[REVIEW] Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Christopher Sheridan

(PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC [REVIEWED])

The Giana Sisters have been around for a lot longer than many gamers may realize. They first saw the light of day in the late eighties on the Commodore 64, and continued in spirit with unofficial sequels and a remake on the DS, though an official second outing never really came to fruition. That changed earlier this year when developer Black Forest Games started a Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight campaign to finish production on a sequel. I had never heard of any of this, but after seeing Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams trip a couple of times, but ultimately show modern platformers how it’s done, I’m glad things turned out the way they did.

A peaceful holiday for Giana and her sister is interrupted when Maria is sucked into the dream world by a dragon, with Giana in hot pursuit. As a teenager, Giana has the ability to transform into “Cute” and “Punk” versions of herself at will, which also changes the dreamworld and the nature of her enemies. Each version of Giana has different abilities.  Cute Giana twirls and glides, while Punk Giana dashes and attacks. Using both of her forms, finding secrets in the large levels, and traversing the hazards of the dream world will all be necessary if she is to save her sister.

The way the environment in Giana Sisters will suddenly change with the girl is fantastic. Pillars crumble, bridges break, plants wither and die, and roots turn to skeletons as the word takes on a dark, rusty hue. Switch back and the entire world springs to life again and vibrant color returns to the world. Sometimes it’s easy to just get caught randomly switching to observe the dynamic change in the surroundings. With the visual change comes a shift in the audio, as well. The song remains the same, but the instruments fluidly change without missing a single beat. Cheery electric guitar gives way to colder synthesizers, but the upbeat music remains the same at its core. It’s an ingenious mechanic.

The changing environment serves more than just an attractive aesthetic, however. At times, changes to the environment are necessary to progress: the dead world’s demolished well clears a path to the next part of the level, certain platforms can only be used in the living world, and deadly piranhas will change into traversible turtles in the living world, allowing the sister to get across the lake of acid. It becomes something of a puzzle at times, trying to figure out which persona and/or environmental change is necessary to progress.

The puzzles themselves are generally pretty good, with most being easy enough to allow for a generally breezy speed run of the levels. Others, however, are abstract and non-intuitive, creating some situations in which you may spend quite a while attempting to make the same impossible jump before realizing that there is an entirely different necessary method for progressing. These are uncommon, but like in any other game in which these issues appear, it brings the game to a screeching halt. For the most part, however, the puzzles generally require some clever usage of abilities, and it feels good to conquer them.

Things are further mixed up with the addition of boss battles. These require much more creative thinking, considering that Punk Giana’s dash attack doesn’t always work against the bosses, so timely shifting to take advantage of environmental hazards is a must. These can get frustrating, as they usually take a while, but it’s also nice to get a break from the standard platforming. It would have been preferable, however, for the bosses to have their own levels instead of being tacked onto the end of the existing levels, merely for replay purposes.

The changing environment wouldn’t be nearly as impressive if the game didn’t feature such a beautiful art design. While there has been a resurgence in hand-drawn 2D sprites, Giana Sisters makes a strong case for the 2.5D style of platforming composed of 3D models and environments while traversal remains on a 2D plane. Sharp graphics, sumptuous colors, and a creative environment make the game great to look at. The engine was developed in-house at Black Forest games, and it certainly looks attractive enough to be used in later titles.

Despite the game’s rather short length, there are a handful of additional modes to increase longevity that revolve around the same levels. For purists, there are time and score attack modes that focus on specific benchmarks in contrast with the generally leisurely pace of the main game. If the challenge of those modes is not adequate, there are two hardcore modes: one that does not have any level checkpoints, and one which doesn’t have any game restarts: if you die, you restart the game. There are a couple of other holiday-themed levels as well, but it’s still easy to hope for some additional DLC sometime in the future.

Despite having no knowledge of the series, I enjoyed my time with Twisted Dreams. While it’s all familiar territory in terms of general mechanics, the world shifting mechanic is what makes the game a little more special. Some tightening up of some of the other basic elements would have made a true gem, but as it is, this game is yet another solid entry in the new revival of platformers. Black Forest Games has a bright future.  

[REVIEW] Awesomenauts

Leighton Lagerwerf
(PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC [REVIEWED])

At first glance, I knew this game was not my glass of scotch. At second glance, I still knew this wasn’t my game. After my third look, and with a few drinks in me due to the previous glances, this game finally started to look good.

The story basically involves a waging war between the red and blue armies over a liquid metal known as “Solar”. The armies attempt to ensure victory by hiring mercenaries to fight at their disposal. The Awesomenauts are these mercenaries; hired to do the dirty work, and to take the heat for it as well; not so awesome at all. The story lacks since it is an online game, but some more back story to each character would have sufficed instead.

The graphics are not demanding at all, so the market for this game is vast. To elaborate more on the graphics, the game comes off like a Saturday morning cartoon. The game is narrated like it would in the said cartoon sense. The controls are not of a foreign origin, they are simply comprised of using the age-old “W, A, S, D” for movement and the mouse for aiming. When it comes to games I am always critiquing the graphics. The graphics are usually the deciding factor and with Awesomenauts it manages to pass the test.

Awesomenauts gives the player the choice of playable characters. I should have mentioned this previously: it is strictly online-based with 3-on-3 matches. The first mission the game allows you to play is the typical training mission, and story orientation. Afterwards, you unlock the choice to enter practice matches, as well as online matches. The option for a quick match is present as well, in order to appease those who are impatient. At first, this was not so appealing, but after a few matches and some getting used to the controls, it became fun.

As you progress via winning matches, you gain experience, which of course leads to leveling up. As you level up, you unlock more maps for online play, as well as more playable characters. Each character has a certain skill that can be used in combat, but the only downside is that you are required to purchase these skills before use. Purchases in this game are done at the in-game store using currency that is picked up after killing an enemy bot, or player. This level-up way of playing has been seen multiple times over, but the addition of a prestige was too much in my opinion. To some it may be great to reach the highest rank, and then restart to do it all over again, but to me that is a waste of valuable time.

If you wish to succeed in any conflict this game throws at you, then start off each match by collecting mass amounts of Solar tokens that are spread across the map and dropped by enemies. This will grant you the choice to purchase upgrades that increase the effectiveness of your special skills or attacks in general. Everything after that will come with ease.

The maps themselves are not large which makes traversing from base to base, or turret to turret, less tedious and more engaging. The addition of a third party is a great balance to the matches, as well. This third party includes the alien natives of the map that drop health globes upon being killed. There is an alien “boss” that drops Solar tokens and a larger health globe, but it’s considerably difficult to kill. 

All together, with the main attraction of online gameplay, and a diverse character and map selection, Awesomenauts is a well-rounded and built MOBA for the not-so-demanding gamer that wants to sit down and play something fun.