Reviews
Review: Mass Effect 2: Arrival
Apr 1st
Alright, so here’s the deal: Before the jump, I’m not going to spoil anything. After the jump, I will try to avoid direct story spoilers but discuss what Arrival means in terms of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. It’s a hard topic to avoid when talking about this DLC pack, and needs to be addressed. Capiche? Capiche.
At Silicon Sasquatch, we love ourselves some Mass Effect. I’ve played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 twice each, bought and played through all of the ME2 DLC, and earned almost all the achievements in both…and I’m the person on staff who is the least hardcore about the game! Put simply, we enjoy the game’s mechanics and universe so much that the opportunity to dive back into ME2 one last time and get a nice bridge between it and the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3 is very, very hard to avoid.
That said, I enjoyed it but as a DLC package for Mass Effect 2, I find it hard to put Arrival ahead of some other extra missions Commander Shepard has gone on. It’s not quite as interesting from a gameplay standpoint as the Overlord or Kasumi: Stolen Memory missions were, and I don’t think the storyline was handled as well as The Lair of the Shadow Broker. There are times in Arrival where I felt like the level design was a touch convoluted. I think Arrival also relies a bit too much on combat — one of the new achievements in this DLC is tied directly to a specific combat sequence, and I can’t for the life of me think how you could get it the first time around. Hell, the second half of the mission has an almost-bewildering amount of shooting dudes given the context of the situation.
That said, Arrival does tell the story that bridges Mass Effect 2 and 3. And it does provide additional context and, above all, gets you excited for Mass Effect 3 to get here NOW. So, it has that going for it. Lastly, it provides you another chance to go back into the game — and even with some issues, more Mass Effect 2 is always a good thing. It may be a bit fanboy-ish, but when the topic of ME comes up, it’s hard to be completely subjective. The game series has proved itself to be that good.
So dig in. Whether now, to avoid as many spoilers as possible, or as an appetizer to get back into the mood for Mass Effect 3, this deserves to be played, for better or worse. It’s a shame that the hook of being the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3 can be used to get fans to struggle through an average experience.
Review: Stacking (XBLA/PSN)
Feb 17th
Child Labor Laws, Matryoshka Dolls and Fart Jokes: A Review of Double Fine’s Stacking
Stacking is an adventure-puzzle game about the youngest child of a family of Industrial Revolution-era chimney sweeps fighting against the upper class. What separates this from other period pieces is every man, woman, child and beast is portrayed by a Russian stacking doll. How that design document was successfully pitched I may never know, but what resulted is one of the most original, entertaining and charming games I’ve ever played — possibly the best yet from developer Double Fine.
Review: Who’s That Flying?! (PSP Minis)
Dec 8th
The PSP Mini is a concept that has been lost on me. I don’t own a PSP, and as a result I’ve never bothered to browse for, let alone purchase, what I assume are cheaply made Flash games developed for people without iPhones. Hell, I didn’t know until two months ago that Minis are playable on the PS3. So perhaps, like me, you assumed that Minis don’t have a snowball’s chance in the marketplace. doomed to stand in the shadows cast by incessantly advertised blockbusters and buzz-worthy independent games.
Who’s That Flying?! is exactly the sort of game I never expected to come from the Minis platform. It’s a polished homage to the shoot-’em-up genre and a fun variation on twitch-based gameplay. This is a quirky and lovable game that is also superbly designed and ends before it wears out its welcome. In a few hours WTF?! managed to reverse the many misconceptions and ignorant thoughts I had about PSP Minis, which is a testament to the developer’s ability to find inspiration in such a limited format.
My ego is going to become obese if I keep eating my words, which really sucks.
Review: NBA 2K11
Dec 2nd
I feel like I can summarize NBA 2K11 well with one thing. A few days ago, Silicon Sasquatch editor Nick said this while watching me play a game between my beloved Portland Trail Blazers and the Oklahoma City Thunder: “Man, Kevin Durant is going to light you up.”
First, some context. NBA 2K11 is, as the title would suggest, this year’s version of 2K Sports’ long-running NBA basketball sim game series. Almost since the series’ inception on the Dreamcast, NBA 2K has lorded over other NBA games. That’s why, before its cancellation, EA Sports was planning on rebooting its NBA Live series into NBA Elite to try to surpass NBA 2K.
Review: The UnderGarden (PC)
Nov 24th
Billed as a digital palate cleanser of sorts, The UnderGarden is designed to be the anti-Call of Duty. With its rich colors, methodical pacing and mellow music, it’s clear that developer Artech Studios was trying to deliver something more along the lines of Flow or Zen Bound, where patience and relaxation are at the crux of the experience.
But unfortunately for The UnderGarden, that experience just ends up feeling like a one-sided exchange with the player coming up short. For a game that’s supposed to be about mellowing out and enjoying the ride, there were just too many technical, communicative and design-related problems for me to derive any enjoyment from playing the game. Despite its good intentions and lovely aesthetics, The UnderGarden is unfortunately more trouble than it’s probably worth.
Review: Game Dev Story (iPhone)
Oct 26th
The truest measure of how addictive a video game is comes from how much time you’ve unknowingly lost because of it. It’s one thing to comprehend the passage of time but still stay glued to the screen; it’s another to look up and go, “holy shit, I’ve been playing for 12 hours?”
Certain few games fall into the latter category. I’m here to tell you that Game Dev Story, the recently released iOS game from Kairosoft, is definitely one of them. A devilishly well-balanced RPG-slash-video game development sim, Game Dev Story is one of the few games I’ve played until my iPhone’s battery is almost gone — and then plugged it in to play some more.
Review: Super Meat Boy (XBLA)
Oct 25th
Recently, I’ve been making a push in my life to go vegetarian. There are a lot of reasons that I think it’s the right decision for me: I feel healthier, nothing has to die just so I can have a snack, and it lowers my environmental impact.
But nothing has driven me to despise meat as much as Super Meat Boy. I spent the better part of eight hours running a sprawling gauntlet stacked to the brim with deadly traps and implements of destruction, leaving a meat-stain behind with every step, jump, and gruesome death. Under my guidance, Meat Boy has been splattered, slashed, shredded, and vivisected a grand total of 1,431 times. It was pretty disgusting.
But that’s not to say it wasn’t fun; in fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Thanks to its perfectly tuned controls, broad range of diverse levels and undeniable charm, Super Meat Boy is also one of the best platform games I’ve ever played.
Review: Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley (XBLA)
Oct 19th
Captain Smiley has lost his touch. The superhero — a muscular, caped crime-fighter with a smiley face for a head and a talking, smart-ass, star-shaped sidekick named Star embedded in his chest — finds his comic being canceled after degenerating into an embarrassing commercial flop. In order to regain his former glory and pay his debts to the Twisted Pixel guys, who bust down the fourth wall with aplomb by bailing out Smiley’s debts, Captain Smiley is forced to guest-star in other comics to build up enough of a reputation and a financial base to relaunch his comic series.
Comic Jumper features a rich, vibrant presentation that’s bizarre, outlandish, hilarious, and wonderfully innovative. But unfortunately, actually playing the game is a whole other story.
Review: Formula 1 2010 (Xbox 360)
Oct 6th
I have incredibly mixed feelings about Formula 1 2010. On the one hand, this is the first Formula 1-based game on next-gen platforms since Sony’s F1 Championship Edition in 2006. As well, the game does an amazing job painting a portrait of the Formula 1 circus, from the glitz and glamor in the paddock to the thunder and thrills on the track. However, the game has a facade that is too easily broken; compounding the problem is that it feels unfinished in spots.
Reviewer’s Note: We will run an amendment article at a later date, once F1 2010 is patched to address the numerous issues with the game. As it stands right now, it feels unfinished and has numerous frustrating bugs, including one that corrupts save data; when, and how, these are addressed is a major issue surrounding the game right now.
Review: Halo: Reach
Oct 5th
Bungie and Halo: the story of a studio defined by its most popular product. Because of the series’ success, few could have guessed that another company would ever be in a position to make Halo games. But Bungie has formally stepped away from its massive franchise after a decade and billions of dollars in sales, finally realizing a 2007 announcement that it would become an independent company free of Microsoft’s yoke.
Halo: Reach is the studio’s magnum opus, and it unexpectedly recaptures the feeling of cleverness and ingenuity of Halo: Combat Evolved, when Master Chief was a fresh face in the crowd of first-person shooters.