Tearaway is Media Molecule’s first outing as a developer on the PlayStation Vita. Crafting a world made entirely out of virtual paper and utilising the entirety of the handheld’s inputs, can they repeat the magic of LittleBigPlanet or do they fail to make the cut?

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The best game developers have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ about them. They have a knack of combining the holy trinity of game design (presentation, story and gameplay) with an unwavering vision of what they want to deliver. Above all, they have a ‘keep it simple’ ethos that runs under the surface of everything they put out.

Nintendo are the masters of this. If you analyse the underlying mechanics behind each of their top titles it’s a concept that can be summed up in a sentence. Rockstar have done it too with the Grand Theft Auto series and countless developers have copied ID Software’s first-person shooter model. Sure, they’ve added gameplay flourishes over the years as hardware has allowed but once you strip it all away the basic systems are the same.

I’d like to add Media Molecule to the list.

As a developer they embraced the ‘Play. Create. Share.’ ethos and gave the world LittleBigPlanet. If you haven’t played it, do. Not because it’s a particularly great platformer but because of all the creativity the community has put together. Want a level that’s like the Total Wipeout TV show? All yours. Gotham City? Done. The Godfather soundtrack while riding a dragster through a forest of horse heads? Yup, it’s out there.

Tearaway is the same, in that it has an unwavering vision of what it wants to deliver combined with great presentation, story and gameplay. What is that vision? Tell the story of a journey through a world made of nothing but paper and utilise all of the PlayStation Vita’s input methods.

To say they’ve succeeded is a spectacular understatement; everything about this game screams attention to detail. They’ve truly created a world made of paper that screenshots don’t do justice to. As you walk through each distinct level plants unfold at your feet, bridges roll out, snowflakes fall… the word is truly alive and vibrant.

The sound too is excellent and, not that I’d ever given much thought to the tone of rustling paper, each fold and crinkle sounds just as you’d expect. The only gripe I would have is that there are certain effects that sound to me as if they’ve been recycled from the LittleBigPlanet games which, given the keen eye shown to all other aspects, seems inexplicably lazy.

Where the game really shines is the use of the Vita’s control set. When the specs were announced the world scratched its head and wondered why so many different features had been added. Well, Tearaway is the answer. They do it cleverly too; it’s not like you can touch the screen or back-pad whenever you like. It can only be done in certain places and each are cleverly marked with a corresponding texture. Shiny fingerprints for the touchscreen, the cross, square, triangle, circle PlayStation motif for the rear touchpad and a wobbly picture of the Vita for tilting.

By the sound of it, such telegraphed interactions should be jarring and drag you out of the world but they don’t because you are in the world. It’s part of the story. You play yourself, gazing down at your little messenger as a beaming face from the sun (front camera – cunning) and your interactions in the world are required by the inhabitants to progress.

It’s not just the front camera that gets a workout: the rear one springs into life whenever you use the touchpad. An on-screen finger tears into the world and the camera fills in the parts behind so it really does look like your godly finger is at work. It’s also used to take photos to add textures at certain points. A moose I met wanted to stand out and asked me to photo something from my world for his coat. As I was on the train at the time, I took a snap of the high visibility area on the back of my bicycle helmet. I met several fluorescent moose from that point onward.

The moose moment is just one of many where your input actually shapes and effects the world. You’ll meet certain characters en-route who will require you to make them something, which you can do on a surprisingly-robust paper designing and cutting mat before handing over to the game character. The first one is a squirrel who asks you to make him a crown. I came up with a shoddy three-point job and a few jewels. It was met with approval and from then on whenever I met the squirrel he was wearing the crown I made for him. The same can be said of snowflakes and burning fires. I made them for my world which means when you play Tearaway, your world will be different. Genius.

By taking photos in-game you can even collect plans and designs for papercraft models of different things to make in your own time in the real world. Again serving as a clever interaction between our world and the game world but (and this is my inner cynic talking) to convince people that yes, you can actually make everything in the game from paper.

Tearaway as a game is designed to be a much more personal experience than Media Molecule’s previous efforts. You can share a few things but this is more about making your adventure your own, literally shaping the world and more importantly, your story how you see fit. Which, in a way, speaks to the fact that you’re playing it on a personal handheld device rather than a big TV screen that anyone can watch.

If I’m honest, I won’t be going back to the game to collect everything up. I feel I’ve seen all I need to see on my adventure through it. This is because the ending is so strong, so charming that it (excuse the pun) wrapped everything up really nicely for me and I’m good with that. If you own a Vita, please give this a go. It’s not some glorified tech demo, it’s a charming, honest adventure that showcases the abilities of the Vita in a way no other developer has. It’s £20 too.

I tweeted a while back that Tearaway had done something to me that I hadn’t experienced since Mario 64. It was lovely, charming, didn’t try to be something it wasn’t or pander to the ‘hardcore’ - Tearaway made me smile.

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The title that started it all, many of us older gamers will remember Super Mario Bros. as one of the first games we ever played. But is Shigeru Miyamoto’s genius as good today as it was then? (The answer is ‘Yes’ by the way.)

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Super Mario Bros. was initially developed by Nintendo in 1985 as a pseudo-sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. Designed by Shigeru Miyamoto’s and Takashi Tezuka, the game was originally based around a shooting mechanic with very different controls, but a desire to focus on jumping and the mapping of the mechanic to the A button resulted in it being dropped.

I’m a lot older than I was in 1987 when the title first hit UK shores. I was nine then and just discovering the delights of the Amiga 500, which was a significant upgrade from the ZX Spectrum I was used to. As with all my gaming at that age, it had to be done at a friend’s house as my parents thought it would rot my brain.

Slight digression: they still do, but after thirty years of me playing them I think they can finally see it’s not just a passing phase. Especially as I found time to find a wife and produce some grandkids for them despite my zombie-fied grey matter.

Getting back on track, it was my next door neighbour who was the first to introduce me to the NES after his eldest brother had been bought one for a birthday present. It had two games, Duck Hunt (with light gun!) and Super Mario Bros. Needless to say the former was first on the list and we played that to death until finally having a go on the latter; this, ladies and gents, was the power of a light gun and TV screen on a nine-year-old. One of the greatest games ever didn’t get a look in because we could shoot ducks and a dog.

Nintendo knew their audience. However, once the cartridge was in and the joypad gripped, a new happiness took over. I had discovered Mario for the first time.

Whether you’re old enough to remember it the first time round or coming into it as a youngster today, the music from those opening levels is so iconic, so etched into video game consciousness that you can’t help humming along even now. It’s a testament to the soundtrack that people are still playing them today and it’s recognised the world over. That’s before you get to the sound effects: the mushrooms, flowers, 1-Up and coin collection noises are incredibly effective despite being limited by the machine’s capabilities at the time. Again, that they haven’t changed all that much in the latest Mario games thirty years on is another sign of how beautifully judged they were.

Everything about this game is iconic.

The graphics are of their time, a collection of pixel blocks arranged to look like a plumber, a flying turtle and… a Goomba. Hardly impressive by today’s standards but at the time they were cracking. There were different locales depending on if you were over or underground or in a castle – simple but brilliantly effective. Like the sound, it’s no coincidence that the designs are, for all intents and purposes, untouched almost three decades on.

As is always the case with games, you can make them as beautiful as you want but if they don’t play well then you’re up the creek without a paddle. Thankfully, just as in 1987, Super Mario Bros. plays like an absolute dream. The controls are razor sharp, instantly responding when you jump or change direction. It’s vital for a title like this as when you plummet to your doom from a mistimed jump, it’s important that you feel it was down to your slow fingers rather than the game being unfair.

This gem of a game plays as well now as it did in 1987.

There’s little I can say that hasn’t been said a thousand times over but trust me, this gem of a game plays as well now as it did all those years ago.

There’s no deep plot here: you all know the tale of a kidnapped princess and Mario’s quest to rescue her but that’s about as complex as it got in 1987. That’s not the draw though; the draw is the well-designed levels and the small blasts of platforming fun that gets progressively more challenging as you move further into the game.

I’ll cut a long story short – if you haven’t played this game, do. If you haven’t played it in a while, remind yourself just how good it is.

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Released in 1994, Super Metroid is the third in the Metroid series. Like all other entries, it follows bounty hunter Samus Aran as she explores a planet filled with creatures and environments designed to kill her. This time around, she’s after a Metroid infant, taken by the Space Pirates for some nefarious purpose.

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Nintendo R&D 1 (the Big N’s oldest development team until its dissolution in 2003 and responsible for the creation of the original Metroid) designed Super Metroid but it was Intelligent Systems that did the actual programming for it, working closely with Nintendo R&D 1. Development took almost three years, and when confronted on why the title took so long to make (remember this was the 90s, when game development didn’t take very long), Director Yoshio Sakamoto stated: “We wanted to wait until a true action game was needed… And also to set the stage for the reappearance of Samus Aran.”

Upon release the title received critical acclaim and like many games of its era, it’s become a Nintendo classic: part of those games constantly re-released on new consoles, as ports or virtual console, and is being played and enjoyed to this day. Also, like many other releases of this generation, Super Metroid is practically flawless – a masterpiece of gameplay, challenge, music and even story, with surprising depth for a game that never throws a single line of exposition your way.

I sadly didn’t play this game during the Super Nintendo era as I hadn’t yet discovered the Metroid series. Crazy I know, but once the Metroid Prime series got me hooked, I was desperate to play it. The moment the Wii released however, this was one of the first games I bought on the virtual console, and even now I’m hooked enough on it to go back to it every once in a while. I did after the horrendous Metroid: Other M, desperate to cleanse my palate on a real Metroid experience.

The title is a direct sequel to Metroid II: Return of Samus and its opening narrative has Samus leave the Metroid hatchling at Ceres station for study, but the game begins with her arriving at the station once more after they’ve sent out a distress signal. and It starts out strong, with the first thing you find being Ridley, the Space Pirates’ commander and one of the main bosses in the original Metroid, giving players an immediate ‘Oh damn!’ reaction.

Spikes in the ceiling, lava below you, a crumbling floor.

Ridley escapes to Zebes, the site for the original Metroid and it’s your job to hunt him down and recover the Metroid baby. It’s a journey that takes you through the corners of the planet, with the freedom of exploration usually found in Metroid, where you can revisit almost all areas of the map, something you should do considering most of them include one secret upgrade or another. On your way, you’ll fight Space Pirate forces and the native life forms of Zebes, while also finding ruins and relics of the Chozo, the original settlers of the world, one of the most advanced races in the universe, and Samus’ foster family (it’s a Chozo Powersuit she uses after all). Of course, as this is Metroid, there are times when even the Chozo ruins will try to kill you.

This game is difficult and death is always a possibility. Damage spikes from area to area, finding enemies that take much more health than others and sometimes with no way around them, forcing you to either take a hit or take your time to kill them so they don’t impede your progress in the room any longer – even though you know they’ll respawn as soon as you re-enter the room.

Even with an upgrade there you’ll be nervous about the acid below… and maybe you should be!

Difficulty is of course balanced thanks to the upgrades you find, from missile upgrades to different beams to energy tanks expanding your health. But what the game does right is never letting you feel confident in a new area, especially the extremely lethal Tourian, and falling into any pit of acid or lava will have you frantically mashing the buttons trying to survive as you see your health dwindle down extremely fast. Dangers in Metroid give you a constant adrenaline rush, the bosses especially so, where the real challenges lie.

Visually, like many games of the era, the graphics are 16-bit sprites and backgrounds and stages that look fantastic even today. They are surprisingly detailed, so much so that 2D Metroids after this game – Metroid: Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission and even the 2.5D Metroid: Other M – maintained the same visual style, just upped the quality. On sound, the game’s soundtrack is amazing; from the eerie title screen music to the fantastic adventure-esque theme of the Zebes surface.

This shot won’t do anything, because Metroid bosses have specific hitboxes!

Like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was for the Zelda series, Super Metroid is the most influential of the Metroid franchise. It expands on the mechanics, adding some if not most of those being used to this day in subsequent releases in the series, such as the Super Missiles, Speed Boost, the Grapple Beam, the X-Ray Scope (the basis for the X-Ray visor in Metroid Prime), the Gravity Suit and most important of all, the Charge Beam. Aside from upgrades, this was the first Metroid to include recharge stations, and the only one to include a separate health station, a feature later fused with other stations, such as Metroid Prime where the save station recovers your health. It also allowed you to go into the suit’s ‘management’ and enable or disable some or all the acquired upgrades.

Aside from those, there were even techniques the player could perform that weren’t part of the standard upgrades, there in case they experimented with the game. For example, Beam Combos, special attacks unleashed by a specific beam, later heavily featured as standard upgrades in the Prime games; the charge spin, a pseudo screw-attack used by jumping with a fully charged power beam; the Shinespark, a powerful dash, either horizontally or vertically, made from ‘concentrating’ the speed boost energy and using it after a jump; and of course, the wall jump, letting you jump from wall to wall as the name suggests.

This is the Shinespark, amazing to use but it can get you killed!

Super Metroid is one of the most influential games of the Super Nintendo era and one still desperately sought by both new and old gamers, hungry for the title that defined the 2D Metroid experience in a similar way that the Prime games defined 3D Metroid. It’s a challenging, adrenaline-fueled experience that not many releases can surpass or even equal and another, like many of that era, that’s part of the Master Class of Game Design for its amazing content, challenges, controls, music and visuals.

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Released in the year 2000, Deus Ex is the first installment in the popular science fiction first-person-shooter RPG series. Set in a dystopian future where cybernetic implants and modifications have become the norm, the series sets you as JC Denton the second in a new generation of cyborgs, using nanotechnology modifications instead of cybernetic ones. This is the game that started it all, including the quite obvious biblical references and massive global conspiracies.

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Deus Ex was developed by the now defunct Ion Storm and designed by Warren Spector, the man behind some of the greatest games of their time; Thief: The Dark Project and System Shock 2. Conceived as Troubleshooter, Spector began work on what would become Deus Ex after System Shock, having tired of traditional fantasy and science fiction but couldn’t get the project off the ground with either Origin Systems (makers of Ultima and Wing Commander) or Looking Glass Studios (System Shock, Thief). Then, thankfully, John Romero and Ion Storm came along and just told Spector “Make the game of your dreams. No limits,” and thanks to that offer, we now can enjoy this masterpiece.

I would love to say I played this game on its release and enjoyed it over and over again, playing hundreds of different builds and playing all possible allegiances, but the truth is that the first game I played in the series was the second one, completely ignorant of the existence of this title. It was thanks to one of the many fantastic Steam sales that I got my chance to play it, having read enough about Deus Ex to make me give it a go. When I first launched the game and right up to the point where the credits ended, this game awed me and I was too engrossed in the story and depth of gameplay to care about the aged graphics.

The scary looking thing on the right? That’s an ALLY!

The game stars JC (guess what the initials mean) Denton the second in a new generation of UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition) agents, their implants nanotech instead of cybernetic giving them a more human look compared to fellow agents Gunther and Anna who look monstrous. Which as you might guess causes some friction between these veteran agents and you and your brother Paul, the first nanotech Agent. The game opens up with Denton arriving at the UNATCO base to meet with Director Manderley for the briefing on his first mission, infiltrating Liberty Island to stop a terrorist group taking over it. After completing this mission he is sent on another one to track down a shipment of Ambrosia, the cure for a disease called the Gray Death, and it’s during this mission that the first of many of the game’s choices come in, though the only indication of it is Paul confessing to JC he’s defected and tells his brother about things not being as they seem. The search for the truth takes JC from Liberty Island to New York City to Hon Kong and Area 51, meeting a plethora of characters you can join, betray or kill as you see fit, though always with consequences.

As a game, Deus Ex is old-school and as such doesn’t hold you by the hand for very long before dropping you in the deep end letting you explore, investigate, and experiment with the different skills sets and upgrades; and as with previous Spector game System Shock 2 it’s very possible to be stuck at a particular point because the route you used isn’t particularly friendly to your chosen skill-set and equipment. Skills range from weaponry, divided by weapon type (pistols, rifles), to swimming and lock picking to even “Environmental Training,” without which you can’t even use bulletproof vests and hazmat suits. At the start of the game, or character creation, you get a fixed number of skill points to determine your starting skill-set, and you get more skill points by completing objectives, main and secondary, so it’s usually a very good idea to do every secondary quest to come your way.

Augments expand gameplay considerably!

As a nanotech agent, you can upgrade JC with augmentations on nine slots spread over the following locations: head, eye, sub-dermal (skin), torso, arms and legs. Upgrades come in nanotech canisters, each holding two upgrades, forcing you to choose between one of them. In addition, canisters don’t carry augments from a single location, forcing you, for example, to choose between a cranial upgrade or a leg upgrade. Augments can be further upgrades using Upgrade Canisters. Some upgrades are passive, giving you a flat bonus, while some are activated and consume bioenergy, your internal power reserves.

The last form of customization comes from weapon modifications, letting you add scopes, silencers and such to all your weaponry, though not all modifications match all weapons.

Inventory, like in most old-school RPGs, is grid-based, letting you Tetris-out your items and tools (ranging from healing items and power cells for energy, to smokes and alcohol, to tools helping you to pick locks, hack computers and overcome electronic systems) so you can carry as much as possible on you.

Queue Tetris music!

Gameplay is deceptively simple, just aim and interact; but depending on your play style, you can find many nuances to it, such as shadows and visibility, hacking options and manipulating security systems, how to use environmental dangers to your advantage, or just when to strafe and shoot or take cover or retreat. Skills in weapons directly affect their performance, the most important being your accuracy. Augments require strategic planning: will you get the melee damage bonus or the ability to lift big things? It all depends on your build and what you do with it. It’s the same with weapon mods and which items you stock, the game teaches you to carefully plan your moves, as if you really were a secret agent.

The story is presented in an interesting mix of exposition and player choice, in that some information is given to you, but there’s also a sea of knowledge out there waiting for you to find it, giving you insights on locations, characters, organizations and backgrounds. You can play and finish the game and enjoy the story just through the exposition bits, but you don’t get the bigger picture unless you’re willing to anger some characters and hack every machine, collect every password and forcibly take every scrap of information that comes your way.

This game was made well before Political Correctness was a thing!

The plot itself is a mix of conspiracy theories, biblical symbolism, philosophical arguments over the nature of humanity and what it means to be human, freedom of choice and Nietzsche ideals of supermen and transcending humanity. Brilliantly it never feels like these concepts are being shoved down your throat, instead they are subtly in the background or the characters and organizations embody these concepts; from the world-controlling Majestic 12 representing the ultimate shadow government, a group that transcended the Illuminati, the Chinese Triads working against them, to the Area 51 supercomputer capable of making someone the closest to being a God.

If there is a significant flaw to this game is how its ending, instead of being determined by your collective choices over the course of the game is instead decided by one of three choices right at the end, making your playthrough and all decisions, which in most cases took deep thought and planning, boil down to a multiple choice question and become ultimately meaningless. As the first in the series, this style of ending influenced the rest of the series, with further titles mimicking it.

Having said so, the multiple characters builds, alliances, characters to join or kill or use, and even the finite sets of endings, promise you’ll be replaying this game more than once trying to find everything there is to find from sub-quests to texts and computers to hack, and things to kill.

The Majestic 12 “logo” goes straight to the point!

Visually speaking, while the graphics feel dated now, they were top of the line at the time, and even now they don’t look that bad, and with the various HD texture packs available it’ll actually look pretty good although the flat faces and blocky hands are the only things that’ll remain out of place. Sound design is spot on, and you’ll forever remember the pitter-patter of JC’s running. Music like most of this game is a mix of different elements and styles, ranging from classical to jazz and techno, and just like the rest of this game, it has received critical acclaim. Interesting to note is how the music changes from its base form depending on your actions, similar to how LucasArts’ iMuse worked on titles such as Monkey Island 2.

Deus Ex, like many of Spector’s games is a masterpiece of storytelling and gameplay, giving you enough to understand and enjoy the story but leaving plenty for you to explore and find out on your own. The only flaw in this masterpiece is not deciding on the ending based on your choices but on one endgame choice which can, as you might guess, be completely against all you have done up to that point.

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We take a look at the award-winning PlayStation 3 exclusive Journey, winner of many Game of the Year 2012 awards from websites such as IGN and Gamespot. Is it as good as everyone is making it out to be? Our poll last year suggested otherwise as Journey received no votes from our readers, so we had no choice but to investigate it ourselves…

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When the 1001-Up.com team decided to sit down and play through Journey together, we were aware of its critical success worldwide and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Kim took the lead and began our first playthrough and we were immediately impressed by the visual style and level of detail. We had hardly taken a few steps forward without already being convinced by the quality of the title, simply by the way our robed character left trails through the sand; and after playing around with that for a while we finally decided to move on.

An introductory sequence reveals the desert landscape of Journey to us showing a sand dune glistening in the warm sunlight and the silhouette of a figure alongside a pair of standing stones at its peak. What appears to be some kind of shooting star flies upwards from somewhere in the distance and a panning shot above the desert reveals even more standing stones littered across a large area. The shooting star is shown speeding over the desert before we are cut to a close-up of our robed figure sitting in the sand. This is the limit of the plot given to us before beginning the game; from this point we are given control of this mysterious figure and the rest of the story is discovered as the game progresses.

What’s this mountain in this distance? Let’s journey on and find out.

Much like any other title from Thatgamecompany, the gameplay is simple and details such as the control scheme and game mechanics are left for the player to discover themselves. Some players may not be happy with this style as it can be very confusing at first leaving questions to be asked as to what the objective is and where to even find it. It’s worth pushing forward regardless of this confusion as things slowly become clearer the more you continue. At first we were unsure about which direction to go in considering this is a massive desert, but the mountain with the glowing summit far off into the distance got our attention and off we went.

Our robed character wears a scarf decorated with glyphs that provide the ability to fly temporarily until the scarf runs dark and must be recharged. The flight time can be extended by finding glowing symbols throughout the desert and the glyphs can be recharged by coming into contact with other similar fabric found in the sands. Pressing the circle button will a emit musical chime from the player while holding it down and letting go will create a sound that radiates out wards and brings objects to life. The gameplay is mostly platforming based with jumping puzzles that are supported by the use of flying and bringing animal-life fabric to life to support you.

A charged musical chime will bring the surrounding area to life.

Journey does away with conventional video game mechanics such as lives, points and levels becoming more of an interactive experience. It’s best enjoyed with other people whether that’s infront of the TV or online, and this is one feature that really sets this game apart from everything else. Online multiplayer co-op is available and is highly recommended; other players are randomly connected with you to share the experience seamlessly. Suddenly you’ll realise you aren’t alone when you discover another robed character just like you roaming the desert – another player. There is no possible communication beyond the musical chimes, no player names are given and their robed character looks exactly the same as yours. It’s truly amazing how this other character, who you cannot communicate with, will become your new best friend for the next few hours as you share the journey with them.

There is no need to tag along with another player as there are no true co-op features apart from being able to recharge each other’s scarf when you are close by, apart from that the game can easily be played solo. You’ll feel very connected to your new friend even without any communication or significant form of teamwork which is unfortunate as the scenery is so beautiful that you will often feel the need to tell them but won’t have the ability to. It’s not long before you’ve both completed your journey and player names are revealed; it really is impressive how such an attachment can be felt to another player when the only way of interacting is through sharing this journey.

Together you and your new friend will share the journey but without the ability to communicate.

One of the most impressive aspects of Journey is the visuals – the game is a work of art. The whole thing looks like an intricate painting: the sand shimmers in the sunlight and the landscape spans far off into the distance. It’s rare to come across a game that looks so beautiful but at the same time the simplicity of the graphics makes it hard to describe, it’s something that should be experienced first hand to really appreciate.

The soundtrack of Journey compliments the breathtaking visuals and the chimes your character makes in-game works with the music to provide a zen-like experience. Both the visuals and music go together hand-in-hand to help create a moving experience, especially at the journey’s end.

The most beautiful scene of the game, sliding down the glowing sand dunes.

Some potential buyers may be put-off to hear that a playthrough will only take two tothree hours even with a partner. However this isn’t a game that should be considered for how many hours of entertainment it can provide but for the unique experience it gives. Replayability can be had by jumping back in to find new players and guide them through the journey and to experience that strange feeling of a connection to other characters that you haven’t even spoken a single word to. I’m not aware of any other game that provides this kind of experience and it is well worth trying at least once.

Journey is a game best played in one sitting and with friends, whether that’s people in the same room or with a stranger online. While it does contain a good amount of gameplay it’s still an amazing piece of interactive art that demands to be played at least once. If you have a PlayStation 3 and haven’t yet tried this award-winning game then make sure you do before the next generation of consoles take over completely and the multiplayer component is no longer available. The entire journey is one hell of an emotional roller coaster and a towering achievement by Thatgamecompany that should be experienced by everyone.

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Metroid: Other M was the last Metroid game released for the Nintendo Wii and overall in the series, as there isn’t a Wii U installment yet. As with every other instalment, it follows Bounty Hunter Samus Aran, this time on the Bottle Ship: a sprawling, multi-sector, multi-environment laboratory facility in space. Joining her this time around are soldiers of the Galactic Federation for an adventure that had much promise, but failed ultimately to deliver.

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When the Metroid Prime trilogy ended, Nintendo sought to do something different with the series. This included its developer, and they moved from the proven Metroid team at Retro Game Studios to Team Ninja, the people behind Dead or Alive and the Ninja Gaiden series.

I played this game on its release and I had mixed to bad feelings about it, something I shared with most critics and fans of the series; but for the purposes of this review I decided to take it for another spin, eschewing my previous opinions and looking at it from fresh eyes. Sadly, it didn’t help the title.

Set as an ‘inter-quel’, a side-story between the events of Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Other M opens with Samus arriving at the Bottle Ship after receiving a distress call from the complex. She meets the Federation squad sent to check on the ship by the government, their leader being Adam Malkovich, a character first mentioned in Metroid Fusion and a close friend and father-figure to Samus. This meeting sets the tone for the entire game and that’s where the problems start.

Off the bat, the characterizations in Metroid: Other M are terrible, so bad critics and players alike universally panned them. Samus is finally given a voice and portrayed as an insecure little girl with daddy issues, almost incapable of making her own choices lest she anger Adam, and acquiescing to suicidal orders such as disabling most of her suit’s systems and upgrades until Adam decides it’s the right time for her to do so. On a game design level, it makes sense as bad as it is, as this is their gating mechanic to keep players on the narrow linear path or progress; but on a characterization level, it contradicts everything she stands for. Coupled with her relationship with Adam are her monologues referencing the Baby Metroid from Super Metroid, which become rants about motherhood and attachment that seem rather extreme; especially considering her mentions of it in Metroid Fusion where she’s been injected with its DNA are merely in passing, without reaching the emotional extremes they do in Other M. Her panicky reaction to Ridley is also very odd considering she’s fought him twice before, more even if you consider Metroid Prime as part of the canon, which apparently, for some mysterious reason, it is not… not anymore.

Weirdest spec-ops squad ever!

Adam Malkovich is portrayed as your typical military commander with a grudge and a chip on his shoulder, acting dismissive of Samus and even ordering her to commit the idiocy of disabling her power suit. The rest of the squad is mostly forgettable (because they don’t last very long); the most notable thing about them is that this is the strangest military in the universe, where everyone references each other by name instead of rank and / or surname.

Voice acting for most characters is decent but Samus’ English voice actor, Jessica Martin, does a horrendous job, almost incapable of displaying genuine emotion. Her monologues on attachment and her past are made jarring, being delivered in a monotone. Even worse are the few truly emotional scenes, which even with the very expressive cutscenes fall flat because of the terrible job.

You’ll see many of these close-ups, accompanied by painful voice-acting.

The true criminals though are the writers. The game’s writing, from plot and exposition, to dialogues and monologues is atrocious. This is the Anti-Metroid with constant and sometimes even unwanted exposition, delving into long-winded and overly complicated – aka purple prose – descriptions, dialogues and monologues. Your first reaction will inevitably be ‘No-one talks like that, not even in space!’ and your second ‘This is terrible.’ How do I know? Those were mine. The game is laden with cutscenes, every other room sometimes, for introducing new enemies and for general exposition and even more monologues.

While the cutscenes become rather tiresome, they are beautiful and visually the game is gorgeous. The 2.5D graphics are very good though the visuals lose some of their shine and polish when you shift to first-person. Animations are crisp and fluid and there is not a single drop in framerate, meaning the action remains as fast paced as possible; until the game itself slow it down, sometimes to a standstill. In addition, while the environments are very well detailed, they’re almost claustrophobically narrow or small, meaning you’ll just explore straight or winding corridors or circular rooms and not the expansive ones you’re accustomed to in Metroid games.

Samus looks gorgeous in cutscenes.

In the sound department, both the music and the sound effects are very samey. This isn’t an entirely bad thing but the music will completely fall in the background at best and is sometimes nonexistent at worst, while sound design for monsters is uniform in that they all sound the same, no matter how different they are. At least Samus’ sounds, from footsteps to shots and even the Speed Boost, are unique.

The game handles in 2.5D as a sidescroller reminiscent of other 2D Metroid titles and, while it’s like this, the action is as fast as you expect – even faster sometimes. In addition to her usual moves, Samus now has finishing moves for some monsters and special actions when jumping on them. Some design choices, however, disrupt the game’s flow, slowing it down as I previously mentioned. The first of these choices are the forced over-the-shoulder third person moments where she is ‘investigating’ and moving so slow it becomes uncomfortable, and they sadly happen too often. The second bog-down comes in the form of forced static first-person shifts, for moments where the game wants you to look at a very tiny object before delving into a cutscene or exposition instead of just telling you about it; you lose game time and it becomes rather tedious very soon. The other forced first-person stop coming from Missiles, which you need to aim and shoot instead of just shooting them as in Super Metroid. Of all the bad decisions, this is my greatest gripe, only seconded by turning the standalone Super Missile into a charge-shot combo like Metroid Prime’s; while in that title you never stopped moving while charging (or doing anything else really), here you need to sit still to charge and fire it. Power bombs have also turned from a standalone weapon to a charge-shot style bomb for some reason.

Samus can now execute weakened enemies!

Another jarring design decision for a Metroid was removing all pickups, meaning killing enemies will never give you a well-needed health boost or a missile recharge. While being a very good challenge boost, it forces you once again to stop to point the controller up and pressing A so Samus can recharge her missiles (and health if it’s low enough). Changing how you hold the Wii Remote is another strange thing about this title. You hold it as a classic controller for most of the game, but need to point it up for recharging and towards the screen for first-person view, sometimes one after the other in a Wii Remote juggle that becomes old very quickly. At some point, you start wondering why they didn’t pick one scheme and just stuck with it. This game could have benefitted from Nunchuck support.

On the plot side of things, it’s not that bad; reminiscent of Metroid Fusion, if not an identical copy. But swapping out the X-Parasite with the Space Pirates, Metroids and of course, Mother Brain (and Ridley because there always needs to be a Ridley appearance) since it’s right after Super Metroid. And of course, it deals with the Galactic Federation’s shady practices and its dark projects and Samus’ feelings and thoughts on personal matters. Sadly, the execution is just too bad to enjoy the game.

Not only is the plot similar to Fusion, they even took a boss straight from it.

Metroid: Other M is hands-down the worst entry in the Metroid saga and a dark spot in this series overall greatness. Fans of how deep Metroid Prime was will find a shallow mess waiting for them that doesn’t even have a satisfying final boss, unless you count shooting a Mother-Brain-cyborg-blonde-girl to trigger a cutscene where someone else kills her as a boss fight. Fans of the series in general will find the exploration lacking, the action constantly stopped for cutscenes and shifts in control scheme, and a game that is too badly written. After completion, the title offers the chance to return to the Bottle Ship and finish collecting everything and even an extra boss, and a new and harder difficulty mode; but you won’t want to play anymore as finishing it at all becomes a chore.

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The first of the trilogy, Metroid Prime introduced fans and GameCube (and later Wii) players to the Metroid universe from behind Samus’ visor. It shifted the traditionally 2D platformer into an alluring fusion of first-person shooter, adventure and exploration while still remaining true to its roots. Players follow our heroine like never before as she faces off against both familiar and completely new threats and enemies, in the first of her adventures in this award-winning series.

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Retro Studios developed Metroid Prime alongside Nintendo after a visit from Shigeru Miyamoto, in which he recommended they work on Metroid. He considered them a good fit for the series after having been impressed at the first-person engine they’d created for one of three games in development at the time, which were cancelled or terminated over the course of that year to focus exclusively on Metroid Prime. In fact, Miyamoto was the strongest voice in favour of the first-person look, being a big fan of the perspective, even mentioning he would’ve loved to see The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as a first-person title. The last nine months of development for the title were intense, with Retro employees working hundred-hour weeks just to meet the strict deadline Nintendo set for them.

The effort paid off and Metroid Prime released to critical acclaim, and since then it has became one of the must-play games of both the series and its generation. I own the title on both the GameCube and Wii but for the purpose of this review, I decided to go with the Metroid Prime Trilogy version; it allows me to play all three of the games so I can review them. I played and replayed Metroid Prime over and over again, on different difficulty settings, always aiming for (and getting) 100% completion rates and I’m still not tired of it.

The title, like many other Metroid games, opens with Samus responding to a distress signal; only this time from the Space Pirates, her archenemies. Their frigate Orpheus has been overrun by their escaped scientific experiments, which promptly decided to maim, kill and devour their jailors and torturers. This stage serves as the game’s tutorial, introducing you to many of the skills you’ll need later on for both combat and exploration. You’ll learn to shoot, charge, morph into a ball and bomb things and even fire missiles before a cutscene at the end of the stage, during your escape from the frigate as it falls into Tallon IV’s atmosphere. An explosion sends Samus flying against a wall, the impact shocking the Power Suit’s systems and disabling all her gear, effectively resetting the heavily-armed heroine to her most basic form and effectively taking everything away from you.

Boarding her ship, Samus makes her way down to the planet’s surface to continue her investigation into Space Pirate activity. Then the real game starts and takes you into different regions on the planet, such as magma-filled caverns, the lush surface, icy regions and even ruins left by the Chozo who previously inhabited the world. As you’d expect from Metroid, you’ll find upgrades littered around the place; you will need to backtrack a lot and explore every little burrow or fake column to find doors to new areas and Missile, Energy and Power Bomb expansions.

Guess who’s back, back again!

It’s strange to talk about Metroid Prime’s story considering the holes in it, or the non-explained elements, are part of a trilogy and the sequels expand and explore them. But on just a plot level the game has an excellent story, successfully doing what the first entry in a trilogy is supposed to do – set things up – and it does it wonderfully, presenting the major elements that we’ll continue to see in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Storytelling though is very simplistic and while there are cutscenes in the title, none of them will give you plot; instead you have to go and find it in the many logs you’ll read through using the Scan Visor (more on that later). Those who have played Dark Souls will recognise this style of leaving it up to the player to find out more about the world if they want to. The result will depend on each player, some might like it (me) or some might not!

In terms of controls, the Wii version ones are similar to the GameCube in that they’re tight, very precise and possibly the best first-person experience on the two consoles, even considering the Wii version does not use Wii Motion Plus technology. In fact, the Wii controls feel much better than the original GameCube ones, more fluid.

Space Pirates aren’t Zebesians this time around, but they are badasses.

While most gameplay elements in Metroid Prime are classic, such as missiles and bombs and charge beams and ice beams and every other beam or upgrade, the simple fact of changing the perspective means you have to relearn how to use them and in doing so they become completely new and fresh. Nothing drives this point home more than missiles, normal and super; those in Super Metroid were for you to spam until you ran out, but on Prime there’s a small cooldown period between missiles and it’s something you need to account for when surrounded by enemies. This makes the timing of each very important, adding new depth to an otherwise simple mechanic. Super missiles are completely different from anything that had been done in Metroid before, now becoming the first beam-and-missile combo you find, there being one for each beam and both handling differently. They need a charged beam and five missiles to execute and the result is a devastating blast that will kill most normal enemies. In addition to how they work as weapons each type of explosive at your disposal, missiles or bombs, also has specific materials or alloys they can destroy, such as cordite for super missiles and sandstone for bombs.

Beams are now different to each other instead of combining together as they previously did, and each has different properties and uses and effects on creatures and the environment. This adds another level or layer to both combat and exploration, as even in a given situation where all beams work, one of them will be the right tool.

Scanning gives you all the information you need.

Aside from weapons, Prime sees the return of the Spider Ball, not seen since Metroid II and used to run on magnetic rails and climb along walls. In addition, the game introduces a new Morph Ball upgrade – the Boost Ball – which basically lets you dash while in Morph Ball.

Then of course you have the Visors, with the Scan Visor being the most important one since it drives how you experience the plot, the world, exploration, combat and puzzles (this is an action-adventure so yes, there are puzzles). Scanning an object, creature or even terminal and plant life will add its entry to your logbook, and through it you’ll get backstory, plot points, boss and enemy weaknesses as well as hints on how to use certain things.

Switching to third-person, because nobody wants motion sickness.

If there is one downside to the game is that you will never move at the pace you’ve come to expect from a Metroid title if you come to it from the 2D ones, as Samus doesn’t run as fast as she did in those titles. She instead remaining in a constant walking or jogging speed, which can put off certain players expecting her to dash through the environment. The Boost Ball helps on long stretches of land, though, and half-piping with it is priceless.

Metroid titles are usually brutal in terms of difficulty but rarely from common enemies, such as the indigenous life forms on a planet. Instead, the real danger and challenge comes from the bosses and in Metroid Prime this remains true, with them being the highlight of the combat side of this first-person adventure. Bosses are imposing, larger than life, highly aggressive and dangerous and if you’re not careful, they will kill you.

Bright flashes show you Samus’ face, yet another little detail.

Visually the game is beautiful with crisp animations, fantastic lighting and particles and of course, the little touches and details bringing the world to life and firmly set you behind the visor. Take a look at the raindrops on the visor, steam fogging it, or water streaming down it when you surface from a pool. Being a first party title, the title is perfectly optimized for its consoles and, in both versions, there is never even the slightest drop in frame rate.

The mark of good music in video games is having it stay with you even after you play the game, fading into the background but never forgotten, until you whistle the tune along with the game itself without consciously doing so. Metroid Prime’s soundtrack falls perfectly in this category; but it’s not just music. The sound design is perfect, and its perfection comes again from the little details, such as footsteps, unique animal shrieks and cries and even satisfying explosions.

Bosses are ginormous!

Metroid Prime deserves all its accolades and it’s a must-play game in the series for its fantastic execution of familiar Metroid elements in a new point of view. Not only that but the three difficulty levels (Wii version, two on GameCube), the log completion and finding all the upgrades will keep you coming back over and over, and each experience will be just as good as the previous one.

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When WB Games Montréal were handed the mantle of continuing Rocksteady’s success with Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, people wondered whether they could deliver the same mix of action, story and attention to detail. I’ve finally had a chance to play through it and discover if Batman’s early adventures one Christmas Eve were a case of ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ or more like ‘Knightfall’.

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Batman: Arkham Origins made me angry. Not because it’s a bad game but because it’s a lazy one. WB Games Montréal have managed to leave a sour taste in my mouth, as if I’ve just eaten Call of Duty cooked three ways, washed down with a crisp glass of FIFA and followed by a chilled Assassin’s Creed for dessert. The title is nothing more than a re-skinned Batman: Arkham City with an expanded north Gotham; the whole package feels like glorified DLC, and DLC done badly at that.

In Arkham Asylum and Arkham City Rocksteady built an innovative combat system that perfectly suited Batman’s fighting style and use of gadgets. The latter felt like a progression from the former with enough new ideas and expanded game area that felt right. It was all tied into a well-written and well-paced story that was gripping throughout.

Arkham Origins does introduce a more involved crime scene investigation protocol and the Remote Claw is definitely effective but they don’t feel like they’re used effectively enough. In fact, that’s a problem with the whole game. Level design sends you from one fist fight to the next, or a sudden stealth takedown room without really engaging you. It’s as if WB came up with a pile of challenge maps and tried to shoe-horn them together.

Or it could be because the story in Arkham Origins is weak at best, with the main twist telegraphed a mile away. It chugs along and isn’t gripping at all. The premise is that six master assassins are sent to end Batman’s life on Christmas Eve and the game charts the events of that night. It’s all about a younger Batman, one still relatively new to the cowl and an unknown quantity to villains and police alike. It also charts his first meeting with several well-known bad guys.

As a concept it’s great but I never felt Batman was threatened; I never for a moment felt the assassins were any more deadly than a regular thug. Boss fights were regularly uninspired and simply a game of how many thugs you could beat up or take down. A particular fight with Bane was exceptionally cheap.

Also there’s a scene with the Joker that will resonate if you’ve read The Killing Joke but even that felt badly handled. It wouldn’t be so bad if the story didn’t plod along but it’s so slow and uninteresting I would have lost interest had it not been a Batman title. A cardinal sin in any Batman story is to try and explain the Joker and WB commit that sin repeatedly. Such a shame.

A particular fight with Bane was exceptionally cheap.

Graphically it’s just as good as you’d expect. Batman looks, moves and fights as Batman should and Gotham really feels like the dark, oppressive city it’s written as. I won’t lie: it’s great to revisit areas of Arkham City before they were wrecked. The game uses more pre-rendered cut scenes than in previous titles and in the version I tested they were regularly jerky and stop / start. It really didn’t help on the immersion front.

The look and feel of the in-game menus and character upgrade systems are no good however: all blue and unintuitive. That you can only get certain upgrades by performing in-game feats was a bad move in my opinion as it doesn’t allow you to develop as you would like. Or, for that matter, play as you would like.

The sound is excellent though, with a well-orchestrated score highlighting the most dramatic moments appropriately. There’s even a familiar Christmas refrain that creeps in every now and then. It’s a nice touch.

It’s great to revisit areas of Arkham City.

Before the game was released, a large proportion of the focus was on the voice acting. Could Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill be replaced? The answer is no, but Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker do excellent quasi-impersonations of the established duo. Baker (who is fast becoming my new favourite voice actor) especially succeeds with spot-on inflections and laughter in all the right places. He steals every scene the Joker is in – just how it should be. Top stuff.

Batman: Arkham Origins isn’t a bad title but it suffers from the annual-update-syndrome that so plagues the games industry. It’s absolutely worth playing but be warned that it’s more an extended DLC than a new game in its own right.

On second thoughts I’m not angry at all. I’m disappointed.

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Teslagrad is a 2013 2D puzzle-platformer developed by Rain Games, a Norwegian indie developer. It features a collection of puzzle rooms where you must navigate to one of the exits, using precise timing and the power of magnetism. Take a look here for our interview with the team from September 2013.

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Rain Games started development on Teslagrad in 2011 using the Unity3D engine, as a second title set in their Minute Mayhem (their first proposed game) universe. It eventually became their main project, with the original Minute Mayhem shelved in its favour. It’s a unique indie title in an age of crowdfunding with its funding coming from the Norwegian Film Institute, which issued them a grant for 800.000 Krone, approximately $70.000, in order to complete the development.

I must admit the game did not attract my attention at first as I wasn’t convinced by the puzzle-platforming genre as a whole, my only experience with it being the old-school Lemmings games – which were more than capable of giving the Dalai Lama an ulcer. But then the lovely Kim dangled a game key in front of my face and told me I’d enjoy it… and damn, she was right.

Teslagrad takes place in the kingdom of Elektropia in the continent of Croma, and stars a young boy. He is the last in a long line of Teslamancers, the country’s scholars and masters of magnetism and magnetic technology, a sort of Magnetic Jedi. At the start, the King’s men run him out of his home and attempt to capture him (and possibly kill him); but you elude their grasp and make your way to the Tesla Tower, the ancient home of the Teslamancers. There you must discover the boy’s heritage and possibly save the country from the mad and evil king.

The first few screens in this puzzle-platformer mean to familiarise you with the basic controls and principles. This is especially the case for the platforming aspects, from running and jumping to climbing both vines and ledges, but it doesn’t make it easy and there’s no time for hand-holding and a slow pace. The King’s men are constantly behind you until you reach the relative safety of the Tesla Tower and from then on things get more and more complicated; you find more Teslamancer gear, each adding a new level of complexity to the equation.

Repulsion, weight and momentum combine into a glorious and fun physics puzzle.

The puzzles in the Tesla Tower are all magnetism related and focus on overcoming dangers by charging items and / or setting them to either positive or negative polarity. You move past enemies, or by using existing magnetic fields and currents to your advantage. At first, you only have the Tesla Glove at your disposal to strike a positive charge or a negative one into magnetisable objects; this makes you depend entirely on what the environment offers you, such as magnetised flowers set close to currents, allowing you the perilous journey up or down them. Later on you get other pieces of gear like the Blink Boots allowing short range teleportation, useful for crossing grates, beams of energy or electric currents. All are extremely deadly because the little boy can only take one hit before he dies and you’re forced to restart the room (though larger ones offer checkpoints at certain spots to make them less frustrating). By the end, with the Cloak and the Tesla Staff, you have a more direct influence and power of decision on how to move around the different rooms; though the latter ones, those that take all the gear into account, still provide a significant challenge.

While rooms can be frustrating in a trial-and-error fashion, boss battles will put not your skills to the test but your patience. Their multi-phased approach, getting more complicated and deadly as the fight goes on, combined with the one-hit death nature of the game makes the fights tiresome instead of a refreshing change of pace. In fact, some of them feel added on at the last second, tacked on just for the sake of ‘having boss fights’ to go with the game’s Metroidvania style of free exploration; in which certain wings contain the inevitable boss, even if they are completely irrelevant to the story (with certain exceptions of course).

This boss in particular demonstrates al that is wrong with boss design in this game.

The plot is so simple it’s almost nonexistent, more an excuse to get you going than a story itself. This usually isn’t a problem since you’re mostly playing the game for the puzzles and the challenge instead, but as a ‘plot-driven game’ it’s disappointing to see such a barebones story. Having said that however, they use a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach to their storytelling that I find to be completely brilliant; all storytelling comes from visual cues in the environment such as portraits or scribbles on the wall, or puppet theatre plays in the background, and never explicit exposition. In addition to those, there are thirty-six scrolls littered around the environment each holding a card with an event in the country and the Teslamancer’s history. Collecting them all unlocks the final and secret ending, though the prize is really not worth the effort; though I suppose it does up the replay value for the completionists.

This is a visually beautiful game and the art style and direction is wonderful, from the gloomy and dreary streets of Elektropia, to the derelict tower entrance and its machine-and-furnace-laden bowels to the bright and sunny exteriors near the top of the tower. Alongside this beautiful design is the fantastic score, with very atmospheric pieces and plenty with a clear Russian folk-music inspiration. There are tones and melodies and instruments that’ll be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever heard any piece of traditional Russian music.

The hand-drawn scenery is littered with little details that give you the world’s background.

In Teslagrad, Rain Games has a hit, a fantastic challenging game that delivers hours of pleasure despite some poor design choices with bosses and a rather weak plot. It’ll be interesting to see what else they can come up for this new universe of theirs, as this is surely but a taste of what the continent of Croma can offer in terms of engaging gameplay mechanics.

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Ether One is a first-person adventure from White Paper Games that deals with the fragility of the human mind. In order to help a patient suffering from dementia, players take on the role of a Restorer with the aim of repairing their memories of times gone past.

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White Paper Games was formed in the summer of 2011. Each member of the team worked from home for the first eighteen months of their initial title’s development, alongside part-time jobs. A funding grant from Abertay University helped them to get a studio space together to develop the ideas they had for their game, and at the same time their gameplay trailer racked up over 350,000 views on YouTube. It then took a further year to complete the title and Ether One was finally released on 25 March 2014.

After receiving an email from game designer Pete Bottomley, I started playing Ether One on my way to Rezzed this year. It’s not often I’m so immediately hooked by a modern adventure game – I had to set my alarm to make sure I didn’t miss my stop on the train because I knew I was getting too engrossed. We had the pleasure of chatting to the guys from White Paper Games at the expo and they kindly took the time out of their schedule to chat to us; and I came away from Birmingham nominating their game for my best of Rezzed 2014 pick because my initial impressions were so good. Now, time for a full review…

In this first-person adventure, players take on the role of a Restorer: someone who is contracted to immerse themselves in peoples’ minds and repair them from within. The patient you’re currently helping, Jean, is suffering from dementia and their memories are fragmented, so it’s your job to travel through their recollections of the small mining town of Pinwheel. Collecting memory fragments represented by red ribbons around the picturesque location will in theory restore your patient’s mind; but there are complications and, as said in the trailer, what the mind thinks the heart transmits.

There are two paths in the world of Ether One that you can choose from and this has the benefit of making it a game that’s easily accessible by players of all experience levels. At its core is an exploration direction which is free from puzzles and you can take this if you wish to unfold the plot at your own pace. Finding all of the memory fragments in each of the four areas unlocks a core memory which reveals more about your patient’s history and these are what drive you through the main story.

Find all of the memory fragments in an area to unlock a core memory.

In fact, such exploration is encouraged and it’s a joy to discover all of the newspaper clippings, journal entries and memos left throughout Pinwheel in drawers, desks and on noticeboards by its residents. They give you some insight into their personalities and relationships, and add plenty of colour to the environment. It’s pretty easy to get lost in the town and I found the industrial area of Brimclif quite confusing; you’ll spend time trying to get your bearings and remembering where side-quests are, and so the addition of a map would have been welcome. However, this, along with the fact that the notes scattered around the locations are out of order, adds to the sense of confusion and respectfully highlights the patient’s battle with dementia.

Ether One’s other path is a deeper, more adventurous one in which you can complete challenges to restore the life-changing events of your patient’s history in order to help the validation of their life. Throughout the game you’ll find twenty broken projectors around Pinwheel and, if you manage to solve a puzzle, they’ll reassemble themselves and reward you with a further memory. Fixing these machines isn’t necessary to progress but they do add a lot to the overall plot. I found this optionality to be a good thing, as what’s needed to crack the challenges isn’t always entirely clear; and I can see how this could leave some players frustrated if the projectors were a mandatory requirement.

Solving a puzzle to restore a projector will reward you with a further memory.

These puzzles require you to place items in specific places or remember a code that you found on a note in a different location. This makes for a title that’s replayable as you’ll find yourself wanting to master all of the projectors, but this goal can be very difficult to achieve due to the challenges’ lack of clarity. For example, in one area I found a game of tic-tac-toe on the floor and was able to draw markers in the squares but I couldn’t figure out the combination; then later while I was exploring, I found a sign featuring noughts-and-crosses and took the clue from this. I loved the mysteriousness of Ether One and am inclined to feel that any kind of ‘hand-holding’ would have detracted from this. But sometimes the title’s cryptic nature works against you, and it can leave you scratching your head in confusion.

The instinct of a typical adventure gamer (myself included here) is to take everything that isn’t nailed down in case it’s needed at a later stage. Whilst completing Ether One’s tutorial I was a little disappointed to discover you’re only able to hold one item at a time, but fear not hoarders – White Paper Games have a clever trick up their sleeves! At the tap of a button, you’re able to teleport between your patient’s memories and a location called ‘The Case’ at any time. This is a central hub acts as a storage space for all the objects you pick up in Pinwheel, and you can also return here to review important notes and watch any projector reels you’ve unlocked. It kind of reminded me of Myst’s library, a centre point within the game world.

The Case acts as a central hub, kind of like Myst’s library.

However, it can be a little difficult to tell which items you’ll actually need and there plenty scattered around the four areas that can be picked up. Whereas in some adventures it’s easy to tell which objects are important, either through a subtle difference in shading or something more obvious such as a glow, in Ether One they all look the same. This means that the Case can become littered with random junk such as cups, hats, and numerous bottles from the village pub. Although this may seem nonsensical, it does add something to the game’s theme of dementia; you can only guess at the meaning behind some of the items and can never be sure if one will be important to you.

During your exploration of Pinwheel, you’ll be guided by the voice of Dr Phyllis. One minute she’ll be reprimanding you for slowing down her progress or not helping her research to succeed sooner, and the next she’ll be concerned for you and sharing intimate details of her past. Her speech goes from condescending, to elated, to sad and this adds to the feeling that she isn’t entirely trustworthy; but she’s your only companion on your journey so you’ll have to put up with her. The game implies that she isn’t entirely what she seems but you’re never given enough information to explain her behaviour or identity. I would have loved to have found out a little more about the tetchy doctor and her motives.

The locations featured in Ether One are gorgeous water-colours.

I absolutely loved Ether One’s art style: beautiful water-colour graphics that look like a cross between Fable and BioShock. There’s one particularly lovely section that takes place in a church, and the light from stained-glass windows can be seen on objects and the floor. Each of the abandoned areas open to you, along with the Case and your patient’s memories, feel almost haunted, and knowing that you’re exploring someone else’s mind is bound to send a shiver up your spine. Many comparisons have been made between this game and Gone Home or Dear Ester but the one that struck me were its similarities to Myst; not just in that Pinwheel features a harbour complete with lighthouse, but in the visual style, puzzle feel and sense of atmosphere too.

Whilst we were at Rezzed this year, Phil had the opportunity to play the title using the Oculus Rift. He found it to be the one of the best implementations of virtual reality (VR) technology at the expo but it was extremely difficult to view any messages; environments looked gorgeous and highly detailed but notes were awkward to read without having to turn your head in all directions. However, White Paper Games recently released an update aimed specifically at improving the VR experience of Ether One.

Another high point for the game is the voice acting, particularly that for Jean and Dr Phyllis who always manage to create the impression they know more about what’s going on than you do. I did manage to figure out that the actress was the same for both characters (Elspeth Edmonds) but I don’t think this detracted from the experience. The rest of the sounds are very well done, both music and effects alike; the tracks are short and repetitive when listened to solely, but add the sound the sea lapping against the shore, the seagulls crying above and the whispering of a memory fragment close by, and they become understated and full of character.

Overall, I enjoyed my adventure with Ether One. At times I became lost, the areas too large and puzzles too unclear, and I grew tired of exploring; but there’s a fantastic sense of atmosphere and it’s a wonderful experience of what it would be like exploring someone else’s mind. It’s great to see a subject matter as serious as dementia tackled in such a respectful way, and I applaud White Paper Games on a marvellous first project. I look forward to seeing what else they come up with in the future.

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Explodemon is a puzzle-platformer developed by Curve Studios and released in 2011. It stars the eponymous Explodemon, a superhero that solves his problems by blowing up either at will or on a timer, and who speaks in broken English reminiscent of the time of bad game translations.

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Developed by Curve Studios, Explodemon began as an engine prototype developed by design director Johnathan Biddle in his free time. He described it as: “…what Treasure would look like if they mixed Yoshi’s Island with Half Life 2. It contains many elements from games as diverse as Street Fighter II, Halo, Super Metroid and Bangai-O.” Originally set for a 2009 release, it was delayed for another two until its 2011 release.

Frankly, when I first learnt of this title the first thing that struck me was the name. I hated it right away for no real reason, just disliked it. But you can’t judge a game by its name, and what I saw in screenshots and videos impressed me enough to give it a shot.

Explodemon opens up with all the exposition you’re going to need: evil aliens called the Vortex have come to Nibia to conquer / destroy. The Nibian rulers will surrender since their protectors, the Nibian Guardians, are all gone except for Explodemon. This guardian was placed in stasis for its destructive tendencies and if released would cause even more destruction than the invaders. Just as the king is saying this however, a ship crashes into the containment unit releasing Explodemon, who doesn’t really seem to care much for saving the world. The plot doesn’t go anywhere beyond the initial premise, and it develops in the most predictably clichéd ways. What saves the almost nonexistent writing is the humour and, more specifically, the guardian’s strange Engrish / mistranslation speech pattern with some hilarious conversations and quotes.

The gameplay revolves around Explodemon’s namesake’s ability to detonate himself, either at will or after a set number of seconds. You use this ability to increase jumping distances, to dash, fight opponents, break through barriers and propel objects. As for the platforming and navigation, it handles reminiscent to Mega Man. While the concept is good, the repetitiveness of the stages and challenges and puzzles in general is so great, the game will become tedious very soon. There are a total of twelve stages and they become increasingly annoying, with the last two adding an old-school bad platforming design gem: the rising pools of death, in this case acid.

Absordemon is the only boss you’ll fight… just over and over again.

Boss fights are the worst part of the game as they consist of fighting the same enemy each time, using the same basic strategy and making each fight progressively more tedious than the one before. Sadly, the repetitiveness on levels themselves is a recurring theme in this title. You know a game is dull when being over-caffeinated (as I was) doesn’t help you stay awake while playing. Explodemon might be responsible for one of the greatest sins in the world: making explosions boring.

Visually, while the game might not be the prettiest out there, it’s bright and colorful environments are striking, and reminiscent of old-school platformers. This is especially true of the Mega Man series, from which Explodemon seems to draw heavy inspiration. Each planet has their own distinct visual design, helping each world feel fresh and new; at least until you realise you’re playing the same stages over and over again as the variety of puzzles is too low to keep you interested. On the sound side of the equation, it leaves much to be desired with both the music and sound effects becoming increasingly grating – to the point that you’ll probably play without sound.

Blowing up should be fun, but the game makes it boring.

Explodemon had has an interesting concept: platforming and combat using a self-immolating hero. While the hilariousness of the character’s speech helps keep you entertained, the repetitiveness and lack of variety of concepts in its gameplay design keep it from being truly good. Instead, it becomes so repetitive it’s a chore to finish. But if you feel yourself enamoured by what Explodemon has to offer, then the game has plenty for you to keep playing; with plenty of collectibles, upgrades to purchase (none of which felt really significant), and stage scores to beat and speedruns.

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Ben has handed over reviewing duties to his much more glamourous wife for this one. She has taken to the slopes to look back at a classic from when extreme sports ruled the roost. How have the crazy stunts, funky soundtracks and larger than life characters fared?

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This game is the reason I have problems with my shoulders. I was once left unattended with a PlayStation 2 and a copy of SSX Tricky whilst my then boyfriend (now husband!) went out to work. He left me lying on my front on the bed in his room, playing the title whilst propped up on my elbows. He came back home to find me in exactly the same position seven hours later.

This game was the first thing that made me pick up a controller – having been a solid PC-only gamer for many, many years, I had no interest whatsoever in console releases. But the ability to pick your own character from amongst a number of female protagonists, mould them to your style of play and, to a certain extent, mould their appearance – it finally appealed.

There is a character within SSX Tricky to suit almost anyone. They all look distinctive and have decidedly different personalities, but it is the fact that they have the voices of famous actors and celebrities (Lucy Liu, Macy Gray, Billy Zane and David Arquette to name but a few) that truly brings them to life. The characters interact at the beginning or end of some races, which adds a little bit of plot to it, but to be honest it’s mostly about the boarding.

There are four modes of gameplay: World Circuit, Single Event, Freeride and Practice. The first is where you can unlock new characters, venues and equipment, through racing and riding in Showoff events. Single Event takes one event from the World Circuit series, and means you can play against a second human player for medals but cannot progress your character’s outfits or equipment. Practice is exactly that – learn how to control your character before doing an event for real; and Freeride mode allows you a second human on the course but no medals.

It’s tricky tricky tricky!

World Circuit mode consists of two competitions: Race or Showoff. When racing, you are up against five other characters on the slope at the same time as you, some of whom have a pre-existing rivalry with you; other rivalries you can create yourself. You choose whom you cross, and they become aggressive towards you or not as your choices dictate. There are also shortcuts (red or blue glass screens to smash through) that can take a few attempts of getting to but are well worth the effort in time saved when you do. You can easily go from last in the race to first if you take one when everyone else goes down the marked course route! When you get left behind after hitting tree after tree after rock after pylon, there is a chance to catch up; but it doesn’t ever seem unfair like it can do in some other games (mentioning no names… Daytona).

In Showoff mode, you have the same basic course as the race but with extra ramps, rails, wires and points boosts (the giant snowflakes that are hanging around in the sky) to help get your score up and to fill your boost bar. You do so by tricking and when full, a little bit of Run DMC plays (another reason I love this game, the soundtrack is really good); this lets you know you may now perform an Uber Trick (essentially a more long-winded and therefore higher points-scoring trick). Pull off one six times during the course of the descent, and your boost stays permanently full – thus allowing you to speed boost, and Uber Trick to your heart’s content until you cross the finish line. On all of the game modes, DJ Razhel does a voiceover and commentates on your tricks as you pick your way down the mountain. He also gives you hints as to what will give you better points.

Perform tricks to get your score up and to fill your boost bar.

All the while in either Race or showoff Mode, in the background is your trick book. Each time you nail one of the tricks in your trick book you get an entry – move up a level, and you get new equipment (cooler outfits).

The graphics these days look only a bit dated; and for a game that is the thick-end of thirteen-years old, it’s an amazing achievement. There is differentiation between different types of snow and ice, different times of day and night, grandstands, and every slope comes with its own distinctive feel.

The sound quality is excellent still after all this time. With little snippets of Run DMC’s It’s Tricky and DJ Rahzel, some well known tunes, and also different sounds depending on what you’re boarding on at the time (powder sounds different to ice, for example), the sound quality only enhances the whole feel of the game and allows you to immerse yourself in it fully.

The combination of Showoff, Race and trick book was more than enough to keep me entertained for a long while. The controls are pretty intuitive, even for a total novice. I think the fact that you start off as a novice character and then noticeably improve in skill, as well as gaining new equipment to help you improve (or even just look pretty) felt like the progression was significant enough to keep you feeling like you were achieving, yet gradual enough to keep driving you to get the next thing. SSX Tricky wasn’t the first snowboarding game, nor was it the last. But it certainly improved upon the original SSX, and raised the bar of expectation for other snowboarding titles released after it.

The concept and controls of the title have definitely stood the test of the past years. If the graphics were HD-ready and tweaked in the most minor way, the game would still in my view be pretty current. It’s not as involved as some releases, and certainly not as heavy on the plot details as others, but it’s still a great (and addictive!) game. I say this as someone who has just picked up the controller for the first time in seven years to play it, and has enjoyed it and wants to play more. So much so that I’m going out to buy myself a PS2 memory card (lost memory card = lost Uberboard!) as soon as possible so I can start progressing (and saving) my character all over again. Not bad for a game that was released well over a decade ago.

I picked up a controller for the first time in seven years to play this.

I played this mostly on the PS2 but was forced to play it on the Xbox when the original console died, and didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. When slimline PS2s were released, this seemed like a good excuse to justify buying a new one – specifically just for this game. And it was my console – not my husband’s. It still is my console – because I never allowed him to trade it in, specifically because of SSX Tricky.

Once you’ve got one character to uber level, you can start on the next one. And the next one. And, if you’re me, you can properly kiss goodbye to your shoulder ligaments.

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Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is the second installment in the Metroid Prime trilogy. This time we follow Samus after she receives a contract to locate and help Galactic Federation Marines stranded on the planet Aether, a planet currently at war with itself; split in half into Light and Dark parallel worlds.

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Note: Images might not reflect the visuals on the Wii version, as the two versions make it difficult to isolate images for each.

After Metroid Prime’s success, Nintendo commissioned Retro Studios to create a sequel, for which the design team at Retro focused on the themes of light and dark, making the game about ‘push and pull’ as Senior Designer Mike Wikan stated: “We wanted a push and pull, the whole game is pushing and pulling you back and forth between the dark and the light. It ended up being that we wanted something that would feed into that dichotomy, that conflict between the two, and how the player’s basic abilities reflect that.” In designing this game, Retro asked advice from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past producers, since their game also used a twin-dimension theme. Metroid Prime 2 had a very strict deadline for holidays of 2014, and with the game at 30% completion three months before release, Retro had to work extremely hard to release a finished product that maintained the level of quality expected of them.

Metroid Prime might be one of my favourite games (I don’t really have a specific list, just games I love, but this one is way up there) so when Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was released, I bought it in an instant and once again settled myself behind Samus’ visor while we explored the deepest corners of Aether – both sides of it.

You’ll be jumping through these a lot, going from Light to Dark Aether.

As she enters Aether’s atmosphere, Samus’ gunship (which in this game is modelled after the Super Metroid one) is caught in a fierce electromagnetic storm, the same one that made the Federation soldiers incapable of communicating with their superiors. Lightning strikes the ship and she’s forced to make an emergency landing.

After a brief exploration, Samus jumps down a hole into an underground Federation outpost, where she finds all soldiers dead, but not for long. Suddenly, gateways appear all around her and dark clouds swirl around the corpses,possessing them and raising them as undead, something not uncommon in Metroid games. After fighting them off, Samus confronts her doppelganger, Dark Samus, a figure in a matte black Chozo Powesuit, draining Phazon from an area. Dark Samus quickly jumps through a newly formed portal and Samus follows, finding herself on Dark Aether, where the very air is corrosive. She manages to make her way back to Light Aether quickly, but not before Ing, the native creatures of Dark Aether and the entities possessing the soldiers, swarm her and steal her gear from her.

The Ing come in various shapes but none of them are exactly harmless. They’re also very tough.

Back in Aether, Samus makes her way to the main temple finding U-Mos, a Luminoth Sentinel, the planet’s sentient species, who tasks Samus with recovering the planet’s energy from Dark Aether so that the other dimension might cease to exist.

As you can see, the opening of Metroid Prime 2 is significantly more complex from its predecessor which is exactly what the developers intended, opting for a more immersive storytelling, having more cutscenes and explaining plot, moving away from the Space Pirate and Metroid themes (though both appear in the game, just not on center stage) from previous games while still remaining within the plot they’d crafted for the Metroid Prime trilogy. The story itself has few surprises and is a straightforward affair but that doesn’t make it less interesting, as you’re constantly kept interested by both the exposition cutscenes, spoken or not, and the large variety of logs from Luminoth and Federation alike. As the second in the trilogy, it makes an interesting choice of making Phazon and Dark Samus almost secondary to the main plot, while still making them important, the latter especially so considering a Phazon meteor like as the one that struck Tallon IV in Metroid Prime is responsible for splitting the planet in two dimensions. Dark Samus advances the Prime plot but switches back and forth between secondary and main villain, keeping you guessing on exactly what is going on which I think is the most brilliant aspect about Metroid Prime 2’s storytelling.

Light Aether favours earthy tones, though temple areas like this one feel imposing and intimidating.

In audiovisual terms, Metroid Prime 2 features a fantastic soundtrack with both high tempo and soothing tones for the different areas following a theme that matches the zone. For example, Torvus bog’s background music is water themed, a gentle melody accompanied by a rhythmic echoing beat that reminds you of deep water; the Sky Fortress’ theme is an upbeat techno piece for a high-tech futuristic setting, matching it perfectly. Dark Aether on the other hand features remixes of its light counterparts featuring lower and darker tones. As for sound effects, they keep the same high standard from Metroid Prime, though the ‘corrosive damage’ sound effect can get on your nerves (especially if you keep dying on the same boss because you play it on Hypermode difficulty).

Visually, the most impressive thing about Metroid Prime 2 is how distinct and unique the twin dimensions are; even considering their room layout is almost identical. Dark Aether is filled with deep shades of red and purple and a predominance of black, and shadows, giving it an oppressive and vile vibe and you’ll want to leave and go back to the light world as soon as possible to return to the familiar and comforting tones of Light Aether.

The Light Suit looks awesome!

The dichotomy of the twin sides of Aether is central to the game, not only in story but also on gameplay. Dark Aether’s air is toxic and corrosive, but there are safe havens in the Luminoth crystals spread around the environment in which you heal; but on Aether while the air is safe almost every room is fraught with dangers, and there are no safe zones. Light Aether’s containers often release dangerous clouds that deal damage if you’re close to them, but the containers on Dark Aether are completely safe. The two dimensions are at war and their inhabitants can’t coexist, but to advance in one world you often need to activate devices in the other.

Gameplay wise is where I have a few issues with the game recycling concepts from its predecessor, with Samus starting out with most of her gear and losing it almost immediately leaving players with only the basics, though it’s not as critical as it is in Prime, as you get to keep the Varia Suit (which you’ll exchange for two completely new and original suits, the last one being the coolest looking armour in Metroid history). It’s a valid gating mechanic, but I would’ve preferred they’d found another way of restricting your progress than losing your gear yet again. Another low point was the reuse of the ‘Final Boss Keys’ from the first game, in which you needed to collect artefacts to open the way to Tallon IV’s core. In Metroid Prime 2, you must collect keys to open the way to where the final boss is. On the visor side, the Dark Visor seems mostly like an X-Ray visor re-skin, and less useful than its predecessor.

Bosses in this game make those in Metroid Prime seem pathetically easy.

Aside from that, Metroid Prime 2 does manage to expand on the Prime gameplay, adding the Wall Jump and Screw Attack abilities, the latter requiring you to Screw Attack into especially designed surfaces that only have their scarcity as a flaw. The Screw Attack allows you to extend a jump considerably while being completely lethal to almost anything you touch. In terms of returning abilities, Metroid Prime 2 allows you to combine the Boost and Spider Morphball abilities allowing you to propel yourself from a railing, a mechanic that sees considerable use and has made me giggle with excitement from the first moment I saw it all those years ago. Another new ability coming in is the Seeker Missile upgrade, allowing Samus to target up to five enemies with missiles before launching the barrage.

Metroid Prime 2 is a very challenging game and unlike its predecessor, in which the real challenge where only the bosses, here everything can be extremely lethal if you’re not careful, doubly so on Dark Aether where your health will deplete at a worrisome rate just by not being in a protective bubble. Retro added plenty of mini-bosses to the game in addition to main bosses, giving players a wider array of unique and challenging encounters, and dying on them is quite possible especially on Hypermode difficulty where the damage ramps up to ludicrous levels.

The Sky fortress is all about high-tech!

For the first time in a Metroid game your beams have ammo. As you progress through the game you’ll find both the Dark and Light beams each carrying 50 ammo (though there are expansions). The Dark Beam can encase enemies in ‘dark matter’ or deal damage over time to certain creatures, while the Light beam supercharges Luminoth crystals and destroys creatures from Dark Aether while setting others on fire. Adding to the Light versus Dark theme: the two beams are co-dependent as enemies or objects destroyed by one beam give you ammo for the other.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is also the first Metroid game to feature multiplayer allowing players to take control of multiple Samus clones in deathmatch games, featuring all of the Bounty Hunters’ abilities. It’s a very fun experience, if not a very deep one.

Dark Samus packs quite a punch and if you’re not careful, she’ll take you out!

Metroid Prime 2 is a highly addictive and entertaining game and a worthy second entry in the Metroid Prime trilogy. While it does reuse a few concepts, the interesting theme of Light versus Dark on which it focuses and the new mechanics it brings to the table make it a completely new experience from its predecessor that never feels like a rehash.

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Beyond: Two Souls is Quantic Dream’s latest offering from October 2013. It’s an odd mix of supernatural drama, espionage thriller, action film and horror movie; but would it be one we’d enjoy?

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Quantic Dream CEO David Cage first announced Beyond: Two Souls at Sony’s press conference during the E3 Expo in 2012. Like his earlier games which have been called ‘wrought psychological thrillers’, emotional narrative was an important point during the development of this latest title. In March 2013 it was announced that it had been made an ‘Official Selection’ for the Tribeca Film Festival, pipped to the first video game post only by Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire which was chosen by the event back in 2011.

Our first experience of playing Beyond was at the Eurogamer Expo last year during which we had the opportunity to attend a developer session hosted by Cage. Phil actually chose the game as his best of the event after playing the demo, praising its quality and how realistic the main characters looked compared to the actors themselves; however, he did have some concerns that the action was mostly made up of quick-time events (QTEs) and the story felt linear despite being advertised as having branching paths.

We’ve gotten into the habit of picking a game and playing this through to completion in as few sittings as possible, whilst streaming the whole thing on Twitch (thank you to close who regularly join us!). Our most recent pick was Quantic Dream’s latest offering after learning that it had a co-op mode. With me taking the reigns as the main character, Phil backing me up as sidekick, and the support of Kevin and Tim online, we got so hooked that we ended up completing the title in only two sessions.

Beyond tells the story of Jodie Holmes who, since birth, has been linked to an unbreakable spectral presence named Aiden. She grows from nervous child to self-reliant young adult over a fifteen-year narrative arc and throughout this time, her spiritual guardian watches over her while veering between violent jealousy and fierce protectiveness. Those around the pair struggle to understand their relationship and seek to use their power to fulfil their own selfish needs with little regard for the consequences. To say anything more would be to spoil the amazing storyline plot so we’ll leave it here for now.

Jodie has been linked to entity Aiden since her birth.

What I will say though is that the way the relationship is portrayed is absolutely stunning and you can’t help but become immensely attached to these characters. Jodie clearly loves Aiden and relies on him for both safety and comfort; but she’s weary of their constant bond and wishes she was just a ‘normal girl’. The entity thinks of her as his charge and watches over her at all times; but he can become possessive and is prone to fits of jealousy, leaving others vulnerable to his violent outbursts. It’s the usual case of not being able to live together but being unable to live without one another. Ellen Page was perfectly cast in the role of Jodie and this has to be one of the best performances in a video game I’ve ever seen – more about this later.

In a structure that Cage referred to as ‘chronological disorder’, scenes are experienced out of sequence: for example, one minute players are controlling Jodie while she’s undergoing telepathy tests in a lab as a child while in the next she’s a teenager on the run from government forces. When Beyond was released I read a number of reviews from people criticising the developer’s approach, claiming that it gave the title a schizophrenic feeling and left them trying to catch up with the narrative.

Aiden’s temper can leave others vulnerable to his violent outbursts.

But this really wasn’t the case for us. The more we played, the more we discovered the truth behind Jodie and Aiden’s relationship and how they got into the situation witnessed in the opening sequence. It held our interest because we never knew what was coming next; and we didn’t find the chronological disorder to be disorientating because each scene is fairly self-contained. It gave us glimpses in to the character’s lives and we were kept delightfully intrigued trying to piece the central threads of the story together.

You may have noticed that so far I’ve concentrated only on plot and this is for good reason: unfortunately a lot of players will find Beyond’s gameplay lacking. Whilst playing as Jodie you move exactly as a human does, inspecting items, walking through rooms and talking to people and your movements can be a bit limited. During action scenes such as foot chases or hand-to-hand combat, time slows down and you must move the right-stick in the same direction as our heroine’s body in order to perform the required move.

Easy mode’s directional arrows can be useful, but they detract from the gameplay.

So yes, this is pretty much a new take on those good old QTEs. Jodie’s body isn’t always easy to read and you only have a couple of seconds in which to do so; I occasionally found myself ducking instead of kicking or moving backwards instead of forwards. I struggled with completing the assault course section in particular and it took me several attempts to get over a damn wall! However, put Beyond on easy mode and helpful directional arrows will be displayed on the screen, although this has the unfortunate consequence of highlighting the limited gameplay even further.

However, you have a little more freedom whilst playing as Aiden – seeing as he’s a spirit and isn’t bound by the same rules us as mere mortals. He can fly through the air and even through walls, fling objects when he’s feeling angry or violent, and can inhabit the bodies of the people around him to make them do his bidding (which is pretty toe-curling the first time you see him force someone to commit suicide). He is however tied to Jodie by a supernatural link and can only move so far ahead of her, although the distance isn’t always consistent; it seems to change depending on where Quantic Dream want you to and to not go.

The distance Aiden can travel seems to be different in each scene.

As mentioned above, Beyond includes a two-player mode and we really enjoyed this. It’s the same as playing the game in single player except one controls Jodie while the other takes on Aiden. While some reviewers have complained that this means one player is forced to wait until it’s their turn for some action, we found that it emphasised the title’s central theme: the conflict of two beings with an unbreakable link that are totally reliant on each other. And besides, we were so engrossed in the storyline that we hardly noticed these moments of downtime.

You’re able to switch between Jodie and Aiden at will – but only in those situations that the developer wants you to. For example, there were some situations where our heroine was clearly in danger but when we tried to call on her protector for help, he was nowhere to be found (maybe he’s just stubborn?). Aiden’s usefulness is determined on a contextual basis by Quantic Dream and this breaks your immersion in the storyline a little; although if you could constantly call on a violent spirit for assistance, the difficulty level would be non-existent.

At some points where it seems obvious to switch to Aiden, you won’t be able to.

Beyond can seem very linear, but in the developer session at last year’s Eurogamer Expo it was revealed that scenes have different outcomes depending on your actions. You can decide whether to let a slight go or act out your revenge; you can choose to be truthful or evasive, and whether or not to let people get close. Your choices will affect how sections play out and steer the game towards one of twenty-three endings so there’s definitely some replayability value here. But that’s providing you’re prepared to go through such a roller-coaster of a story more than once… or you can just watch them all on YouTube.

While I love games with multiple paths, the thing I didn’t like about Beyond’s choices was that they never really seemed critical. For example, in one scene Jodie is preparing for a date and you have to select her outfit, what she’ll cook for dinner, and whether she tidies her apartment; yet in another, she’s instructed to kill a man and you have no choice in the matter. It feels as if the story will storm onwards regardless of what you do and you’re never really shown what the consequences of your actions are. I would have loved to have seen some really tough decisions to add a little more drama to the gameplay.

Both Page and Willem Dafoe, who stars as government scientist Nathan Dawkins, spent weeks filming in Quantic Dream’s advanced motion capture studio. They had ninety reflective markers placed on their faces throughout the capture sessions in a room ringed by sixty-five cameras, all in the name of getting hyper-realistic expressions. Shooting took over a year with more than 23,000 unique animations created – and the hard work has definitely paid off, with one of the most convincing digital performances we’ve ever seen.

The characters, particularly Jodie, are absolutely stunning and so realistic: at times you feel almost as if Page is on the screen and you’re watching her in a movie. Details such as freckles, scars and hairs are all highlighted and the title is one of the best-looking we’ve ever played. One of our favourite thing about Beyond’s visuals were the walking animations; rather than a repeated set of animations, Jodie kicks at the floor, rubs her arms, and looks around while you’re moving her forward.

Beyond: Two Souls is absolutely stunning – everything looks so real.

As mentioned above, Page was perfectly cast in the role of Jodie and this has to be one of the best performances in a video game. She’s a capable actress who takes on Beyond’s crazy twists and delivers her lines with complete sincerity. The best scenes drama-wise are often those which are more quiet and show day-to-day human life; we particularly loved the section where our heroine falls in with a homeless group and helps them to survive. Page’s performance keeps you rooting for Jodie all the way and it’s principally thanks to her that you’ll feel a lump in your throat at the title’s climax.

Like Heavy Rain before it, Beyond: Two Souls pushes the boundaries of what a video game can be; some players will find that they consider it barely a game at all. It’s an unusual mix of interactive story, supernatural drama, espionage thriller, action film and horror movie – but it’s never less than compelling. If you want a ‘quieter’ experience in terms of gameplay and want to enjoy a title with a friend, this is definitely one you shouldn’t miss.

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It’s time for 1001-Up.com to embrace the new wave of consoles with a review of the PS4 exclusive inFAMOUS Second Son. Is it truly a new experience for the new generation or same old, same old?

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Right, lets get it out of the way: inFAMOUS Second Son is gorgeous. It’s beautiful. It shows off what developers can do with PlayStation 4 hardware in the early days of the console. The particle effects are stunning, the motion-captured animation (especially the faces) is wonderful and Sucker Punch Production’s recreation of Seattle is an exercise in attention to detail. It runs smoothly too even with explosions, bad guys and destructible environments flying around.

That said, there are the very occasional moments of slow-down, most often when using one of the smart bomb attacks in a densely populated area. It might explain why a recent update to the game offers an option to lock the frame rate to thirty frames per second if that’s your thing. Even so, this title is utterly gorgeous and I’ve lost count of the number of times I just stopped and enjoyed the view.

Now that we’ve got the pretty out of the way, we can talk about the game proper. It’s set in the same world established by the first two inFAMOUS games on the PlayStation 3 where certain humans, called Conduits, have developed super powers. Whereas in the first two instalments you took control of Cole McGrath who very reluctantly accepted his powers, in this game you’re playing as Delsin Rowe who embraces them.

As a protagonist it works much better. Delsin’s sense of fun and enjoyment from his gifts translates into how you interact with the game. I feel I enjoyed this one much more than the others because with Cole it always felt like a grind, whereas Delsin’s attitude made me want to soar with him. It’s a good thing really as the plot becomes fairly formulaic after a strong start. I definitely enjoyed meeting other conduits along the way though, and their back stories were all unique and tied in to their individual power sets.

Delsin’s attitude made me want to soar with him.

What really saves the story are the performances of Troy Baker as Delsin and Travis Willingham as his brother Reggie. All motion-captured, all acted in a studio and it shows. There’s a real chemistry between the two and the characters move in a wonderfully life-like way. If this is the way big budget games are going to go then I’m all for it. It’s also finally nudged Baker ahead of Nolan North as my favourite voice actor.

The other sounds and music are great too. The various powers all sound distinct and there’s a clever way the noise travels from the television to the speaker in the controller when absorbing energy to fuel your powers. The music is very context specific, ramping up in a firefight and chilling out when exploring the city.

There’s a real chemistry between Delsin and Reggie.

Of course, the big question is how does it play? Well, the same as the previous games but with a few refinements. You still have an uncanny ability to parkour your way around the town and a variety of powers that can keep you airborne, melee or shoot from a distance. I won’t spoil things by giving details on the various abilities you pick up but each different base type is distinct. The problem is, that’s the main differentiator. Attacks are too similar and while there was undoubtedly a power set I preferred, there was very rarely a time when I wanted, or needed, to switch to defeat a certain enemy or problem.

Sucker Punch Production have learned from previous iterations too. Traversing the city is much quicker as your powers now allow you to scale buildings rapidly which was always a pain in the backside in earlier games. They’ve also scaled back their tendency to throw dozens of enemies at you at any one point. It’s all very well to give you super-powers but if you can’t move for bullets and explosions it ruins the fun; thankfully that’s not the case here. Enemy numbers are just right to give a challenge but still let you feel powerful.

No point in giving you super-powers if you can’t move for bullets and explosions.

Still no duck or cover button, mind you. The game screams out for one, just like Assassin’s Creed does. Immensely frustrating.

The bottom line though is that this game is fun. I had a blast playing through it and will continue to do so and explore the secrets Seattle has to offer. If you have a PS4 then I can do nothing but recommend it; not only does it show off what your new toy can do but you’ll enjoy it at the same time. Just don’t expect anything new or groundbreaking… aside from the pretty.

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Metroid Fusion was the first in the series released on the Game Boy Advance and the first after Super Metroid. It features numerous changes from previous Metroid titles, not only in mechanics but on Samus herself, as the opening leaves her forever changed from the bounty hunter we’d come to know.

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Nintendo Research & Development 1, the team responsible for Super Metroid and the original Metroid, developed Metroid Fusion. During the game’s early stages and while brainstorming for ideas, Director Yoshio Sakamoto decided early on to focus on a new storyline instead of remaking an old game (which they would later do with Metroid: Zero Mission), as he felt new ideas would inspire and challenge their designers and developers and make them look forward to public reaction.

Metroid Fusion, along with Metroid Prime, were the first experiences I had with the franchise and, while the latter showed me what a 3D title could do and became my measuring stick for all 3D Metroid games to come, Fusion showed me what the core old-school gameplay was like. It hooked me onto Samus Aran and made me want to play all previous titles in the series, including the original on the NES.

The game opens up with Samus accompanying Federation scientists into planet SR388. While studying native species a strange parasite attacks them and leaves our heroine unconscious; Federation forces collect her and find her entire system is infected by this creature, codenamed Parasite-X. Worse still, it has made the biological and mechanical parts of her armour fuse together, forcing medical officers to surgically remove as much as possible and forever changing the appearance of her Chozo Powersuit. To save Samus from being consumed by the parasite, they inject her with a cure made from Metroid DNA to render her immune, as Metroids were Parasite-X’s predators. Better still, the DNA in her allows her to absord X’s to heal and recover her suit’s resources; but it comes at the price of inheriting the Metroids’ vulnerability to cold.

Unlike other games in the series, it’s not the lack of power-ups that stops your progress from one area to another. Instead you are given access levels, gradually opening up the way for you and making Fusion feel less open than you’d expect from Metroid titles. This mechanic supports the new mission structure, where your progress is objective-based; you’re sent to new locations, generally map rooms, to get the details on your current assignment which, while it is a valid plot structuring method, makes the game feel rather linear. It’s made even worse with the missions determining when you’ll get upgrades. Only expansions remain as a means to further exploration.

These locked doors don’t depend on weaponry, but on access level.

Apart from that downside, the game is solid in both control and mechanics, with Fusion taking the best of Super Metroid and bringing it to a new audience. In addition it adds the Parasite-X mechanics and the ice vulnerability into the mix, making for a familiar yet completely new experience even for Metroid veterans.

As for the plot, it’s not the most complex the plot in the series’ history, but it is very intriguing. This is especially the case once you are aware of Parasite-X’s ability to mimic the shape of any creature it has infected (all enemies and bosses you find are Xs, transformed into other beings), and you meet SA-X, the parasite version of Samus, made from the contaminated parts of her Powersuit the Federation removed.

SA-X looks like classic Samus and is just as deadly.

This was the first game to give Samus a voice, an opinion, in the form of written monologues during certain elevator rides as she reminisces about her past and considers the implications of her mission. The monologues give you a glimpse of what she is thinking without it ever taking precedence over the gameplay and the mission. That’s the reason they work, as they are only small moments of insight that neither break the character (which Metroid: Other M did) nor take away from the story.

Visually this is a beautifully-looking title but unlike Super Metroid, with its dark colours and shadows, Fusion opts for brighter colours. However, in places like the Space Station decks, these make the areas look almost sterile which, combined with how empty the place is, gives it all a very disturbing feel. The apparent lack of music, during your first moments in the station, supports this eerie feeling.

Thankfully these are still around, otherwise all upgrades would be story-dependent.

Metroid Fusion is a pretty damn good game with extreme linearity being its major flaw, the title gating your progress in an unnatural un-Metroid kind of way. But if you can look past it, the experience is fantastic and one all gamers should have, be they veterans or newcomers to the series.

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Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is the latest instalment in Ubisoft’s action-adventure series. But will the addition of pirates and sea-based gameplay revive this tiring franchise?

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I almost didn’t buy this gem of a game because Ubisoft have, over the various iterations of the series, managed to suck the fun out of the Assassin’s Creed series by effectively re-skinning the same title year after year. The mechanics were the same, the story was the same, the missions were the same; there was no innovation to the free-running (admittedly pretty darn strong to begin with though) or stealth systems (still inexcusably poor) which all added up to the same old, same old experience. Sure, they flirted with ship battles in Assassin’s Creed III but it wasn’t in the game enough to make a difference – especially with the slowest of slow-burn intros.

So why did I plump up £18 during the PSN 12 Days of Xmas sale? Well, it was reduced from £60 for a start and I had a voucher. Also, my daughter is mad for pirates at the moment. She’s into the best kids show on TV right now, Swashbuckle, always cheering and giving me a loud ‘Ahaaaaa’ and arm-swing when she believes I should be walking the plank which, as you can imagine, is regularly. That, and I’d been hearing good things about this game so bit the bullet and hit download.

Where do I start? With the bad stuff I suppose. The free-running still has monumentally aggravating moments of inaccuracy mostly, it seems, when you’re trying to dash from one hiding place to another or avoiding a guard. Instead of going where I intended I would end up leaping into a gaggle of officers or climbing up a wall, as a result being detected and having to start the mission over. Which leads on to the stealth.

My God Ubisoft, have you learned nothing? This is the sixth (by my count) game of the series and still the stealth is as ridiculously serviceable as is was in the first. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could just wander around killing people willy-nilly but no, every third mission or so has you tracking someone or eavesdropping on a conversation or sneaking up to assassinate. One detection by the eagle-eyed guards and it’s back to the beginning of the mission. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to see that nothing has been done to improve the mechanics (save for the addition of shrubbery) at all. I want to be able to hide, to watch the events unfold unseen, to learn and plot the guards’ movements from my hiding place and then… when the time is right… strike. Most importantly, I want choice. I’d also like the ability to crouch and / or sneak about instead of either walking or running, but hey.

Ha! They’ll never see me, I’m completely undetect- they saw me.

As a result of the systems the trailing and eavesdropping missions simply become, like in all the games before them, a matter of trial and error. Follow your target for a bit, get spotted, remember who spotted you, avoid them on the next run, get spotted by someone else, rinse and repeat.

What I’m trying to say is that the land missions are the worst part of this game by miles and they account for the majority of the story. Be warned. Of course, if you love the Assassin’s Creed land mechanics you’ll be pleased to hear that they’re the same as always so you’ll be right at home. The story is nonsense too and riddled with plot holes. Then again, I wasn’t really playing this game for the story. I wanted to be the Dread Pirate Ben!

Honestly, it’s a chaotic and crazy as this looks – exhilarating stuff.

Now onto the good stuff: pirates! I can’t kick Ubisoft for doing things badly and then not praise them for doing something so right. Being a pirate is brilliant. Epic ship battles with the roar of cannons, and the sound splintering of wood and cheers from your crew is spectacular. The exhilaration of boarding scuppered Spanish or British vessels and taking their crew is superb and a moment where the free-running mechanics come into their own, and even just cruising the Caribbean belting out sea shanties is unbelievably good.

Once you get your mitts on your ship, The Jackdaw, you can sail the seas to your heart’s content, plundering ships, forts, settlements and uncharted islands at will. You can even hunt for whales in your little rowboat armed only with harpoons and your piratey chest hair – garrrr! Countless times I was on my way to the next story mission when I’d spy a ship on the horizon, or an undiscovered island and set a course for it. If there was booty to be had it was going to be plundered by Captain Edward Kenway and his men.

Hunt whales armed only with harpoons and your piratey chest hair.

You even steal yourself a nice little cove from which you can base your operations and upgrade your own shanty town as well as The Jackdaw. You also have to hunt and skin animals to craft better armour, an ideal clearly lifted from Far Cry 3, and once you have scuppered a few ships you can send them to your fleet. This opens up a mini-game where you can send your ships out to different parts of the world to trade, battle and earn you money.

Here’s the kicker – once you add on the pirating aspect to the game you can split up your time on sea and on land and suddenly you find yourself being much more forgiving of the clunky stealth and erratic free-running. There’s a nice break up between gameplay types and just as you find yourself tiring of one you can go and explore using the other. It works a charm and that’s why I think this is undoubtedly the best Assassin’s Creed game I’ve played.

You’ll find yourself being much more forgiving of the clunky stealth and free-running.

It’s also the most beautiful. Even on a PlayStation 3 it looks superb with lush islands, shanty towns, deserted beaches and the first hints of British colonialism in towns such as Kingston. The lighting effects are superb and the way the weather switches from glorious sun to horrific storm is great. Character movements are as fluid as you’ve seen in all the series but the real triumph is the sea. It ebbs and flows just as you expect, the boats rise and fall with the waves, giant waves will wash over the side of your ship just after they’ve been glimmering in the sun. It’s astonishing.

I was playing recently and I came across an uncharted island with flamingos on, I pointed it out to Mrs Ben and we stayed a few minutes to watch them and the moon come up in game. It sounds minor but they looked incredible and there was no real reason for the developer to include flamingos. The could have recycled the same set of seagulls circling each island but they haven’t. There are butterflies and all sorts. It’s an attention to detail that I notice and I love. It makes the world believable.

Pretty… oh so pretty…

The sound is top-notch too, especially the singing of the shanties. They boom out from your crew at every opportunity and there are so many to collect that it never gets repetitive. Not quite sure how every crew member I hired managed to have such a rich, deep and full tone to their voice, mind you. The boats creak and groan as wooden structures want to do and the towns and wildlife have the atmosphere you’d expect them to.

The only irk I had with the sound was when sword-fighting. Especially when facing several opponents at once or when in the chaos of boarding a ship, there would be a delay from seeing the swords clash and hearing the sound of metal on metal. It aggravated me every time.

You an actually do this!

As with all Assassin’s Creed games you have the meta concept of working for Abstergo and playing out the memories of one of your ancestors. The parts where you play ‘yourself’ are undoubtedly the weakest in the game and you’ll want to breeze through them as quickly as you can to get back on the ocean waves once more.

Ubisoft have also made it known that they’re going to be adding companion apps for most, if not all, of their upcoming titles. If you have an iPad (not sure if they’re on Android) I urge you to download the free app for this game. It will sync with what you’re playing and give you a live map, updates on all the stuff you unlock and you can even manage your fleet (very useful for making money) even when not connected. It’s the best example yet of connecting a console to a tablet and it makes me very encourages for the future.

Grand Theft Pirate.

Overall this is, in my opinion, the best Assassin’s Creed game yet. I wasn’t expecting to love it and yet I did simply because the inclusion of piracy and a truly open world offsets the tired and aging land moments. I’ve found it more enjoyable than the story mode of Grand Theft Auto V not because it’s better or worse but because it’s open world done differently and done brilliantly.

You know, I could have reviewed this in a single sentence: “Best game about pirates since Monkey Island 2. Loved it.”

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Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the conclusion for Retro Studios’ Metroid Prime trilogy, taking Samus to finally discover the true nature of Phazon. She must do so quickly, since its corruption is not just spreading around the galaxy but inside Samus herself.

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For the final entry in their trilogy, Retro Studios decided on larger environments than the ones in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. They also wanted to make sure it ran at 60 FPS, and that it made full use of both the Wii’s motion controller and always-online connectivity. Unlike the first two instalments, which had tight development deadlines the developer had to keep, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was released almost a year after its original release date so the game could be fine-tuned; this is especially true of the controls, which they admit took the most time. This is also the first Metroid game to feature voice acting and a lot of it. The only other is Metroid: Other M, but we don’t talk about that…

By the time the Wii was released I had already played not only the previous Prime titles, but had become a massive fan of the franchise having consumed Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission. So when the game was announced I was excited; when the first gameplay footage was revealed I fell in love; and when I first played it, I was blown away.

The game opens with a Space Pirate assault on the planet Norion, a Federation outpost. Samus and three other Bounty Hunters – Ghor, Rundas and Gandrayda – get the call and come in to support the Federation forces in reactivating the planetary defense systems, which the attack knocked offline. During the battle, a meteor-like object drops in from hyperspace and the bounty hunters race to the defense system controls. Before they can activate it however, Dark Samus shows up takes them out with one massive blast. Convinced of having stopped them, she / it leaves but Samus manages to turn on the planetary system before losing consciousness.

The title picks up a month later with Samus regaining consciousness and finding her powersuit changed, just not as radically as in Metroid Fusion. She finds there is now a second plate on top of her chest piece glowing with a strange and familiar blue light. Federation forces inform her they installed a PED unit on her (Phazon Enhancement Device) on her, which she’d previously seen on Federation forces during the assault. Dark Samus’ blast, it seems, corrupted the bounty hunters making them generate Phazon on their own, so the PED lets them use that inner Phazon to enhance their abilities without requiring a battery packs.

You’ll be using the grapple lasso a lot.

They also reveal the truth of the meteor seen at the start, and in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2. They aren’t meteors but living organisms called Leviathans, which fly through space until they strike a planet, spreading Phazon and its corruption everywhere. The Federation informs Samus that they lost contact with the other hunters who were sent to other planets hit by Leviathans to destroy them and stop the spread of the corruption, and Samus is ordered to finish the job.

The PED is central to the game’s mechanics. Like many creatures in the game Samus can enter hypermode, spending one Energy Tank to do so. While under its effects she’s virtually invulnerable and all her shots are Phazon-powered, dealing massive damage to enemies; but after the first few uses however, it’s revealed that the PED can make her corruption trigger. This locks her in hypermode and the energy increases, and if you don’t spend Phazon energy faster than it builds up it’s game over. But the buildup can be used strategically to extend hypermode until the thirty-second limit.

Elysia did rails years before BioShock Infinite!

Unlike the first two Prime games, Corruption finally stops opening with Samus having all her gear and then taking it away. Instead, she begins with all of her baseline equipment including morph ball bombs, and missiles and the grapple lasso are acquired during the Norion assault. The latter is the first stage in the grapple beam upgrade set and introduces a new mechanic for it where you can rip things off, from doors to shields to armor even.

Another point of difference is the lack of the multiple beam, the ‘+’ button used to trigger hypermode. Instead, each new beam replaces the previous one, with the plasma beam replacing your power beam; this also has a new use: welding. It doesn’t sound like fun but it actually is, and it shows how Samus’ powersuit can apply her weapons technology for nonviolent tasks. Her gunship does a lot more this time around, not only being a save and recharge point but also another weapon in her arsenal. Once upgraded, it can be used for bombing runs or to carry heavy objects from one place to another.

The bounty hunters!

This is a tough game on its own, with bosses and even enemies sometimes requiring precise shots to very small targets, for which the controls are especially suited for. You can lock on but still freely aim using the lock as a pivot point. Hypermode’s risk-reward can make or break a fight as you’re effectively losing a hundred points of health with each tank, but gaining up to thirty seconds of invulnerability and heightened damage. If you make it, you’ll put a dent or possibly kill the enemy or boss but if you fail you’ve just put yourself in a precarious position.

Metroid Prime 3 features achievements, each giving you Stickers of different colors which you then use in the menu to unlock art galleries and special features. Online connectivity allows you to share these with friends, which in turn nets you more stickers and allows you to unlock more things. Sadly, you can’t unlock all things on your own and must share with others.

The gunship looks so cool now.

On the plot side, it’s another moment of glory for Retro Studios as Corruption successfully closes the trilogy’s storyline. It gives a satisfying end to Phazon and Dark Samus and gets away with having a main villain that only physically shows during the prologue and end. Dark Samus appears in the Norion assault in a cinematic and at the endgame but she is present throughout, which is a very big storytelling achievement.

Visually this game is stunning with beautiful environments, from the stone-centered, ancient civilization-styles Bryyo to the Steampunk Chozo Floating City on Elysia to the acid-rain filled industrial Pirate Homeworld. Creature and character design is fantastic, and Dark Samus looks really intimidating this time around with Phazon blue highlights to her Black matte appearance. Matching the beautiful visuals is once again the fantastic audio, with yet another amazing soundtrack and top of the line voice acting.

As the corruption gets worse, Samus’ appearance changes.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is a stunning title, and a worthy ending to one of the best trilogies ever made in gaming. It keeps not only the level of quality players come to expect from Nintendo and Retro Studios games, but surpassing those expectations with a brilliantly developed release. Just as Prime reinvented and revitalised the Metroid series, this instalment revitalises and almost reinvents the Prime series itself.

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By creating a game that started an entire genre you have to expect some critical viewers to examine your game. Dungeon Keeper is a game that truly stands the test of time, although it is not without its faults.

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First released in 1997, Dungeon Keeper was the game that spawned the dungeon management genre. Don’t believe that’s real? You simply have to look at games such as Overlord and Evil Genius, both of which came after. It was therefore the father and what an introduction to a genre it was!

You play as an evil overlord and your goal throughout the title is to purge the land of all that is happy and good. To do so you must command you vast armies of minions to go and fight the bad good guys, and by specifying what you want dug up by your Imp minions, you obtain more space in your dungeon. With more space come rooms which will attract other kinds of minions such as the crafty Troll, the bookworm-like Warlocks and even undead skeletons.

As you build up your rooms and your legion of evil, you will be training them in order to gain experience in combat; but they are greedy creatures and will expect to be paid on their pay day. This game is as much about room building as it is about resource management. Creatures can get angry if you do not pay them or if they can’t get to a lair, which brings me nicely to my first problem.

A known bug in Dungeon Keeper is that sometimes if you place a door (an item you can craft in the Workshop room quite early on in the game), the minions suddenly can’t figure out how to navigate to a lair! I’m not sure what causes that, but it’s a little irksome. There are also what I call ‘loops of stupidity’ that some of the creatures face, where they will encounter an enemy then decide to flee a few steps then go back in to fight, only to flee again. This can go on for ages until your creature dies or until you deal with the situation yourself and is especially true of Imps.

These doors are too confusing for me, no lair for me!

So there we have it: sometimes your minions aren’t the most intelligent of creatures, who’d have thought it? These are both very minor bugs but they are present and I notice these things!

Admittedly the graphics are a bit of an odd point for me. See Bullfrog, the developers of this game, are very well known for having produced some of the greatest titles of this era, many critically acclaimed. Theme Hospital for example is one that I grew up with and admire even to this day. The graphics on that are clean and is just superbly well stylised.

Dungeon Keeper however, since I first played it, is visually pleasing but always feels like the resolution is too low for me. I’m not just basing it on how it looks now; I’m even basing it on the correct resolution for the game.

Your dungeon heart. Protect from the impending heroes at all costs!

Dungeon Keeper has some incredible little sprites, especially for its time. However, due to how grainy and pixelated it looks, it isn’t always the nicest looking of games. We could chalk that up to it being about being in an underworld but in all honesty I do feel it could look a bit better.

It also doesn’t help that they attempted a way to possess minions and on a modern resolution, it shows that these models just haven’t aged very well at all. With this being said however, a bonus point on graphics as they successfully implemented 3D isometric views and they did it well. The fact they had the possess feature allowed you to see all of the work that went into the graphics, as grainy as it is from that close.

The music is nice; it’s really quite minimal and mostly is just ambiance rather than actual music. It fits the theme of the game very nicely and you always feel like you are planning an evil scheme to take over the overworld.

There is a painful point for me here in that I do detest picking up Warlocks in this game. You have to drop them eventually… and the noise they make is simply annoying. I know a lot of people praise this sound, but I for one do not. But who am I kidding? If a disembodied hand decided to pick me up and drop me around, I guess I might make a scream like that too. Urgh, that sound will forever live in my memories of this game. With this being said, some of the creatures make fantastic noises and it is satisfying to slap creatures which makes a solid sound. Nice and evil!

Dungeon Keeper is a diamond in the rough. At the time, it was incredibly innovative with very few releases like it. The closest to it at the time would possibly be Populous but even that is quite dissimilar in many ways. Not surprising then that Populous was another title by the legendary British developer Bullfrog.

Dungeon Keeper was one of the most innovative games of its time.

With a few bugs and not the most pleasant first person mode, it’s true that Dungeon Keeper wasn’t a perfectly polished game. However, it doesn’t stop this being one of the most innovative and down right fun titles of its time and indeed today.

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Lilly Looking Through by Geeta Games is a point-and-click that encapsulates all of the best things about being young: a time of wonder and innocence, mystery around every corner, and no problem too big that it can’t be solved with a bit of curiosity and a pair of dirty knees.

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Geeta Games was formed by husband-and-wife team Steve and Jessica Hoogendyk along with Chris Beazer in January 2012, and in July of the same year their Kickstarter campaign for charming point-and-click adventure Lilly Looking Through was successful. Not only did they meet their $18,000 target, they smashed it after receiving a total of $33,516 from 1,623 backers; this enabled them to meet their first stretch goal and make add more content to the game.

I first heard of the title late last year when I came across several articles online praising its visual style. It looked beautiful but seemed a little childish, but I added it to my Steam wishlist as I adore the point-and-click genre and then forgot about it; and while looking for something to play recently, I remembered it was there and thought I’d give it a try. I can’t say that it’s earned a place as one of my favourite adventures but it certainly was a pleasant way to pass a rainy afternoon.

On the page for the old Kickstarter campaign, the plot for Lilly Looking Through is described as follows: “What Lilly sees is about to change her life forever… help our heroine through a variety of enchanting environments brimming with magic and wonder, as she seeks to rewrite the past, change the present, and unlock the ultimate mystery.” Sound pretty vague, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, playing the game itself doesn’t really make it any clearer. Lilly and her younger brother Row live in a wooden house by the river and, one day whilst playing outside, a red ribbon floats in and steels the little boy away. It’s up to our heroine to chase after her sibling and bring him back; but why was Row taken, what is the mysterious ribbon all about, and where is it leading them? They’re questions to which answers are tantalisingly hinted at towards the very end of the adventure – before being abruptly snatched away in a puff of cloud. More on this later.

Row is kidnapped by a red ribbon, although it’s never explained why.

The gameplay is pretty limited, in the sense that controls are condensed to clicking on a small handful of items within each screen. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though and there’s a distinct Samorost or The Tiny Bang Story vibe to the mechanic. The goal in each chapter is to get from one side of the environment to the other; and if an item I needed, it’s picked up and moved by the player without Lilly intervening. It’s pretty satisfying seeing a rope begin to burn because you’ve held a flaming reed underneath it, or bubbles in a pond pop after prodding them with a sharp stick.

Lilly’s course is hampered by various obstacles and after the initial chapter these are built upon by the introduction of a magical pair of goggles. Wearing them causes the world around our heroine to change, and I’m assuming here that it reverts to the past because of the way aged environments appear new. Sadly, this or the origins of the spectacles is never explained. It’s mostly about movement challenges; for example, at one point Lilly finds her way to a boat blocked by two large boulders, but travelling back in time presents her with a past version of the lake where the path is clear.

The goggles are an interesting mechanic but more could be done with it.

On the few occasions where affecting the past to change the future does occur it works wonderfully. For instance: at one point you travel back in time to divert a stream and douse acorns with water, and the result is large trees appearing in the present. The branches of these can be used to traverse a chasm. But it’s baffling why this is such a minor part of Lilly Looking Through when the mechanic comes together so beautifully; it really does feel as if Geeta Games missed a trick here by not doing more with it.

Alongside the puzzles involving Lilly’s magical goggles, there are a number of other challenges although they’re pretty simplistic. Unfortunately some of them can be a little obscure too and it seems as if I wasn’t the only one who had trouble! For example, a puzzle towards the end of the game requires you to change the colour of an underwater room by ringing bells. But why this is the solution and why the required colour is needed – or what it even has to do with the plot itself – isn’t explained and you may find yourself resorting to sheer guesswork in these cases.

Why on earth yellow is the solution here, I couldn’t tell you!

It may sound as if I’m beating on Lilly Looking Through but I promise you that the title does have a lot of positives. Lilly herself is a wonderful heroine and her big eyes really convey a personality full of curiosity. Everything about the way she moves is endearing and the animation is wonderful; by the time the opening scene is unveiled you’ll see her hopping around on all fours and imitating the frog next to her. She stumbles when running across a platform, brushes the dirt off of her knees after getting back up, and sneezes after jumping and landing in a cloud of dust.

And Lilly isn’t the only one who gets this treatment. When a barrel proves too heavy for Row to move during the opening chapter, he hunches down and rests his head on his hands in defeat, cocking it sideways to gaze longingly at the goggles which are hanging just out of reach. The designers have obviously paid a lot of attention to visual detail here in both the charming animations and the beautiful backgrounds, and it’s almost as if you’re watching an animated movie rather than controlling a character.

Lilly is a wonderful heroine and one I hope to see more of.

There’s just one downside to the visuals: the animations can slow down the gameplay and at times you’ll feel as if you’re taking on a passive role. You’ll need to wait until actions are completed and will then have to backtrack sometimes in order to figure out a solution. This means watching Lilly go through movements that – while totally adorable – can become a bit annoying after several times as you’re unable to skip her animations. If you’re not a patient player, this may not be the game for you.

The soundtrack to Lilly Looking Through is understated yet beautiful. Each chapter has an individual theme and this changes depending on whether you’re in the present time or seeing the past through the goggles. There is hardly any voice-acting, save for Lilly and Row calling out to each other, but what’s there is perfect; any more would have spoiled the magical, isolated feeling that the game manages to convey. This is probably far from coincidental as Steve Hoogendyk previously worst on several games in the Myst series.

Despite not speaking very much, the bond between the characters Is obvious.

The title’s main shortcoming is that it features only ten locations to travel through and, where most of the puzzles are so simple, there isn’t much to keep experienced players occupied for more than perhaps three hours. To be honest I can’t see myself going back to the game unless a sequel is announced (see below). What I will say though is that Lilly Looking Through would be perfect for playing alongside a child – when you what to experience the world through their innocent and curious eyes.

Geeta Games asked for $18,000 during their Kickstarter campaign and said it would allow them to finish the title more quickly. But what has been released feels more like a part of something rather than a game in its own right, not only due to the short length but the way the story stops mid-scene before the credits start rolling. Lilly’s adventure ends in exactly the same way as Lilly Looking Through leaves you feeling: landed in a cloud of confusion.

I’m just as confused as Lilly is…

There’s no news of a sequel just yet and Hoogendyk has stated that this is dependent on sales, but it’s something I’m hopeful for and will definitely seek out if it becomes available. If there are disappointments with Geeta Games’ first release you may find that the beautiful scenery, charming characters and sense of magic overshadow them. It’s a great title when viewed through rose-coloured goggles.

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