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More Steam Next Fest Recommendations
I’ve had time to play more demos on Steam Next Fest. In addition to my picks from yesterday, here are a few more that I really liked!
Signalis
I’ve seen this one recommended from numerous sources, but for some reason I kept putting it off, and yet it was amazing when I finally played it. Signalis is a top-down game that plays out like (the original) Resident Evil – limited ammunition, slow lumbering monsters, progress gated by item puzzles, little story bits laying around in discarded documents. The graphics are what I can only term as “lo-fi”, in that they’re evocative of pixelated retro games, but in a style that’s not really comparable to any game that I personally know from back in the day. The game takes place on a crashed spacecraft, and what I initially thought was straightforward scifi horror (like The Thing) took an unexpected twist toward the end. I highly recommend checking out this demo for fans of horror games.
Panic Porcupine
This game has one very clear inspiration, and that’s Sonic the Hedgehog. It has everything from a mad scientist who entraps the local wildlife in robotic eggs to a character that rolls up in a ball to gain momentum. That said the game felt very technique-driven when compared to Sonic. The player must really become skilled in using the character’s speed and momentum to clear each stage. So, it’s sort of like how Sonic should work in theory at least. I didn’t expect much out of such a blatant Sonic wannabe, but I was impressed by how fun this game turned out being.
Mothmen 1966
Another horror game with pixelated graphics. Unlike Signalis, this game is actually a graphic adventure that plays out mostly through text. It is very well written from what I experienced, creating nuanced characters as well as some really creepy situations. By the end, I definitely wanted to see where the story was going. This one releases in July, and I will definitely check it out later.
Exophobia
Yesterday, I wrote about Selaco, an FPS that appears to be inspired by the likes of System Shock and Doom. Exophobia takes it even farther back, clearly evoking the look and feel of Wolfenstein 3D – a run and gun shooter set in simplistic 3D environments. You can’t even look up or down in this game! Yet despite its primitiveness, I had fun exploring the large maze-like level in the demo. The game also has a slide move that helps the player dodge enemy fire and can be used to stun enemies if you knock into them, which adds a fun twist to gameplay.
The Fridge is Red
I vacillated a bit on recommending this game. It is a horror game set in the new creepy internet fad of liminal spaces – mundane settings that make a deeply unnerving impression. The game seemed cool to me, but I got nauseous while playing it and couldn’t finish the demo, so take that for what it is.
Steam Next Fest 2022 Recommendations
Last year I had a ton of fun with Steam Next Fest, a summer showcase event featuring a huge number of playable demos from indie developers. Unfortunately, the event only lasted a week, and not being prepared, I didn’t have time to try out everything I wanted to see. Now that Next Fest has come around again, I’ve had a little more free time this week, so I’ve been able to check out a lot more demos from this new crop of indie games. Below are my recommendations.
Escape Academy
This game was the highlight of all of the demos I played so far, and I was happy to find out it’s slated to come out in July, so there won’t be much of a wait. The game is basically a series of escape rooms set against the story that you’ve been inducted as a student into a secretive school that trains master escape room escapists. Why such a school exists is not really explained in the demo, but even if the story ends up being nonsensical, I think I’ll enjoy solving these puzzle rooms enough that it won’t really matter.
My only issue was that the game didn’t really run that well on my decently-powered PC. The frame rate was quite choppy while playing. Normally, I wouldn’t be so concerned with a game’s performance from a demo, but with it releasing so soon, it does make me slightly uneasy.
And as a heads up, there is another game with a similar title in the event called Escape Room Academy. Don’t get this confused with that!
Rog & Roll
I actually played this one last year and thought it was merely “okay”. I almost didn’t try it again this year, but I’m glad I did. This new demo shows that the game has made considerable leaps since last summer. Rog and Roll is a sidescrolling platformer that combines sprite-based characters with simplistic polygonal environments. The way it looks sort of reminds me of Kirby.
What I like about Rog and Roll is that it is a fairly straightforward platformer. Most platformers made by indie developers try to have something “extra”, like it has a heavy focus on puzzles, or it tries to tell a heartbreaking story, or it cranks the difficulty way up. Rog and Roll really just has a focus on platforming – running and jumping – which is not to say that it’s easy or lacking in intrigue. It has a difficulty level that is reasonably challenging, but nothing extremely tough, and the levels have enough branching paths and secret areas to make them interesting to explore.
Along with Escape Academy, this game was the highlight of the event. Can’t wait.
Ghost Song
At first, I didn’t really think much of this game – it’s another game wanting to be Super Metroid – there’s like ten of those released on a weekly basis. But it really grew on me. The combat is a mixture of melee and ranged shooting, and there is an interesting mechanism through which the game encourages you to mix it up between those two types of attacks. While it didn’t immediately feel particularly special, I think the lonesome atmosphere of the game eventually grew on me. It’s very very much like Super Metroid – a sci-fi warrior exploring a hostile, lonely plant – but with elements of Dark Souls and anime cyberpunk shaded in. I’m definitely intrigued.
Anger Foot
An indie first person shooter(/kicker). There are a lot of indie first person shooters coming out right now, but most of them are inspired by games like Doom or Quake and use graphics that strongly resemble those inspirations. Anger Foot looks quite a bit more modern. Playing the game reminds me of Hotline Miami in how the player is expected to just bust through the levels, making their way through using a combination of speedy aggression and trial and error. Enemies can do a lot of damage very quickly, so it often takes some experimentation with how to tackle the level before you can complete it. That said, the game is so fast paced that dying a few (or several) times doesn’t really become aggravating.
Selaco
In contrast to Anger Foot, there is Selaco, which is totally one of those Doom-inspired games I was talking about. It’s even built in the GZDoom engine (yet it still looks really cool despite the vintage software). That said, it was a cool run-and-gun game with a setting that reminded me of System Shock 2. Very interested to see how this one will turn out in the end.
Frogun
This game bills itself as a 3D platformer in the style of those that were on the N64 and PSX. Certainly, it looks a lot like a PSX game, but when I think about comparable games on the N64 and PSX, I think about stuff like Banjo-Kazooie and Spryo the Dragon, and this game is very “flat” when compared to those games. The “frogun” concept is that the character has a little gun that shoots out a frog tongue that can be used like the grappling hook in Zelda – it can pull the character to distant surfaces or be used to pull enemies and objects toward the character. It was kind of fun, although I worry that the gameplay might not have enough depth to sustain my interest through a full game. Still, I’m definitely interested to see how it turns.
I’ve played quite a few more Next Fest demos than what I’ve mentioned above, but these were the ones that I specifically wishlisted on Steam so that I could check them out when they release. The Next Fest event ends on Monday (6/20). I think it’s really unfortunate that they only let this event last for one week and not longer. There are just too many demos to try and one week doesn’t give me enough time in my busy schedule to check out everything. I’m squeezing in time whenever I can to try more of these, though.
Hidden Gem Recommendations for the 2020 Steam Summer Sale
In these deeply uncertain times, one thing you can always count on is Steam’s seasonal sales. Steam’s Summer Sale is ongoing now through 10:00 am PST on July 9th. I always enjoy the Steam sale as it’s a great opportunity to take advantage of some of the exceptionally low prices to take a risk on games I’m curious about but not entirely certain I’ll enjoy. As such, each year during this time I’ve made it a tradition to recommend lesser known “hidden gems” that go on sale for under $5. If these deals aren’t enough then previous years recommendations are, of course, still valid.
Nex Machina
$4.99
Nex Machina is a top down twin stick shooter from Housemarque, a group that is known for its arcade-style action games. In this game, the player fights an unrelenting horde of rogue machinery amidst a world streaked by the neon chaos of explosions, laser blasts, and voxelated destruction. As an arcade-style game, it’s relatively short, choosing to focus on high score and replayability, and some people may be turned off by the lack of a save feature, meaning that if the player quits their session, they must start over from the very beginning. This is a great game for people looking for fast-paced action and non-stop sensory overload without the trappings of more story-oriented action games.
Little Nightmares
$4.99
I’ve written about Little Nightmares before, and it’s now available at a great price. As a “nightmare” puzzle-platformer game, it’s impossible to not compare this title to the likes of Limbo and Inside. In Little Nightmares, a mysterious child navigates a dementedly distorted world using their wits to evade the grotesque monsters that hunt her at every step. Little Nightmares is a great game for players who enjoy puzzle-platformers with a focus on aesthetics and cryptic world building.
Gato Roboto
$3.99
Gato Roboto is a fairly recent release in the “Metroidvania” genre. After surviving an emergency crash landing while on patrol in space, a simple house (space?) cat dons high-tech power armor to explore a hostile abandoned installation to find help for its human companion. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the game is its stark monochrome visual presentation which can be a “like it or hate it” kind of thing. In-game collectibles can be found to unlock new color palettes, but they are all composed of simple 2-color variations. While the game has many elements of a Metroid-style adventure, it can be very linear in progression, so those that enjoy the sequence breaking and exploration focus of those games may need to look elsewhere. Gato Roboto is a good choice for players who like sidescrollers that are equal parts action and platforming. The heartfelt and goofy journey of this cat who becomes an unlikely mech pilot to save its human will also resonate with pet owners who love their companions.
1001 Spikes
$4.94
I wrote about this game a long, long time ago when I played it on the 3DS, and while I think it is one of the best sidescrolling platformers I’ve played in the past 10 years, it’s also a game that is highly divisive. 1001 Spikes follows Aban Hawkins as he explores dangerous, trap-laden ancient ruins in search of a long lost treasure. This game is hard, with as much emphasis as I can put on the word, and borderline unfair. It’s the “borderline unfair” part that makes the game so polarizing. Traps in the game are hidden incredibly well with only subtle hints to their existence (if any), often leaving the player with a frantically tight window of time to react when triggered. As such, it can often be viewed as a trial and error ordeal. The gimmick, though, is that the player starts the game with 1001 lives to complete the challenging quest, and after they run out, there is a reasonably generous continue system that only incurs a small penalty to progress. 1001 Spikes is a game for people who like super challenging platformers like Super Meat Boy and Celeste and have the patience and tenacity to stick with it.
Vanquish
$4.99
I try to keep this list to lesser known games, but that’s based on my personal perception, which is not always the best gage. With that in mind, Vanquish may be the most well-known game on this list as a product of the acclaimed director Shinji Mikami and Platinum Studios (of Bayonetta fame). Vanquish feels like Mikami’s attempt to do a cover-based shooter in the vein of Gears of War. Gears of War, of course, was heavily influenced by Mikami’s Resident Evil 4, so this is a snake eating its own tail situation. Vanquish involves the ultra-American protagonist Sam Gideon ona mission to reclaim an American orbital city colony (an O’Neill cylinder to be exact) from Russian androids. What sets Vanquish apart from other third person shooters is that Gideon has an extraordinary amount of mobility due to his ability to rocket slide around the combat zone. While the game has plenty of chest high walls to hide behind, Vanquish’s enemy encounters are designed in such a way that Gideon can’t stay in one place for too long, meaning he has to constantly rocket boost from point-to-point to evade enemy fire. The result is a more kinetic action game than was typical for games of that era. I recommend Vanquish to all players who enjoy big, bombastic action shooters.
Night Trap
$2.99
Another game that I’ve covered for Halloween, Night Trap is the legendary interactive movie from the Sega CD that heavily contributed to the creation of the ESRB in the US. Night Trap tells the story of a group of high school girls that have been lured to the trap-infested Martin house to be captured and fed to pseudo-vampiric entities known as augurs. The player is an agent of an outside security force that has hacked into the traps of the house and intends to turn them against the augurs. The player must cycle through video feeds of the house party, keeping an eye out for signs that an augur is preparing to strike and triggering the appropriate traps when necessary. In hindsight, the moral panic that surrounded this game was laughable due to how utterly tame the “violent” content actually is. Night Trap is goofy and cheesy, and I’ve found it to be fun while it lasts (which is really not very long). The brevity of the title will turn many people off, but I think this game is an interesting artifact of gaming history, worth it for those who are fascinated with the culture of gaming that existed in the ‘90s.
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
$4.94
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is a compilation of two arcade beat’em up classics, Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara. These games are mostly notable for their relative depth when compared to other arcade beat’em ups of the time, featuring RPG mechanics, branching paths, and equipment and spell mechanics that set them apart from their contemporaries. For fans of the arcade originals, there are a fair few extra goodies to unlock. I recommend this compilation to anyone into ‘90s beat’em ups.
Serious Sam Double D XXL
$1.99
The Serious Sam series has had a few smaller spin offs made by indie creators in partnership with CroTeam, and Double D XXL is an enhanced version of the first of these spin offs to be released. The game reframes the Serious Sam formula as a 2D sidescroller similar to Contra. Serious Sam games are all about fighting off giant swarms of alien enemies that are advancing from all directions, which doesn’t necessarily translate perfectly when a dimension is stripped out, but Double D makes up for it with some of its own ideas. The most notable is their gun stacking system, that allows Sam to combo weapons together to equip as many at one time as the player wants. Serious Sam is a series known for its strange enemy design, but Double D XXL somehow manages to out weird the mainline entries in this respect. Mutant stacks of pancakes that blast vuvuzelas are seemingly too bizarre for even CroTeam’s main team to touch. I recommend Double D to players who are into tough, dumb, action games.
Halloween Gaming: Alan Wake and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Halloween Gaming at The Maximum Utmost rolls on. This time with an insanely long post about one of my favorite games of all time, the cult thriller Alan Wake.
Some would probably consider Alan Wake to be one of the greatest tragedies of the Xbox 360. A truly underappreciated gem that completely flopped in sales, Alan Wake was the extensively long in development project (it took ~5 years to complete after being announced in 2005) of Remedy Games, who were best known for the excellent Max Payne 1 and 2, and was published by Microsoft Games Studios. While I really enjoyed Alan Wake, one of the highlights of the Xbox 360, it’s not hard for me to see why it did so bad in terms of sales. There were several controversies surrounding the game pre-release, one of which was that the PC version (which had been previewed for nearly 4 years) was cancelled before release.
Long story short, a lot of (vocal) gamers were justifiably disgruntled at Alan Wake before its release on May 18, 2010. But all of that controversy was merely a drop in the puddle compared to Alan Wake’s true problem. You may remember this little game from a few years back called Red Dead Redemption. You know…made by Rockstar Games…. kind of like Grand Theft Auto but with cowboys and horses…ring any bells? Well, Red Dead also released on May 18, 2010 and was an utterly massive hit. Alan Wake was completely steamrolled in sales, and after so many long years of development, the once proud developer of Max Payne had a commercial flop on its hands.
It’s unfortunate that all of these dark clouds hang over Alan Wake, as I actually really enjoy it as a game. Of course, Remedy and Microsoft have no one but themselves to blame for the game’s commercial failure. Controversies aside, at the very least they should have been smart enough not to release the game on the same day as the next major release from %&#&ing Rockstar Games!!!!!! But one good thing about this was failure was that Remedy was able to convince Microsoft to allow them to self-publish the game on Steam to recoup their losses. Time (and Steam sales) heal all wounds, and now there is at least a decent-sized contingent of PC gamers out there who have come to appreciate Alan Wake.
In Alan Wake, Remedy sought to do with pop horror what they did with noir crime fiction in Max Payne. The prime influence here is David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, but there’s also some Stephen King in here as well. When I say Twin Peaks is the prime influence, I mean this game is really built around the template of the cult early ‘90s TV series. Alan Wake arrives in the small, northwestern town of Bright Falls and soon becomes captured in the mysteries of the supernatural horrors that use the town as a portal into our world. If you’ve ever seen Twin Peaks, you can clearly see the similarities in this setup with that of Agent Dale Cooper’s investigation into the town of Twin Peaks.
But while Alan Wake uses the formula of Twin Peaks, I felt it managed to create its own distinct narrative. And the story is the real draw of this game. It’s full of many twists and turns to keep the player hooked into uncovering the secret of Bright Falls. It features a stellar cast of characters, both friends and foes to Alan, that possess real depth that is rarely seen in video games. And as Alan’s journey into the night progresses, he has actual character growth, something that also rarely happens in even the most lauded video game plots.
At the beginning of the game, we are introduced to Alan and Alice Wake, a married couple who are arriving by ferry for a vacation in the small, northwestern town of Bright Falls. Alan is an enormously popular celebrity novelist but has lately been dogged by a severe case of writer’s block. The couple has come to stay in a cabin on the shore of nearby Cauldron Lake, hoping that the peacefulness of the wilderness will help stimulate Alan’s writing. While Alan and Alice appear to have a loving relationship, we see that it is strained by Alan’s arrogance and temperament combined with his hard-partying celebrity lifestyle that Alice deplores. Alice blames Alan’s personal issues on Barry Wheeler, Alan’s agent who she often comes into conflict with.
Alan and Alice Wake
The couple arrive at the cabin and bizarre, increasingly unnatural events begin to transpire. These events culminate with Alice being abducted by a shadowy entity and drug into the dark depths of Cauldron Lake, as Alan watches horrified.
Fast forward a week and Alan wakes up after having crashed his car in the woods surrounding Bright Falls. He has no memory of the preceding week, the last thing he remembers is Alice being taken into Cauldron Lake. He approaches a mysterious stranger for help, but the encounter soon turns hostile, and Alan finds himself being pursued through the night by possessed men that are shrouded in shadow. This is where Alan’s long journey into the night begins. During the following events, Alan searches for a way to save his wife while also coming to understand The Dark Presence, the supernatural denizen of Cauldron Lake that seeks to use Alan for its own nightmarish purposes.
The story from here on out gets rather….complex, with Alan attempting to find his vanished wife and understand what happened to him during the missing week. The story is the true star of Alan Wake, and in my opinion it more than makes up for its deficiencies in other areas (more on that in a moment). I have to restrain myself here, because as you may can tell I really love this game and could go on and on about this aspect of it, but I don’t want to a) spoil too much for potential players, and b) hype up expectations for potential players to a point that the actual game can never meet.
I will though reiterate how much I liked the characters in this game. Even the Dark Presence is far more interesting than your typical Lovecraftian abomination. She is single-mindedly evil, but the mechanism by which she influences the world and seeks to control it were wholly original (to me at least). But as far as great characters go, I’d also like to specifically mention Barry Wheeler, Alan’s agent and best friend, who arrives in Bright Falls as Alan finds himself increasingly in over his head. From Alice’s initial description of Barry, I assumed he was a bloodsucking agent that exploited his client for his own gains. But while Alice and Barry have no love lost and Barry is certainly obsessed with maintaining Alan’s fame and fortune, you come to realize during the game that he is Alan’s most loyal and truest friend and unhesitatingly follows him into the nightmares that Alan must face. These two make a duo that compete with the likes of Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan or Solid Snake and Otacon for all-time best bros in gaming.
While I consider the story of Alan Wake to be top tier, the combat design, on the other hand, is a bit more flawed. The at-times iffy combat system is actually one of the reasons that makes this game hit-or-miss for a lot of people. I won’t say the combat design is bad, but there are definitely parts of it that need fine-tuning (and were fine-tuned in the sequel), and in certain areas of the game, the less polished aspects of it can become rather irritating. And that’s not to say there aren’t some really epic battles in the game. People who have played the game would probably agree that the farm and the hedge maze are some really spectacular levels. It’s just that there are more than a few areas where the player will probably end up gritting their teeth a fair bit to push through.
I would call Alan Wake an action-horror game, more similar to FEAR or Dead Space than a survival-horror game like Fatal Frame or Silent Hill. Ammo and firearms are rather plentiful, and the player will need to kill pretty much everything that crawls out of the woods at them. During his quest, Alan is pursued by the Taken, people who have gone missing from Bright Falls and have had their souls sucked out by the Dark Presence and are now under her control. The Taken are more like Ganados from Resident Evil 4 than zombies. They have some intelligence and work to flank and overwhelm Adam, and attack using crude melee weapons, mostly axes and hatchets. They are also initially invulnerable, being clouded in a shadow substance that protects them from bullet fire. To defeat them, Alan must focus his flashlight on them which melts away the darkness that protects them. After they’ve been exposed by the light, they are weak to attack, and Alan can finish them off. There are also some other light-based weapons that Alan can use strategically such as flares (that stun and send the Taken stumbling backwards) and flash grenades (which insta-kill any Taken nearby, essentially your get out of jail free card).
As I mentioned, the game really needed a bit better fine tuning when it came to the design of the combat system. There are a lot of little annoyances that can on occasion become rather irritating. For instance, when Alan is blasting his flashlight at an enemy, the camera zooms in closer to that enemy. But this cuts off the player’s peripheral vision leaving them exposed to attacks from the side (as the Taken move silently), which is a problem since the it the Taken can take quite a bit of light before they’re actually exposed. In encounters featuring large groups of Taken that are attacking from every direction, you’ll often find yourself just getting annoyed by how much you’re being hit while just trying to get a single enemy exposed by the light. In addition, the game could use a bit more variety in the enemy design. There are a few different types of human Taken, but sometimes you’ll also be attacked by flocks of “taken birds,” and those things are just super frustrating to fight, no fun at all.
I will say that Alan Wake isn’t exactly a scary game. The tension and unnerving dread that I’ve felt in the better horror games I’ve played just isn’t present here. Rather, it’s more true to its inspiration, Twin Peaks, in that its intrigue comes from a bizarre supernatural mystery that is slowly unravelled by the main characters and which mystifies the audience. And it’s a well-written mystery at that. And while it’s doesn’t posses an exactly dreadful mood, the game has a very strong atmosphere to it. It’s one of the few games I know that captures the feeling of the solitude and quiet of the wilderness at night. And each chapter is absolutely sprawling in geographic size, which only reinforces Alan’s isolation. This game started off as an open-world game before becoming more of a linear Resident Evil 4-style game, and you can easily see that from how large the wilderness is in the game.
While the game doesn’t end on what I would call a cliffhanger, the ending is clearly meant to set up future games in a series. Unfortunately, the failure in sales meant that Microsoft was unwilling to provide further funding for a sequel. In 2012, Remedy would release Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a much smaller successor to Alan Wake that released for $15 on XBLA and Steam. Presumably this was done to maintain gamers’ interest in the series as Remedy searched for the funds needed to build a full-fledged sequel.
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Although a much smaller game, American Nightmare makes significant improvements to the combat design of the original game. It is a much more fine-tuned experience, more what you would expect from the designers of Max Payne. So confident was Remedy in this aspect of the game that they included an “Arcade Action” mode in the release that is similar to Gears of War’s horde mode.
The story, on the other hand, is far less grandiose than its predecessor. After the events that transpired in Bright Falls, Alan travels to the desert town of Night Springs in search of the depraved serial killer, Mr. Scratch, a doppleganger of Alan that was released during the climax of the previous game. (This is another reference to Twin Peaks.) Mr. Scratch originates from Cauldron Lake, and consequently also has powers to fill men with darkness and create Taken to once again hunt Alan through the night. As a $15 downloadable-only game, American Nightmare is nowhere near as large as the previous game. The game is essentially a time-loop (think Groundhog Day) of the same night in Night Springs, with Alan visiting the same three areas through each iteration of the night. Reusing the same three levels over and over in this way is of course a consequence of the small budget this game was created on (again, it’s a smaller downloadable title), but events play out differently in these areas through each iteration of the time loop, so it manages to stay decently fresh as the game’s story progresses. The story might not be as fulfilling as the original, but I regardlessly still easily recommend this game to anyone who was a fan of the first, but I would not recommend it to newcomers unfamiliar with Alan Wake, as they will be completely lost with the narrative. Play the first game first in other words.
In the end, although the credits of American Nightmare promises that Alan’s journey through the night will continue, the series has come to an unfortunate end. As it stands, we have two games in the series, one with an amazing story and the other with amazing combat. It appears that Remedy was unable to secure funding for a full-fledged Alan Wake 2, and unfulfilled plot threads created in the original game will never be resolved. Instead, Remedy are now focusing their attention on Quantum Break, a third person shooter funded by Microsoft as an Xbox One exclusive. It goes without saying there will be no PC release of this game. I don’t want to parrot the “definition” of insanity, but I have to wonder why Remedy has gone back to the same well that ultimately poisoned Alan Wake. (I promise I’m not bitter about it! Honest!) In the ideal world, we would have gotten a conclusion to Alan’s story in a game that would have combined the scope and scale of the story of Alan Wake with the greatly refined combat of American Nightmare, but alas, that is never to be.
Brothers – A Tale of a Very Untimely Review
Brothers is, I suppose, one of the too rare games that actually tries to use its gameplay rather than its cutscenes to convey the creators’ deeper artistic meaning. As the player, you control the titular brothers simultaneously, with each analog stick individually guiding one of the two. The left stick controls the older brother, while the right stick moves the younger. Similarly, the left and right triggers serve as the action buttons for each character. All actions in the game are contextual to the object on which the action is being performed. At its core, Brothers is a puzzle game where you must use the brothers cooperatively to overcome obstacle and allow them to progress on their quest. Consequently, with the player guiding the brothers’ relationship, it is through this “single-player co-op” gameplay that the game’s deeper themes of the strength and bond of brotherhood are expressed.
The story of Brothers is fairly simple. Actually, I found the whole game to be almost fairy tale-like. A pair of brothers, one older, stronger and more mature and the other younger and more innocent, set off on a journey through a fantasy land to find a remedy to save their dying father. The quest is, for the most part, a non-violent trek, and the brothers must work together to overcome the obstacles they face along the way. Each brother has his own strengths to utilize. For instance, the younger, smaller brother can fit through tight spaces, while the older brother can lift the younger onto high ledges.
The game has a very “scenic” quality to it that reminds me of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I was always very fond of the quiet awe those games were able to convey to the player. In Brothers, the way in which the player is shown the world feels very natural, for lack of a better word. You’re constantly being treated to these incredible scenic vistas, and the entire journey has a sort of lonely quality that makes you all the more humbled by your surroundings. And while a lot of games would use big, sweeping cutscenes to show off the grandeur of in-game locales, Brothers is mostly content to just let the player incidentally view the many fantastical sights the game has to show while they go about their quest.
While Brothers uses its two-stick gameplay mechanic to arguably help the player empathize with the fraternal bond of the main characters, I felt that, in the end, it didn’t go far enough with it. The game does a good job of conveying how much these characters rely on each other, which ultimately is important in the ending it sets up. But my problem was that it doesn’t go quite as far as it could have in giving us a nuanced understand of the brothers’ relationship. They help each other overcome the challenges that they face, occasionally share a funny or joyous moment, and they explode with distress when the other is threatened. But shared experiences are about as far as it gets in terms of emotional complexity. I should note at this point that the start of this game informs us that the brothers’ mother died before the game begins, and that the younger brother watched helplessly as she drowned. There’s some slight hints in a dream sequence that there are feelings of guilt, resentment, and anger between the two over her death, but it doesn’t really get developed beyond that. Maybe the developers wanted it to be left to player inference, but I felt better emphasis on this facet of their relationship could have really helped the narrative. 
Ultimately, I felt I enjoyed the world of Brothers more than I enjoyed the story it had to tell. There is a very beautiful and awe-filled world that is presented here. As I mentioned, the story I felt to be a little shallow, and I thought it ended in a way that was just a bit too emotionally manipulative. It really wants you to feel strongly about the game’s resolution in a way that made me very conscious of the author’s hand in the story. Although, I will say that the final stretch of the game does use the two-stick/two-button mechanic in a way that really impressed me with how cleverly it was fit in the narrative. All-in-all, I did like the story even for all its simplicity, and I recommend Brothers as a good Steam sale game, if nothing else. It took me no longer than 3 hours to complete, and I think its brevity actually enhances its value, as it’s the kind of game that could have worn out its welcome very quickly if drawn out too long.
Underrated Gems from the Steam Summer Sale: 2015 Edition! Part 2
This is the second part of my recommendations list of lesser known titles for the 2015 Steam Summer Sale. You can find the first part and a more complete introduction to the list here.
All games on this list meet the following criteria: 1) They must be under $10 (USD), 2) they must be at least 50% off, and 3) they are lesser known titles (or at least I perceives them as such). I’ve played through all of these, so they are based on my personal recommendations, and, consequently, they all favor my own idiosyncrasies a little bit. I’ve tried to keep the prices for the list as low as possible to inspire people to maybe take a chance on games that are out of their comfort zone and try something new. For the same reason, I’ve tried to keep it to titles that are lesser known, so you won’t see anything like FTL or Rogue Legacy on here. (Not that those aren’t great games that you should check out if you haven’t already.) The pricing criteria apply to the games’ regular sale price. Many of them may go lower during a flash or daily deal. As always, follow the Steam Sale flow chart to maximize savings.
Gemini Rue
Regular Sale Price: $2.99 (-70%)
Gemini Rue is a noir+cyberpunk indie point-and-click adventure game published by Wadjet Eye, whose prodigious Blackwell Series made last year’s list. While most modern point-and-click adventure games have started to dispose of the heady puzzles that were the genre’s anathema in the ‘90s, Gemini Rue (as well as most Wadjet Eye) games still features a fair bit of cogitating over the erudite uses of your inventory dispersed within its multi-faceted story. These puzzles are on the harder side of modern adventure games, I feel, but they’re still not nearly within the realm of perplexity that caused the original wave of adventure games to go extinct. With enough patience and experimentation, I found myself able to progress without an inordinate amount of frustration. That said, even if you do find yourself having to run to GameFAQs once in a while, the story that unfolds still makes playing the game worth it.
The story features Azrael Odin (….yes, I know what you’re thinking) an elite, interstellar assassin on a mission to the urban decaying, crime-ridden planet of Barracus searching for his missing brother. As he navigates the underworld crime rings of Barracus, the story of his brother’s captivity in a mysterious government-controlled research facility plays out. Beyond that, I don’t want to go into more detail. Needless to say, I thought this was one of the more interesting story-driven games I’ve played in the last 5 years. I recommend this to those who might be looking for something more elaborate than the soap opera-style Telltale games that have become fashionable since The Walking Dead arrived. Not that I don’t like Telltale games, it’s just that sometimes their stories have a very “made for TV” quality to them (I wonder why?) that I think sometimes stunts what they’re capable of achieving.
Half-Life
Regular Sale Price: $2.49 (-75%)
Half-Life is a mostly forgotten FPS from the late ‘90s that was unfortunately overshadowed by contemporary releases like Unreal 1 and Sin. It had one sequel which was accompanied by two downloadable “episodes,” but apparently the series didn’t sell all that well because there was never a Half-Life 3, and the story remains unfinished. You may be surprised to find out that the developer behind Half-Life is none other than Valve, the proprietors of Steam. That’s right, this was the first game developed by the company that made Dota 2!
The story features Gordon Freeman, a scientist who becomes involved in a teleportation experiment that goes awry and cracks open the barriers between dimensions. Aliens start invading his super secret lab, and I know what you’re thinking, the story is a total ripoff of Doom! And you’re right. But it’s still a good game. Also, the Opposing Force expansion pack is pretty good too (or at least I thought so 15 years ago). Blue Shift, on the other hand, is not so good. I wouldn’t waste my time with that one. Anyway, if you’re looking to take a break from something like Counter-Strike: GO, then Half-Life is definitely a good palette cleanser until you’re ready to get back into online socially-connected multiplayer games.
Full Bore
Regular Sale Price: $5.09 (-66%)
Oh look, an indie puzzle platformer with big pixel graphics. You don’t see many of those! I’m being sarcastic, but I actually do really like this game. You play a boar (as in the wild pig) who lives in a world of sentient boars and a few other animals. One day while frollicking through the forest, the ground falls out from underneath our protagonist and he finds himself trapped inside a large, empty vault. When he emerge, he’s accused of being the one who emptied the vault and is sentenced to hard labor, digging in the mines to pay back what has been stolen. As you can probably begin to tell, the story here is very off-beat, but in a sincere way, not in a cloying “look, how crazy we can be!” kind of way. And while it seems very simple at the onset, the events that begin to transpire afterwards are actually really quite amazing. Honestly, I really didn’t expect the story to take off like it did.
Proving that indie developers can (and will) take any popular concept and mesh it into any imaginable genre (see roguelikes), Full Bore is actually what might be best described as Metroidvania block pushing puzzle game. You travel across this open 2D world in a fairly non-linear fashion and must basically figure out ways to reach treasures within the mines that are not easily accessible. The environments are composed of big pixel art with a ton of creativity and detail put into them. There’s a wonderful amount of variety here. And the music is also quite good as well.
The indie puzzle platformer genre is incredibly saturated, no doubt. But I think Full Bore actually does stand out amongst the crowd. And aside from the well-designed block puzzles, the bizarrely unexpected story, the splendorous images and music, there’s actually a whole lot of content in the game. I don’t think you’ll be left wanting more, and I mean that in a good way.
The Longest Journey
Regular Sale Price: $4.99 (-50%)
This is an oldie, but a goodie. The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure game that arrived well after the first wave of the point-and-click adventure genre had come and gone. This game was the first game that I ever saw that had a 1 GB install (and to my knowledge it was the first game to actually have one). That was a big deal in the year 2000. When you combine that fact with a title like The Longest Journey, I was expecting this game to be huge.
…It is a reasonable length. I mean, it’s not a short game. Howlongtobeat.com says it averages between 17-20 hours in length. But that also means it’s quite a bit shorter than some of the RPGs that were coming out around that time which could often require >50 hours to beat. Back in the day, on completion, I remember being a tad bit disappointed by the game’s “brevity.”
But really there’s nothing to be disappointed about here. It tells an amazing story that manages to successfully combine both elements of scifi and fantasy. April Ryan is a young artist living in a technologically-advanced world that is culturally not too different from our own, known as Stark. Events lead her to discover that she is a rare being that is capable of travelling to the fantastical realm of Arcadia, a parallel world that is governed by magic rather than technology. These two universes exist in a delicate balance and once formed a single plane of existence. But after arriving in Arcadia, April and those around her soon come to believe that she is destined to play a pivotal role in protecting the fate and stability of the two diametrically-opposed dimensions.
The story here gets huge props. April is one of those characters that just doesn’t conform to the standard lone warrior trope that overshadows vast portions of gaming. And instead of violence, she’s forced to use her wits, determination, and luck to advance toward her goals. I always liked her for being such a relatably human character. And the characters around her, whether human or fantastical, come together in a way that compliments the heartfelt story in a very naturally.
As for the gameplay, it’s standard point-and-click fair. You have to find the right combination of items or figure out the right thing to say to the right NPC to progress. I think most people have a long lingering fear of the genre’s potential for impenetrability, but really for these types of games, I’ve resigned myself that if I have to go to GameFAQs, I will. The story is really the main draw here. And like Gemini Rue, while the puzzles in this game can get hard in the context of modern adventure games, neither are really as baffling as what the genre offered in its darkest days.
Pid
Regular Sale Price: $4.99 (-50%)
Indie platformers by and large tend to be puzzle-focused, but there are a few that are more technique-based challenges like Super Meat Boy and BattleBlock Theater. Pid falls into the latter category, although at first you might think it falls into the former. The game follows Kurt, a school-aged youngster who falls asleep while taking the space bus home from school. Waking up at the last stop, he then finds himself trapped on a planet caught in a bizarre centuries-long holding pattern where the residents go about their tasks as if they have no end. This includes waiting for the bus off the planet, which means Kurt is effectively trapped. While exploring for an escape, he stumbles upon a treasure which gives him the power to create repulsor beams on the ground that allows him to cross difficult to traverse areas, and he sets off to find a solution to the world-engulfing malaise that bars him from going home.
What precipitates is a charmingly off-beat story where the oblivious Kurt seeks escape but is actually threatening the shadowy power that has inflicted the purgatory on the planet. As I mentioned, it’s a technique-driven platformer, where progression is more based on how skillfully you can maneuver with the repulsor beams rather than trying to test out your spatial reasoning skills. I think the game was received poorly on it’s XBLA launch, mostly for what was considered it’s exceptionally high difficulty. While I think this game can be challenging, I don’t think it’s unreasonably difficult like some claim. It’s not in the same league as something like Volgarr the Viking or 1001 Spikes. I think the problem most reviewers had lied with the 360 controller not being appropriate for it. Analog sticks are simply too sluggish for the quick reflexes required by this game, and the 360 d-pad is just too poor to be an option. I hated playing this game with the 360 pad, but found it to be a lot of fun when using the keyboard or a dual shock controller. I recommend those as the way to go for this game.
Underrated Gems from the Steam Summer Sale: 2015 Edition! Part 1
The Steam Summer Sale is here at last! This time it appears to be running until the 1:00 EST on the 22nd. (That will be when all the deals will be taken down.) I always find this a great time to take advantage of the low prices to try games that I might not usually be inclined toward. It’s a great way to expand and develop your tastes! Last year, I wrote up 10 games that I thought were underappreciated gems and were also steals during the sale, and here I am again with another list of recommendations. Of course, the 2014 list is still just as valid during this year’s sale. This is going to be a long post, so I’m splitting it in half. The second half will be available very soon.
All games on this list meet the following criteria: 1) They must be under $10 (USD), 2) they must be at least 50% off, and 3) they are lesser known titles (or at least I perceives them as such). I’ve played through all of these, so they are based on my personal recommendations, and, consequently, they all favor my own idiosyncrasies a little bit. I’ve tried to keep the prices for the list as low as possible to inspire people to maybe take a chance on games that are out of their comfort zone and try something new. For the same reason, I’ve tried to keep it to titles that are lesser known, so you won’t see anything like FTL or Rogue Legacy on here. (Not that those aren’t great games that you should check out if you haven’t already.) The pricing criteria apply to the games’ regular sale price. Many of them may go lower during a flash or daily deal. As always, follow the Steam Sale flow chart to maximize savings.
Rise of the Triad (2013 Reboot)
Regular Sale Price: $3.74 (-75%)
Rise of the Triad is a rebooting of Rise of the Triad: Dark War which was a somewhat forgotten FPS in the era immediately post-Doom. You really don’t need to have played that game to enjoy this one, but you do need to have an appreciation of the early styling of PC FPS. The story is that you are an agent of HUNT, an elite, multinational anti-terrorist organization that is launching an assault against the fortified hidden headquarters of a Nazi secret society. And that’s basically all there is to that. It is a game that is intensely action-driven. And this game is fast. Like really fast. While the game has controller support, I think most prefer the precision of KB+M for a game this quick-natured. I almost always play action games with a controller nowadays, but KB+M just felt way more natural for this game.
There are a lot of games that claim to capture the feel of old-school FPS, but this is probably the one that actually lives up to that ideal the most. I think anyone who might have fond memories of adrenaline-charged, run-and-gun action games should not pass this one up.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Regular Sale Price: $9.99 (-50%) (will go lower on daily or flash)
I’ll say this upfront, I’m pretty sure this game will go down to $5 during a flash or daily deal at some point. It’s been that low before, so I would wait for that price. This is actually the second Sega-themed racer put out by Sumo Digital. The first game, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing was actually a fairly decent kart racer, but Racing Transformed really just completely stomps all over it in quality, design, content, and ambition. While its predecessor was a kart racer, Racing Transformed is really more an arcade racer with a fantastical and whimsical bent. The track are far more creative and grandiose than what had been seen in the first game. Racing Transformed borrows the Mario Kart 7 idea of having transforming vehicles (as the name implies), so you’ll be racing on wheels, water, and through the air. In addition, it’s not just the vehicles that transform, but most of the tracks will transform in some way between laps.
Really this game leans heavily on Sega nostalgia with characters and tracks built around themes from not just popular Sega series like Sonic and Jet Set Radio, but also deep cuts like Skies of Arcadia, Golden Axe, and Space Channel 5. I think one of the strengths of the sequel is that it avoids relying so heavily on Sonic themes and more evenly uses Sega’s massive catalog of brands and characters.
I think any Sega fan will probably get a kick out of it for just for how well it makes use of the many Sega worlds it dives into. And even if you’re not a long time Sega-fan, it’s still a fundamentally good racer that focuses more on “arcadey-ness,” which makes it pretty unique considering how serious racers have become over recent years.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Regular Sale Price: $7.49 (-50%) (will probably go lower on daily or flash*)
Do you like to hack? Do you like to slash (preferably while hacking)? If either of these things sound appealing to you, then Ys: The Oath in Felghana might be up your alley. For those who don’t know, Ys is a long running action RPG series from Japanese developer Nihon Falcom, and Oath in Felghana is widely regarded as one of the series’ finest chapters. Ys follows the travels of Adol Christin and his bro Dogi as they perpetually stumble into conflict with long-dormant ancient evil entities It’s not so much an action RPG in the vein of Diablo, which focuses on loot, grinding levels, and randomized dungeons, rather its more like if Zelda became entirely combat-focused and got rid of all its puzzles to have something that’s focused just on tearing through hordes of enemies. Like I said, it’s for those seeking a fast-paced, hack+slash experience.
I will admit that I haven’t played through the Steam version, but I’ve beaten the game on PSP, and the Steam user reviews are “Overwhelmingly Positive,” so I’m confident it’s a good PC port. I will say, though, that if you’re looking for a traditional JRPG, Ys might not be it (which might be a relief to many of you). It’s not a very story heavy game, but concision works to its advantage. Falcom works with an anime artstyle, but it’s a rather tame anime artstyle that avoids becoming the over-embellished mess that most anime artists lose control to. In addition, the story and characters are rather heartfelt and mature. The writers of the game expertly avoided the anime tropes that most people find obnoxious. But then again, there story is not really all that elaborate.
*Often Ys has a series sales as part of a daily/flash deal, so I would keep a look out for that.
Gateways
Regular Sale Price: $1.49 (-70%)
Gateways is a small, but fun little 2D puzzle platformer that I think went entirely unnoticed when it was released. It’s basically Portal in 2D. Here, you play as a mad scientist who has lost control of his lab and must use his inventions to regain power. That’s really all there is to it. Your primary ability to tackle the obstacles you face is your portal gun, but it goes a step beyond what Portal does with its mechanic and allows the portal gun to be upgraded with a number of offbeat functionalities that cause the puzzles to reach far more mind-bending states than what you see in Valve’s series. In addition to just point to point teleportation, there are portals that shrink or gigantify the protagonist, portals that shift gravity, and, by far the most impressive, portals that allow for time travel.
The time travel in this game is by far its most mind-blowing aspect. Many video games, like P.B. Winterbottom, make use of “time travel” by allowing you to “record” a time clone of yourself that will repeat your actions, but Gateways actually has portals that connect two points in recorded time. That is, the portals connect both a recorded “past” and the (constantly moving forward) “present” state. I have a hard time fully articulating how it works in words, but it is a mechanic that is utterly unique in a world of puzzle platformers who often derive their mechanics from a handful of commonly recurring archetypes.
Binary Domain
Regular Sale Price: $7.49 (-50%) (will probably go lower on daily or flash*)
Binary Domain is a bit of a peculiar title from the 360 generation. From an era during which action shooter games pave-rolled over the Japanese domination over consoles, Binary Domain is a fairly earnest attempt by Sega’s Yakuza team to not only try to crack into the genre but also inject some new ideas into the saturated field. I think it’s a fairly good action game. It doesn’t reach the same peak as Vanquish, but it doesn’t fall into an abyss like other Japanese shooters of the time like Quantum Theory and MindJack.
The game features an international team of peacekeepers who have been sent into Japan to arrest the leader of the Amada Corporation who has been creating illegal human-like robots. Of course, the mission doesn’t go that easy, and you end up fighting his vast army of robots through the streets of cyberpunk Japan. The game’s main gimmick beyond the gunplay is that the team members have a dynamic interaction system, and you can respond in various ways to their conversations using the d-pad (I strongly recommend a controller for this game). Depending on your responses, each team member will either grow to like or hate you, which will influence their actions in the heat of battle.
The story gets a bit…ummm… anime weird, for lack of a better word. It’s an okay story I think, but I have a hard time following the characters’ motivations sometimes. When the villain finally revealed his ultimate evil plan to the protagonist, I really didn’t understand why it was such a bad thing. It seemed really innocuous, maybe actually good for the world. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game. The gunplay is merely competent, but still fun. And even though the story turns into a poor imitation of a Philip K. Dick novel, I really enjoyed fighting alongside the cool characters that made up my team. After all, one of your partners is a French karate robot who might as well be voiced by Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast.
*Since this game comes from a major publisher, I fully expect it to go lower on a featured deal at some point.
Well that’s all for Part 1, make sure to keep an eye out for Part 2 coming soon!
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
There was a time when I didn’t really think much of Bethesda as a publisher. Their Bethesda Softworks developed games in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series were great (especially the Obsidian-outsourced Fallout: New Vegas), but their publishing arm was falling flat on its face with failures like Rogue Warrior, Brink, Hunted and Rage. The latter was most disappointing as it was a long awaited project from the well-established id Software. But over the last few years, my opinion of them has really changed. Seems like things started to turn around with Dishonored, and since then they’ve released the The Evil Within and Wolfenstein: The New Order, both of which have been far better received than their earlier output. With such output, I guess it only makes sense that they plan to have their own big announcement show at E3 this year. I hope we’ll see some hints that they plan to continue the Wolfenstein series after the spectacular entry last year, but if not, at least they’ve released some new add-on content for the previous game.
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is the new standalone expansion content for The New Order, a game that was amongst my bright spots of last year. Seemingly, Machine Games originally intended to release two DLC add-ons for The New Order but instead have ultimately combined the two add-on packs into a standalone game available on digital storefronts for $20. Honestly, it’s a move that makes sense. In a game like New Vegas, it makes sense that the add-on content isn’t standalone, because it requires you to have a preexisting character from the main game. For The Old Blood, nothing carries over from New Order’s campaign, and, consequently, there’s really no reason to exclude anyone who hasn’t played the original campaign. Of course, I recommend playing The New Order first if you haven’t already. Even though it’s a more expensive game, the additional price is worth it if you like non-open world, heavily story-driven action games.
The Old Blood is a prequel to The New Order detailing B.J.’s mission to Castle Wolfenstein (here called Wolfenstein Keep) to collect intel that will precipitate the assault on Deathshead’s fortress that kicks off at the start of The New Order. The Old Blood’s campaign is somewhat curious as it actually seems to finally break the tortuous Wolfenstein timeline. The New Order ostensibly takes place in the same timeline as Wolf3D, with Robo-Hitler dead after B.J.’s assault on the original Castle Wolfenstein, and the mad scientist Deathshead left in control of the fascist forces of Germany. However, The Old Blood seems to imply that this is B.J.’s first incursion into the titular fortress, and considering that the end of The Old Blood sets up the beginning of The New Order, the original game thus seems to have been taken out of the currently existing timeline (as well as all other pre-Bethesda Wolfenstein games). I’m not sure how I feel about this. Considering that Castle Wolfenstein is the series namesake, I would expect B.J.’s mission there to be a little more epic than what is appears in this installment.
The New Order was a heavily story-driven experience, a product of Machine Games whose members can boast such titles as The Darkness and Assault on Butcher Bay as part of their CVs. If you’ve heard anything about The Old Blood, then it’s probably that narrative takes a big backseat in this new content. The story is a throwback to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, focusing more on the Nazi’s experimentations with the occult than the retro-futuristic sci-fi bent of The New Order. It’s incredibly noticeable that The Old Blood was originally intended as two DLC packs, as you can easily tell where the game was split down the middle. The first four chapters feature B.J. escaping from Wolfenstein Keep and facing off against the iron-willed Rudi Jager, while the second set of chapters noticeably translocates the action to a Nazi archaeological dig led by the obsessed Helga Von Schabbs. I think the villains are definitely memorable in their depravity, and there are a few interesting characters you get to meet along the way, but in general, the story of The Old Blood is a very straightforward mission of elude the bad guys and steal the intel you seek. The heartfelt characters, the desperation of their struggle, and the glory of their victories and brutalities of their defeats gave The New Order a beautifully compelling story, especially so when you considered that it was found within such a bombastic action game. Those story elements are lightly touched on again here, but if you found the primary draw of The New Order to be its (relatively) complex and sympathetic narrative, then The Old Blood is probably not going to be for you.
It’s a good thing that the action gameplay is still good! Like it’s predecessor, The Old Blood is just a very good, fluid shooter. As I mentioned in my review of the previous game, while aim-down-sights is an option, it’s hardly necessary in this game. It has the sensibility of a traditional PC game with fast but functional shooting while still maintaining a focus on mobility. Cover is a big part of the game, but instead of docking to a surface as in most modern shooters, it gives you the ability to lean in any direction (even up), so you can shoot from behind obstacles. Leaning feels very natural and doesn’t work to slow down the action as the sticky cover systems of most shooters do.
The enemy variety is okay, nothing particularly great. The two main enemies you fight are your standard Nazi with a machine gun and a variant of heavily armored shotgunner. The shotgunners are not easy to kill head on, but if you take time to aim for their explosive backpacks, you can take them and a few surrounding enemies out in one hit. This interestingly lead me to using the sniper rifle a lot (and in relatively close quarters). In addition to these two main enemy types, there’s also some super soldiers, snipers, drones and a few novel one-off enemies sprinkled in. Some might consider this a spoiler, but considering the occult subject matter it’s not hard to predict that there are Nazi zombies thrown in the late game as well. This makes for a few interesting three-way battles, but I don’t think it’s an idea that’s used as well as it could have been.
Finally, just like in it’s predecessor, stealth is a major component of the game, but it’s entirely optional. When B.J. enters an area, the enemies are often unaware of his presence, giving him the opportunity to pick them off from the shadows, either by getting a takedown from directly behind or by using the silenced pistol to deliver headshots. Other than one section early in the game, stealth isn’t necessary. If you want to go in guns blazing, then it’s still entirely possible to progress via that route. As before, most areas are patrolled by “officer” enemies whose positions are revealed on the HUD. If these officer enemies are aware of B.J.’s presence, they’ll radio in continuous reinforcements until they’re eliminated. This provides the primary incentive for the stealth approach, as killing the officers stealthily avoids having to deal with respawning waves of enemies, but the respawning enemies aren’t so numerous that it’s not possible to make a direct assault at the officers to cut them off.
For me personally, I just like to play it via stealth. I’ve always enjoyed games that allow me to play as a predator hiding in the shadows, the aggressive type of stealth seen in The Last of Us and Splinter Cell: Conviction as opposed to the ghost-like stealth of, say, traditional Splinter Cell which rewards being completely unseen and unheard. I snuck through most sections at least until I took down the officers. One thing though, once B.J. is spotted, he’s spotted, and every enemy in the area becomes aware of his exact position at all times. There’s no way to hide because they just know where you are, kind of like the stealth in the latest Tomb Raider. I’m not sure if this is because the developers didn’t want to have to create additional AI behavior for the enemies, or if they just didn’t want the hide-and-seek seen in most stealth games to slow down the flow of the game.
As a side note, I’ve heard and read a lot of people get discouraged with one of the earliest sections of the game. Very early on in the game, there is a 30 minute or so stretch where B.J. only has access to a broken pipe for a weapon. The ensuing section is stealth-heavy, and B.J. must sneak past a series of super soldiers tethered to power-rails because he’s not capable of taking them on directly with just the pipe. The super soldiers can be shut down temporarily using timed switches that kill electricity to the rails that the super soldiers get power from. A lot of people seem to be having trouble with this section, but I found it to be very light. A few tips I can think to give people is that once the super soldiers are shut down, they can be permanently destroyed by coming up behind them and using the pipe to tear off the power tether. Also, their guns can be picked up and used on other super soldiers (although movement is greatly encumbered when carrying this weapon). If you aim just above the super soldiers’ heads, you can destroy the tether permanently deactivating them that way. When they are destroyed, they drop lots of armor to collect. And if everything else fails, you can also run away from the super soldiers since they’re confined to their rails. They’ll eventually forget about you since they have short memories (the only enemy in the game that does). 
In short, I really enjoyed my time with The Old Blood. It doesn’t reach the same highs as its predecessor, especially in story, and I wouldn’t recommend this game to someone mostly into Wolfenstein for Machine Games’ storytelling prowess. But the action design is still there, even if it isn’t particularly advanced over the predecessor. If you think of The Old Blood as a DLC add-on pack, it’s easier to appreciate the game, I think. After all, it seems to me like it’s so rare for DLC packs to really offer up anything substantial to a game. I finished the game after 6-7 hours (or so Steam tells me), and I definitely think I was satisfied with what was there. I recommend the game, but not highly so. If you’re on the fence, maybe just wait for a Steam sale. It’s worth playing, but not worth wasting money on if you’re unsure.
Shadowgate: Difficulty, Defeat, and Resignation
There’s nothing quite like the difficulty of old school adventure games. Of course old games in general tend to be quite hard, from finicky NES platformers like TMNT to overbearing arcade beat’em ups like, well, TMNT arcade. There are a couple of reasons why this was the case. Arcade games were made excessively challenging to string gamers into dropping more quarters into the slot. NES games were often made with shoe-string budgets by small teams on time (and technology) constraints who didn’t put much effort into fine-tuning the fairness of their game. Sometimes, they were just created by crazy people like David Crane who thought that if a game wasn’t a grueling Sisyphean exercise then the gamer wouldn’t be getting their money worth. But nothing out of the pool of retro games really compares to the inscrutability of old school adventure games with their insanely cryptic puzzles, pixel-hunting, and often opaque and impenetrable logic. Sometimes solving these puzzles felt like you had to expand your mind to higher dimensional planes. Of course, you could take the easy way out and gather the solutions from someone else, but in the age before the proliferation of internet access that was not necessarily easy.
My mind had slowly and mercifully forgotten about how puckishly bewildering these games could be until the recent release of Shadowgate on Steam. This new Shadowgate is a sort of expanded remake of the original Mac/NES game and another product of the Kickstarter nostalgia funding craze. If you wanted a faithful but modernized recreation of the old Shadowgate, then you’re probably going to be pretty pleased with this latest release. The new version possesses three difficulty levels with slightly modified puzzles for each, but from what I’ve played, all difficulties maintain Castle Shadowgate as an utterly baffling enigma. In other words, this game is old-school hard. To my knowledge, I’ve never played the original Shadowgate, but this new release basically falls in line with some of the adventure games I remember from that era. The game requires the player to pixel hunt (there is no convenient feature for highlighting interactive objects as is common in modern adventure games), puzzle over the uses for a particular item as it is often unclear (if it has any use at all, and sometimes you find yourself testing every item in your inventory on a feature of the environment in the mad hope that the solution will simply emerge), and finally, to top it all off, the game has a time limit by way of your dwindling torch. The torch goes out after you do a certain number of actions and if you don’t have a replacement torch, its game over. I find that progress in the game has entirely no momentum. After being stuck in the game for the better part of an hour, I was delighted to find a secret passageway behind which I thought I would find all the items I needed to solve the puzzles I was stuck on. That glimmer of hope was pretty short-lived, however, since all I found were more puzzles and no apparent solutions back there.
Recently, I’ve undergone a major transition in my life. I completed my doctoral dissertation and left school in February, but I didn’t start my new job (which has required a cross-country move) until recently. (I started this blog back in April as a means to maintain sanity during the months of unemployment.) The move to a new city and a new job has gotten me in a mood where I’ve begun to question a lot of things in my life, my interests and past-times included. Video games have been a pretty big part of my life ever since I started gaming on the NES at the age of 4. I know there have been a lot of negative things going on in some circles of the gaming community lately, and some people have expressed that freely admitting to having a deep interest and appreciation of the craft of video games is appalling and embarrassing, but I can’t concur. Some people may find it a shameful waste of time that could have been devoted to more worthwhile interests, but is it any different than being deep into a favored sports team or being hooked on the latest fashions or dying to see the latest superstar in concert? These are, after all, interests that millions of Americans and millions upon millions more in countries beyond possess. During my introspection, I’ve come to realize that I’ve seen a lot happen and a lot change in the sphere of gaming during my life, starting from fuzzy, pixelated, bleep-bloopey NES games to polygonalized PSX games with redbook audio and from arcade dominance of multiplayer gaming to the arrival of the internet-connected arenas and fantasy worlds of the late ‘90s. And that’s just scraping the surface of the evolution that I’ve seen take place. From such a perspective, it’s hard to think of the craft of video games as something that isn’t worthy of appreciation. But gamers can differ pretty wildly in what types of games and what aspects of games they appreciate. I personally try to keep an open-mind toward everything, but there are definitely elements of what I play that I value more than others.
One thing that I do value highly is a well-designed challenge. I think a lot of gamers, particularly older ones with children, prefer games that they can quickly beat because they are only playing for the “experience” and aren’t interested so much in mechanical depth, which is fine for those people I guess. I also know that some believe video games are merely supposed to be “empowerment fantasies” which make the player feel like a larger than life hero, and a challenging difficulty level is not conducive toward that effect. I’m a little more dismissive of this latter viewpoint. I don’t really see how playing a game where you fight an army of pushovers is supposed to be empowering. Any victory achieved in such a game feels empty to me. Rather, I feel empowered by successfully honing my skills toward mastering adversity and challenge that is presented to me. I’ve always found Megaman games to be a perfect example of why I find challenge important. With each new level you enter, you struggle as you hone your skills, but eventually with patience and attentiveness, you’ll be able to reach the robot master and deliver unto him the beat down he deserves. And after besting such formidable bosses and levels, there’s always that wonderful feeling of catharsis in knowing how expertly you overcame it all. I also feel that challenge is important to making a game memorable. Easy games tend not to be particularly memorable to me, because it just sort of feels like I’m going through the motions to reach the end credits roll. Appropriate difficulty, on the other hand, necessitates a closer relationship between the player and the game as a greater effort must be effected toward understanding and paying attention to the game.
While I personally deeply appreciate challenge, I have limits, and Shadowgate tests those limits with the severity of its puzzles. When I give up on a game, it tends to be because I find it boring, but Shadowgate is the first game since the Megaman Zero Collection on DS that I’ve thought about giving up on because it was just too hard for me. Contradictorily, I keep playing the game simply because it vexes me to the point that I refuse to let it defeat me, and, consequently, I’m hooked on the game even though I’m not sure if I’m actually having fun, and this makes me question whether spending time with it is worthwhile.
Clearly Shadowgate is stimulating to me, since I keep returning to the whole grueling ordeal, but is it a meaningful kind of stimulation? I’m very quickly starting to feel that it isn’t, as I’m just not achieving much satisfaction from play. I don’t feel the same catharsis that I feel after taking down a robot master. Any progress I make in Shadowgate doesn’t come with the joy of accomplishment; rather it is tempered with full realization of my cluelessness regarding all the other tests that are left unsolved in the castle. As I said, there’s little momentum in this game. It truly is old-school hard, as advertised.
Since I find the game too hard, I’m confronted with a few options. I could just simply give up. That seems too easy, and, as I’ve said, I want to appreciate games and that would rob me of that goal. I mean, someone out there must appreciate this game, or it wouldn’t have been Kickstarted back from the grave, meaning there must be something worthwhile here. I could abuse the overly helpful, hint-dispensing sidekick character and coast through the rest of the game, but that would rob me of any feeling of personal achievement and, as I’ve discussed above, closeness to the game experience. Instead, I think I’m going to do something that I’ve always ridiculed others for. I’m starting over in easy mode. That way, I still get to gain some appreciation without having to have my hand embarrassingly held through the whole experience. And I have a feeling that easy mode in this game is still pretty hard.
So there you go, a rare admission that I suck at something and I’m totally knocking it down to baby mode. Shadowgate has truly humbled me. Next thing you know, I will no longer consider those who shirk away from Dark Souls to be a bunch of casual hardly-cores. Truly, a new day is dawning in my life.
Shovel Knight: Progressive Regression
Honestly, I’m kind of ambivalent toward of retro-obsessed gaming. And when I say “retro-obsessed gaming,” I’m not necessarily talking about games with pixel art aesthetics, as there are games that make use of pixel art but rely on fairly original gameplay design as opposed to being an evocation of a popular back-in-the-day title(s) (some examples that immediately come to mind of these fully modern pixellated games include Lone Survivor, Fez, FTL and Gunpoint). I’m really talking about games that are focused on being a throwback to the past, such as Volgarr the Viking, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, or the recent remake of DuckTales. Some years ago when this phenomenon started, I was super excited for games like Mega Man 9 and Scott Pilgrim. Nowadays, when I find myself seeing games which promote themselves on retro-cred, I tend to just roll my eyes.
Maybe my distaste is just a matter of the novelty wearing off, but more likely I think it’s because this genre has become saturated with games which are more focused on obsessing over the old games the creator loved than actually creating a fun underlying game. Perhaps the worst example of this behavior I can think of is Retro City Rampage, the gaming equivalent of those awful reference humor movies that were hugely popular like 8 years ago. It is a game which makes hundreds of references to older games, such as Frogger and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as ‘80s pop culture, but in the preoccupation with making so many references, the developer failed to create a game that was actually fun to play. And the references aren’t even particularly well-done, since it was never realized that references aren’t funny in and of themselves. There’s no subtlety or cleverness to the whole act, and it is neither funny nor amusing, but simply the game going “HEY, REMEMBER THIS? REMEMBER IT??? YOU’RE COOL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT AREN’T YOU?” The bad habit of lamely throwing out references just for the sake of throwing out references or trying to prove the developer’s gaming repute crops up in a lot of small developer titles, but that entire trend basically became crystallized in Retro City Rampage. On the other hand, one of my favorite games I’ve played this year was Volgarr the Viking, a throwback game which tries to capture the spirit of old sidescrolling action games like Rastan and Legendary Axe. (I’ve written more about this game here.) The team behind Volgarr successfully captured the essence of those games to make something enjoyable to play, while managing to avoid becoming fixated on nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. My time with Volgarr has led me to believe that these throwback games aren’t just a novelty, but rather a legitimate approach to game design when handled competently.
This brings us to Shovel Knight. I initially wrote this game off because every time it was previewed before release, it seemed the developers were really tripping over themselves to name drop as many classic NES games as they could. But after its recent release, I heard some positive buzz from other players, so I decided to give it a go and hope for a Volgarr and not an RCR. Fortunately, I ended up having a blast with the game and in my mind it’s sort of the template of how throwback gaming should be handled.
Some background first, Shovel Knight was Kickstarted last year by freshman developer group Yacht Club Games and follows the sidescrolling action-platforming adventure of the eponymous Shovel Knight, whose quest takes him up against the eight rogue knights of the Order of No Quarter and their leader, the Enchantress. The game is sort of built in the template of Mega Man. The Order of No Quarter is composed of knights whose names all follow a convention of being titled “_____” Knight, where the blank is filled in with some sort of theme for that character which is reflected in the level they are fought. (Also notice that there are eight of them.) The levels also have a definite Mega Man feel to them, since each level has its own special gimmicks and features derived from the particular theme. Consequently, the level design has a sort of Mega Man “toughness,” since each level tests the player with its own unique challenges that must be mastered to progress. The other major game I see in Shovel Knight’s genetics is Zelda II. The game has an overworld map for selecting levels that reminds me a lot of Zelda II, complete with towns and side areas to visit in addition to the main Order of No Quarter stages. Shovel Knight can also bounce off of enemies using a downward strike similar to a move Link utilizes in Zelda II.
Yet despite the fact that you can clearly see the influences of Mega Man and Zelda in Shovel Knight, it manages to feel like an original game, not just a hollow mimic of some old beloved NES title. This is because, although it stitches together a handful of borrowed ideas from the classics, it differentiates itself in every other way. I’ll illustrate a few examples here: The levels are designed like Mega Man, but Shovel Knight is a melee-oriented character which alters the flow of gameplay. Like Mega Man, Shovel Knight can acquire new powers, called relics, but these are collected not from defeated bosses, but rather a hidden merchant in each level from which the knight can buy the relic. This makes rooting around for hidden rooms all the more important in Shovel Knight as well as collecting treasure for upgrades. (There are a ton of secrets in this game, which I like a lot, and it really goes toward capturing the NES spirit.) Also, the robot masters in Mega Man are all essentially just Mega Man with a different gun, while the members of the Order of No Quarter come in various sizes and with moves that are radically different from what Shovel Knight can pull off. (It’s kind of like the difference between Mega Man X bosses and original series robot masters.) These are just some examples of the ways in which Shovel Knight forges its own identity.
This is why Shovel Knight succeeds where so many are falling flat right now. Shovel Knight has influences, not references. It’s clear that the Order of No Quarter are creative descendants of the robot masters, the developer just lets that fact lie without needing to beat the player over the head with mentions and jokes about it. I never found a single bit of reference humor in the game, which means it’s either not there or it’s incredibly subtle. Shovel Knight honors its NES roots by utilizing ideas that were loved from those games, but it creates its own identity by uniting those borrowed ideas with its own original designs. It’s offering the spirit of its roots, not wearing the dead skin of them. Most importantly though, when synthesizing these ideas together, the developers of Shovel Knight actually paid attention to whether their game was fun or not, rather than simply relying on nostalgia to hook players. If you’ve never played any Mega Man or Zelda II, I really doubt you’d be held back from enjoying Shovel Knight on its own merits.
I think some developers feel that nostalgia is worthwhile on its own, but it’s really not. RCR, which offers nothing but nostalgia, was received terribly; while Shovel Knight has achieved fairly high acclaim. The problem is that I think a lot of gamers feelthey want nostalgia, and therefore it is a fairly good aspect to base a promotional campaign around. Before RCR’s release, a ton of gamers, myself included, were excited by videos showing pixelated graphics and missions calling back to TMNT, Metal Gear, and so on. But when the game was finally released, the realization hit that it was all style and no substance. The failure of RCR and other games marketed heavily on such nostalgia (DuckTales quickly comes to mind) has unfortunately resulted in a lot of cynicism toward this approach to game design. But as games like Shovel Knight and Volgarr the Viking prove, such an approach can actually result in games that are both a lot of fun and also really unique when handled by those who put creating a great game first, rather than trying to create shallow imitations of past glories.
The Maximum Utmost 