Limbo Video Review

The video review for Limbo is now available

Magicka Video Review

The video review for Magicka is now available.

Sequence

 **Be sure to check out the video review!** 

Sequence is yet another game I picked up because it was involved in the Steam 2011 winter sale achievement contest. When I originally looked at the games involved for that day, I noticed that Sequence was $1.25 or so, at which point I'd almost certainly pick it up, since it was so little. I did want to read a little about the game first though, just to see if it would be something I'd at least be interested in playing, or if it was something I should just pass on, and at that price, it would take a fair amount for that. I literally read the following before backing out: "Sequence combines elements of both rhythm and role-playing games..." That's right, I didn't even make it through the first sentence before deciding it wasn't worth my money, because I don't know if there is anything I'm worse at than rhythm games, though the few attempts I've ever made at DDR in public have drawn cheers, but only because it is so easy to find pleasure in the failure of others.

Later in the day, I thought I'd at least read the rest of the game description, and maybe watch the videos. Both trailers, one of which shows off the mechanics of the game, while the other is simple an encouragement to buy it, were full of humor, such as the following gem from the trailer that explains the underlying mechanics "Honestly, if you don't understand how hitpoints work, this game probably...probably isn't for you. Go download some...apps...or something." It was this, as well as several other witticisms throughout the two trailers, that tipped my mind, and so I picked up the game, thinking that $1.25 wasn't a bad price to pay for it.

Unfortunately, I was terribly, terribly wrong. Though it's not what you think. I didn't pay too much for this game. I paid too little.

At least I can play this in the privacy of my own home, so no one can see when I fail like this.

Sequence is a beautiful mix of two extremely different genres, rhythm and RPG, with one of the best stories and character development I have ever seen in a game. You play as Ky, a young male who was kidnapped and brought to the mysterious tower, a place where monsters are trying to kill you, and the only way to make it out alive is to take the help your guide provides you to survive all seven levels and their respective guardians. In this case, your guide is Naia, who provides plenty of back and forth conversation with Ky as she generally tries to keep him from getting himself killed.

Combat in Sequence occurs through the rhythm portion of the game. After selection of one of your current floor's three potential opponents to battle, which you do by exiting the safe room you spend all your down time in, the music for that particularly badie starts to play. You'll see three screens, or as the game refers to them, fields. They correspond with your attack, incoming damage, and mana regeneration. However, you can only have one field active at a time, so you must switch to whatever will be the most beneficial to be active in. This usually means you'll only be in the mana field, which is your only way to regenerate the fuel for your attacks, when there isn't a cascade of incoming damage en route. If you're completing an attack, by flawlessly executing the required moves, you may just have to take the damage, trading blows until one of you is dead, since you do need to beat the time limit for the song. As you progress, the enemies get harder, not only sending more attacks at you, but also sending attacks that are worth much more than a single hp, which is denoted by the different colored arrows, so while it isn't too bad if you let white or green ones through, which deal one or two damage each, you really need to stop those red ones, dealing 10 damage, and if there are enough coming, you may just break off your attack, or try and grab them in the small break you have between groups of arrows.

The enemy selection screen provides all kinds of useful information, including the break down of the enemy attacks. This guy has a 50-50 split between white and yellow, or one and three damage attacks.

The rest of the game, that is, everything out of combat and non-story related, is RPG, and even here you'll find humor. It starts when Naia explains the stat values to Ky, covering things like Offense, Defense, and HP, and Ky questions why he's a five. Naia's response is simply because he looks like a five. It continues by making references to the seemingly arbitrary stat system found in many RPGs, or the proper pronunciation of mana. You'll even find humor in the item descriptions, such as the weapon Sonic Disruptor, which is super effective against hedgehogs. That sort of humor is pervasive in this game, and is a nice juxtaposition with the at times seriousness of the main story. But back to the RPG stuff.

As you successfully defeat enemies, you earn experience points, and begin to level up, increasing your stats in the process. However, experience also serves a crucial role as the currency in this game, as it's the cost to synthesize an item, by combining the raw materials you'll sometimes get from enemies, as well as the cost of learning a new spell, which you accomplish by successfully beating a challenge, like continuing a perfect combo on a song for a certain number of beats or maintaining a high accuracy. When making new items, which is a must as they augment your stats, you can choose to spend more or less experience in the process, which increases or decreases your odds of success. You can only go up to 95% though, and it takes a whole heck of a lot of points to get that high, to the point that you can easily lose a couple of levels for the chance to make an item. That's right, you can actually go down in level in this game if you're not careful with how you spend your points. And even if you choose to up the success rate, maybe not to 95%, there is still that chance of failure, in which case you don't lose the materials, but all those experience points go bye bye for nothing.

Since I never throw away anything, even in a video game, you can view my inventory of the various items you can craft.

When you begin each new floor in the tower, you'll be given a stack of recipes, which require various items, usually specific to that floor, to make. Each of the three enemies on a floor have three possible drops, but they very in rarity from extremely common, to the other end of the spectrum, where you'll find yourself repeatedly grinding away on the same enemy in hopes to finally get the last Uranium-235 you need to make your next piece of gear. You'll usually end up with a surplus of other items, which is fine, because you can just desynthesize those for some additional experience.

While the gameplay is interesting, and the crafting system is different than anything I've seen before, it's really the story that makes this game so good. The quality of the voice acting is superb, and all the interactions are well done, particularly Ky and Naia, all of which just results in a deeper, and more believable, experience. As the relationship between Ky and Naia develops, as you start to learn more about this strange place called the tower, and as you discover some of the secrets it holds, you can't help but to want to find out more. If you take the time to craft a special item, you can even unlock an additional ending that provides you with more information, but ultimately leaves you asking more questions, the forefront of those being "When is Sequence 2 coming out?!?"

I think I have successfully pulled off that attack once. I wouldn't even think of trying it on piano jam. That song is just evil.

The combat is fun, and it can be challenging to defeat certain enemies, particularly the guardians at the end of each floor. You'll need to carefully pick your spells, such as one that reduces the likelihood of high incoming damage, a damage over time attack, a heal, and a big direct attack, in accordance with your need, and your skill in executing the required moves to actually cast it, because some of the high end spells, in addition to costing more mana and having a longer cool down, are really hard to pull off. The crafting system, particularly with it's use of experience as a currency, is pretty interesting, but there is the downside that sometimes it just seems like you absolutely cannot get that last item you need to drop, and so you keep fighting the same guy over and over and over, and at times, that grind can get old, especially since this game could have used one or two more songs to mix things up a bit, though everything included is great. The story is one I wouldn't mind just watching start to finish, to hell with the rest of the game, and it is a good game too. All in all, I got about 11 hours of game time out of Sequence, but I will admit I played on "Easy - For those musically challenged." rather than risk it on "Medium - for those musically challenged, yet stubborn." which actually got me a 100% complete game, even covering the little augmented reality game that's included. I do highly recommend this game, and even if you're bad at rhythm games, like I am, just go for the easy difficulty and enjoy the rest of the experience. Oh, and pay full price, because it's more than worth it - 10 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 10/10

Suggested Price: $5, only because it doesn't cost more

Dead Space 2

Sequels always leave me a little unsettled. I talked before about the difficulties that must face developers of a sequel, considering what to change, if those changes will be well received by the gamers, and so on. Though I mostly hate that sequels make for longer reviews, because it's usually important to have played the first game, thus I ultimately end up covering a bit of both. Dead Space 2 is but one example where it is important to understand the significance and the style of the original game in order to fully appreciate, or disapprove of, the changes brought forth in the next iteration of the series.

I found the first Dead Space to be a great game, though not without it's fair share of issues, particularly on the PC. One of the key things that made the game so good was the atmosphere - that creepy/paranoid feeling you'd get since enemies could suddenly burst out of the numerous vents scattered throughout every room, thus requiring you to always be on guard. Additionally, the game moved along at a slower clip than most other games in the action category, thereby building the suspense of waiting for the next guy that wants to eat your face to jump out at you, and could be best compared to some of the classic Resident Evil games.

Actually Resident Evil is a pretty good comparison, with the generally slower pace of the game, and levels that largely involved you starting at one point, solving puzzles, killing enemies, and so forth, until you make it to the deepest part of the level, and then coming all the way back to the start, usually encountering some new enemies in areas you thought you already cleared, or being punished for not taking the proper precaution with bodies. They also share a "save at certain points in the game only" system and an inventory system for managing your arsenal of weapons and general lack of ammo. Heck, you could even call the mutated corpses that are the Necromorphs of Dead Space zombies, and you wouldn't be too far off.

 

If I had any talent whatsoever in Photoshop or another graphics program, I might try and merge that with the Resident Evil 2 title screen.

Perhaps what the series is most known for though, is the strategic dismemberment system, where the best way to kill enemies is to cut off their appendages. This of course flies in the face of every instinct I've developed from years of playing FPS games, which is to shoot it in the head, and makes Dead Space pretty unique. Usually I'll aim for the legs on an enemy first, using a weapon that fires a horizontal beam to main them to the point they collapse on the ground, dragging their bodies towards me with their remaining limbs. This will buy you critical breathing room when dealing with multiple enemies at once, and then you use a vertical firing weapon to pick of the arm or two needed to finish them off. Interestingly enough, this all generally requires a fair amount of accuracy, so those head shot skills still come in handy.

The final bit of background on Dead Space worth mentioning before moving onto the sequel involves the story. Dead Space was set on a space ship, the USG Ishimura, which became a ghost ship after a strange artifact known as the marker, the center piece of a religion called Unitology that the devs swear is in no way based on Scientology, that apparently reanimates dead flesh into these bizarre monsters that proceed to kill everything in sight. You play Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent on a repair team to find out why the Ishimura has dropped out of contact, but with the ulterior motive of finding his girlfriend Nicole, who is aboard that same ship. The trailer, which provides you with this same background, makes for good watching, and it seems like, in the right hands, the game could make a great movie (one is currently in development).

Nicole, sometime before things get really, really bad in the first game.

The rest of the story is just as good. You get separated from your team, and everything gets really bad, really fast. I won't go into details, but when you start learning the motives behind different characters' actions, who lives and who dies, and just what is really real, you'll see why I enjoyed the game. Oddly enough, Isaac suffers from that whole mute and no face syndrome that many other protagonists have throughout gaming history, like Samus Aran. This does seem a bit strange, particularly when people are going into a  monologue about what you need to do, letting you know you'll be headed into a dangerous area, and you never once speak out and say that's a bad idea, or you'll get right on it, or give any reply to indicate you are, in fact, human.

To one extent or another, all these things are changed in the sequel. Sometimes the result is better, while at others, it is worse.

Take the atmosphere of the game as one example. Dead Space 2 does not have the same slow, paranoia building feel to it that the first game does. New enemies that, while attacking in hordes, allow you to be far less meticulous with your shot placement, new weapons that even include a sniper rifle, and an environment that rarely requires you to back track into areas you've already visited, and are either rewarded or punished for properly disposed of bodies or not, all change the pace of the game, and allow you to play it much more as an action game than a survival/horror experience, as with the first one. Actually, there were only a handful of fear inducing moments in this game, but there were all "jumpy," usually involving a body falling out of the ceiling in an otherwise deserted room.

My personal favorite for creepy game moments: A washing machine that has a crying sound coming from inside of it.

Some of these more action oriented changes make for improvements, such as the ability to free float in zero-g situations, rather than the slow jump from point to point of the original. Others, like the addition of the new javelin weapon, which is essentially a spear launcher, are fun, but unnecessary, as I just used my trustworthy weapon set from the first game, which consists of the Plasma Cutter, Riffle, Flamethrower, and Line Gun, to handle anything the game threw at me. New enemies, like the stalkers that like to hide behind walls or crates, and generally work as a group to attack you, that is, when they finally charge around the corner from wherever they are hiding, are interesting, but not groundbreaking.

The story in the sequel simply is not as good. Isaac wakes up three years after the events of the first game, with no memory of the time that has past in between. Things have started going to hell on the Sprawl, a gigantic space station, which you must escape, just like you did the Ishimura. Thankfully, over the course of three years, Isaac has learned how to talk. Admittedly, that does do some damage to the horror aspect of the game, but the trade off is it does wonders for the character development, since he can actually develop relationships with other character in the game, making attempts to keep people calm, or express concern about the plan a mysterious benefactor has outlined for his survival, all of which make Isaac more relatable, but do place his emotions in place of what the player might naturally experience, and at times, you wonder if the voice actors had the proper motivation, or where in the right emotional state, to really sell the whole "I'm being attacked by mutated corpses that come back to life and want to kill me when I just want to get off this ship" vibe.

One of the more colorful characters you'll meet in Dead Space 2.

There are two ways to look at the changes in Dead Space 2. Either you consider them in light of the original, which you are like to do if you've played both, or you look at it as it's own separate game. If you held the previous game in high regards, unfortunately, Dead Space 2 is not that game, though Dead Space 3 looks like it will fall much further into the solidly action category. While all the mechanics of the original are there, from upgrading your equipment to combat techniques, the feel just isn't the same. In the first game, for example, you weren't in danger of being sucked out a broken window into the vacuum of space unless you shot the close window switch in time. The game is just more of an action game than survival/horror, and so while I'd still advise trying it out, don't expect the same thing as before.

If you look at the game separately, or potentially with the passage of enough time between playing 1 and 2, then this is a pretty good game. The shift towards action suits my style more, and I definitely approve of the quicker pace of the game. I really enjoyed the greater character development found in this game, and while it didn't have the same number of twists as the last game did, there are still a few curve balls in the story I hadn't seen coming. I do miss some of the puzzles found in the first game, and am very disappointed that PC gamers get zero DLCs for this game, as I was particularly looking forward to one that follows some of the characters from Dead Space Extraction, which I've also played, but at least you can rebind keys this time, and don't need a 360 controller to play. The game is good enough that I would even consider playing through it again at some point, though not on the hard core difficulty, which only grants you three saves and you revert to your last save on death, because I don't want to divvy up the 13 hours I put into this game into three saves. Either way, both Dead Space games seem to come up on sale pretty often, usually around $5. That is a good deal for a good game - 7 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 7/10

Suggested Price: $5