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Let's Review: Unknown Games; (and maybe a few that are mainstream)
Topic Started: Mar 24 2009, 05:21 PM (109 Views)
Dragonatrix
Dead Wolf
I write reviews for Neoseeker some times, so I figured I'd post them here as well (and on my site ofc.) just so ya can read them if ya like. Most of the time, these'll be unknown games that I really love and think should get/have got more attention than it did. Starting with this classic:

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Alundra is a good ol' classic 2D ARPG (Action Role Playing Game) made by (the now-disbanded) Matrix Studios in 1997. This game went practically unnoticed then, and it'd take the "patience of a saint", as some would say, to find either a CD copy of the game or someone who has even played it in this day and age. It's one of those games that you either love or hate, and personally I love this game.

The Adventures of Alundra follows, perhaps unsurprisingly, the tale of a young male named Alundra. Alundra is both blessed and cursed as he is one of the last few members of the Clan of Elna - an ancient race whom have the power to enter people's dreams as they sleep - and he must use his power to rescue the village of Inoa from their eternal nightmares. Initially, Alundra sets off to Inoa on board a vessel guided by the sage-like Lars, someone who has no tangible form and initially only appears to Alundra in his dreams. On route to Inoa, the ship gets caught in the most ferocious storm it's ever been in (the captain says it's been in worse but based on given evidence I find this hard to believe) and ends up getting TORN IN HALF by a tidal wave. By sheer luck, Alundra ends up washing ashore on the island he was heading to and a villager by the name of Jess finds him, and takes him to Inoa, where Jess used to work as a blacksmith. After meeting a few of the local villagers - such as Sybil, a young girl who dreams whilst she is awake, and Nadia, someone to whom sleep is not a reprieve as it causes nearby objects to violently explode - he encounters an old man named Wendell who's locked in a fierce nightmare and no one is able to help him. Wendell's grandchildren, Bergus and Nestus, ask Alundra to go fetch a man by the name of Septimus as they believe he may be able to help. Septimus is a scholarly man who has studied the nightmares that have plagued Inoa and is distraught with his failure to be able to help on his own. Realizing Alundra's potential, Septimus sends him off to the manor of Tarn - Septimus' old master - to retrieve an old book. Once he reaches the manor, Alundra encounters Melzas - the game's main antagonist - who threatens Alundra before retreating for the time being. Alundra eventually retrieves the book, and returns to help Septimus and Wendell. Septimus helps Alundra enter Wendell's nightmare, and the dark overtures of the game slowly become more noticable from there...

Now, with the plot summary out of the way, I can begin this review in earnest. Alundra is one of those few games that has aged exceptionally well. It's just as thought-provoking, and immersive now as it was a decade ago. Some people may be instantly turned away from such a classic due to it being in 2D. If this game were in 3D, it'd be a step in the wrong direction. This is a game that deserves to stay as 2D as it plays perfectly fine as is. The graphics leave nothing to be desires, and the visual effects that many take for granted as of late - such as smoke emenating from a chimney - only enhance the visual factor. The only noticable downside is that depth perception is remarkably annoying; there are many jumps that look like they can be made but actually can't, and vice versa.

As a whole, the soundtrack is exceptional. Some tracks, such as "Torla Mountain" aren't overly good but others ("Gemini Dreams" for example) are far superior, and as a result help average out the few bad tracks. The intro alone has a splendid guitar track playing, and is a beautifully rendered CGI scene to boot (it sort of has an anime style to it... but it does lead to the question: is Alundra's hair ginger or blonde?). There isn't much that I can say about the OST other than it's certainly worth a listen.

Now, one of my first real problems with this game: the puzzles. Many of these puzzles are exceptionally difficult, to the point of frustrating. Several are - literally - trial and error affairs. The first truly difficult puzzle is in the third non-dream dungeon at the very beginning, as it requires you to talk to 5 characters in a certain order. This is the first time you'll need to write down key information to try and piece together the solution (the instruction manual even recommends that you keep a pen and some paper at hand while playing), and even then it can take a while. The puzzles get exceptionally harder as the game progresses, but there is one puzzle in particular in one dream sequence that annoys everyone. It looks easy, and with some lateral thinking it is, but you need to treat it like a chess-game: think several moves ahead. Some of the puzzles in this game are insanely difficult the first time through and when you grow up playing this game, very few puzzles become a challenge any more (there's one classic puzzle that appears in this game on a very difficult scale; many switches, have to get them all the same colour, flipping one changes the colour of those around it as well... that puzzles is notable twice and it's not overly easy either time; the second time isn't required but helps).

The plot is also overly convoluted at first, and may take some time to understand. Nothing overly major seems to happen (aside from a few NPCs dying) for a while, then as you approach the end of the game a lot of plot gets thrown outta nowhere. This game may actually offend some people, as it has an anti-religious plot... only this isn't known, prevalent or even brought up until past halfway through the game.

There's very little I can genuinely critisize this game for, as it's a masterpiece that outshines many of the modern mainstream games. Even better news, is that it's apparantly available on the PS3 version of PSN (as to whether or not it's a Japan exclusive I'm not sure) so it's easy to get access to play if you'd wish.
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Dragonatrix
Dead Wolf
I call myself a critic moreso than a reviewer for a reason:

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Earlier in the week, I had some spare time so I took the opportunity play a game that is supposedly a port of a PS2 cult classic (since I got it for free with my PSP-3000), and haven't had the time to play it yet. I'm glad I got it for free; I definitely wouldn't pay a single penny for it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not an overly bad game (it's actually horrid). It's not even average. I don't really see the appeal; it tries to be too many things at once. It's a beat 'em up at first, and for most of the game, but it also tries to be a puzzler (and occasionally a platformer) far too many times. It's basically a game about stabbing the undead to restore the world, which would be a good premise if it didn't take itself so seriously.

The basic plot of the game, is that Kratos - the "Ghost of Sparta" - is a slave to the gods of Olympus yet he doesn't want to be. He just wants to revive his daughter who died before the events of the game. After the tutorial level (which is, ironically, the most fun part of the game as you get to actually fight a basilisk and Persian soldiers), Morpheus - Greek god of Dreams (every in-game deity is actually correct in both name and role) - has taken over Olympus and the planet after Helios - the rider of the Sun Chariot - "crashes" into the underworld, and loses his power of the sun.

My biggest qualm with the game is that there is a quick-time event on just about every screen. A quick-time event can be summed up as "Press X to not die", and they are abused FAR too much. The best attack in the game is a summoned fire djinn (an Efreet to be presise) and in order to get the maximum damage output you need to mash the O button. In order to finish of a boss, you need to perform a (possibly fixed) quick-time event. In order to open a door you need to perform a quick-time event. Regular enemies can be killed either with, or without, a quick-time event.

Another problem I have with the game is that, yes it's intended for an older audience but the puzzles are ridiculously hard for a beat 'em up. I solved the majority of said puzzles via dumb luck moreso than intelligence (a grand total of ONE I solved due to being able to figure out the solution).

It's also ridiculously easy to die. A fairly-common mid-game enemy can petrify you immediately if you don't kill it quickly, and you need to be able to mash the L+R buttons to un-petrify yourself (some how). Catch is, unless you are insanely fast you'll take a minor hit and die immediately. There's several jumps that if you miss, you die immediately. The penultimate boss has a one-hit kill full screen attack, and the final boss has several one-hit kill attacks.

Speaking of the final boss, figuring out how to beat the damn thing was a puzzle in, and of, itself. You get to wittle it down to almost no health, whilst avoiding a one-hit kill via a - you guessed it - quick time event, and a paralysis move that gets spammed and is almost impossible to dodge, then you have to try and figure out how to deal the final blow. Don't do it in time? You get to basically restart the entire second half of the fight. Again. With almost no magic, and you NEED your magic to weaken the damn thing in the first place. How do you beat the final boss? It's on its knees basically dead, so you think you can just keep attacking, right? Wrong. Summon Efreet to kick its ass? Wrong. Use the same strategy that was used for every other boss: press the grab button and do a quick-time event? Wrong. You have to stand on ONE part of the arena, draw your shield (which I figured out by a MISPRESS) and then do two quick-time events.

The game isn't all bad though; just mostly bad. It's pretty fun when you just focus on the murder, and it can be pretty damn immersive despite the blatant linearity of the game. The music is bearable, and at times it does fill you with inspiration to murder the hordes of the undead. I don't usually rate graphics (since I'm of the opinion that a game can be look like it is 8-bit and not suck), but they are pretty good (especially for a portable game). They don't enhance gameplay in any way, but they don't detract from it; the game wouldn't be that much different if it had awful graphics; it'd just look worse. Beating the game once unlocks the hardest difficulty as well as Hades Challenges (both of which, in turn, unlock more bonus content when completed). It's also relatively short too - I beat it a little under 3 hours in one sitting and I'm not that good at these kinds of games - but that's not really a bad thing; a game like this shoudln't be too long, lest it try to be an RPG as well. Oh wait, it does.
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Dragonatrix
Dead Wolf
Possibly the last game I genuinely find difficult to criticise in some form:

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Psychonauts is often regarded as a game that is one of the best ever made by reviewers (professional or otherwise) and players alike. Whilst it's remarkably difficult to find people who have even heard of the game - let alone played it - should you happen to know someone who has, chances are they'll tell you the same thing I'm about to (unless they're a first person shooter fanboy, then that's just weird): screw Halo 3. This IS the best game ever made.

(One of the main reasons why the game didn't sell as well as it should have, may be that it was never actually advertised properly. I certainly had never even heard of it until sometime two years ago when I chanced upon it in a backdated copy of my then favorite PS2 game review magazine; I have yet to even find a TV advertisement for it, or even some snippit from a magazine that wasn't said review.)

Since you've likely never heard of the game, I might as well give a minor explanation as to how the game came into creation; Double Fine Productions is a company created by Tim Schafer (the guy who helped create Grim Fandago and the first two Monkey Island games; you just know this game is gonna be good with that knowledge alone) in 2000 shortly after he left LucasArts. It's personel is made up of the Grim Fandago development team and several other people. If you've never heard of Double Fine either, I'm not surprised, as at the time of writing, Psychonauts is the only game they've ever made; 5 years after the company was formed and 4 years before the predicted release of their second game.

Well, I'm four paragraphs in and I haven't even started discussing the game yet so I might as well start now, otherwise this'll have been a giant waste of time. Psychonauts is about a child named Razputin Aquato (Raz for short) who runs away from the circus to go to Whispering Rock Psyching Summer Camp where psychics are trained to become the elite agents known as Psychonauts. He manages to get in with minimal worry, but quickly gets caught and is technically not allowed to participate in any camp activites as he doesn't have parental permission to be there and thus one of the camp councellors - Mia Vodella - calls his father (who caused Raz to run away in the first place, because he hates psychics) to come and collect Raz. This leads to Raz attempting to complete the entire camp course within one day to prove his worth, yet he manages to get involved in something much bigger...

Psychonauts gameplay is one of the places where the game really excels, due to the nature of every powerup being a plot-related unlockable (even the seemingly optional ones are needed at some point) that can be upgraded eventually. Each powerup takes the guise of a new psychic power, and they are fairly predictable for the most part; Psi-Blast is the main offensive powerup but it isn't actually the first (the easiest way to describe what it does is by simply calling them "mind bullets"), that works as a gun in an action game; it actually has ammo that CAN and frequently does run out. Pyrokinesis is the standard psychic ability of burninating (yes, I said burninating) with the mind. Telekinesis is another standard ability for anything to do with psychics (telekinesis is the ability to move things with the mind for those that don't know). Invisibilty is one of those things that do exactly what you think it does. Levitation is a rather interesting one; it can be used to make Raz float but it's also used a method of moving faster than normal (at the slight cost of ease of control) via a colour-customisable sphere that appears like a balloon. Shield is nothing worth using overly much, aside from in a few specific areas where it's needed, it prevents all ranged damage done to Raz for about 3 seconds. Finally, the power of Clairvoyance. This is normally a power associated with the ability to see into the future but in this case it does something a bit different. By holding an item, when you activate Clairvoyance you can see exactly what this item will show you; more often than not, it's what the other characters see Raz as, but some items show things like a bonus scene, and one is used to solve a puzzle via this very method. [Don't worry, none of these powers are surprises or anything; they're all in the manual.]

These abilities allow for some interesting gameplay choices that you can make, but I invariably end up using Psi-Blast, Levitate, and Pyrokinesis. Everything else isn't really all that useful or is merely designed for puzzle solving.

The really interesting gimmick that Psychonauts has, however, is the ability to enter specific characters minds. Some of these are pretty much exactly what you'd expect, some have hidden secrets that the character doesn't want you to find out about, and some are just plain weird. The minds, as well as being fun little romps inside a characters psyche, are technically the levels of the game. There aren't really many minds to enter [13 in total; not everyone's can be entered] but some of them are pretty lengthy, and/or really difficult to compensate. Each mind has a pretty interesting mini-plot that goes with it (for the most part anyway), but there is one mind in particular that no one can ever forget because it's just so awesome (and random). I would explain it, but since it comes pretty late in the game it's a spoiler. Of awesomeness.

Another really good quality of Psychonauts, is that there's never a moment where nothing is really happening, unless you intentionally just stand in an awkward spot. In almost every screen, there are a couple of bonus scenes that tell you more about the other campers, or are just little short scenes. A lot of them are really easy to miss as well; I've played through this game many times and I don't think I've seen them all yet!

I might as well give my opinion of the unimportant details now, like the graphics. The graphics are pretty good for a 2005 release game, and still manage to hold up well today. I don't find myself looking at the graphics of the game that often though, because I'm normally having fun doing, well, anything. The music is also very good, but some tracks are pretty boring and dull (these are only found at the end of the game though). Another little quirk with the game, is that even though it could be considered a childs game with regard to the difficult of a good 98% of the game, some of it is actually pretty scary all things considered. I dread the end-game optional backtracking, due to some of the stuff that can be encountered then. And if you don't get this one specific item, you have to do it. That's pretty much my only qualm with the game; you need seemingly optional items that you aren't even told you need until the very moment you need them.

In conclusion, I highly highly reccomend giving this game a try. Don't worry if you have neither a Playstation 2 or an original Xbox (any more), as it can be bought through Steam for the Xbox 360 or PC. I'm not entirely sure of the price, but I highly doubt it'll be too expensive; even if it is, you can also try someone elses copy. This game is worth playing at least once just for the experience of doing so. And there's a lot to be experienced in a world as detailed as this one is.
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