly anticipated horror game would get, no?

I don't know. I guess I found it very sad that it took me nearly three hours to get to one of the only copies of Until Dawn in this particular store franchise in my area (my area being central New Jersey nowadays). AND I had to essentially ask a store that was nearly forty minutes away to hold it for me so that nobody else who also REALLY wanted a good horror would take it from me.

So, why the scarcity, guys? I'll never understand it.

Video Game Assessment: Demon's Souls (2009)

Demon's Souls, developed by From Software with some assistance from SCE Japan Studio, is an interesting action-adventure-RPG-hack-and-slash-very-hard-game that looks like it helped kick off the "hard games" genre that seems to be pushing itself into video game culture today. Some people (mostly jerks) say that this game is easy. Other people (the jerks would call them "noobs" which is literally the dumbest thing a human being can possibly say with a straight face) think that this is a difficult and punishing game, designed to be both psychotically frustrating when you get angry enough to throw your PlayStation 3 controller through the game disc and incredibly rewarding once you defeat anything that has given you problems (for me it was Flamelurker, that wobbling flaming monkey moron).

This game was my first real foray into this genre. Sure, I like difficult games at times, hard to grow up on the NES and the SNES and not get used to difficult games. But this one, it's very different. And it's difficult in a different way. It's fair, sure, and can be easy through repetition and memorization. Mostly though, it punishes through lack of knowledge, lack of skill, and pulling out surprise after surprise. You need amazing control for this game. You have to have a knowledge base of what's coming, and you have to get used to the controls, which are, at the very least, difficult to figure out at first. There are also a great deal of hidden mechanics in the game, like leveling up (which I didn't find when I should have found it), what the stats mean, and what the symbols that are required to use a weapon actually mean. To be bluntly honest, this game confused me for a good long time, and I left it alone much of the time I owned it. But that changed early this year. Because that was when I decided I had enough of the namby-pamby games. I was a real gamer-boy, and I was going to game.






(And then hate myself for a long time afterward...)

Prepare to Cry
(in anger)

I had gotten this game not long after it had come out, played a little bit, and found it too frustrating to continue. I hadn't even beaten or even gotten to the first real boss in the game, but I found it too tiresome to proceed, and put it off for another two years or more. I came back to it, tried to show off just how hard the game was, proceeded to get frustrated and then put it off again.

Finally though, I'd had enough. With work a mounting priority and no time for anything else, I decided to dip my toes into the fires of self-hatred and punish myself directly. I started by playing about an hour each night, more or less, just seeing what I could do. The controls (which I barely knew trying it before) seemed to feel a bit better in my fingers this time around. I somehow beat the first level, 1-1, and I never died to the first boss Phalanx, something I didn't know I had in me. And from that moment, I was hooked. Sure, there were frustrations, times when I knew I wouldn't be able to continue and times that I simply told myself I was done. But I did continue; I wasn't done. The Tower Knight gave me problems. Because the character I had created four or five years previous had already beaten the tutorial, I didn't have the tutorial to fall back on. I forgot that I could run and therefore never ran once in the entirety of Demon's Souls. How I got past the red dragon in the second level of the first world, I have no idea. I dodge rolled a lot. I like dodge rolling. Maybe that saved me. Or maybe some incredibly dumb luck (with an emphasis on the dumb) was on my side. I was still struggling even throughout the first part of the game. The first four bosses (with the exception of Phalanx) gave me trouble. But I beat them all one by one, remembering their names in turn: Tower Knight, Fool's Idol, Armored Spider... and Flamelurker. How I loathe thee, Flamelurker.

Flamelurker was the boss that got me in this game. It was the hardest and most frustrating one. I was playing a melee character with extremely limited magic and no range. I subsequently had to change my build because of this boss, become nearly a pure bows and magic character. It was frustrating. I keep using that word, but it describes the experience so well. It captures the experience perfectly. Frustration. Rewarding frustration. I won, and after that nothing stood in my way. I was on a roll. The Maneater(s) gave me some issues, but I beat them too. I beat everything. After Flamelurker, everything clicked. The combat clicked. The game mechanics clicked. The ambushes and the difficulty and everything else. I simply understood it all. I got it. Is it a good game? Yes, absolutely. But there is a lot that needs to be slogged through before it really shows its true colors.

I don't have much to say about the other bosses. Most of them fell easily to my magic/bow combination. While some were designed exquisitely, very few actually stuck out to me. The Old Hero was a cool, albeit easy, concept. The Storm King was a cool boss fight once you get that awesome sword that's only really awesome in his arena. And the Old Monk was an interesting conceptual design that never worked for me.

The setting and level design in probably the high point of the game as well as the most memorable piece of it. The Tower of Latria's design in particular sticks out to me, being a prison and a collection of towers in this backdrop of a broken world. The settings almost feel like entirely different games put inside of one. None of them really look alike (besides the all-encompassing darkness present in one form or another in each every level. Other than that they do feel and play incredibly differently. The castle was neat with incredibly well-designed shortcuts and corridors. The tunnel felt far beneath the world and incredibly claustrophobic at times. The tower was both creepy and otherworldly, like something out of Lovecraft. The shrine was neat, a cliffside area that made me think of pictures of cool rocky coastlines. And the valley/swamp area was just terrible in every single way. The stories behind the areas were also interesting, although on a first playthrough I would be shocked if you even knew there was a story. I certainly didn't. I was just killing bosses and leveling up. Only after the endgame played out and I started new game+ did I finally stop and look some of the story and characters up, realizing that the game was much deeper than I had given it credit for.0

I talk about this game mostly as a game of visuals and fights because when I played it, that's exactly what I got out of it. While the lore is pretty solid, it's also fairly hidden unless you're willing to read literally everything, every description, every introduction, and, of course, reading into a lot of things too. I didn't do that when I played, opting to focus on the environments and getting better with the gameplay. Maybe it was my loss, although I enjoyed it as a game, and now I enjoy the lore as well.

As for everything else, let's see. I liked the Maiden in Black. Her design and character are incredibly interesting, verging on seriously awesome. I wish more characters would look and act like her. She's such an incredibly well-designed and thought-out central NPC. I can't really complain about her or the major merchants in the Nexus, (the central hub of the game). Oh, and I didn't even talk about how awesome the Nexus is, with its strange clockwork floor, changing music once you get late enough into the game and vertical levels.

The complaints I have are pretty small in general. The Valley of Defilement sucks to play. Some of the bosses are very easy. The early game really feels like it discourages new players. The lack of telling the player anything can be both incredibly rewarding and incredibly confusing. The world and character tendency things are literally incomprehensible for me. I have no idea what to do with any of that stuff and basically avoided it through lack of knowledge or understanding.

I will say that the dodge roll is my favorite feature in games though, and I wish it were in every game, because mastering a dodge roll is the only true way to play Demon's Souls.


Now, I do know that this game is not as played or as beloved as Dark Souls or other more well-known "hard games" out there, but it's also very good if it's given a chance. This game got me to try (and eventually fall in love with) the Dark Souls games, and its horrific atmosphere, gameplay that has to be mastered, and designs are something I will remember for many years to come. Compared to Dark Souls, I find Demon's Souls nearly its equal, with the only issues coming from lack of a "real/coherent" story and the ease of some of the boss fights if your character is built a certain way. But that's about it. When I get to reviewing Dark Souls, I'll talk more about comparisons and probably change my mind over which one I like more ten times over in the course of that review.

So, in summary, if you have a PS3 and like hard games, you should try this one out. I liked it a lot after the initial four years of annoyance and frustration. So... I think that's a recommendation? I give it a 'Salem's Lot out of Dracula.



Yeah.

Anyway, as some housekeeping for the blog, I'm back writing, as I mentioned last week. I'm probably going to be very inconsistent, really basing my writing and posting of reviews around when work and the fiancee aren't desperately seeking my time or attention. I'd love to say one review a week, but I doubt that pretty seriously. So, I won't say anything at all, and hopefully we'll all be surprised and shocked by whatever happens. I think I'm going to review a bunch of video games for a while, then some movies, and finally some books leading up to October, but anything could happen. And the October Nights 31 reviews will happen even if I have to never sleep. So no worries there.

Video Game Assessment: Bioshock Infinite DLC: Burial at Sea Episode 1

I love Bioshock Infinite but did not like Bioshock very much. So, what happens when both games are combined together for a DLC? Well... *EXPLOSION*

BURIAL AT SEA IS WHAT HAPPENS

I've heard a bunch of stuff about this DLC. And it all seems rather overblown. People get upset over the dumbest things, something I can and will never understand. DLC comes in all different shapes and sizes. You can pay money for horse armor, story DLC, or just a bunch of enemies that you can shoot a bit. That's the nature of DLC, you never know exactly what you'll get, and many times you get something you might not expect. I don't see how people can be disappointed about a DLC, ripping it apart and hating it for no other reasons than it's DLC. And this DLC in particular, which by its nature is very much apart from its mother game. I understand that the practice of DLC and expansions is a slippery slope and something that can easily take advantage of the consumer, but if it's a fair DLC, it should be extra to the main game, something superfluous for the enjoyment of the core game, but also something that will add more to those who are willing to spend some money to buy it. And this DLC fits that definition pretty solidly.

I'm going to be a bit disjointed in my little conversation here about this DLC. I'm under the impression that most people think it is disappointing, upsetting, mediocre, or bad, and that's just plain idiotic. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so harsh because the internet is so full of people being overblown about any and every issue, and I'm just confused by the backlash at this point. It's disheartening to me that people can't just enjoy a thing that's a good time for a while. They have to hate it just to hate it, point to it and say, "I don't want." But, I want it quite a bit and enjoyed it even more than that/

The story is simple: It takes place after the main game, some years after it more than likely. Elizabeth is offering Booker (from Rapture this time, Rapture-Booker) a chance to find his "girl," Sally, a young girl who he has taken charge of somehow for some reason. That's about it. The story is all about the two of them trying to find this girl and going to a city at the bottom of the ocean to do it.

I liked the DLC. The first episode of Burial at Sea was a superb success, blending the horror elements of Bioshock with the incredible writing and characters of Infinite. While not everything in the story made absolute sense to me, specifically the ending, the game itself was a really good time. I had fun playing it all over again, going back to Rapture and meeting back up with Elizabeth who is absolutely the headline of this game and well worth the price alone.

The combat is perfectly acceptable, but probably a bit on the difficult side with the absence of a great deal of ammo or EVE for restocking. I found myself playing with a very heavily melee game which made it that much more satisfying when I won. (I did much the same thing in the core game though. I can't get enough of the melee combat. It's satisfying.) The fights are pretty good, but nothing all that different from either of the other games. Combat is not why I'm playing the game, so I'm not sure how much more I can really say about it. It's perfectly fine, and I had fun. What more is there to say? Then again I like just about any kind of combat in games, as long as it works, I don't really care.

The music was great. Elizabeth and the new Booker are also quite good to see again. As a big spoiler I didn't quite get why Elizabeth wanted to lead Booker all the way to Sally to kill him. That didn't make much sense to me. If he were going to die anyway, why not have him die when she first met him? Why lead him along so long? Just so he can prove his ill intent by trying to grab Sally? Not sure if I buy that so much. But maybe she needed to know what kind of Booker he truly was. I'm not sure.

Seeing the Luteces again was also fun, but there is a frustration with the story the way it is. Booker is suddenly Comstock (yes, they're the same character, but they're also treated as different characters, aren't they?) and has his memories, and there is an insistence that he is a bad man and is running from something? I don't even know. It's very odd, and my answers are few and far between. The ending was the only thing that really took away from my experience and mostly because I didn't understand it or Elizabeth's motives. Is she killing all the Bookers/Comstocks? Is she searching out a very specific one who somehow found himself in another world? Again, why wait so long to kill him or grievously harm him? I don't get that. Did she not know he was Comstock until his reaction?

Man, while confusing, the lead-up to the end is very compelling, showing flashes to Booker/Comstock's former life at very inopportune times. It added some mystique and some actual creepiness to the plot. I enjoyed that quite a bit. It meant something to me, and while I don't understand it now, I assume the next part will clear some things up, but maybe not. And if it doesn't then that's fine too, just keep giving me a compelling reason to keep following the story.

It seems like everybody is down on the world of Infinite, something I neither understand or agree with. This is the best game I've played in years and the DLC is also very good for a follow-up to that. It's simple and probably a little slow, but I loved playing it and feel the desire to go back and play the main game and the DLC all over again. So, it was a success to me.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock Infinite (2013)

Hello all!

Now this is going to be a spoiler-filled review, analysis, and interpretation of BioShock Infinite. Don't say I didn't warn you, and don't read on without heeding that warning. I have some ideas that will probably prove to be unpopular, but since I've never personally seen them raised, and I've played the game four times, I think I have very valid reasons to raise them myself.

Anyway...

It starts with a lighthouse.

And what is a lighthouse? A way to keep pesky travelers away. A warning. And what happens when one fails to heed a warning? I think that the answer must be: nothing good at all.

There's always a man.

But he barely matters. He's simply a man. Nothing more. Kind of generic really.

And there's always a city.

Columbia in this case. A city in the clouds. Kind of like Cloud City on Bespin except... uh... not centralized.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We have to start at the beginning or we're never going to get anywhere. So, let's begin.

What is this video game?

BioShock Infinite is a multi-faceted, complex, and brilliant game brought to us by the developer Irrational Games and Publisher 2K Games. It is a follow-up (or spiritual sequel) to BioShock and BioShock 2, which in turn are spiritual sequels and homages to the old System Shock games. Everybody knows that. It's a tired thing to say, but I have to start somewhere.

I personally can't stand BioShock. Not this game, we'll get to my feelings on this game later, but the first BioShock was a game I really did not enjoy in any sense of that word. It called itself  horror game, but had no horror. It attempted to parse Objectivism, but only ever touched the surface. It tried to create a new kind of narrative, but only fell on its face. My opinion on that game is fairly negative. It was one of my least favorite games that I actually bought in this gaming generation (alongside Alan Wake and possibly Mass Effect 3). I can't think of anything besides the stunning visuals and designs that I actually liked about the game. And the end of that game is one of the worst fetch-quest things I've ever seen in a non-JRPG. So, I don't have fond memories of BioShock, so much so that I had no further interest in the series.

BioShock 2 came out. I never played it, never even cared to play it. I heard it was more BioShock, a tired sequel in a generation of tired sequels. I didn't care. I was done with the series. A horror series that isn't horror that thinks it's more intelligent than it actually is? Yeah, not my cup of tea. And when the teasers and trailers started coming out for Infinite, I simply let them pass right over my head. How could I care about a series I never liked? And what did it matter that it would have nothing *really* to do with the other games? All I saw was fluffy pretty nonsense.

And I wasn't interested.

I didn't care.

Then a beacon, a light from across the sky. A review and a damn good one at that. Adam Sessler posted a video review that drew me in, and made me need to play this game. I hadn't had any inkling of interest before this, but in that moment, on the Tuesday this game came out, I knew I needed it. The game was my lighthouse, and I was like a moth to its brilliant light. I bought it, and I played.

I saw the true face of what brilliance could be.

And I was glad.

But I'm not talking about the game yet, about the rowboat, about the barely understood conversations with what seem like two crazy people, about the lighthouse, the mystery, and on, and on, and on ad infinitum...

It wasn't just that the game was brilliant. The game also touched on things never brought up in video games, played with ideas that were always left rotting in the attic of a creator's brain. It wasn't just that the game was intelligent. It was that the story was saying something other than: go shoot this, go save the damsel, and go get the reward. It was a deconstruction to be sure (and I love those), but one without pretext. And certainly one that didn't seem that way from the outset. It is a game that ages well with time and playthroughs, being confusing the first time through, and gaining traction with every subsequent journey through Columbia and its avenues.

I'm not going to waste your time and mine saying what people have already said. Go read other reviews if you want to hear dull praises and claps on the back for this game. It's a great game. Hell, in some ways and to some people it is goddamn near-perfect. It is for me. But saying that does not make it so. Yes, the visuals are stunning. Yes, the gameplay is like some crazy high-octane roller coaster ride. Yes, the narrative is good. Yes, Elizabeth is a wonderful character. But those are empty statements without something to back them up.

While the visuals are stunning, there is nothing in them that makes or breaks this game. Yes, pretty graphics can be fun, but this game could have easily been another BioShock if it didn't have more than just pretty things to fall back onto. Columbia is a gorgeous world, but the visual porn will always be there. it doesn't go away, but is also frankly one of the worst and weakest parts of the game. And that should be read as elevating the other parts of the game, not denigrating the visuals. Columbia is gorgeous, and it only looks better the longer the game goes on. The character designs get better with time, the enemies become more compelling, with larger enemies having more unique designs, and even the smaller ones looking more interesting.  The absolute high point for visuals in the game would be after the final battle when Columbia is nothing more than a memory, but that could just be me.

The gameplay is unique, interesting, and fun. Yes, it is also kind of generic with guns in one hand and magic powers in another, but so many other games do the same that there is really no way I can complain about this doing what others also do. It would be a ridiculous argument. Some of the fights are pretty well scripted, but I think that works in the game's favor, having amazing areas in which to fight rather than tiny corridors. People have complained about the combat... and I have no idea why. What is annoying about this combat that isn't annoying about other FPS games? I get tired hearing about complaints without any merit. Let's call it personal preference. Or maybe those people were caught up in the hype and it didn't deliver the experience they expected and wanted. Or maybe PC gamers are a fickle crowd and like to be annoyed at everything. I don't know. All I can say is that I liked the combat quite a bit. The gameplay was fresh and exciting, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is not a horror game (all that much) so why not have some adventurous fun while playing? The sky-hooks are brilliantly fun. Yes, they put you on rails, but rails can be a ton of fun. I loved ninja-ing down on unsuspecting enemies. I could do that all day long. And my favorite part was smacking people with my sky-hook. Man, that was viscerally incredible.

I really think that way too many people talk about gameplay like it's the entire game. I've heard some even say that bad gameplay can kill a game. No. No, it can't. Games have evolved. They are not simply Mario jumping around for a princess or Tetris blocks needing to match up. Games are not just about fighting. How can they be with narratives, characters, and everything else besides filling up the game with so much else? This game has a perfect balance between combat and rest. I wish every game could be like that. It reminds me of Half-Life 2 without physics puzzles. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I'm also very forgiving when it comes to gameplay. I loved the original Deadly Premonition and was okay with its frankly godawful combat. So, full disclosure, I guess. Bad gameplay has never turned me off of a game. And it never will. Then again, I'm also good at video games. So, take that as you will.

Something seldom spoken of in videos games is the music and sounds. This game does music and sounds better than any game I've ever played before. The music is near-brilliant, with many anachronistic 1912 covers of radically different songs through time, from Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. And they're all so good and so worth listening to and being surprised by. The sounds are great as well- everything from vocal work (the Luteces are amazing, Elizabeth is the female voice to be compared against now, etc.) to what characters say, not only in their environment but also on the voxophones. There is an essence to the words and voices in this game that gives the whole thing credence. The rebellion plot in the story is greatly increased by such amazing vocal work. Seeing a Handyman lying killed in the streets, only to find that he still kept a voxophone of his wife telling him that she loved him? That's heartwrenching and beautiful, especially when the existential question of what they are comes up in the game as well.

The voxophones are an interesting way of giving us the backstory of the game. Yes, BioShock did it as well, but much less satisfyingly in my opinion. Perhaps it's the vocal talent here, or all the alternate universes, but I found what was going on in the background much more compelling throughout this game. I even found it more compelling than pieces of our own narrative. Saying that, I also loved listening to people on the street talking, saying weird and oddly racist things at times. It made it all that much better. It made it all that much more an actual world. It drew me into itself that much more.

And does the narrative of the game matter? You better believe it. It's amazing, with twists, turns, and things that don't quite make sense. The ending, I'm looking at you here. But even the things that don't make sense still work. There are questions that still hang over the narrative, and that's a good thing. It makes the story more interesting, more ambiguous, and more likely to be interpreted many different ways. It leads to debate, and that's never a bad thing.

The ambiguity of the story and the ending is what I liked most about the game besides Elizabeth. Yes, the twists were fun. But not knowing what truly happens in the end is what made the game worth playing, and I guess my interpretation of the ending (which seems different from everybody else's) made me love this game. I'll get to it later, but yes, prepare to be upset with me. I'm sure I'll get yelled at for not getting it.

*sigh*

Anyway, Elizabeth is one of the best female characters in video games. Look, if you want to take anything away from this game that's good, it has to be that. She is a non-sexualized, non-damsel, non-escorted NPC, who can take care of herself, interact with you in so many different ways, and has an effect on the way you play the game. I'd compare her to Alyx from Half-Life 2 and its episodes, but Elizabeth is more a natural progression of that kind of character. It's amazing to see that in this day and age when everybody seems to hate women, especially in their video games, and the only women they seem to allow are huge-breasted and vapid wank material. I'm glad for Elizabeth's existence, for her equal status to Booker throughout the game, and for her even transcendence into something near-God-like. To me her progression as a character made the game for me. Seeing her change as she changed costumes, grow as the game grew, become more serious as our situation did, it was amazing. It was compelling. It gave me something to care about within the game, something to get attached to.

So, as the game goes on, and Booker gets involved in a rebellion, steals a girl from her "prison," sees what Comstock (the antagonist of the game) really is, and goes from rugged antihero to broken man, I was entranced. The story was paced so well. It made me care. It made me want to see what would happen next. I didn't want it to end. But it had to. And the ending was... controversial in my brain. I fought long and hard to come to a consensus about what I thought about it. Was it all happening at the end, with Booker and Elizabeth going through the lighthouses, seeing all the untold amounts of universes? Or was it simply another deconstruction?

The way I see it was that each other Booker and Elizabeth, every other lighthouse as well, they are all other games being played. Some perhaps by yourself, but some but other people entirely. The game can never truly change. The big moments always have to happen. But the small things can very easily change. Each and every game is different. But they all come to the same realization and the same ending. That's brilliant and sad. And it works so well. We go through the game seeing Elizabeth grow as a character, seeing her go from eating cotton candy and talking about childish things to openly wanting to murder her "father." But the biggest and most interesting part of the game is when we realize that we can never find another ending. There is no happy ending. Elizabeth cannot change her fate just as Booker cannot change his. What I find most compelling about the ending is that it is about failure.

Neither Booker nor Elizabeth win in the end because the game was rigged from the start. Things cannot change therefore our game never changes. Elizabeth can try a million times to save Booker and herself or kill Booker and herself, but the game keeps being played, and the failures, each and every game, will always happen. I don't know if Elizabeth is wrong about being able to fix it or if she just wants to end it right there. I don't know. Is she God at the end of the game or some equivalent? Or is she a terrifyingly sad young woman who thinks she knows what to do and cannot? Maybe she succeeds like most seem to think, but that is so far-fetched to me. Killing Booker does not kill Comstock even if they are the same person. Killing Booker does nothing but kill Booker. So, either she kills him for kicks, puts him in the role of a younger Booker, or kills him to make the failure complete. I will mention that if she can put Booker in the role of his younger self, than why not create an entirely new Booker? Or kill the Booker who always becomes Comstock after the choice is made? She chooses to kill the player character, the one who has protected her and cared for her throughout the game. There's a reason for that. And to me the reason is that there can never be a winning scenario. There can never be happily ever after. Some see the stinger at the end being the happy ending of Booker and Anna living happily ever after. I see it as a drunken Booker before the game begins forgetting that he already gave her away. Nothing changes. The game is always the same. And that is why it is very close to perfect.

I can compare it to NieR, another game about failure that I also loved. It is so good so often, and people hating it simply makes no sense to me unless they either don't care about narratives or they simply don't get it. I will never be okay with a person ragging on a game because the gameplay isn't their cup of tea. That is such a stupid reason to hate a narrative heavy video game. It gets to me, this slagging the game off, because I did find it so brilliant and so fun. I can't even see how others cannot also enjoy it unless they are suffering from anti-hype which is literally so stupid it actually makes me angry.

As for real concerns, why doesn't Booker break his legs when jumping off of the sky-rails? Why? Seriously. Portal had the explanation of long falls being okay because Chell has long fall boots. But Booker can die if he falls to far regularly. So, why doesn't he die when he jumps from a hundred feet up onto concrete? Don't even dare say magnetism. I will lose all my mind. Seriously, there is no explanation. It's kind of dumb, but that really stuck out to me.

I wish we could have more than two guns at a time as well. This is something others have brought up as well. I kind of get it from a realistic point of view, but from where I'm standing it just makes me use fewer types of guns and conserve the ammo for the guns I really like. I don't mind it amazingly, but it isn't the best decision ever.

As for other things I liked. Well, the sidequests were fine. The other characters in the narrative were great. The insane asylum interlude was one of the best pieces of a video game I've seen in years. That whole sequence was terrifying and compelling. It was simply so good. I love the murder of crows vigor too. Man, that was a ton of fun to use. And I really liked the multi-dimensional plot, where eventually you have no idea what reality even is anymore. I liked that a lot too. The Luteces were fantastic, characters that give the G-Man a run for original and interesting characters that have an otherworldly presence.


And that's that for the review. There are probably a ton more things I could say, but... nah... not really. I made my big points. I might do a podcast on it eventually if I get the need to talk about it more. I have a few other things to just mention about this blog in general.

I'm mostly just glad to finally be posting stuff again. Over a month hiatus is quite long enough for me. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, with fifty+ hour work weeks (my job is exhausting and I work six days a week), a long-distance relationship (and I'll be getting engaged soon), and trying to actually sleep some days, I basically haven't had a ton of time or energy to update this blog. I apologize for that, I really do. I'm going to try to update more often, but... I doubt my schedule will change, but I'm intensely trying to push myself to bring some content out. It may be a bit more scattered, but I'm going to try.

I do have many different reviews I'm planning, and October (although months away) is very much on my mind for my next 31 reviews. Anyway, the next Goosebumps/Fear Street review might be coming soon hopefully. And my next game review will hopefully be coming out in a few weeks at latest. I hope everybody is okay with me not putting out as much content as before. This blog will always update, it simply might be slower than usual from now until my schedule frees up a bit.

Video Game Assessment: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (2013)

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an interesting game. While game reviewers and critics alike have mostly been giving it a pass as a wonderful and beautiful game in the style of classic and hardcore JRPGs, I'm going to have to disagree. Just slightly. Ever so slightly. This game is beautiful, gorgeous, and any other synonym that you can think of in that vein. It has wonderful gameplay, a great story, and great characters... but, look, I'm NOT a fan of JRPGs. I really don't like them very much. Sure, I can see the influence on this game from older JRPGs and newer ones, I suppose, but calling it only a game for hardcore JRPG-lovers is belittling this game so much. Honestly, any reviewer that says that this game is only good for those who love or are nostalgic for JRPGs should be ashamed of themselves and give up their reviewer status.

I can't even believe that people would overlook this game, this wonderful, unique, and beautiful game because critics and reviewers go and say stupid and inane crap that is LITERALLY UNTRUE like this game is only built for hardcore JRPG fans or that this game is a GRINDFEST or that it relies too much on the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP TROPES.

You know what? I'm going to go off script a little here and say something I don't usually say in my reviews: Screw you, you pieces of garbage, for going and belittling one of the best new IP games to come out in a good few years. Screw you for calling this a game only for hardcore JRPG gamers. While, yes, those JRPG game players would probably enjoy this game very much, this is a game for basically anybody. Any person who likes any genre can pick this game up and enjoy it. Oh, you like games because of story? Well, this is the game for you. Oh, you like games for tight gameplay? This is the game for you. Oh, you just want something intelligent to pass the time? Play this game. Seriously, if you have the ability to play this game and you pass it up because some piece of crap game reviewer went and said it isn't the game for you, then shame on you for listening to those idiots, shame on them for saying it in the first place, and shame on you AGAIN for not giving this game the chance it deserves.

It is a rare game that will give out FREE DLC, and an even rarer one that OFFERS to give out free DLC without people complaining. The people involved in this game, and the decision of offering the free DLC should be commended to the fullest. So, thank your lucky stars for Studio Ghibli, Level-5, and Namco Bandai for actually having the gonads to stand up to current gaming market politics and greed and do something that actual makes the cynical gamer within me smile. I don't care if the DLC is basically nothing or if it's just a simple thing. It is the thought that counts in the case. You don't see Electronic Arts offering that kind of free DLC without being prodded to do so by an angry public, nor do you see Activision, Square Enix, or any of the other big publishers even thinking about it. So, yes, this needs to be mentioned, and all of those involved with making this wonderful game should be thanked for being able to take the risk. Thank you, all of you, for doing this, and for making this game in the first place. I really hope that this game both sells well and does well. It deserves it, and it is also one of the few games that I truly do think deserves that honor. If more games like this existed the world, and the gaming community as a whole, would be a better place. I have no idea how games could be blamed for violence when this is one of the games that people are looking at.

I know a lot of my comments up there were probably unnecessary in reviewing this game, but I needed to air out my opinions. I get that there are a lot of people who will probably dislike this game because it is a JRPG in their minds, but seriously, if a person is going to be that close-minded, then just stop. Stop playing games. Stop reading this review. Just stop, because you are not making anything better with that kind of attitude. I had that kind of attitude once, and it shut me off from a great deal of things I could have enjoyed, and did enjoy much later. So, seriously, stop with the annoyed stubborn hatred, and just play a wonderful game. You'll thank me if you read this and listen to me... which I doubt many people will, but I guess I'll never know until I post this, huh?

So, anyway, let's get started. Ni no Kuni is, simply stated, an amazing and wonderful game from start to finish. The plot is nearly pitch-perfect. If you've ever watched a Studio Ghibli anime you already know what to expect. It definitely takes pages out of the books of almost all of their different anime, but reminded me the most of Spirited Away. The stories, although both are very different, seem to hit similar notes, even if this game is about thirty times longer than that anime. Ni no Kuni finds a perfect tone throughout the story, evoking both laughter and tears as the plot progresses. It might not seem like much, but the cute world that Ni no Kuni resides in makes those tragic moments even harder to bear. And the funny thing is how those tragic moments can turn into sweet moments so easily... and how one second you can be wondering how such a cute game can make you cry, then the next moment you can be laughing at a clever pun that the game makes. There is a mood dissonance there, but it works, and it works so well that it is amazing to behold.

There is also something else I have to compare this game to. Have you ever heard of The Talisman (and Black House) by Stephen King and Peter Straub? The Talisman is VERY similar to Ni no Kuni, especially at the beginning of both stories. They both share similar elements with each other, like the idea of shared souls between two worlds and a story about a boy trying desperately to save his mother. Honestly, the stories were so close that I have to wonder if The Talisman has any influence at all on Ni no Kuni. Probably not, but still, the similarities at the beginning of both stories are difficult to ignore.

The biggest complaints I've seen are about the JRPG aspects of the game and the level grinding, both of which I'll talk about here. First, while this game is a JRPG and shares similarities to early Final Fantasy games and other early JRPG games, it is also fairly different from them. I have played a fair few JRPGs, and if you don't include some of the early Pokemon games as JRPGs, I have never actually finished a single one of them. My favorite TRUE JRPG had been Final Fantasy IX, a game that shares many similarities with Ni no Kuni. There are some pretty deep similarities, for instance how the map is traveled (although this is probably pretty standard for games of this type). The characters are also pretty similar and hit similar points, and the world is not too far off between the two games. But there are discrepancies. While Final  Fantasy IX is a wonderful game with stellar characters, it does have some pretty cruddy plot moments. Even some of the characters are not amazing, with certain party characters being much less there than others. Freya springs to mind in this case. Or Amarant for most of the game. Or Quina. What the hell did Quina ever even do? I know they all have their moments, and I am by no means dissing this aspect of Final Fantasy IX, rather I am elevating Ni no Kuni past that. There are NO BAD CHARACTERS in Ni no Kuni. None of the main characters are badly done, with each having their moments, and each having a reason to continue on. None of the antagonists are one-dimensional cackling evil-dudes either. Each has a story, a character, and a reason. And that's a huge reason why I find this game so alluring. There is depth here that is lacking from many JRPGs (in my opinion), and for that reason alone it should not simply be thrown into the bargain bin JRPG label.

I also have to say that the two main antagonists of the game: the White Witch of the title and Shadar, the Dark Djinn, are both brilliant characters with a lot to offer. Their stories as well as the stories that surround them are some of the high points of the game for me.

The second complaint is level-grinding and I'm simply going to say one word: "Toko." Seek out the Toko genus of enemy familiars. If you do that (and it's not that hard to find them) you can level up incredibly quickly. In about fifteen minutes of "grinding" I leveled up about fifteen levels. And just a bit more "grinding" brought me all the way to far beyond a level I could easy dominate the rest of the game. Look, I usually hate grinding. I hate it in Pokemon, and hated it in Final Fantasy IX. I hated it so much in that game that I'm literally stuck right before the final boss because I refuse to go and grind twenty levels so I can be ready to fight. It shouldn't have to be like that. A game should never be designed to where if I want to progress in the plot I have to grind for hours to get to that "level." Ni no Kuni bypasses this, offering an easy way to level your character and familiars up without the need of heavy grinding. It is simple, quick, and without any real downsides. Usually you have to fight the enemies anyway, specifically if you want to catch them (like Pokemon, and since Familiars are basically Pokemon anyway the comparison stands), so what's so bad about looking around for a fairly easy to find enemy to level up quickly? It seems that anybody who mentions what a "grind" this game is never mentions how easy it actually is to level up. Maybe they never found the little enemies that level you up quickly. I found one simply by exploring the world. The first time it ran out of battle I was intrigued, then started pursuing them until I finally gained its mighty experience. It was as easy as that. And the experience surprised and thrilled me enough that it convinced me this was the easiest way of leveling up. AND IT WAS. How a reviewer can review a game without exploring the world and finding as much as possible is beyond me. I will never understand it. I love that most of them gave this game wonderful scores, but I HATE HATE HATE how many of the reviews I read through also seemed to have to mention grinding and JRPGs, both of which belittle this game to no end and turn off customers who might have bought this if not for those labels.

Look, reviewers who probably will never read this blog or this review, let's get something straight. Your JOB is not to go and review a game as quickly as possible, hitting the plot notes but forgetting the game. Your JOB is to give a thorough and well done review, a review for people who MAY be interested in the game, a review for those who ARE interested in the game, and a review for people who HAVE NO IDEA what the game even is. But you can't cut corners. Yes, there are time limits, but a good reviewer learns everything about a game, learns that there are ways to level up quickly, learns to not just label a game as a JRPG without realizing what an implication that is to game players like myself who largely dislike that genre of game. See, I took a chance with this game, despite the reviews I read. I was turned off by those reviews. I was willing to wait, willing to not pick this game up because it didn't seem like something I would enjoy. Then I thought something to myself. My thought was as follows: "I took a chance on watching Spirited Away back in the time period where I absolutely hated everything to do with anime. I took a chance to watch it because the story sounded interesting, and I was interested in trying something new. I wasn't expecting to like it. Hell, people were basically telling me I wouldn't like it because I don't enjoy anime. But you know what? It blew me away, becoming one of my favorite movies of all time. It was brilliant and beautiful, and I was almost so close-minded that I could have missed out on something that literally changed my life. I took a chance on Studio Ghibli, and they didn't let me down. They've never let me down, from Castle in the Sky to Ponyo I have fallen in love with every movie I've seen by them. Each has left a mark on me that I cannot remove. They've proven to me time and again that they can make quality, and I have to have faith that this game will be the same."

I bought the game, not because of any reviews, not because of anything I had heard about the game. Yes, I had been interested in it for a while, but there was never a guarantee I would buy it, certainly not at a $60 price tag. But Studio Ghibli had proven to me how amazing they were. And I bought it because of that. And it was one of the best games I've ever played. It gave me everything I could have wanted: wonderful characters like Mr. Drippy, a Welsh Lord High Lord of the Fairies, and Oliver, the main character with an absolute heart of gold who never deserved the rough hand he was dealt. It had a plot that was literally tragic and beautiful all at the same time, with the antagonists being so much more than I could have ever hoped for. No, I won't spoil anything, but I never expected such brilliant and beautiful stories from faceless antagonists... but then again I should have remembered No-Face and what he meant in Spirited Away. And then there's the gorgeous world, a world that looks more beautiful than almost any other game I have ever seen or played. It's rivaled only by the best of the best in Skyrim, Mass Effect, Half-Life, and Silent Hill. Other than those series (or games) nothing else comes close to the beauty and wonder of the visual of Ni no Kuni. The sound is also fantastic, with music by Joe Hisaishi, a long-time collaborator with Studio Ghibli. He has made such memorable and beautiful music for this game. I have to give special mention for the music while riding the dragon, the main theme, and some of the background music when certain late plot points are happening. They are integrated beautifully into the game, and  they work to make it have one of the best all around soundtracks in a game since Nier.

And you want to know something? This game compares favorably to Nier. Keep in mind that Nier is one of my all-time favorite games and you might just be starting to think how much I truly fell in love with Ni no Kuni. I'm glad it has gotten a lot of love so far. I only wish the reviewers hadn't stuck it in a genre without any thought or foresight. I also wish they wouldn't say such terrible things about a leveling system that works quite well and never needs to be "grind-heavy."

I want to say so much more. I want to spoil the game wide open and scream to the world why I think this is one of the best games ever made. I want to say how it improves upon the Pokemon formula (for it indeed does essentially have the gameplay of a 3D Pokemon game, although that is also simplifying things quite a bit). I want to say how much I love all of the characters, all of the plot, all of the everything about this game. I want to say how one twist in the game legitimately brought me to tears, me a manly bearded man, tearing up at a game that could easily be played by any given child. I can't even remember the last game I truly was brought to tears by. Maybe it's never even happened before. I have no idea. I can't remember. But this game did it. The happy moments made those tragic ones all the more biting. And those tragic moments made the happy and carefree ones all the more poignant. It's a world I could live in for the rest of my days, playing and playing until I lose myself in that other world forever. But sadly, while Oliver's adventures with Esther, Swaine, Mr. Drippy, and the rest continue in the story that I feel has no real end, my days of playing it are over for now. I only wish I had the time to relive the experience all over again... but the real world calls, and I have to be off.

My final words about Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch are that it should be played by everyone. It deserves that much. It's very sad that this game is only available to PS3 owners, but I also have to hope that EVERY PS3 owner will go and buy this game, and maybe the game will even convince people who don't have the system to go buy it for this game. It's worth it, let me tell you. This is a game that (while worth $60) has no real monetary value when it comes to what it's TRULY worth. It's priceless in its storytelling and characters. And it is priceless in what it now means to me. Do yourself a favor and either go play this game right now or go watch a Let's Play of it at the very least. It deserves to be known if only because it is that good.

Video Game Assessment: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard

I thought Skyrim couldn't get any better. It was an excellent game. Yes, it had it's problems, and no, it wasn't always perfect, but for the most part it was beautiful and an incredibly interesting game. Dawnguard adds a great deal to the base game, really pushing both good storytelling and character, my two biggest gripes in the base game. Hell, when I can barely name any characters that have REAL personalities in the base game besides Cicero and the Emperor, it really is a pretty big problem. But Dawnguard really does its best to address those issues. It speaks of Bethesda's commitment to both the series and the people who love their games. When vampire lords, an incredibly well-written character, a good story, and some fantastic scenery are added into an already very good game, it goes from being, again, very good to being absolutely brilliant.

I can favorably compare this game to some of the best DLC and expansions I have ever played in modern games, like the DLC in Fallout: New Vegas, some of the Mass Effect 2 DLC, the Dragon Age: Origins expansion, and The Shivering Isles from Oblivion. This is seriously one of the most interesting DLCs/expansions I've played in a while, as well as one of the longest, but for 20$ I was really hoping for a good amount of gameplay. I wasn't disappointed. With two new dragon shouts, a whole new vampire plotline, tons of new locales, and some incredibly beautiful graphics, this game adds so much to what Skyrim is and represents. It becomes so much larger, so much more complex, and maybe a little bit tighter around its edges.

The new enemies introduced in the game, mostly Falmer, some dragons, and some new creatures add difficulty and intensity into a game that kind of becomes easy when you reach a certain level. I actually died a few times in the game, mostly when I played through as a Dawnguard rather than as a vampire. I found that the Vampire Lord plotline made Dovahkiin a little overpowered in general as well as making the expansion seem both smaller and less intense.

So, I've showed my hand already a little. You can choose two different factions as you explore Dawnguard. You can choose a faction of vampire hunters that come from the Vigilants of Stendarr called the Dawnguard, or you can can choose to ally yourself with vampires and become a Vampire Lord, which is both overpowered and pretty cool looking. Dawnguard also adds the ability to level up your progress as a vampire or a werewolf. These are improvements, vast improvements, to the overall game.

I like the new weapons that come out of it, some being incredibly strong, others having effects that are both strange and wonderful. I love the two huge locations that are added with the Forgotten Vale and the Soul Cairn. They are both beautiful and add a ton of new exploration options into an already huge game. I loved learning more about the Falmer, and I love both fortresses of the factions. The vampire castle is imposing and wonderful, while the Dawnguard fortress adds a feeling of being at a home base, something that none of the other faction areas within Skyrim proper really did for me. (What I mean by this is that the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary or the Thieves Guild for instance never felt like a home base. I had no reason to ever go into most of these places unless I wanted to chat with characters or get quests, whereas I have a ton of reasons to go into the Dawnguard fortress, like being able to easily enchant and improve weapons and armor, being able to have a nice place to both sleep and put stuff into storage, and staring at huskies in armor because they are incredibly cute.)

For all of the things I mentioned though, although they are all improvements, they are not the improvement I liked the most. The one I liked, nay, LOVED, the most was the character of Serana, her family, and the Dawnguard themselves. There is a huge improvement in the way characters are portrayed, making them feel both more real, and not like cardboard cutouts. It was my biggest gripe while I played the base Skyrim game, and its improvement fills me with both happiness and hope. Serana, a vampire companion for both factions, interacts with the environment. She sits down, talks, rests, looks around, and enjoys the scenery. Yes, there are some characters that say things like, "That sure is a cave. We should look in it." and "I am an adventurer." but there are really no characters that feel as fleshed out or as real as Serana. She's the first character I was actually proud to have as a companion, as well as the first one that I had any emotional interest in at all. I mean, seriously... Lydia was a lump of wood. I have no idea how people love her so much. Serana talks to you; she interacts. She has a heavy storyline and there's actual emotional intensity in both her voice and her actions. This tells me that there is some real writing talent at Bethesda just itching to write even more compelling and wonderful characters. I sincerely appreciate that. It was the one aspect of everything that I saw in the expansion that made me legitimately fall in love with the game.

I've always liked Bethesda games, but I've always had the gripe that they can't write characters to save their souls, and if they ever actually do they kill them off as quickly as possible. Hell, Oblivion is famous for doing that. Any character that you could possibly have any attachment to will die horribly soon after you meet them. I always hated that. It came out in Fallout 3 as well, except there were very few characters that were actually good in that game. See, now I can compare Skyrim's portrayal of characters to Fallout: New Vegas and won't feel like I have to hang my head in shame. They created a rich and wonderful character in Serana. Her parents are also complex characters albeit less focused on, and even a simple sidequest, the one involving Aetherium, has an incredibly strong character in Katria. So, all-in-all Skyrim's DLCs and expansion seem to have gotten off to a great start, focusing on some of the weaker elements of the baseline Skyrim  and really vastly improving things. I was so happy to see a realistic and well done female video game character that I basically want and need to see more of the same from Bethesda and the Skyrim crew. They outdid themselves with this one, and I can only hope that all of the others will truly be going in this same direction.

Video Game Assessment: Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut DLC

So, I've ranted and raved about Mass Effect 3 and its crummy ending a ton over the course of the last few months. Hell, ever since I first played it I had some negative responses to it. But now here is the ending DLC, that which is supposed to save the franchise and reinvigorate my love for both BioWare and Mass Effect...

...And you know what? Fine. It worked. The game still has flaws. I still won't say it's better than the second game, but the HUGE problem has been fixed. The endings now make sense. They now work. I could never see myself choosing anything but the "Destroy" ending, but I'm glad they've fixed what was wrong. I just watched the cinematics, the additions to the ending, the additions to make baffling things make sense, and... yeah, I'm pretty cool with everything. It's not perfect. There are still some baffling decisions, but mostly that involves the Normandy somehow landing in front of Harbinger (while also not fighting) and Harbinger not attacking. That was odd. But I'll take it. It's fine. I wish the Normandy had never landed, and had your party members just chill back at the base or something... and honestly, in some ways I kind of see that as my own headcanon.

As for everything else... I think there's a good chance Anderson is a figment of Shepard's mind. My personal opinion. I think the Indoctrination Theory still has ground to walk on even though I don't subscribe to it personally. I think that I like the addition of a Rejection ending and the ability to off the Star Child. I also like the additional scenes showing our party members and shipmates as well as the species fighting alongside of us. I think there could have been more overall, like showing Elcor and Hanar and Volus too... but I'm not going to be picky right now. If I had seen this ending instead of the vanilla one, I would have never ranted. I would have been fine with everything and it all would have been cool. Obviously BioWare was rushed and this is what they intended. It makes sense. I feel justified with every last statement I've made.

I don't understand why the DLC was SO HUGE though. I downloaded both this and the Skyrim Dawnguard DLC, and this one is about four times as big for a few words and a few slideshow pictures... I have to assume a lot of it is variable calculations and such... but still it's absolutely huge for a DLC that doesn't do THAT much more. It kind of just fills in the blanks and shapes stuff up so that there's no terrible mess.

Anyway, I liked it. It has given me some hope for BioWare's success and for the quality of the game itself. I can now see myself playing through the series again, something I was thoroughly opposed to if things were not fixed. I know a ton of FANS will hate this ending still, looking to watch a snuggle party with their Shepard and that Shepard's love interest... or hell, they'll hate it because they don't like having to kill somebody or having to suffer through something... And yeah, I'm still not overly fond of PICK YOUR CHOICE... but it works well enough. Well enough, in fact, that I'm done complaining about it. FANS will be FANS and they should calm down a little and enjoy the ride. It's now a decently enjoyable ride, and I'm happy in general. Yeah, I still have some issues with the game besides the ending, but I had issues with the first and second games too, and I still recommend them to people.

So, yeah, BioWare, good job! I'm glad I played it and can look at Mass Effect as a stunning series again.

Video Game Assessment: Super Meat Boy (2010)

SUUUUUUPPPPPEEERRRRRR MEEEEEEEEEEEATTTTTTT BOOOOYYY!!!!!

I started playing Super Meat Boy recently after I fell in love with The Binding of Isaac. Since both games have similar art styles and developers, I really hoped that I would enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed Isaac. And you know something? I did. I really did. I mean, not in the same way or anything. Isaac is a Roguelike with random rooms, random items, and random enemies for the most part. It plays completely differently than the platform and memorization hell that Meat Boy presents. But they both have the same humor, the same sorts of references to other video games and popular culture, and they both are very tongue-in-cheek at points. They are also both really fun to play.

The game, though, is something of an oddity in this day and age. It is a callback to some of the ridiculously hard platformer games that came out on old systems like the NES, SNES, etc. It is a very difficult game on top of everything else anyway. And when I say difficult, OH BOY. I MEAN DIFFICULT IF YOU CATCH MY MEANING. It's difficult, okay? It's frustratingly hard at times with actually beating a tough level being incredibly satisfying, which happens less and less in this era of simple and easy video games marketed towards a increasingly casual market who don't want challenges, don't want to get lost in the game, and who don't want to spend time actually getting good at it. Like any good video game player, I must scoff and turn my nose up at those people in a ridiculously exaggerated manner.

Nah, not really. I personally don't like the casual game market, but I don't think it's a bad thing either. Just not what I'm looking for. I like getting very skilled in a set of games or enjoying stories, worlds, characters, etc. And because of that casual games just don't appeal to me, but Super Meat Boy is certainly not a casual game. You have to master the controls if you even want to think of getting to later levels. You have to literally be pixel perfect to play the game effectively.

The game starts out simply enough with easy mechanics, simple jumps and movements, wall jumps, running, collecting items called bandages to unlock different characters to play as. Ordinary stuff. And then you realize that you are playing as a man made out of meat. And that this Meat Person, or "Meat Boy,"  has a girlfriend made out of bandages, "Bandage Girl," who's in turn been kidnapped by a fetus in a jar with a monocle and a top hat, "Dr. Fetus." Okay, it's  an odd game. Unique and really different. The story doesn't really matter much more than an early Mario game, although the story is told better in this game and some of the cutscenes are actually kind of brilliant, hilarious, and all kinds of well done.

I consider myself pretty decent at platformers. I grew up playing them on the NES and the SNES. I loved the old Super Star Wars games (I played them to death.), the early main Mario Bros. games, the Donkey Kong Country games, and the Metroid games. I'm sure there are others too. But I have to say that I've never played anything quite as difficult as Super Meat Boy, at least not that I can actively remember at the moment.

Frustrating may be a better and more appropriate term. There were times that I played the game and just wanted to heave my controller through my television, rant and scream, and then finally curl up into the fetal position and grow a top hat and monocle and murder meat... Seriously, just let the damn piece of meat burn in the fires of his own making... watch him... uh...

Um... yeah? My point is that the game starts off easy but gets hard very quickly.If you do not master the controls you will find yourself unable to complete many levels. It took me a while to be able to become good enough to get to the last world of the game. I still haven't collected everything nor have I beaten every level in the game yet, although slowly but surely I'm getting better at everything.

There is one level... it's a character unlock level, of which there is one to the normal worlds... and anybody who has played the game knows which level I'm talking about. I have found endless difficulties with that level to the point where I played a level I should be able to beat in under a minute for about four hours straight. I beat the first level, but had so much trouble on the next that I had to quit, therefore losing all of my progress. Woo-boy was I unhappy with that one.

I played the game on the Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade), but it is also available on Steam at the very least. It's a great game. It has hours and hours and hours worth of gameplay. It is difficult enough to make you earn every hour you play and every victory you gain. I like the game, but the frustration cannot be summed up by a person who has never played it. It's terribly difficult, a callback to older days, and I certainly wish  more games like it would exist.

All of that being said, with its unique story and characters, great controls and gameplay, and difficult challenge, I find this game to be perfect for a video game player like myself. I love the difficulty and the challenge. It gives me something to strive for within the game, something to push myself forward to accomplish. So, I'll recommend this game to those who like an interesting and unique challenge of a video game, but don't say I didn't warn you...

Video Game Assessment: The Binding of Isaac (2011)

"BLASPHEMY!" I did not yell about this game because that would be incredibly stupid. I have to roll my eyes about how people can be so sensitive about anything and everything in this age of information and knowledge. Everything can and probably is offensive in some way. Why do people have to take these things so personally. Look, I'll be offensive right now. I dislike most people and think that their opinions are more than likely wrong if they disagree with my own. Does that make me a bad person? Probably, but in my head I'm not bad at all. My friends think I'm okay. My family likes me well enough. My girlfriend doesn't abuse me that often... Look, my point here isn't that offensive material or potentially offensive material be blocked, but rather that it should be embraced. If you call me hurtful names, I'm going to brush it off, maybe even embrace those names because... why not? I'm pretty sure my taste in movies has been insulted too many times to count. I would rather watch 1408 than The Third Man, rather see 12 Monkeys  than The Matrix or Dark City. I prefer anything to Shutter Island. My point is that this rather offends some people despite that being my own personal opinion. I'm not wrong, but that doesn't make me right either. My point is that people should stop being sensitive and just shut up. If you're offended by The Binding of Isaac, don't play it. Simple as that. if you're offended by gay romances in Mass Effect 3, don't romance the gay characters. I mean... how difficult is it to avoid these things? Answer: Not very.

I start out with the controversy when I'm talking about this game because the religious or anti-religious content in this game is... well, it's barely there at all. The story is simple, barely touched upon at all. Yes, this game seems to make fun of hardcore evangelical Christianity, but why shouldn't that be allowed? It should and has to be allowed. It's a freedom of expression and speech. If a person is comfortable with their beliefs than why should this be blasphemous or dangerous or insidious or whatever else? It's a fun little game with a bunch of incredibly well done items that seem to critique the ideas of Christianity in some very silly ways. If it's taken seriously, then maybe some hardcore Christians should take a long, hard look at themselves, and if it's simply a parody of these beliefs, then why is it inflaming so many people?

I guess the fact that other "mainstream" systems that aren't Steam aren't accepting The Binding of Isaac into their game libraries peeves me off a little. It's unfair to this incredibly clever game. So should people be upset about this game? No. It's a game, people, a fun, enjoyable experience with some religious overtones. It has a not dissimilar feel to the novel Carrie by Stephen King. Why is that novel or the movie not screamed at and about? It's like people are afraid that children and other people who play this game may start to doubt beliefs... Hmmm. if a video game has the ability to steer people away from beliefs then I guess those beliefs are pretty shoddy, wouldn't you say? I kid to a point, but seriously, this game is ridiculous and strange and has no real bearing on anybody who is a normally religious person. It isn't subversive or angry about religion. It simply states a story, in my opinion, through the eyes of an extremely disturbed and abused child. His mother is "religious" and hear the voice of "God" telling her to kill her son, Isaac. That sounds like a suspiciously similar story to the actual binding of Isaac by Abraham in the Bible itself, a story that is pretty odd on its front too, trying to show that trust in God is more important than earthly anythings. Now, I'm not going to scream at the Bible or anything. It's a story. I doubt very many people hear the voice of God telling them to kill their children, and I think it's something that wouldn't happen today. A child is incredibly important, and as a parent, even if God tells you to kill that child, it is your responsibility to not do that. That would be really stupid on both God's part and the part of the parent. So, showing this religious mother attempting to kill her neglected, abused, and naked son is reprehensible and insane, and maybe a good way to show how the Bible can at times be absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic, which isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, the game itself is endless fun. Unlocking different items is always fun and different combinations of different items work differently and give each and every game a different feel. It's a game that I compare to the original Legend of Zelda, and it plays fairly similarly to that and has clear homages to it as well in terms of the item rooms and some of the bosses and enemies. You can play as six different characters in the game; all of them play differently and each (except the joke character) has a religious name like Isaac himself does: Magdalene, Judas, Cain, and Eve. Another character, Samson, is slated for the expansion The Wrath of the Lamb, which comes out at the end of the month.

The main enemy of the game seems to be Isaac's mom herself, but really, in the end, it seems to be Satan. In find that both comical and interesting. The game is incredibly fun.It's enjoyable to play at any time,but does have its own frustrations and difficulties. I've run into a few bugs, usually not terrible ones, but bugs nonetheless. Most of them have been character models disappearing or color palettes changing around at odd times. The game can be incredibly difficult at times and is often very luck based, which can be problematic for the harder to play characters like Eve and ???. If the right materials and items are not dropped, those characters will often fail to defeat the game. There are eleven different endings and the game ramps up the difficulty after you finish the game a certain amount of times. It's only available on Steam, which due to my owning an incredibly crappy computer, meant that to play it I had to install Steam. I did and the game works well, but I really would have rather not installed Steam if given the choice. I wish the game could have been on other platforms. It's rather sad that it isn't.

Anyway, this is an extremely enjoyable, almost addictive game, and should be played by everybody. I spent $4.99 on the game and it was worth every penny for the hours of gameplay and enjoyment I received from it. I also hope that I offend at least one person with this review and what I see herein. Or at least anger some people because of the assumed censorship going on. Man, I would love to have actually offended someone. That would make my day. This game isn't worth people getting up in arms about it. It's a fun experience that does not really need anybody outraged against it. Seriously, anybody outraged needs to reassess their lives and what actually really matters in those lives.

Anyhow, I recommend this game to anybody with a decent computer. It's fun, addictive, challenging, and altogether a really well put together game. It's made by Edmund McMillen, co-creator of Super Meat Boy, and it shows, with this game having a very similar art style and even some of the same characters from Super Meat Boy. Oh, I should probably mention that this game is considered in the Roguelike genre, despite the fact that I've never played Rogue.

Video Game Assessment: Silent Hill: Downpour (2012)

Oh, boy. A new Silent Hill game. I'm willing to say that I was cautiously looking forward to this game, hoping for two things in particular: First that the game was nothing like Alan Wake, and second that it was as far removed from Silent Hill: Homecoming as possible, because that game was terrible. I guess before I get into the review proper, I'm going to say what I like about Silent Hill as a series and which games I prefer to others. I mean, sure, I have some reviews on some of the games, namely Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 4: The Room, and Silent Hill: Ørigins, but you're not reading those reviews, you're reading this one.

I loved Silent Hill 2, and, to me, it is one of the best video games of all time. No, the voice acting is not amazing. Yes, the game is eleven years old! It's an early PS2 era game, but it is fantastic and compelling in basically every single way. It has a story that I do not think any modern game can match. It has an emotional level that has rarely, if ever, been met before in other games. That being said the graphics are PS2 graphics and shouldn't be great, but they are used effectively to create, in my opinion, the scariest game of all time. Silent Hill 4 is one of my favorite games, creepy and compelling, with a great story that feels meaningful despite the premise with the cult. It comes off as a fantastically done game in many ways despite what most "fans" think of it. It remains my second favorite Silent Hill game. The most recent entries into the  Silent Hill series though have been different. Homecoming was... well, it was not a very good game at all, focusing too much on combat  and not enough on horror or a compelling plot or characters. In general it felt goofier than creepy and was a glitch-ridden, confusing jumble of a game at times. I never finished it simply because I had such a bad taste in my mouth while playing it. Shattered Memories went in a completely different direction with Silent Hill as a series, being clearly outside of the continuity, but not necessarily a bad game. It had some interesting set pieces and ideas, but ultimately failed at being scary or compelling in much needed ways. It was a very mediocre game and certainly tells part of the tale of Silent Hill after the disbanding of Konami's Team Silent. Most of the games after that disbanding were either messes or woefully mediocre and gimmicky in the weirdest ways.

That being said, I was looking forward to Downpour in the strangest way. I mean, Mass Effect 3 was certainly dominating my mind at the time, but Downpour was sitting in the back of my mind, tickling it, making me think about it. And I was, especially after I finished the rushed mess that was Mass Effect 3, really looking to cleanse my mind with a new game, hopefully a great game in Silent Hill: Downpour.

And... well, it delivered.

Yes, this is an actually really good modern Silent Hill game! Yay, rejoice ye masses! There are some problems, certainly, with the game, but it is an incredibly solid entry in not only the series, but in horror video games in general. I was hoping for a decent game, better than the last three ones that have come out, and... let me say, I definitely received that. It seems as if Downpour took the best pieces of the last three games and put them all together along with a lot of bits and pieces from earlier games as well. But even while saying that the game remains itself, never feeling like any of the other games in the series, wholly standing on its own. It works as a narrative, as a video game, and as a new and brilliant piece of the Silent Hill pie.

And it's weird. It's unlike all the other Silent Hill games. It feels like a nextgen (now current gen) Silent Hill game, something that the last three entries in the series have not felt like at all. Hell, Homecoming looked so much worse than Silent Hill 3 for instance, and that shouldn't happen. I'm not always into screaming about looks in a video game (I loved Deadly Premonition remember.) I still feel as if the next entry in a series should look better or at least on par with previous entries. Downpour  takes a few years of fantastic games and really uses them to its advantage.

It has a story that is brilliant, easily the best story in the series since Silent Hill 2, which makes it the second best story. Now, I'm not going to compare the game much to Silent Hill 2 because I think that's unfair to both. Downpour is taking and has taken a real chance in its type of horror in this gaming generation. It is trying to feel like older horror games without being them. And as the industry has basically said that horror is dead... well, yes, Downpour has tried to show the industry it isn't quite. And this is a great thing! It was an incredibly effective game despite the critics (Critics are always wrong, remember?) giving it low scores. I mean, it easily stood up better than most games I've played within the last few years. It's easily much better than Mass Effect 3 for example. And that shouldn't have happened. That shouldn't even be a thing... and yet... there you go.

I'm probably only making some sense, but I don't even care. Call grammatical mistakes and spelling errors excitement over a great Silent Hill title that really made me happy. I mean really the undignified kind of happy too... the kind of happy that no grown man should ever be at a video game. The story is superb, although somewhat predictable. I say somewhat because in essence there are two stories going on, and you only ever have the hint at the first one. And that first story is solved fairly "early" on in the game, easily a good while before the endgame. And both stories are compelling and interesting.

"Compelling." I keep using that word because it is the perfect descriptor. The story dragged me into it kicking and screaming. It showed me a darker world, but one all too close to our own. It showed me a protagonist that had reasons for being the kind of character he was. It showed characters with motivations beyond "Oh, town is screwed up, better do something about it, I suppose." Each character was compelling, even the characters with limited screentime. How often does that happen? There is a fleshing out of both characters and, in my opinion, the enemies themselves, leading to some awesome debates on exactly what Downpour is about. Hell, I love the debates about the nature of Silent Hill as a town and as an entity, just as much as I love plot and character debates. And this game brings them all out to the surface, something that really hasn't happened since The Room, and even in that game the debates are rather limited as nothing really takes place in Silent Hill proper.

I loved a great deal about this game, finding it basically superb all the way through. It was enjoyable and also incredibly tense at times, which I absolutely loved, but it did something that few other Silent Hill games save the second did, which was it encouraged me to learn about the story, to dive deeper into the game and the town. I wanted to learn more, to play more, to be creeped out... it drew me into it just as much as it drew Murphy Pendleton, and I love that.

So, let's talk about certain aspects of the game, leaving characters and story as superb pieces of the game. First the voice acting and music. The voice acting is incredibly well done, especially from Murphy himself, Anne, and Sewell. They all did a great job at creating characters with emotional depth and range. Murphy was kind of the highlight, but that probably mostly because he was a COMPELLING protagonist, one that felt like an actual character, something that VERY FEW of the Silent Hill games actually did get right beyond Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3. I loved his little quips. Hell, I love the acting in general. Really well done. The music, for the first time in the series, was not done by Akira Yamaoka, but rather by Daniel Licht, known for his music on Dexter, a show I've actually never watched. Anyway, Licht creates an incredibly interesting atmosphere for this game, wholly fitting and really awesome all around. It's very different from Yamaoka, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The soundtrack certainly has memorable pieces of its own and works when placed with the game. I really dug it, feeling that it was certainly on par with Yamaoka's work in the previous games.

Another thing I have to mention is the game's theme: rain/water. It is interesting. Most of the games... hell, ALL of the other games save for Shattered Memories have had the exact same theme in Silent Hill: a foggy Otherworld and a fiery gears, fans, and metal Nightmare World. This game does it differently, and I love it. I love it so hard. I disliked all of the games have the same kind of imagery when coming from different character's points of view, and this game shows that Murphy is wholly unique, and I love that. Man, is that awesome. It stands up nicely against Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 for best imagery in the series overall. The rain rather than fog is so amazing, and I, for one, have to say that I grew terrified every time it started Downpour-ing outside. Heh. The clockwork imagery and the slides were also well done. And... well, the movement of doorways and the unsettling, at times, use of seeing things out of the corner of the screen... well, I think it was beautifully done all around. One thing that really stuck out in my mind was early on. I was just leaving the first Nightmare World section only to have a door melt behind me while I wasn't looking. I went through the door in front of me, only to find that when I went back through the door the entire room had changed. Little things like that (It wasn't a plot specific room and I had no reason to go back into it.) felt like there was a great amount of attention to details, something I appreciated. Hell, it's part of the reason I'm writing this review out so thoroughly, spending the time and effort needed to say JUST HOW GOOD THIS GAME IS.

It is not a modern-styled game though. I have to point that out again. Often there is NO indication of where you are supposed to go next or what you're even supposed to be doing. When I looked in my journal after entering Silent Hill, I found nothing but a little note tell me to "Escape Silent Hill." Well, that's specific, I thought. But I liked it. There was no hand-holding, and it upped the tension because I never really knew any more than Murphy did. It made me experience the game along with him. I know a lot of current gamers might think that is a bad thing to do, but... well, it's how it was done in the past. I don't see why it can't be done that way now. It works, creating an atmosphere and everything else, why not implement it?

The sidequests are kind of new to Silent Hill, but they work decently well. I inadvertently skipped most of them simply by searching the town and find the places I needed to go for the main story, but the sidequests that I did do were fine, sometimes even very well done in places. I was happy with them, and they never felt out of place or got in the way of the experience of playing. So, a net positive overall.

I liked how there are also very different ways to interpret the last portion of the game, and I like that. I like that a lot. I won't spoil it, but I feel there could be multiple levels of complexity on the last twenty percent of the game or so. I found it really well done.

I... I think that's enough of me saying how great the game is, now I'll talk about some of the negatives and, there are a few, sadly. The first that I noticed is that there are graphical issues from time-to-time, enough to be noticeable and... really not good while playing the game. I had my game slow to a crawl more than once... while monsters were on screen chasing me at that. I... I really didn't like that. It took me right out of the game. It mostly only happened in the earlier part of Silent Hill itself, but it was a big problem in those areas. Another issue would be the game pausing (like three times in the game, but still) to give me decision for Murphy to make. I could be a good guy or a jerk in those decisions... and it really took me right out of the game to see Murphy's big dumb face contemplating the decision of whether or not to be a jerk while the choice of two buttons hovers next to his head. Wow, I did not like that. Some of the chase sequences in the Nightmare World dragged on a bit, and since I was never incredibly fond of them... well, I wasn't thrillingly happy about it. The final boss was silly, but I liked it for being silly even if it wasn't incredibly Silent Hill. I don't know... I kind of wish it was a bit more intuitive as a whole, but I guess that's fine.

I guess the last negative would be my biggest gripe, and probably the one that is the most meaningful to me. Although the game started out with some genuine scares... and had some creepy moments throughout, I found it atmospherically less scary all around than most of the other games. The gameplay itself had some scary moments, but the GAME itself had very few. I guess I found Silent Hill 2 actually really creepy and was hoping for much of the same in Downpour. Then again, I found Silent Hill 2 creepy when I was fifteen/sixteen years old... and well, maybe I'm simply not as scared by video games in the same way as I used to be. So, it might not be Downpour's fault entirely. I thought it had an effective atmosphere, just not one that scared my pants off, which is what I wanted.

Anyway, those are small annoyances more than hugely negative aspects of the game. Downpour is really well done and holds up as a modern video game and as a Silent Hill game no matter what the critics and reviews think. I think this is an incredibly solid game all around and I hope others see it the same way. Check it out if you like horror, video games... or... or me, I guess? I guess do it for me...? Yeah, that makes sense. Do it for a person you probably don't know on the internet who reviews things sometimes for random people. That makes a ton of sense.