[REVIEW] Rogue Legacy

Mat Paget — @MatPaget

(PC [REVIEWED])

Roguelikes are often brutal and unforgiving, being inaccessible at times. Though their popularity seems to be booming more than ever, thanks in large part to dedicated independent developers, there are still a lot of people who won’t even touch a roguelike based only on how merciless some of them can be. Although I wouldn’t call Rogue Legacy a roguelike, it does feel like a good stepping-off point to understand a few of the concepts that populate the subgenre. Not only that, but Rogue Legacy is good enough to stand on its own, whether or not you even know what a roguelike is.

Rogue Legacy is more comparable to Metroidvania platformers, particularly Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but it does take a few notable elements from roguelikes that are enough to cause it to be labelled as such. For starters, once a character dies, they’re gone for good. And upon selecting your next character, and re-entering the castle, the world (enemy, chest, and room layouts) will be completely different from the first time you went through it — the world is randomly generated, so no two playthroughs will be exactly the same. Add on the difficult nature of the game, and that’s about where the similarities to roguelikes end — for the better, as Rogue Legacy‘s blend of genres is superb.

The gameplay is incredibly simple, offering one button for each action — attack, magic, jump, and special. The one attack, one weapon you are equipped with for the entire duration of the game may seem like it would get boring with suck a lack of variety, but this isn’t the case. Having only one weapon to master allows you to become as skilled as possible with it, and believe me, you’ll need to be for some of the trickier encounters in the more difficult areas. It’s the spells that offer the variety in Rogue Legacy‘s combat, with around ten of them to mess around with. They range from throwing a dagger directly in front of you, to summoning a storm of crows that’ll go after enemies directly, and stopping time completely. The special skill is class-specific; for example, the Barbarian King/Queen’s special is a hearty shout of “Fah Ro Dus,” which knocks back every enemy in the room.

But classes like the Barbarian King/Queen aren’t unlocked from the get-go. Along with upgrades to stats like your Health, Attack Damage, Armour, Mana, Crit Damage, and a bunch of other typical RPG stats, they can be unlocked through the game’s Manor (or, in other words, skill tree). It starts off pretty simple, allowing you to unlock a blacksmith, but it soon branches out until the screen is filled with possibilities. However, the leveling up in the game doesn’t give you skill points, or any other alternative, to spend — all stats are bought with money, which stays with you when you die, but is taken away when you re-enter the castle.

This also goes for buying equipment such as swords, armour, and runes that you’ve found throughout the world. Swords and armour increase your respective stats in obvious ways (the changes are displayed to you before purchasing), while runes are a tad different. Unlocked after completing a challenge room, runes can augment each piece of equipment, giving you a new ability. These runes can also be stacked, so if you decide to have a couple of the same ones, that ability will increase in strength. Double-jumping, sprinting, receiving health and mana after every kill, and having damage returned to enemies are just a few of the modifiers you can purchase and work with. Buying as much stats and equipment as possible before going for another playthrough is absolutely crucial, as it eliminates the roguelike quandary of “starting from square one again.”

The progression your characters will go through is gradual, yet feels amazing. They will get stronger over time, making it incredibly satisfying when you’re able to take out enemies in one hit that took several a few playthroughs earlier. It doesn’t get to the point where you can just run through the game, however. The game still requires you to use finesse to take out the enemies, and there are a few of them that are disguised as chests and paintings that you will forget about. There is rarely a time the game doesn’t require you to use skill (with a touch of luck at times) to make your way through the rooms and areas it throws at you.

Among the normal rooms full of enemies and chests, are a handful of rooms that offer either some kind of minigame, or a special bonus (or curse). One of the minigames consists of paying up 25% of your gold, then choosing one of the three chests in hopes of tripling your money spent. The other minigames are hosted by an apathetic clown, telling you to hit a certain number of targets with either daggers or axes. These games are nice little breaks, which are often rewarding. There are two other special rooms: one with a fountain that will heal you, and another with a shrine you can pray at. Praying at the shrine will either bless, or curse you with a modifier such as being able to walk on spikes, or having some of your money go flying everywhere when hit by an enemy.

There are also rooms that host nothing but a portrait of a videogame. These portraits are of Cellar Door Games’ past projects, and viewing them will give you a history lesson on the development of each title. These are completely unrelated to the game at hand, and won’t help you at all, but they quickly became my favourite thing to come across. They’re interesting, funny, and will have you jumping in joy when you see one — that is until one of them turns into a goddamn enemy.

Rogue Legacy is not without its flaws, however small they may be. The only control issue I found was that the downward stab demands absolute precision, and there are platforming sections that require this precision, which makes it incredibly hard not to get through them without accruing damage — I found myself avoiding these sections altogether. Bosses are another thing that could cause a few problems. Although I didn’t have many problems with them personally (thanks, in most part, to luck), they definitely disturb the flow of the game, which I can see stopping some players in their tracks — though the bosses won’t stop anyone from exploring the rest of the world’s areas.

Even with its flaws, there’s nothing to hate about Rogue Legacy. The beginning may start a little slow for some players, but it quickly snowballs into something you won’t be able to put down. The character progression is incredibly rewarding, the game’s humour is refreshing, and you’ll be saying to yourself “Just one more game,” even after you promised yourself that on the last run.

[REVIEW] Dusty Revenge

Marcus Estrada 
(PC [REVIEWED])

Have you always wanted to explore the Wild West as an anthropomorphic white rabbit? Likely, the answer is no. But even if you’ve never dreamed about such a game, developer PD Design Studio made something that certainly stands out. Dusty Revenge is a stylish 2D beat ‘em up with colorful characters, but is there anything missing from the fun? It all depends on your affinity for the beat ’em up genre. In either case, maybe there’s something about Dusty Revenge that will draw you in.

Beat ‘em ups have seen a resurgence in the past few years. Before this, it seems like the only ones we had played were the likes of Double Dragon or Final Fight. Now, however, there’s a great deal of options available to you, the latest of which is Dusty Revenge. In this game you’re given far more story than is expected of the genre. This is the first thing the game does right, as it helps draw you into a more interesting experience. No, the story isn’t incredibly deep, as it starts out as yet another “revenge for dead family member” tale, but it fits well with the backdrop.

The world Dusty Revenge inhabits is an alternate sort of Wild West. The deserts are dry, buildings are crummy, and all the baddies just happen to be anthropomorphic animals as well. Despite their animalistic nature, they are still able to cause a ton of damage to you via gunshots, rolling over you, or simply pounding their fist in your face. Thankfully, Dusty (the aforementioned lead character) has a host of attacks and upgrades.

You start off with a very small stash of attacks. The few basics include a quick, but weak attack, as well as a slower, yet stronger one. There is also a ranged attack available through Dusty’s gun. These can be strung into combos, although you only gain access to most combos through leveling up. Leveling up is an incredibly simple process as all you have to do is collect XP by killing. Once that’s taken care of, there are no stats to tweak or anything: the game just automatically unlocks new skills for you.

Hammering off combos via the keyboard or an attached game controller work perfectly fine. If there’s one complaint it is that there isn’t much excitement to be gleaned from most of the battles. Dodge one attack, hammer away at an enemy, jump and strike, and rinse and repeat. You can very quickly find yourself running patterns of attacks at the varied enemies without having to worry after a while. This is one downfall of beat ‘em up games for most people who don’t call themselves fans.

On the occasion that there are tough fights, or certain enemies that will give you a bit of added trouble, you need to make use of your partners. They are both introduced relatively early on and give special skills beyond what Dusty is capable of. For example, once there are enemies shooting you from windows, you can assign the sniper to target them. Players then must zoom in with the sniper scope and take them out themselves. During these support segments, the main playfield is slowed, meaning you aren’t going to find Dusty dead after switching back from another character.

Where the game gets more interesting is the bosses. There are a handful of huge enemies who you must contend with, and each has their own strategy. In comparison to the rest of the game, boss encounters are one of the few times players will ever actually fear for their character’s life. With strong enemies who have a range of attack types, you’ll be forced to learn their ways and skillfully take them out. It’s a shame that more complex play wasn’t required during many of the game’s other segments.

Although gameplay (no matter how smooth) is a bit lacking, there is one spot where Dusty Revenge excels and that is in the visuals department. This game has an excellent art style that makes it look like a cool, incredibly violent cartoon. The lead characters all look like they can kick some ass, even if they’re not “humans,” and the art style combined with character design makes the game far more interesting than it ever would have been with run-of-the-mill cowboys duking it out.

For the price of ten dollars, you’re getting a pretty solid couple hours worth of beat ‘em up action with Dusty Revenge. The main issue lies with how much you love beat ‘em ups and if fairly repetitive play is worth it to you or not. There are definitely reasons to play, such as learning the combos to dole out as much pain as possible, or to enjoy the art style, but these are all meant to serve as anchors for exciting gameplay. Although this doesn’t seem present, Dusty Revenge still provides an interesting take on the beat ‘em up world.

[REVIEW] Neverwinter

Jonathan Tay
(PC [REVIEWED]

But I’m a Canadian…

Another year, another Perfect World MMO. Seriously, how do those guys keep turning these out? Neverwinter, for those of you not in the know, is based off of a campaign setting in the granddaddy of nerd games, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D, of which I’m an avid fan!). For those of you who are familiar with the Neverwinter Nights PC games, don’t expect there to be many narrative or mechanistic similarities between the two.

Okay, let me get this out of the way first: Neverwinter is, at its core, an absolutely generic MMO. The story is unbelievably trite (read: nonexistent), and its only purpose is to propel you towards equally banal quests (Go to the cellar and kill 5 giant rats! Collect 10 weeds! – I’m exaggerating a little, but you get the point). The quests themselves are merely excuses for you to traipse around open fields and repetitive dungeons with your pals in the hope of treasure and experience. Actually, for an interesting read on the topic, try this (after finishing this review, of course).

Me, every morning before coffee.

Of course, the question we must ask with every MMO now is, “is the traipsing around open fields and repetitive dungeons with my pals in the hope of treasure and experience fun?” I would say that it is, to an extent. In terms of customizing your character, you have some cool options. There are seven races to choose from (another on the way), as well as a standard array of classes to play: fighter, paladin, cleric, rogue, and wizard. You also have an array of feats (small bonuses) to select, as well as further options from paragon classes later on. It would have been really cool to see the old D&D mainstay of dual or multi-classing make an appearance, but I assume it would be hard to program and even harder to balance.

Combat is pretty action-oriented, in the same vein as Guild Wars or The Old Republic, where you lock onto an enemy and attack, mixing things up with various skills. Dodging plays an important role, as there are some attacks that will absolutely wreck you. It’s a nice way to elevate the combat above a standard grind, and I must admit, the wizard class, which I am currently using, has a really fun set of skills to use. Taking out crowds with implosions and using force choke is pretty empowering, while facing a single, fast, and powerful enemy is terrifying (as it should be for a magic user).

The social aspect of the game, the heart of any MMO, is handled pretty nicely here. The game has standard options for engaging other people, such as in guilds, PvP, or waiting for other people to go dungeoneering with you. The PvP, like any competitive, adversarial videogame system, requires a little balancing (Rogue’s OP). Events like monster portals opening in town and random “collect as many as you can” happenings are cool ways to allow players to compete without PvP trappings, as everyone is automatically enrolled, but you don’t have to participate if you don’t want to.

But where are the cries of, “n00b uninstall?”

The cool thing that Neverwinterdoes here, though, is resurrecting the player-generated content aspect that was present in Neverwinter Nights. Players are free to create their own quests, complete with storylines and rewards, and submit them to the community for playing and rating. As you might have guessed, you’ll want to try the top-rated ones, as many of them far outclass the main story in terms of intricacy and depth, even though that isn’t saying much. Unfortunately, a major limitation here is the game engine itself, which is simply not conducive to any sort of narrative intricacies or deep questing. One can only wonder what the potential is in other MMOs, however.

The problems don’t stop, unfortunately, as Neverwinter is fresh out of beta. The game still has its fair share of rough edges, balance issues notwithstanding. Glitches and imperfections abound, many of which are minor, but the most egregious of which are found with quest flags. A lot of the time, quests I’ve done have just failed to complete – the same issue has happened with the people I’ve played with, and on multiple occasions, too. Not good, especially with questlines as repetitive as this.

In terms of graphics: if you’ve seen one Perfect World game, you’ve seen them all. They’re pretty mild, with a slight cartoonish twist, but nothing particularly fancy or attention-grabbing. The same goes for the art direction: Neverwitner presents itself as a pretty generic fantasy world. I suspect there are some issues with optimization, though: the people I know with powerful rigs experience lag on medium settings, and not just in player-dense areas. The soundtrack also suffers from the same lack of character that the rest of the game does, though I suppose that’s not an issue when talking with friends.

To sum things up…Neverwinteris a solid game with some interesting ideas, resulting in a slightly above-average experience. Many MMOs will do nothing to break the mould, and this isn’t very different, with a few noticeable exceptions – the player generated content being the key one, if underdeveloped. I think it would be really cool if that aspect was adopted by other MMOs, as it would be interesting to play around with different settings and systems. Chances are, you probably already know if you want to get invested in this game or not. It’s free-to-play (but of course you can pay for a bunch of goodies), so give it a shot if it piques your interest. But if you and your friends are already invested in another mechanically similar game, then you can probably pass on this with little consequence. 

[REVIEW] Element4l

James Davenport 
(PC [REVIEWED]) 

I don’t self-identify as a masochist, but I do, with casual ceremony, subject myself to intense and prolonged psychic pain. My bumpy love affair with Super Hexagon is illustrative of this habit; short moments between moments were spent maneuvering an existentially irrelevant triangle between gaps in approaching walls. Colors flashed with the intent to free me via a spasmodic fit, a harsh chiptune soundtrack demotivated any progress like a batch of hidden sand in a delicious turkey club, and the walls rotated—circular—with the same errant commitment to direction one has in their early twenties. The entire action was painful, catharsis not delivered via success, but in pea-bit increments of half-hearted R&R between failures. Super Hexagon was a codependent relationship. I went in fully aware of what to expect and prolonged the neurological dependency until it ran dry. But now I recall those times fondly, not unlike cardio sessions in Jr. High football. Keep running, puke, keep running—now, stop. Do you feel that? Mmmhmm, that’s character development. Thanks, coach.

Element4l’s only clue into its true nature is in the title—insipid ‘4’ insertion aside. The soundtrack is fantastic, a whimsical accompaniment to a supposedly Fun Time™. I thought it was my first day at Hogwarts if I closed my eyes. Upon starting my first game, the minimalist presentation politely bashed me over the head with some intriguing, if not misguided, suggestive white-on-black intertitles. How quaint and cerebral, thought I, Like a leaf on a placid pond.

The aesthetic presents itself closely to that of Limbo: out of focus and multilayered backdrops behind the primary two-dimensional plane, also monochromatic, but usually oriented around a single color rather than grayscale. And then I was suddenly floating along—my character took the shape of a small bubble of air, the mouth of which was modest, a single line, and in a dry way instantly inviting. I am your friend, cute bubble of air. Let us adventure. And so we did. I pressed the up-arrow on my keyboard, and the cute little air-bubble did a cute little ‘poot’ and danced skyward ever so slightly. This is when I clapped my hands together with the delight and said, ‘ooh.’

But Element4l is exactly what it wears on its sleeve: a crust-cracking, icecap-melting, wildfire-inciting, ocean-rising, nondenominational-gender-gonad-shatteringly hard game.

Said cute bubbly orb is controlled exclusively with the directional keys, but there’s a catch. Left and right directional movements are entirely out of your immediate control. The first tutorial segments unravel slowly, introducing one element per section, which then reveal the central conceits to Element4l: reflex and momentum. At first, the wind blows the player character via loose, but fair, physics. The player can only control the propellant poots from the bubble to navigate the dynamic terrain. As a bubble, hit one surface and it’s back to the last checkpoint. Eventually the player encounters what I instinctively dubbed ‘A Big Glowy’, which lets the player turn into a block of ice by pressing left on the directional keys. As you can imagine, the viscous nature of ice allows it to slide, given proper velocity, on a smooth surface. The ice/air duo allows the player to maintain and gain momentum throughout a level by switching between the two. For example, turn into ice on a decline, gain speed for an approaching gap, hit up to bubble and poot once or twice, ice again in mid-air to land on the other side of the gap, momentum preserved. Sounds easy, right? It was…until the tutorial was over. For the remaining two directions—you guessed it—two more elements are introduced to complicate the equation: fire and earth. I’ll leave the discovery of their respective abilities to you, as finding the specific strengths and weaknesses of each element is half of the brow-furrowing fun.

A given obstacle can initially seem impossible within your understanding of the physics and the elements at that point. But dink around enough, and even a level that looks built for Sonic the Hedgehog is—with time and heaps of patience—eventually a cakewalk. This is a game that requires experimentation, so a player with the mind and will to fiddle with the mechanics is bound to have a solid (or liquid, plasmic, etc.) time, even when success feels impossible. Element4l is never blatantly unfair, though at times, you’ll disagree. Persistence is key, and thankfully eased by the casual and encouraging atmosphere the game’s wrapping provides. On the other hand however, the game’s deceit keeps it uncanny—the hint of a vibratory threat lurks beneath the experience at every turn.

Element4l is a great physics-based platformer, but hard to really sell in the dense PC indie market, so I’ll close out with an extended metaphor that came to me in a lucid dream after a skull-softening session with one of the game’s final levels.

Element4l is your jolly, overweight uncle—a seemingly soft, bearded man with deep pockmark dimples from perpetual grins, and gargantuan mound of a stomach, the construction of which is owed entirely to wholesome nine-to-fives and food-centric family gatherings. A man you trust, that you enjoy the company of, that, offhandedly you think could be a mall Santa in a good decade or so.

Then one day you bump into his belly in an archetypal dinnertime-blind-corner encounter and  you expect the soft impact of crash dummy whiplash into a jolly cloud of inertia elimination, but instead your fragile preteen countenance meets a stomach of concrete and you fly backwards and your pelvic bone hits the soft carpet with an unexplainable crunch and a couple of tears beg to be let free and there he is—your jolly bearded uncle looks down with an exasperated ‘O’ on his lips that curl upward into a smile and squint his warm eyes into glass. He reaches down with a pudgy calloused mitt. You reach up with your own bird bone hand and when you feel his grip the turgid Young Adult Epiphany that base appearances are incalculable suggestions of truth hits you like a bullet train. These same paws, bringers of life (ice cream, secret one-dollar bills, etc.) could crush your glass hand into powder.

But he won’t. This inherent deception, this trust, is Element4l.

So, play the game. It’s ten bucks, and even if it doesn’t make you a better person, at least you’ll be able to point at your computer and say, “This is why I’m so angry—not the ex, not the gov’ment, not mysterious dent in the frontal lobe of my Toyota Yaris. This. This is a problem I can solve.”

[REVIEW] Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes

Marcus Estrada 
(PC [REVIEWED])

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is a game which fans of the fantasy 4X genre may feel familiar with. This is entirely possible as it actually happens to be developer and publisher Stardock’s third foray into this kind of game. Back in 2010, they brought out Elemental: War of Magic, which was poorly received overall. It just wasn’t solid with its core play mechanics, which likely is why Stardock revamped things with Elemental: Fallen Enchantress in 2012. Something was still missing, though, and this led to their latest game.

Has all this effort into honing an attractive/addicting 4X experience finally succeeded or should Stardock move onto something else already? Thankfully, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes finally seems like the kind of game people are going to want to play, and for hours at a time. With such a tough track record, though, there are still points that the game isn’t quite “there” yet. Still, the genre isn’t exactly bustling with activity, which makes each new addition worth investigating.

If you’re a player who isn’t familiar with the term 4X, it’s really quite simple. It stands for the following four words: Explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Perhaps the most famous name in the genre is the Civilization series, although many more developers have pushed their own efforts to gamers. Although Legendary Heroes is not up to par with the latest Civilization release, it is surprising how similarly addicting it manages to become.

In Legendary Heroes, which is a standalone expansion pack to Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, players assume the role of a nation’s leader. As this ruler, you will take your ‘legendary heroes,’ armies, explorers, and more across the land to expand your empire. Of course, exploring new territory leads to many exciting discoveries and a great deal of enemies. Although one could argue there is a story in the game, it is very light.

Does it manage to distinguish itself from other games? Mostly, it appears that they have chosen the safe route with Legendary Heroes. The developer appears to have listened to complaints about their previous games to refine the experience into something quite enjoyable. Still, it feels like something that may have been experienced before. The fantastical setting is not particularly noteworthy and appears standard fare. Monsters, too, are not designed to be incredible entities.

Visually, the game also feels a bit antiquated. No, it definitely doesn’t have bad graphics, but more prosperous developers have been creating fancier experiences lately. Considering the game is $40, it isn’t as much of a discount that indie games in the same circumstances charge. Of course, you do get a great deal of gameplay which balances out the cost well.

Gameplay consists of managing groups of characters for exploration, quest completing, or the decimating of enemies. While managing them on a turn-by-turn basis, you must also work on your home base. This settlement is where the player can research various topics as well as generate new buildings and characters. Of course, you can place more settlements out in the wilderness and reap the benefits from those as well. When the player does well, new heroes are drawn to their cause. Interestingly, they always come in pairs of two which means you can select the one best suited to your needs rather than being saddled with a possibly useless one every time.

Once you have them, heroes and sovereigns can be leveled up in various ways which change their overall skill sets. If you want a hero that thinks purely with their fists, then you can go that route. However, there’s as much freedom to work toward other disciplines such as necromancy. The main enjoyment to be had with Legendary Heroes is primarily in playing it with different heroes to see the variances in play.

Fights pit your selection of hero/army characters against whatever also happens to be in the same area. Sometimes these are enemies your hero can mop the floor with alone. Other times, they are incredibly deadly creatures that will require a lot of careful strategy. Battles are pretty fun but players can also allow the game to automatically resolve them if they’re not in the mood. Both options are great as they cater to multiple player types.

Although this is not the pinnacle of fantasy 4X gaming, it does stand as a fairly likeable example. Because gameplay mechanics don’t get in your way, the player is readily able to dig right in. For the most part, everything is clearly explained and leaves the world open to you. Exploration is fun, battles are pleasingly tactical, and overall, you may find yourself exhibiting “just one more turn” symptoms. When you can’t help but play minutes or hours longer than anticipated then you know the game is doing something right.

Finally, if you found yourself burned by previous Stardock games, then it still may be worth looking into this one. Not only is the third time a charm, but players of the previous games get a discount on it. Players who pre-ordered the original Elemental can get this version for free via their Stardock accounts. Regular purchasers of either Elemental: War of Magic or Fallen Enchantress see discounts as well. At a lowered, more palpable price point, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes definitely becomes easier to recommend. With all that said, 4X fans should pick it up if the wait for anticipated titles is unbearable.

[REVIEW] Cubetractor

James Davenport

(PC [REVIEWED])

Moving day is the worst. Boxes full of meaningless junk somehow accumulated over the years. Stacked in rows, lopsided. The olfactory sting and wadded tickle of stagnancy. Every step is obscured by the box in your arms (they’re about to break, oh god) and every step is a half-hearted thud into cardboard tripwire. Don’t drop anything. The process is repeated until one room is empty and another, somewhere far off, is full. Cubetractor is a lot like moving day, but with someone intermittently gut-punching you with undaunted Cheshire-toothed enthusiasm. It’s frustrating, anarchic, and painful—and, boy-oh-boy, it hurts so good.

Cubetractor is one part tower defense, one part bullet-hell, and one part puzzle game. Your task is to juggle. The player controls an aptly out of control AI, a robot constructed to do its master’s bidding, but somehow just blows everything to hell whilst spewing “Awesome!” at the most minute destruction. An average stage is self-contained, entirely visible in one screen’s space, and populated with varying cubes—environmental, enemy, and construction types. The player’s job is to pilot the robot around a grid, destroying all the enemy units by utilizing the construction cubes. This is where the title comes in. You are a cubetractor. You can pull any construction cube towards you as long as it remains in your line of sight. By pulling two construction cubes together (and getting the hell out of the way — yes, they can damage you), a friendly unit is created. The units are divided into defense, offense, and support—prototypical strategic units, but limited to one or two per category. This is a blessing and a curse; advanced play is inherently stagnated by the lack of diversity, but at least by the final stage the entirety of said choice is hard notto grasp, which is a common issue I’ve had with strategic games of yore.

All the stages are built with some specific weakness. For example, an impenetrable fortress might be rendered nigh useless by sneaking around back and destroying an enemy power plant, a unit that doubles nearby tower-firing rates. From this point on, your duty falls on direct assault, which is the most tedious aspect of Cubetractor. Pulling cubes from varying angles across the map, whilst dodging said cubes and a barrage of enemy artillery, can be hectic and tiresome. Often, you know exactly what you need to do, but executing it can be cumbersome, and is rarely exhilarating. The real joy of Cubetractor comes from the slow and precise study, and exploitation, of the enemy’s weaknesses, not the clumsy drawn-out cleanup.

As a puzzle game, Cubetractor succeeds, but as a strategic tower-defense hybrid, it fails. In my six-plus hours with Cubetractor, I was able to complete every mission but the two final side missions—literally side missions, as they appear to the left and right of each main level and are titled with appropriate directional prefixes. I didn’t, however, lick my plate clean and finish every time-trial and battery collection goal because, well, because I’m not deranged. But for those of you with such an itch, Cubetractor,and its cute Gameboy-Advance-esque visual and auditory presentation, will fill the ten-dollar asking price. Just don’t expect every second to fill you with breathtaking joy.

Enjoy the deconstruction rather than the construction (i.e. the anagram not the assault). Because moving day is only fun in the forward observation and optimism in change, not fumbling over boxes and asking your weird neighbor for help and falling and falling and falling and why me, God, why me?

[REVIEW] The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Jonathan Tay

(PC [REVIEWED])

To answer your first question: no, you do not get to play as Hugh Jackman.

The action RPG (aka “Diabloclone”) genre has been saturated as of late. Torchlight II, Path of the Exile, and even Diablo III seemed to have simultaneously stepped up in an attempt to take the title of best aRPG from Diablo II (or the original Diablo, if you’re a hipster).  Now The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing takes its shot – but do we really need another contender for the crown?

The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, “how much does the game stand out from its peers?” At first glance, things look pretty amazing. The art style is an impressive mix of gothic fantasy and steampunk, while the graphics themselves are of clearly high quality. It’s obvious that quite a bit of time and effort was put into the look and feel of Borgovia (the world you explore), and the developers should be commended for it.

Unfortunately, we should heed the old “don’t judge a book by its cover” rule in this case – and I feel really bad for saying that, believe me. But underneath the surface, I found Van Helsing to be a pretty shallow game. You star as Van Helsing’s son, sent to Borgovia at the behest of some ill-defined characters in order to complete some fluffy goal. You are accompanied by Lady Katarina, your wry and spunky ghost sidekick. The dynamic between the two mostly just involves exchanging witty repartee. While that’s all well and good, Van Helsing never seems to want to get serious, and its story and characters, while starting off interesting and defying some tropes, never seem to develop beyond their superficial gloss.

The worst part is that the rats are waiting for the cutscene to end. 

But how important is a story, really, in a game of this genre? I can easily forgive a weak story for superlative gameplay (such as with 99% of the MMOs I play – The Old Republic is perhaps the 1% that bucks the trend). Unfortunately, the game seems to be lacking even this. At its core, Van Helsing is an incredibly derivative experience, doing little to alter the tried-and-true formulae of the Diablo clone. In many ways, it actually makes the formula worse.

The only character you’ll be able to play is Van Helsing, and he can develop in two major focuses: melee and ranged combat. There are various skills you can learn and improve using skill points in both of these respective areas, but at its heart, there are only two skill trees. And even with the addition of tricks (activated abilities like healing and shielding) and auras (passive abilities like regenerating health), there’s very little in the ways of mixing things up. Think of Van Helsing as a Diablo game with only 1.5 characters.

I say 1.5 because Lady Katarina is her own battle-ready entity. She has her own inventory, skills, and can be set up for ranged or melee attacks. Unfortunately, she’s largely useless, as there’s not much in the way of AI for this game (she tends to stand still as she’s getting swarmed even when she’s set up for ranged attacks). Also, as the difficulty increases, her utility decreases. Her skills are also Van Helsing-centric, typically providing small bonuses to you instead of augmenting her. Cool, I guess.

The poor AI leads me into my next, and arguably biggest gripe with the game: the combat. Good lord! There are several different enemy types in the game, which have different sorts of attacks and different resistances. The idea is you should play strategically and tactically to take out mobs. This would be cool if the only AI for enemies wasn’t just “swarm and attack”. Every battle is literally a clusterfuck of effects and animations. It’s incredibly easy to devolve into just clicking the mouse button haphazardly since there’s no way to tell what’s happening at any given time. Part of the problem is that there’s no sense of collision: nothing seems to be a solid, individual entity; everything just melds together into a crowd. Attacking an enemy is like attacking plastic. They don’t respond to anything. Meanwhile, even the basic goblins in Diablo II would run if you took out too many of them, and rally around leaders!

What is happening?

There are also very few options for true crowd control. Whatever skills you get will barely phase enemies. Later on in the game, you can shoot explosive barrels and such to aid you in taking out mobs, which would have been cool had I been able to click on them. I was not because enemies literally just fill up the screen, and it’s almost impossible to click on something else. It’s almost been fatal in cases where I’ve needed to move somewhere else and been unable to.

Even the looting aspect of the game lacks personality. Good items will fall into your lap, and in great quantities. I’ve never really gotten the sense that I found a truly awesome item, or had gotten attached to anything. It’s just sell, sell, sell, in order to accrue a wealth of gold that you end up doing very little with. Respawning is perhaps the most costly thing you can do in the game (you can choose between respawning where you died, at a checkpoint, or back in town, at progressively lower costs), and even that is chump change.

I also tried the multiplayer, but besides it being buggy – I’ve experienced issues where my character wasn’t moving, and I’ve heard of many instances of simply being unable to play – it wasn’t that fun. In fact, I almost felt bad for dragging someone else into the monotony.

Anyway, this review has been going on for quite a while, and there are elements of the game that I’ve left untouched (such as the music, the Rage and crafting systems, and the inexplicable tower defense minigame), but I think I can safely sum them up, and the entirety of the game, with this phrase: cool, but underdeveloped. Make no mistake, the game is playable, and there are plenty of interesting ideas in there, but none of that really showed for me.

WHAT IS HAPPENING!??!?!?!??!??!

If you’re truly hungering for a Diablo-esque experience for some reason, then I guess The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing can be a fix. It’s also cheap – $15 on Steam, to be precise, which, for a single class Diablothat takes place in a different world, and lasts for about 8-10 hours, isn’t bad. But for me there’s just too much Dynasty Warriors (generic and repetitive) and not enough Dark Souls (weight and substance) to make the game enjoyable. DLC and sequels are on the way, though, and if NeocoreGames, the developers, can make some serious changes, then the series might be worth keeping an eye on.

[REVIEW] Skyward Collapse

Blaine Arcade
(PC [REVIEWED])

If all else fails, tilt the world so all the evil people fall off.

Imagine you are god.  Take five minutes out of your busy schedule of molding clouds into bikini-clad goddesses and look down at that Earth thing you created a while back.  It seems a few human societies have taken to fighting with each other and you’ve got to do something about it.  Skyward Collapse puts you in that position, allowing you to manage both societies in an effort to keep both of them alive.  Largely, the game boils down to attempting to force a military stalemate until the end of human time.

Skyward Collapse is thankfully turn-based, avoiding the kind of stress in a multitasking real-time strategy game that has your eyes pulling so hard in opposite directions your head might split in half.  The elements here are not foreign to anyone familiar with strategy or board games like Settlers of Catan. Each society must harvest resources to fuel its military troops.  This time, you’ve got two armies with different requirements.  While the Greeks like to ride on their horses, the Norse faction seems to prefer roasting and devouring them  (remember you’re not allowed to play favorites unless you’re interested in a very one-sided and brief game).

Yeah it looks like summer camp, but you can’t build an arts and crafts center.

Things start to get a little more interesting when you notice that whole ‘free will’ thing you accidentally spilled all over Earth’s animals a few billion years ago.  Military units can go wherever they please and stab whatever pisses them off the most.  That could be an enemy supply building, an indiscriminate bandit, or an enemy military unit.  This can lead to some frustration when they insist on spearing all the bread in an enemy bakery instead of doing battle with the heavily armored soldier currently pummeling their shoulder blades.

The game offers some fun in trying to strike a balance, but it will quickly become obvious to clever players that many problems can be easily circumvented.  I’ll give you the example that happened with me: at one point, my Greek population was well over eighty and was pumping out sandal-wearing soldiers like mad, while my Norse boneheads had gone and gotten themselves reduced to a meager thirty.  Being a god as well as an excellent landscaper, all I had to do was build a mountain chain completely enclosing my Norse settlements and preventing the troops from getting close enough to each other to fight.  Sure, the Trojan horses could cross the mountains, but I had a few archers to take them out before they could reach any buildings.  So when I entered the battle phase at the end of each turn, nobody had anywhere to go and I just had to wait for the Nords to remember how to make big dumb fur-wearing warrior babies.  When they were ready, I merely poked a hole in the mountain chain to let them out.

In addition, the game offers complex things to try and acquire, like diplomats and mythological creatures.  However, these require you to have very specific resources that aren’t used for anything else.  So in the end, the easiest thing to do is keep both sides supplied with simpler units whose behavior is more predictable and less devastating.

Clearly we got the idea for bathroom tile from the big man upstairs.

The presentation could use some work as well.  The still images that represent your units lack any personality and look more like figures on public safety signs than deadly warriors.  You can watch an arrow fly across your screen and only when it vanishes off the side do you hear it whistle through the air.  Watching battle phases becomes laborious when you have more than twenty units on each side, and attempting to increase the speed can quickly become headache-inducing.  You can skip watching it all together, but that makes the game all the flatter.  Upon completion of a round, the session ends with no fanfare, not even a vibrantly flourished font declaring VICTORY!

Each session is broken up into three ‘ages’, with your goal being the survival, however faintly, of both civilizations.  There are point requirements, earned by battling, that try and force you into striking a balance, but it just feels like a patch rather than dynamic play.  It’s like the game is the god above even your divine authority who constantly tries to prod you into activity, so you don’t just take a nap and let your lower charges annihilate one another.

When all is said and done, Skyward Collapse is a good time-killer (probably the thing it does best; just completing the tutorial level took me all morning).  You won’t find yourself getting angry at the game because of any one particular design flaw, or its pallid art style.  The free will and dual-management separate it from the pack, but it’s really more like somebody standing two steps to the left of everyone else in line.

[REVIEW] Rush Bros.

Marcus Estrada 
(PC [REVIEWED])

Rhythm games have seen awesome resurgences over time. Initially, rhythm and music games were all about hitting some sort of button in time with the music. Even more modern successes, such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, capitalized on the simple formula. In the last decade, though, we’ve seen developers trying to create new ways to interact with music. Titles such as Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, and the Bit.Trip series have shown that rhythm can be infused into a multitude of genres.

Rush Bros. is one such attempt to create a musical platformer. In the game, players assume the role of one of two DJ brothers. They’ve involved themselves in a contest to see which sibling can complete levels first, which means your main goal is to finish each area as quickly as possible. Thankfully, unlike some other timed games, you can never run out of time. It is on you to whittle away times to climb the leaderboards.

Aside from the introduction, there’s no focus on story. It just seems to exist to explain why your characters are DJs and why the game revolves around music. Songs are integral to each level, but not in any way that rhythm/music fans may be accustomed to. Each level always retains its shape and is therefore not randomized. The only facets that change are moving elements which tend to be platforms, sound waves, or a variety of objects that will kill you instantly.

These aren’t enemies, as they can’t follow you around the level. Instead they’re relegated to pendulums, spikes protruding from walls, lasers, and a few other things. You might think it would be easy to avoid static parts of the environment, but you’d be wrong. It will become a very common event to misjudge a jump, or time movements wrong. Objects move to the beat of the music pretty accurately, but this causes trouble when a song ends — as the objects cease movement temporarily.

A rhythm game lives or dies by its music and, thankfully, Rush Bros. has a nice soundtrack. The included songs come provided by electronica group Infected Mushroom. Their tracks sound great, but are basically all of one genre. Those who have grown accustomed to games with more eclectic soundtracks may at first be disappointed. At least, until they realize that you can also fill the game with your own MP3 or OGG files.

Users can simply point the game to their music directory of choice and have the songs fed into the game. It syncs well with most songs, fast or slow, and still manages to keep obstacles fair. For example, blasting a song with 300+ BPM will not cause the obstacles to move at a blistering pace, even though the song is incredibly lively. There is no limit to the amount of tracks that can be added to the game.

The only problem with this is that there is little explanation as to how to do it. The whole song interface is fairly weird and leaves users having to figure it out themselves. For example, the same song may play time and time again until you realize you can switch it to something else from the level select menu. When using your own music, larger libraries are a pain to manage due to lack of control. You can’t sort through multiple folders. Instead, you can simply click through each and every track one at a time until you hopefully stumble upon the one you want to try. Also, every time you start the game up it will revert back to the official soundtrack rather than the ones you have selected from your own library.

The game feels a lot like the “harder” platformers that indie developers seem to be so fond of. Players can jump, cling to, and slide down walls, as well as collect two temporary power ups. These include the ability to double jump and run faster. About half the levels aren’t too hard, but others turn out to be fairly puzzling. Many levels involve finding keys to open doors, and sometimes these are hidden well off in the distance. Overall, the game should give you three to five hours of play through every level.

Also included in Rush Bros. are local and online multiplayer modes. Local is handled via split screen and has you racing through a level against the other player. It’s basically the same as the main game, except that you’ll be more driven to finish levels expediently. Unfortunately, the online multiplayer mode seems deserted so soon after launch. I tried to both host and join into games at multiple times during the day and routinely came up empty. The only way you’re likely to play a match online is to make sure a buddy has a copy, too. Once you’re in a game, however, it becomes just as fun as local co-op mode. Unfortunately, players can’t share custom music in this mode and will each hear their own respective track during play. This could lead to advantages/disadvantages for one player as each stage’s obstacles are synced with their specific music.

Rush Bros. is an interesting concept that is executed well, but without the level of polish that some may expect. After all, rhythm and music games have grown tremendously since their inception. If you don’t mind the simplistic art and spotty online multiplayer, then give it a go. There’s not much here beyond the 40 levels, but they are fun while they last. Just don’t depend on finding much else to do unless you adore working toward high scores on the leaderboards.

[PLAYTHRU REVIEW] Don’t Starve

The GameSparked Team

Joe teaches Myles the first rule of wilderness survival: Don’t Starve.