It's that time again~

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Whilst 2011 has been a terrible year for me on a personal level, the same cannot be said for gaming. This is the year that finally gave us Duke Nukem Forever for example but everyone really wishes it hadn't. While I haven't updated anything in over a year, here are my top games of the year that was as we gear up for entering 2012 and possibly even prepare to begin adapting to a new set of consoles.

Sadly, I haven't yet played any games with the word "sky" in them. So they will be absent. I also haven't gotten around to playing Mario Kart 7 or 3D Land or whatever yet, so don't shoot me for ignoring those because I can imagine they could be in here... eh, onto the unconventional. If we had gotten Mass Effect 3 and Valkyria Chronicles 3, it probably would have been a very different list indeed.

10 - Dead Space 2 (360/PS3/PC)
It's hard to believe that Dead Space 2 came out this year. It feels so long since I made my way through severing the limbs from weird alien-inhabited corpses with my trusty engineering tools-turned weapons. What we had here was a survival horror game that is legitimately creepy. You're being hunted much more so in this one than in the previous game. Isaac has been promoted from silent protagonist to man-with-serious issues this time around. It leaves you questioning yourself and who you should trust and when playing on any serious difficulty, you will die. A lot.

Welcome to the Sprawl and hurry back to the Ishimura, Isaac

This is seriously one of those games that, even when you are just watching someone else play, can be creepy. There are always sounds of things crawling through vents to get you and the enemy AI will flank and ambush you mercilessly unless you know exactly what is coming. Add to that, the low lighting and genuine loneliness of it all and you have a game that relies on its atmosphere. It isn't a game where you can just blast away at opponents either because slicing off the monster's limbs is the quickest way to dispatch them. Body shots will waste your ammo and said ammo is usually very scarce. Each weapon takes up space in your slowly growing inventory but so does the ammo. So you will constantly have to swap around your inventory to make sure that you are never without ammo or a strong weapon. Without those, our boy Isaac is going to be half the man he used to be. Quite literally.

Because in the future, Engineering tools can double as guns  and look like space staplers.

It's also notable for being a game that uses Space well as an environment. Not only is it a weapon to suck monsters out into via conveniently placed airlocks but when you do get to spacewalk they are some of the most memorable sections. There's the novelty of being free to float around without gravity but firstly, you are in the vacuum of space, so unlike most fiction, you hear nothing besides Isaac's own breathing as a constant reminder of your finite oxygen supply. This takes away your main weapon and is a massive handicap as the creatures are more than at home floating around out there and without sound, disturbingly easily sneak up on you. you will be on edge when you see an airlock. You will remember it.

These memorable moments elevate this into my top ten this year. I never tried to complete this game on its hardest difficulty because it restricts you to 3 saves through the whole game and I figured that I'd never be able to handle the rage at hours lost due to a slight mistake getting me cut in half.

9 - Back to the Future: The Game (PS3/PC)
Great Scott! They got Christopher Lloyd back to play the Doc. Well, sadly the voice talent matching the originals ends there but the stand-ins do a reasonable job at replicating the films. Marty is pretty much spot-on and while Telltale have been gradually making their point-and-click games easier and less pointy and clicky, this one is ok and since Telltale didn't do a Sam and Max or Monkey island game this year, this one will have to do.

True to Telltale form, the "game" is actually episodic in nature and all of these episodes will take a decent amount of time to plough through on your own. You never really feel like you just want it to end and it's good to have Doc Brown back in any facility. In the US you can buy them all on one disc for PS3 now. Not over here in the UK though yet.

The "game" picks up after Back to the Future 3 in 1986, with the Doc missing in action he is presumed dead and George McFly sets about tagging up his belongings to be sold with the aid of the recently placated-but-still-a-douchebag, Biff Tannen. Marty isn't too happy about this and not wanting to spoil, he somehow winds up finding his way to a Delorean that isn't too disimilar to the one destroyed at the climax of the third movie. The Doc tries to explain these plot holes away in-universe though and there's even a trophy for seeing these explanations in the Playstation 3 version.

Also true to Telltale form, the game introduces a large cast of their own new characters for the prohibition-era that most of the game is set in. We meet a young Emmet Brown, a new member of the Strickland family (Hooligans, not slackers) and several new incarnations of Hill Valley pop up along the way. The people at Telltale obviously love the source material and it's really the duty of any fan of the film franchise to give it a good look over before it hits that magic 88 and vanishes in a trail of flames.

If you're wondering, here's some of the gameplay:

Serious shit, indeed.
8 - Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (360/PS3)

The Dead Rising 2 that should have been featuring everyone's most FAN-TAST-IC coverer of wars... you know. While I hate to include an enhanced re-release on this here list, I really did enjoy playing it through. Frank is older, more out of shape and angrier than last time out and he wants to get "back in the game" - his excuse for entering Terror is Reality over Chuck.

The game's loading times are reduced quite a lot and there is a new theme park area where some pretty weird story editing takes place. Otherwise it's a tweaked Dead Rising 2 and you'll know what to expect. However, there are tweaks and unlike Capcom's usual minimal additions, the whole story is rewritten to include Frank and focuses on his relationship with Rebecca Chang which is more in the spotlight due to him not being the brooder that Chuck was.

You still need to find Zombrex and the missions and rescues are all strictly timed. I'm not sure if it's a reference to the first Dead Rising or if Frank just has an aura that makes his allies stupid but the AI on survivors is less Clark Kentish and more Frank Spencer than it was for Chuck, meaning that guiding a large team of survivors can be much more irritating than it was in the base game.
But then again, he wrestles zombies. So all is forgiven. The whole game is less serious than its counterpart and really when you are flinging zombies into lawnmowers and lacerating everything up with rotor blades attached to a Servbot with a constipated face, you need the tone to be low. Otherwise you are just contrasting "oh no my daughter is dying" with "lol i kik zombie thru head wiv dildo haha".
There's a new sandbox mode that allows you to just do whatever you like without any time limits. It's here that you can earn more money to transfer to your main save file and complete challenges. All of this is available in online multiplayer too.

Erotica Bonus! Fantastic!

7 - Dead or Alive Dimensions (3DS)
Back in 2004/5 Dead or Alive ultimate was released on the original Xbox. It combined all the elements of the series that the fans loved into one whole and for the longest time, felt like the most complete Dead or Alive experience available. An excellent addition to what has been a fairly solid 3D fighting game since the mid 90s, ignoring those silly Volleyball games and terrible movie.

Then Itagaki left the company... and suddenly the entire female cast found themselves with free breast reductions and the back pain was finally gone. The titillation is still there, of course but it is noticeably toned down.


Cue Dead or Alive Dimensions on Nintendo's 3DS. Being new to the Nintendo audience, Team Ninja have decided to lay it all out. The story mode allows you to play through a freshly retconned and adapted version of each of the previous games stories, mainly focusing on the "main" Ninja characters that won the previous tournaments, Helena and her assassin hangers-on. For the first time in the series, the story feels like it's actually there and it even attempts to tie Dead or Alive back in with both the new and 80s Ninja Gaiden series by reintroducing Irene Lew as the character we were introduced to in Ninja gaiden 2 and its sigma reissue. Whether it succeeds or not is a matter of debate though as it can be jumpy and weird in places.

The presentation is sleek with a mix of stylised, motion-comic-like cutscenes, old FMV sequences and scenes clipped from the original games (Without the Aerosmith however - which makes the "Amazing" sequence look odd as it is clearly animated along with the song... and not the song that has been applied over the top in this version) and an actual English cast that isn't ear-bleedingly terrible that for the most part apply the character's accents in a subtle enough fashion.

The combat itself returns to its roots. Feeling more in keeping with the pre-DOA4 games than the newer title and restoring the broken counter/parry system to its more easily used and less random forebear. The 3D effects add some depth to your attacks as you launch the opponent into the screen. Though it does take a hit on the old FPS. Add to all of this some of the features of the 3DS like online fighting, downloadable costumes and challenges and other bonuses and you have a pretty solid DoA here. It even has a stage cameo from Metroid but sadly, no playable Samus.

How crazy are you? I don't know but this one is more worthy of the ba-da-ba than usual.

If you haven't played much Dead or Alive before, this is a perfect route in and I highly recommend it.

Unless you're Scandinavian of course. Then it's banned.

6 - Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (PSP)
The original Dissidia wasn't bad. It was a crossover fighting game that allowed you to finally see whether Squall or Cloud would come out on top in a fight. It highlighted the oft-ignored characters of Final Fantasy XI with the inclusion of the greatly feared Shantotto and it was an enjoyable handheld game.

This year, 012 expanded on this.

I don't hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate this one.

The game expands on the story present in the previous game by setting itself as a prequel. Lightning leads her band of characters that were almost in the previous game but were cut out into the previous cycle (the cycle element, of course, taken from the first Final Fantasy game) and explains why they were absent in the previous game. The previous game's story has also been included in the middle of the game with many new epilogue cutscenes added on the end too and because of this you can import your save file, including character levels from the first Dissidia game, meaning less work for you in completing all the old characters stories. The disadvantage is that you will have seen all the scenes already.

The game can feel a little misguided at times though. It insists that Lightning is the main character and forces her on you quite a lot in the early parts of the game. Some of the ranged characters that have been added can be quite broken at times. Most notably with Laguna and his seemingly endless machine gun attack so you'd better learn to dodge a lot.

Wins for the inclusion of everyone's favourite Black Mage that isn't Vivi though.

"Stupidity. Impossible to gauge!"
It may be on the hand-cramping PSP and it might not make much sense narratively to have all these characters together but for old fans of Final Fantasy that hate that the series is going down the shitter and lacks the pull it once had, it's a taste of nostalgia. Take a decent bite out of it and you'll be rewarded by this unconventional fighter, Kupo.
5 - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3)
Another year, another Naughty Dog classic. Another game with Nolan North Nathan Drake doing some adventuring with an old man, Morrigan from Dragon Age Origins and his journalist girlfriend. Though this time they are joined by many British types as the plot incorporates elements from T.E Lawrence. Yes, that Lawrence of Arabia.

I guess we found our bad guy...

Building on the Tomb Raider with wave combat and hand-holding hints of its predecessors, Deception's combat feels much the same in that it's engaging and intuitive but unlike a lot of games, Uncharted makes you really care about the things the characters go through. This one ramps up the emotional investment by going deeper into the backstory for certain characters that we haven't seen before. The actors also seem to really invest themselves into the characters in this series with nothing too hammy or obnoxious popping up too often and the graphics as expected from the series are some of the best in this generation. Making the many set pieces all the more engaging (you run away from stuff... a lot).

Try charting these waters sometime and you will likely not be unhappy. Smooth sailing this way. Oh and yes, the trophy list is almost identical again (with certain game-specific addenda) because that's how they roll. They love making you do whatever "in a row".

4 - Rayman Origins (360/Wii/PS3)

Oh, Rayman. It has been a while since you graced us with your limbless platforming skills. Dethroned by Ubisoft's extraterrestrial rabbity things this generation, Rayman kind of fell into irrelevance. Luckily, someone at Ubisoft trusted Michel Ancel enough to get another of his imaginative titles out.

Sadly, nobody bought it.

First announced as a handheld and downloadable title, the press and fan reaction to the look and feel of the game in early promotional material seemed to crank up the production to full retail. In these days of massively multiplayer shooters and Xbox live parties, can an old-school game that harks back to the days of the Atari Jaguar (It never had one, sorry. Replace with Playstation) and the original Rayman really stand-out in this climate?


Well it should. Just look at the game, it's positively beautiful. Especially on a HDTV running local multiplayer with whomever you happen to have on-hand. It's a hectic platformer that you really, really, really should give a go. There's a lot of replayability and it's deceptively difficult for its "cutesy graphics". All the old moves you expect from Rayman are here. Obviously jumping and throwing his punches but also the mosquito riding and other more obscure features of the original come back into play. The overall look however is a kind of mash up between the first and second Rayman games (Rayman 2 is one of my favourite games - the Dreamcast and PC versions anyway) with the Teensies playing the same role as the "Toads" in New Super Mario Bros Wii and joining old friends Rayman and Globox on their adventure as players 3 and 4.

Hardcore take note. Did I mention you should try this?

3 - Batman: Arkham City (360/PS3/PC)

SWEAR TO MEEEE!

Licensed games suck. Licensed super hero games suck. So what the hell did Rocksteady do right with Arkham Asylum? Answer is, pretty much everything. So much so that they were almost immediately snapped up by Warner who actually own Batman to make more.

Rest assured that everything you loved about the first game has been expanded in this one. The Batman universe itself has been plucked of many of its characters this time out and the game focuses on, besides Joker and The Riddler, villains that weren't in the spotlight last time like Two-face, The Penguin and even Solomon Grundy. Bane, Ivy and the ones from last time are still here, they're just sitting back a little bit.

Gliding and grappling feel better and you have a whole walled-off district of Gotham as your playground (conveniently, a district filled with very important landmarks like Crime Alley and Ace Chemicals) with things that take a decent amount of time to do. If you get bored of the Bat, you can also swap to the Cat who is no less adept at getting around the rooftops and has a very different handling during combat and her own collectibles. If she is installed, the game will swap to her during the storyline so that you know why certain things are happening to Batman first-hand. Including a non-standard game over if you make a wrong decision during a mission critical choice.



The Question is (and The Question probably would also like to know) can Rocksteady break the curse and make a good Superman game? Or would it be a cold day in Kal-El?

2 - Pokémon Black and White (NDS)

Any year that has a new Pokémon game must be a good year for games. Especially when you consider Black and White. Generations III and IV were a middling period but the Gold and Silver remakes were excellent but after the looking back, we get a new beginning in Black and White.

Rather confusingly released at the back-end of the life of the DS just before the launch of the 3DS, we start in a new region based off New York City with a pair of slightly older main characters and a boatload of new Pokémon. Which, as all new sets of Pokémon bring - some good ones, some crappy ones.

The newest Trainers

The biggest changes are graphical, with much larger towns and much more use of the ability of the DS to render polygons (Gen IV had introduced models but it wasn't as complex as here). The cities may be made of models but the battles still utilise sprites. This time around however, the sprites are animated at all times and battles can contain up to six Pokémon using the new triple battle system that tries to make it feel like an old party-based RPG. The strategy in these battles is to switch your three Pokémon around to avoid attacks from the opponents as only the Pokémon in the middle on either side had the option to hit all the opposing Pokémon at will. Meaning hitting a Ledian on the left with flamethrower requires you to move Charmander from the right to the left or middle.

What we get is arguably the best Pokémon game since Gold and Silver all those years ago.

It's super effective!

1 - Sonic Generations (PS3/360/PC)

If this doesn't make you feel all warm inside, you are clearly not alive.

Something like this was a long time coming. Sonic was 20 this year and to celebrate SEGA actually remembered that people used to like them when they cared about their fans more. So not only did they let a fan make a port of Sonic CD on XBLA, iOS and PSN but they wrote this little love letter to the blue blur himself and pressed it onto disc for us to relive our childhood.

Back in 1991, you could enjoy shit like "Sonic the Hedgehog" or the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" without teenagers calling you a "furry" and almost everyone played Sonic. In Europe, Sega were on top. In the US, they gave Nintendo a really hard time thanks to this guy but he was never the biggest thing in Japan like he was in the west.

Nowadays most know Sonic as a former killer app. Until recently, his games were misses more often than hits and he even missed out on the Saturn era completely (discounting spin-offs). In Generations however, Sonic, now retconned as a younger version of the stretched modern character handles just like he did in Sonic 3 and Knuckles but the stages aren't copies of what you have played before but re-imagined areas. Modern Sonic plays similarly to how he does in the more recent Sonic Unleashed and Colours games and the two alternate styles work really well in tandem. Sure the game could be longer but this is the Sonic we've really been waiting since 1994 for. It's heads over Sonic 4 episode 1 and its odd physics.



It's my Game of the year because it embraces its legacy while nurturing its current growth. It probably won't happen again anytime soon and honestly, I'll probably not like the next game as much if it doesn't include "classic" gameplay because that is my Sonic. That's too old now though.


The story is a rather throwaway excuse for fanservice and there is for whatever reason, significantly less character interaction and cutscenes than there are in Sonic Colours but what you do get is humourously self-referential enough to pass. The classic Sonic doesn't talk at all, which is weird. It would have been funny to have had Roger Craig Smith and Jaleel White riffing off each other but the "younger" Sonic's attitude doesn't seem to have developed much in this game.


If you were ever a Sonic fan - regardless of how "grown-up" you think you are, you owe it to yourself to play with this pair of Hedgehogs. Period. I would have loved for it to have been longer.

(and now for something different)

This year's biggest disappointment - Dragon Age 2 (360/PC/PS3) 

Welcome to Dragon Age: Kirkwall

This one is going to be an exception to the others. A lot of this game was disappointing after the epic of Dragon Age Origins. While Origins could and was legitimately considered game of the year material when it launched back in 2009, Dragon Age 2 strips back a lot of the things that made the first so interesting. There are a lot of really good games that deserve to go on this list this year over this one but I either missed the chance to play them or feel too attached because of my Warden.
There is very little Grey Warden here. The story shifts to a city in the Free Marches for the whole game with very little in the way of exploration. Then it does the worst thing possible and repeats the same three dungeons for the rest of the game with the only differences between quests being that certain doors are closed.

Seriously...

It could however, have been a lot more. The story about your Shepard Ethan Hawke was your standard rags to riches via ancient expensive artifact deal. The characters however were different and interesting enough to carry it. Though fans of Awakening may have been more than a little annoyed by the seemingly much more angry Anders.

The combat is faster and there are neat new features like the ability to hit multiple enemies at once with certain weapons and attacks though it was at the cost of companion customisation. Importing your save obviously didn't have as much of an impact as in Mass Effect either.

Indeed.

In the DLC, it seems Bioware have been at least trying to not have so many corners cut by making large new areas outside of Kirkwall and while Legacy wasn't too amazing, Mark of the Assassin was closer to what we had in Origins.

It's not an awful game but it isn't amazing either. It could have been much higher up here but it didn't make the sweet spot. If I'd played some of the more recent November releases (Skyward Sword, Skyrim, Saints Row?), it probably wouldn't have gotten on here in the first place and that is nasty after the GOTY first game (That had a notoriously large development time).

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Well, there we are then. Took longer than I thought to do that...

Of masses and effects - Plastic, DLC and the long wait.

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If 2012 is our final year on this planet then I hope we get some great games before those pesky Mayans come and scratch all our discs, erase all our hard-drives and plough all our girlfriends. Wait though! Before you go and try to convince all the people you can to join your end-of-the-world orgy cult or website linking 2012 to the illuminati via the sinking of the Titanic, take heed. The Mayans were talking about something altogether quite different: The end of the world for Commander Shepard. In a couple of months we will be able to try and save the entire milky way from destruction at the hands of space fleas that we dismissed all claims of.

...but before I get into talking about Mass Effect 3, we need to go over a few things here for the fake drama. 

Firstly, you probably remember me talking about the early releases in Kotobukiya's "bishoujo" line of collectible statues a year or so back. The concept was that, Shunya Yamashita would take an important (generally) western character from the pages of Marvel's comics and transform them using his style into a "bishoujo" interpretation. The line is as much about the artist as it is about the western license conversion though. It was successful enough that later, DC comics added themselves to the books, which Kotobukiya used as an excuse to introduce a new larger scale. Then, production ramped up and we started seeing a lot more releases from both publishing giants and then, seemingly out of nowhere, "Lucy".

Careful. Wouldn't want ectoplasm everywhere again.

Now Lucy is someone that I don't remember hanging out with Dan Akroyd and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. Well, no. She's representative of the logical conclusion of converting a franchise wholesale into bishoujo form. The cultural invasiveness of Ghostbusters is so that even with little in the way of media in the last twenty years, people will recognise the use of its iconography and our friend Lucy here, hopes that you buy into that.
Funnily enough, it's probably one of the better rendered of the entire line. The face in particular retains much of the original illustration - something that is often lacking in the line. While it's sexualised, the people buying in know what they are getting and I have seen greater numbers of women buying into or reviewing these things than I have men in all honesty.
I brought up Lucy though because this is where the Bishoujo line opened the floodgates. From being mostly comic book ladies seeing the treatment, Kotobukiya expanded to Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Tekken, Street Fighter and apparently Bioware last year. 
Have Kotobukiya jumped the shark with the popularity of these "entry-level" collectible statues? Well, the fans of Bioware's Mass Effect certainly seemed to have missed the point in the most delicious of ways. You see, there was a point to me talking about plastic for a moment. About the same time that we got announcements regarding the first Tekken bishoujo statues, Bioware and Kotobukiya announced the addition of their IPs to the mix with Liara T'soni.

Knowing Bioware she will come with special DLC for ME3 that is a satellite laser Liara can only equip every other Wednesday... but only when there's nothing on TV.

Admittedly, it is kind of weird for Liara. I suppose she was picked because she is the most easily-identified of the Mass Effect ladies to a general audience, being "blue and that". Still, better to get such impulses out of the way before the Matriarch kicks in and you're stuck doing ads for talcum powder, garlic and whatnot.

The amount of hate it has been getting is immense. She looks young but that's arguably the point of "bishoujo". The way the people over at the Bioware social network were going off, you'd think it was a four-year-old chained naked to Rorschach. Which of course it isn't. Guess what? It's a different take on your character. You don't have to like it. You don't own the IP. I know, it sucks... but you will live. Is it really worth so much rage? We're in a global community now. Let's all be a little more fluid.

Never have two panels been more relevant.

While there is a lot of complaining from the masses (As if the Mass Effect anime wasn't enough to ruin their lives), it looks like Shunya Yamashita has actually had less control over this particular character than he usually does (Liara doesn't tend to have the wardrobe he touches). While it's positively tame by his standards, the more vocal denizens of the Bioware fanbase are easily alienated by non-manly things such as this and don't seem to grasp the concept of ignoring merchandise that holds no appeal to them. Instead wasting everyone's time, bellowing about it whenever they catch glimpse of an image. 
Yamashita always does large assets and a particular kind of face. The faces often do not convert well to the final product either but they have been getting better recently. Herein lies the problem. Bioware shared a prototype gallery with their facebook fans. Most are not the target demographic. There will be a large percentage that are unaware of Shunya Yamashita and Kotobukiya, let alone the statue collecting business. Well, turns out they didn't like Japanese retellings of their favourite information broker. As it turns out, this Asari biotic did have implants. Though they were not of the L2 variety. Those breasts just had to go (They were silly)!
In a first for the series, the statue was remodelled by people that probably weren't going to buy it anyway. Hell, I may not even buy it and I bought all the others because I think the line is getting a touch out of control with its releases. It's a shame Bioware don't take such notice when their fanbase complains about some of the things they get wrong with their games. Looking at you, Dragon Age 2.
Still, it's right there on the tin: Mass Effect bishoujo statue. It's about 9 inches high and made of plastic. It sounds about as useful as it is. Buy it, don't buy it. The rest of the line consistently sells out. This one may but it has competition from some big hitters in the line (If priced the same as its kin, buying in bulk is rather offputting) like Harley Quinn, Storm and a rebel pilot from one of the Star Wars novels. It does seem to be over-saturating itself from the 3-releases-a-year-model.
Here's an M8 assault rifle to help you get your man back on:
Is it back on? Good.
Mass Effect 3 is set to be an explosive finale for your Commander Shepard very soon. The demo will be launching "when it's ready" and while, hopefully that isn't some Duke Nukem type trolling, should be soon. Because it's a new release from post-EA Bioware, we also get the annual DLC treasure hunt as the pre-order locations are announced, crossover armour is shown off and DLC codes are dropped into random merch they know few people would buy of their own volition such as Chantry medallions and Seeker chains... whoops, sorry, wrong game: allegedly there are codes inside the packaging of the second wave of Mass Effect action figures.
Yep, these things. They will be re-branded as Mass Effect 3 figures to help hawk units to people who don't follow things religiously despite the fact that these characters have mostly been sidelined in the sequel. Garrus is the only confirmed squad member and Miranda - one would assume - retains her status as love interest if you could put up with her nattering about being perfect in the last game. Mordin there may not even have the same voice actor, removing one of his most beloved features. Will "exclusive DLC" be enough to shift these? Probably. Though I'm left wondering what the DLC could be when these characters probably don't play a huge role in the sequel. I mean really... all four of them could well be dead. Will they even show up at all if one starts a "new game"? Going on the PS3 version of ME2, which seemed to act as though Shepard had done the worst s/he could in the first game, I would say not. They probably have a generic placeholder like Wrex had with his "brother" Wreav.
Still, I'm cautiously excited for Mass Effect 3. I haven't been majorly disappointed by the series yet and thankfully it doesn't seem to want to force me to play some shitty Facebook micro-transaction fest to unlock some useless in-game trinkets that the completionist in me hates me missing. While the digital PC version seems to sadly be EA Origin exclusive, the addition of multiplayer could be fun too and it might be nice to play with people who don't stand up into gunfire like Garrus seems to love doing courtesy of the AI. Playing as a race other than Human could also be refreshing, especially if they capitalise on that with racial traits to make the differences more than aesthetic. The combat promises to be more intense in the new game with more powers and running to be had for all too. The Vanguard I am sounds mightily happy with that. 
Keep an eye out for the demo and have fun with whatever you are currently playing!
Just a short one today. Still waiting patiently to kill some Reapers. 
Andy out.

East meet West: "Roleplaying" in 2 easy steps.

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The last two weeks have been interesting ones in the world of video gaming and having decided to come up for air, I find myself in the mood for a ramble on here. Recently we have seen the releases of some fairly high profile games and as we head into March we will no doubt see many, many more. Since it has been a little while since my last update, I'll just go straight into it.

Femshepping it up.

Mass Effect feels like an old friend these days and it's almost impossible to believe that it has only been around for the current generation of console gaming. It may not be the best space opera ever and calling it an RPG is getting ever more difficult but the characters are amongst gaming's most memorable. Which was actually drawn on in the plot-light Mass Effect 2 where your relationship with your allies made up the bulk of the game. With three just around the corner, the magazines and websites are building the hype, the random DLC is being distributed with every bit of merchandise, the collector's editions are mostly sold out and the fans are crying about whatever they feel is wrong with what they have seen. Successful so far then...

Garrus Vakarian. So popular that even his actor's
Facebook wall is pretty much all Turian all the time.

Last weekend, Microsoft and Bioware had a code lottery of sorts on Facebook to allow players to participate in the demo for the Xbox 360 Mass Effect 3 early. While I managed to wrangle a code on my first attempt many others were not so lucky and disregarding the usual bitching on Bioware's own forums, there was much discontent. So, while the demo officially releases tomorrow on that day about chocolates and flowers that you may have heard about at one point in your life, some have already put the new code through the wringer. Sadly however, it does not yet currently support EA/Origin account logins and there is no multiplayer access.

After having played through the demo twice I can say that the game plays really nicely. Familiar yet different.. Some of the changes however are much less subtle than others. The first thing you'll notice is that the UI is largely the same as it was last time. Though the Cerberus oranges have been replaced by Alliance blue, which on its own is fine. It does not however mesh well with the warning text which is somewhere between pink and red and comes off quite eyegrindingly garish.

Shepard's health is now segmented underneath your precious shield reserves. The Unity skill that revived team members in Mass Effect 2 has been replaced with a "First Aid" skill that is vaguely similar to the first game and as such, it will actually heal you in a pinch this time out. As a trade-off however, if Shepard is hurt beyond the limits of one of these segments, he will never naturally heal back to full health. This gives you much less freedom and forces you to make fewer mistakes while popping out of cover to aim. Though, Bioware had promised that it would be harder and I will be damned if it stops me getting my 3000 gamerscore out of Shep.

There are loads of the new skills and evolutions with much more customisation available. The squad members are still at a disadvantage compared to Shepard regarding these but with less team-mates, they have had to pick up skills from other characters to compensate. This was a great design decision since the cast of Mass Effect 2 were often overlapping in skills or lacking particular skills that you had no room on your team for. Tali had been a casualty of this, being far too geared towards fighting synthetics and more cripplingly, lacking Overload. Her alternative required loyalty and was lacking in power compared to Overload to boot. Using Warp ammo as an example, in ME2 you could choose between Heavy and Squad warp ammo as a final stage upgrade for Shepard and Jack. This final stage was the only place where the skills differentiated. Now handled by Liara you can upgrade to squad as one of many upgrades along the way to maxing it out.

The demo takes in two missions and they are the ones we have all seen before in the trade show demos and videos released over the past year. The attack by the Reapers on Earth and Shepard's escape to go be an intergalactic Grey Warden with the races of the Milky Way and Mordin's mission on the Salarian homeworld relating to a female Krogan that is seemingly lacking in the usually expected genophage. Mordin's patter however lacks the potency it had in Mass Effect 2 due to the voice talent obviously changing between games. I mean, Meer (If it still is Mark Meer) doesn't do a terrible job at all but it's just not our Mordin. I suppose that's an example of how the ME characters get you.

Though the demo does a good job of pissing people off with regard to characters too. With old favourite Urdnot Wrex showing up to kick some Salarian arse and then being told to stay with the ship so he can talk to you over a communicator. Liara and Garrus are great characters but having Wrex absent as a squad member in any capacity in Mass Effect 2 still stings (Though thanks to playing FFXIII-2 recently, I cannot unhear Liara or Lightning when the other speaks). Kirrahe also shows up if you helped him to not die. Bit of a cloaca though.

So looking generally good. Unless you happen to be a main Infiltrator or "Caster" class. The more weapons you carry, the longer your recast is on powers. However, the demo hands over a full loadout as soon as you hit Sur'kesh. Sadly that means you aren't getting an accurate insight into how your cooldowns will be with just a handgun or similar, with classes like the Adept getting a rough ride through the demo accompanied by near-constant waiting. Sorry, did I say full loadout... the air turned blue when my girlfriend realised that the demo didn't give her Infiltrator a Sniper Rifle to play with. Personally I'm more of a Vanguard/Engineer kind of guy so I welcome the shiny Heavy melee (All classes can now invest points into melee). Engineer seems much better in 3 too actually with a much-improved combat drone and a turret to dispatch. Enemy Engineers will actively repair their artillery too, so watch out for them.

I also played it with Kinect running using the UK setting. It coped pretty well with several accents I tried but notably performed better with a rather stereotypical southern states one bizarrely. For the most part it works to shout at the team to do things but I'm not sure I would put my faith in it when under heavy fire. It didn't seem to like the word "Incinerate" either. Also, if you have anyone else in the room they can easily fire off abilities you may not want to by them simply speaking to you and sounding like they said an ability or weapon. Essentially it saves you from opening a menu or hotkeys but you risk not having it recognise you occasionally. Didn't stop me screaming "BIOTIC CHAAAAAAARGE!" like Strong Bad though. It's a feature I would love to see in something like Pokémon though...

Something irks me about the new facial modelling though. It's a touch on the weird side but I'm sure that I'll get used to it. As with most of my points, I'll reserve judgement proper until the game is actually released. Then I'll be ready to rant or praise depending on how it all turns out. Remember, this is Shepard's biggest day.

It is a Gunblade, Shepard. Ancient Prothean tech.

Someone else had a big day recently too. Final Fantasy XIII-2 saw its western release date and after the failure of Final Fantasy XIII to live up to its forebears in the eyes of the industry and the fanbases, it needed to hit more right notes. Thankfully it did.

While the combat remains largely the same, relying on tactical usage of the party paradigm shift system that allows all members engaged to change their job or "role" as the fight dictates. For example, if an enemy is charging up what appears to be a nasty attack, you could switch your team to three Sentinels (the XIII world's Paladin or Knight tank class) to absorb the damage and then switch in some heals to shrug it off properly. This is unchanged.

You take control of Serah, a planned-but-cut party member from the previous game whose rescue forms a large chunk of the plot in the original. She is the sister of series protagonist Lightning and fiancée of Snow Villiers of Steelguard! fame. The second party member is Noel Kreiss, the "last human" from a destroyed future. Time travel is the backbone of the plot so you can expect the usual jarring, confusion and collections of deus ex machina that come from having such a plot. I'm sorry to tell you but Hope Estheim is also back in a pretty considerable role. This leaves some of the more interesting characters like Sazh and his son and the lesbian Australians to tiny cameos. Ok... only one of the Australians is interesting.

She may have been the Princess in the other castle but at least she gets
the better game in the end.

There are three members to a party but only two human members. This is one of the places that XIII-2 differentiates itself from its forebear: Monster raising. Sometimes after a battle you will capture an opponent as a crytsal. You can then assign that to your team and paradigms. Three monsters can take part in your loadout and you are free to choose from whatever you have without restriction. The monsters all have different traits and potentials and you'll have to investigate which work best with your Serah and Noel. They are raised using items as opposed to the crystarium points used by the humans which means you will have to specifically look for certain items to raise your favourites. Though you have a lot more choice regarding which stats to focus on with monsters than you do with the main characters because of varying stat-building materials that add bonuses to a specific stat after use. Kind of like the "on level up" bonus traits of old.

The game also gives off more of a mission-based structure as the various time periods are accessible from a central hub, though you will have to open up all the areas by good old-fashioned exploration within areas you have already opened up. After the corridors in XIII, XIII-2 is labyrinthine by comparison. The faceless monitors have been replaced by the usually upbeat Chocolina who is a chick in a chicken suit with a very annoying voice. She sells you pretty much everything you need on a by-chapter basis and will show up even in places you wouldn't expect. You can also save anytime on the field but on an autosave system.

Too bad the voice is no product of beauty.

Chocolina isn't the only one trying to sell you stuff though. Square-Enix promise that XIII-2 will be fully supported with DLC for some time. Already franchise superboss Omega is available as a recruitable ally via a DLC battle in the seemingly-custom-built-area-for-downloaded-missions that is the Coliseum. An emulated version of Lightning and her commander Amodar are also available as the first big DLC for the game. Though both battles have a low drop rate on recruitment. Expect to do them a good few times so make sure you have a strategy for repeating any victory you earn. It could be nice if it isn't exploited too heavily and actually gives us a reason to go back into the game to use the cosmetic things like outfits.

Even so, while it is great, the Final Fantasy series is in no way "saved" by this. XIV was a huge blunder and while they are trying to fix it I can't see the loyalty being there forever and Versus XIII hasn't been heard from in a long while. While Dissidia had proved an interesting diversion from the norm, it launching only on the PSP had also driven a lot of people to skip it over, which is a shame really considering how fun it was to fling Cloud around with Shantotto. Theatrythym is a Final Fantasy crossover music game that is due on the 3DS soon but is that really what people want? Chibi Lightning? Time will tell I suppose but I really think they should farm the franchise out to Mistwalker as Sakaguchi has proved over and over that he knows what traditional JRPG fans want and I can't see him taking the role lightly considering its origins under him. Would be a sad day if we lost Final Fantasy to misdirection.

Also played Soul Calibur V recently. Was less than impressed with the direction it's going... I'll leave that for another time though.

As always, you can keep in touch on my Raptr for all things gaming. Current, Retro or otherwise. Also, here's an old Pokémon video to go out with since Youtube disabled it a while ago. All for now!

Enter Illusion: Sega's Mickey Mouse Games

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Recently, Disney applied to register "Castle of illusion" as a trademark. It got me thinking about the old Illusion series and what they could be planning to do with it. They are a large part of my childhood gaming regime and whether they are planning to do a rerelease on the consoles or add it into Epic Mickey 2 to some capacity, we won't know for a while but seriously... this is some Epic Mickey.
Way back in the early nineties, during their elongated search for a mascot that could stick, Sega managed to wrangle licenses for Disney’s most iconic characters. While Capcom had been successfully producing games based on Disney’s latest televised cartoons over on the Nintendo Entertainment system, the world’s most famous mouse had been ignored in favour of the more popular Duck clan. This was likely a reflection of Mickey’s move from lead to figurehead for Disney as he had generally seen a decline in appearances since his earlier shorts outside of general merchandising alongside the infamous cleaning up of his character that he received. The only game he had headlined in the period was the Hudson developed “Mickey Mousecapade”. This really wasn’t brilliant but at least he was out there. 
Don’t rule the Mouse out as a bankable star just yet though. He still had plenty of adventuring left in him for this new decade. 
Castle of Illusion (Mega Drive)
Probably the most well-known incarnation of Castle of Illusion is the one that started it all on the Mega Drive (or Genesis if you are so inclined). It tells of Mickey’s journey through an enchanted castle in a quest to collect gems so that he can take on the evil witch Mizrabel (Terrible pun, by the way) who has captured Minnie in order to steal her youth. Touch of the cliché, of course... especially after Banjo Kazooie delivered the same story with much more humour less than a decade later but... at the time, when story was mostly a manual thing nobody really cared too much. For the Mouse however, it would be the start of a larger adventure in a vast storybook world.
It plays reasonably well and the controls are fairly tight. Mickey can perform jumping attacks to bounce off opponents with his trademark shorts but will take a hit if you simply jump onto an enemy. This requires you to push down on the directional pad or the B button while directly above an enemy. If you don’t feel like timing jumps, you can also find throwable items in each level (which are unique objects in each one such as apples in the forest stage and marbles in the toy world) in single units and bags of ten. 
The graphics are nice for 1990 with multiple planes used for scrolling the background and foreground separately. The design for Mickey Mouse looks as you’d expect at the time too, with the titular Mouse looking great in motion.
Progression through the game is the standard level-by-level system found in most games. This is contrary to the later 8-bit version which allowed for a little more player interaction in proceedings. Though the levels are much larger in exchange, taking in multiple sections and screens with sometimes vastly different imagery included within. The first forest stage, for example, has a field section with magical trees and mushrooms, a cave network, a flight through the air on leaves and spider webs and a boss battle against a larger tree that throws acorns at you. This game also has post-level splash screens to report your progress.
Then came the requisite 8-bit conversion. In Europe, Sega were very adept at supporting their older hardware and the Master System would host a range of games well into 1994. The "Illusion" series would temporarily dig in there to hold out for a year or so.
Castle of Illusion (Master System)
 The 8-bit rendition of Castle of Illusion followed on the Master System in 1991 and it obviously stripped back on the graphics. The main aesthetic differences are the reduction of resolution and the enlargement of the HUD.  The individual levels are reduced in size from the multiple areas per level in the 16-bit version too. The splash screen point countdowns have been removed in favour of an in-level countdown and score update too. This is no Mickey-light however.
It still plays really well. You could even argue that it plays better than the more advanced game. The throwing mechanic has been scrapped in favour of just the butt-slam attack which can be triggered through a combination of the jump and action buttons. Mickey can however, grab rocks or chests from the environment to hurl at enemies in lieu of the level-specific collectibles that he found in all those marble bags previously.

The general feel of the game is more puzzle-platformer than the 16-bit game too and has a degree of non-linear progression. While in the Mega Drive version, Mickey was forced through the areas in order, here you can enter the levels in whichever order by selecting a door. Though, the doors available at any given time are determined by your progress. You can’t do the last level first, for example.The graphics have also aged shockingly well. It’s colourful and fun, despite the story being about an evil witch. The selection of a hybrid Mouse design that evokes his most early appearances helps due to his simplicity and the limitations present on the systems. You just can’t hate the character in this one. Overall, it looks much less cluttered and effortless than on the Mega Drive due to the latter’s aforementioned use of multiple scrolling planes for its stages too. The exaggerated cartoony selections look good in 8-bit. The animations are also really well done, which became a series staple. The next game however would be much larger...
Comparison Screens:
  Land of Illusion (Master System) (Old video review on the right - same as following text)
The player is put in direct control of Mickey Mouse in what is a rather interesting side-scrolling, platform-based dream. The first thing that you’ll probably notice is the graphics and animation, which are actually pretty damn good for the aging 8-bit system. Mickey has an almost hand-drawn quality and you'll notice that he uses his classic design again in the game - despite the boxart using his newer aesthetic.
Land of Illusion was one of the games that I received alongside my Master System in 1992 for a long-passed birthday. With me used to playing the likes of Jetpac and Mario brothers, this was a different direction for a while and I played it to death before I even booted up Alex Kidd. The sound of Mickey being hit still haunts me to this day...
It’s a sugar-sweet, role-model of an inoffensive title - almost offensively so. Reflecting the initially mischievous mouse's animation career in which he was mellowed out over time and usurped by that damn duck. To this end, Mickey's main form of attack and the most violent aspect of the game is to jump on the opponent's head. Though it isn't as typical as most platformers in this aspect. In order to make the kill, you have to butt-bash the opposition with a quick tap of the action button while airborne. Simply jumping on an opponent will get you hurt. The enemies fall from the screen comedically after defeat and are mostly inanimate objects brought to life by the dream world. The second way to attack is to pick up and launch items, such as blocks.
The other Disney characters are out in full-force. Firm-favourites Donald Duck, Goofy and Minnie Mouse play a part in Mickey's dream and not the actual characters as you'd believe, merely dream world equivalents. They are joined by almost forgotten anthros like Horace Horsecollar though. It's Daisy Duck that tells Mickey about a Princess in the north that might be able to help him and launches him into the game. In fact it's the knowledge of a Princess that spurs our rodent hero into actually helping the villagers out - the toothy little pervert.
There are items that expand Mickey's abilities, usually granted after defeating a boss. He can use a potion to shrink himself, rendering his attacks useless but allowing him to bounce along on opponents and be effectively carried by them. There's a rope that he can utilise to scale vertical walls and magical shoes that let him walk along clouds. There are more temporary items too: Cakes of various sizes restored health and Mickey Mouse ears would bestow an extra life. Both are found with the game's breakable chests.
Between levels you will traverse a simple map screen, Mario Brothers 3 style. From here you can see your currently acquired items, score - SO important in that decade... the amount of "tries" or lives Mickey had remaining and your power stars. The names of the stages appear in the top left when you move Mickey over them, but don't expect any Walt Disney-like imagination... the first level is quite literally named "FOREST STAGE" - No bullshit, I suppose... if you accidentally click on a level, you can oddly walk right back out again by running to the left instead of having to go off into the level proper.
It does however contain some imaginative level design and some rather fiendish puzzles or sections. The sand castle stage is quite brutal at drowning you for instance. There are some simple yet fun bosses to battle too, like a barrel battle with a crab underwater which imposes the strict sanction that you simultaneously balance your air supply.
If you should wish, Mickey can return to any previously completed level with his new abilities. This is useful if you should want to collect all of the game's power stars or if you need to look for an alternative exit to a level. These pick-ups are rare, with one hidden in each stage. Initially they would raise the Mouse’s durability one stage but after capping out, you can still scour the levels for them for the sake of completion. They also fully heal you and after capping out your health, grant an extra life. Collecting all of them rewards you with additional points on a special screen when you've beaten the game that shows how many stars you managed to obtain along the way. This gives the game a lot of replayability while you try to gather them all in those pre-internet days.
Each level has a strict time limit too. This can be annoying, particularly in the longer, more complex levels. Like Mario brothers, the tempo of the music increases when you have little time remaining, urging you toward the exit. Just don't stick around for too long!
Some of the levels have those accursed auto-scrolling sections that were almost a staple on the Master System, where one wrong step can get you locked in and ultimately crushed by the moving wall that makes up the left hand side of your television. They aren't too bad though, when you work out what you are doing.
But what is Mickey here for? Well, an arsehole named the "Phantom" has darkened the realm with something called "bad magic", the titular Mouse is forced to storm this rather tame-sounding villain's castle in the clouds - the final stage in the game in order to break the curse and return to the land of the living.
All things considered, Mickey is on to a winner here. It is certainly one of his better, more enjoyable experiences with the games industry. It’s the best of the 8-bit Mickeys and the one that formed the basis of the world of Illusion which would appear later on the Mega Drive. 
I feel that the series peaked here in its traditional format. The next game would be a big crossover on the big brother console...
World of Illusion (Mega Drive)
The World of illusion took elements from Sega’s experience with the Mouse and a certain popular Duck. It is also the only “Illusion” game where Donald shares top billing. It is the logical conclusion to the pair who had previously taken their own popular paths through Sega’s machines. Deep Duck trouble would follow in 1993 on the Master System but for most people, this was the last hurrah for the pair.
In this game, you could play as Mickey or Donald who have been transported to the World of Illusion following a botched magic trick. The magician theme is constantly present through the whole thing as your main form of attack is a flourish using a cape. The biggest update for the series however, is the inclusion of an admirable co-op system. The levels cannot be fully explored without the aid of both characters as each character has their own route. While they play exactly the same in general, subtle differences block them from exploring sections designed for the other character. This mostly manifests as crawl spaces that Donald cannot clear without being dragged through by Mickey because of his larger posterior. The pair will also often find themselves dragging the other up to high platforms on ropes after triggering some mechanism together that sends only one character to the desired destination or by standing on each other's shoulders to get height. Around this time, co-op play was rarely this well handled, with successful systems being mostly in arcade brawlers. 

 The HUD is minimal. Health is displayed as cards – hearts for Mickey and Clubs for Donald – that become overturned as you take damage. Though you cannot upgrade your health like in the Master System games, you get more than enough generally to get by and cake and candy is fairly common. In multiplayer however, you can argue over the items amongst yourselves as either can collect.

The animation is once again very good. This time, it’s used to convey the differences between our two heroes’ personalities. Mickey in his hip-swinging, whimsical boy-scout phase is just that as he happily runs around. Donald is angry and impatient as usually depicted outside of his own comics continuity. There is also sampled speech in this one. This is most obvious when both have a magic word to say per level for that stage’s particular spell or gimmick.

Also of note is that Donald's own Sega-developed games were largely made by the same team and were also unusually good quality for licensed products. Feel free to check out "The Lucky Dime Caper", "Quackshot" and "Deep Duck Trouble" sometime too.

Legend of Illusion (Game Gear)
Legend was released in 1995 on the Game Gear. Mickey was a Janitor who had to try to save another Kingdom. Made King temporarily by Pete so he doesn’t have to do any work, he travels through new worlds to stop evil clouds. However, because he learns that if Mickey succeeds he will become the real king, Pete sets about causing trouble for him. This is kind of a batshit plan but whatever. It’s Pete.
Similar enough to the previous titles but shorter in feel. The animations are still an awesome point with things like Mickey’s dancing. It still follows the puzzle-platform structure too. Due to being on the handheld, the HUD was squished down into a tiny area and the world map wasn’t as large as the previous game. Mickey wears a tunic and hat in this one. Not as good as the previous games.
Mickey Mania also headlined on the Mega Drive and Mega CD but I will not be including that as it was developed by Travellers Tales and released across all available formats. The Illusion games may have had more than a little influence on this celebration of Mickey with the platforming and marble throwing but I consider it a different beast entirely. The same game even appeared on the fledgling PlayStation under a new title: "Mickey's Wild Adventure".
Mickey has had a big impact on popular culture but even on games. Having appeared in a good few of varying quality. Most recently, Epic Mickey which I talked about having high hopes for a couple of years ago. He also had a part in the creation of gaming's "Sonic the Hedgehog" as Sonic Team wanted something that would appeal to the most people. Is there a better place to start than Walt's beloved Mouse?

Mickey addition

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"Recently, Disney applied to register "Castle of illusion" as a trademark. It got me thinking about the old Illusion series and what they could be planning to do with it. They are a large part of my childhood gaming regime and whether they are planning to do a rerelease on the consoles or add it into Epic Mickey 2 to some capacity, we won't know for a while but seriously... this is some Epic Mickey."

...and now we know.

As an addendum for last time, Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion will be a 3DS platformer that is directly inspired by the Mega Drive version of Castle of Illusion. In time, we’ll know whether it will recapture the magic of Sega's original line of Mouse-based adventures. On top of this, Epic Mickey 2 will be available across all formats, presumably using the Playstation move and Kinect. Then again, you probably knew that already by now. At least I hope you would.
Junction Point have at least pledged to have a fixed camera in the console sequel. An element that wrecked the original game for many. Shame considering the promise that the game had with it being the first serious use of the newly re-acquired Oswald and it being an ok game in general. As I linked in the previous retrospective, my pre-release slightly squished hopes can be located here.
Here's a promotional image of the handheld game in question if you haven't seen it already somehow: 

"Kill the Beast!"

As you can see, the levels are being set in "Illusion" worlds based on various Disney movies instead of the Cartoon wasteland that Epic Mickey is usually set in. The gameplay will also differ from the older games by the paint/thinner returning through use of the touchscreen. You'll apparently have to draw things into existence to complete levels. We're also promised old-school "hand-drawn sprites and parallax scrolling" which looks to be true based on the released screenies.
Going to try and get some more substantial articles I’ve been pondering out soon.