Goombd Played! - The Walking Dead Episode 3: Long Road Ahead

There's much to think about now that I am just done playing through The Walking Dead's third episode, Long Road Ahead. Things that I was worried about after finishing episode two are still present, like the doubts of whether or not my choices really matter in the plot as a whole. 

Episode three throws in some tough situations for you to handle and others that are mostly out of your direct control. Regardless of how I feel the story progression is going, there's no denying that this series is one of Telltale Games best so far, and that's saying a lot.

We pick things back up with our cast of survivors a few weeks or possibly months after the events of the previous chapter. Winter is coming and with supplies dwindling, Lee and co. are forced into scavenging the surrounding town of Macon, in the hopes of having enough to last through the tough times ahead. 

From the title of this episode, though, there's not much to spoil in regards to where things move on to. And considering this is The Walking Dead, a game in a franchise known for violently changing up the outlook for characters and situations they are put in, you can expect to once again face some tough situations. 

Long Road Ahead obviously plays just like previous episodes but there's an added element of very very simple point and click gun play in small sections of the game. You basically point the cursor at the immediate area of what you want to shoot and the shot is made for you. The only real challenge is finding out the correct order you have to do so, and how quickly you do it. As a very skilled player, I managed to fail these segments a couple of times. For the regular player, though, they should be easy enough to handle and don't really take much away from the point and click, adventure game nature The Walking Dead.

Three episodes are now behind us and the collection of choices we made are neatly saved and remembered by the game. The "tailored story", as claimed by the developers, must be getting pretty complex, which makes me curious and anxious to get to see all choice permutations and their consequences once the season is over. It goes without saying that I for one cannot wait to see this game through and I have the slight feeling I am not the only one. |9

Goombd Was There! - E3 2012: Dishonored

Bethesda had a big presence at E3 this year. While not presenting a humongous list of games in their booth, the handful of titles they did show were pretty impressive. Among them, at the top of Goombd!'s favorites, was Dishonored, a hybrid game of stealth and action set in a gorgeously designed 'steampunk' world.

Visually, Dishonored is pretty striking; backgrounds emulate the look of matte painting concept art drawings, characters have an European comic book influence to their design and the overall presentation is very slick.

It's easy to throw out the word 'hybrid' about a game, and in Dishonored's case, it's probably the best way of describing it - there is, however, more depth to be found once you get past the fact that Arkane Studios took lots of notes from games like Bioshock and Thief and applied some of the best parts of these series into Dishonored.

While 'hybrid' certainly does not describe that mix of designs, it can easily fit to explain how you can actually go about in Dishonored. As a revenge fueled assassin that happens to have some cool powers (some reminiscent of Bioshock's spell book) and is bent on taking down a country's tyrant ruler.

In the guided demo, our assassin was given the mission of killing two distinct targets that happened to be in a brothel. The approach they could take was free form, and from what I witnessed, Dishonored handles both of the obvious ways to finish the mission quite well. A violent method with guns blazing attracted an army of guards, and after a pretty bloody shoot out and display of some of the supernatural abilities that were set to 11 in the demo - you won't be nearly as strong at this point in the actual game - so both targets were dead in a matter of minutes. The game doesn't shy away from violence, and deaths were pretty graphic and detailed in just about every kill.

On the other hand, the stealthy approach was about as sneaky and clever as you would expect, with some interesting twists throw in for good measure. Dishonored features a morality system, that according to Bethesda, acts as a crossroads in regards to which branches the story takes along the way. While nothing brand new, this system is in full effect when you play the game being stealthy. There are ways to avoid killing innocents, but at the same time, you can achieve a similar result, in a quiet fashion, while making a pile of corpses along with the intended victims.

According to the developers, and what I got during the demo, your options won't be so binary, allowing for a mix of the two, thanks to the different paths you can take both in gameplay and in how you evolve the main character's powers. This upgrade system was not shown during the demo, and as mentioned before, the assassin was overpowered for the demo's sake.

Dishonored was one of Goombd!'s highlights at E3 2012 and it's stated for an October release on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Keep an eye out for a write-up on it soon!

Goombd Played! - Marvel Pinball Avengers Chronicles

A few years ago, I quit comics. Hero strips turned boring and I chose to follow them through the movies, which in Marvel's case, culminated with The Avengers. Surprisingly enough, that turned extremely well and Zen Studios didn't miss a beat. They've just released a new set of tables for Pinball FX 2 dubbed Avengers Chronicles, featuring Captain America's merry group of colorfully clad crusaders and a few of the bigger Marvel "sagas" like World War Hulk, Fear Itself and the always classic Infinity Gauntlet.

I tend to throw out the fact that I'm terrible at pinball games quite a lot when I talk about Pinball FX2 and in order not to sound repetitive, I'll avoid falling into my own cliché. Avengers Chronicles features some of the most gameplay varied tables since Epic Quest. Each of these backdrops has its own tricks and secrets, as well as a few variations to the pinball formula that are only physically possible due to the fact that this is videogame pinball and not the 'real' thing.

The pack starts out with the titular 'The Avengers' table, which takes place on the S.H.I.E.L.D heli carrier and spins the storyline around six different pinballs, each representing an avenger's story. This presentation take strays from what was done in previous multi character tables, giving you more control in regards to paths you want to take and is a lot more immersive, since once you lose a ball, you can just go back to it instantly, without the need to hit a special bumper or anything. Pick a ball and go.

The Avengers' table is probably the most ramp heavy out of the bunch, which can cause some confusion as to where the ball is going once it reaches a spot where numerous ramps intersect. All in all, it's a great addition to the Marvel Pinball/Pinball FX2 library, despite these issues.

Taking a slice from the actual Avengers movie, bumping directly with the post-credits sequence, The Infinity Gauntlet table features one of the most well-known Marvel storylines and villain, Thanos. This is among my favorites among this new set, thanks to how the gauntlet is implemented during gameplay: depending on which gem is activated, a different and crazier effect is applied on the ball, on the table or on both.

One of these effects, for instance, flips the gravity, forcing you to relearn pinball in order to keep the ball in play (at least momentarily) while another gem changes flipper control, locking the ball in place. 'Gauntlet is probably the farthest from "actual" pinball you'll get out of  'Chronicles thanks to its many fantastical quirks and tricks.

 

I have only a faint idea of what World War Hulk is as a story. As a table, it's as chaotic as you'd expect something Hulk related to be. It offers a simple design in comparison to the other tables in this pack and previous DLC, which works as a plus for those weekend pinball players like myself who are looking for a lot of thrills and high scores out of their game, one that doesn't require a lot of pinpoint accuracy but isn't a pushover either.

Like previous Marvel tables, 'Hulk's features plenty of cameos that are actually meaningful to the table's story, like Dr. Strange, Wolverine and Iron Man, who lend their powers in the vain hope of stopping Dr. Banner's alter ego.

 

Possibly the least known of the storylines and an absolute surprise of the set, Fear Itself introduces probably the most impressive gameplay twist out of all the tables for any Zen Studios pinball game. Throwing your game on the line, and scooping you away from losing a ball is a different shape to the bottom of the table. Depending on the speed with which you launch the ball towards it, you can either lose it for good or keep it in play.

In fact, the entire design of this table functions this half circle shape and how easy to bend the laws of physics are in this set of tables, keeping you on edge in regards to how you control the ball. Like Infinity Gauntlet, Fear Itself twists the pinball formula around in a way that could only be portrayed in a videogame.

Zen Studios is outdoing themselves with each content pack they put out. The Avengers Chronicles might just be one of their strongest efforts yet, bending the pinball fundamentals and squeezing new life into flipping metal spheres, getting high scores and enjoying the "ding ding ding" we've grown to associate with and love about pinball. |9

Goombd Played! - RAGE

id knows how to make a shooter. That's the thing everyone has known for years. Since the olden days of Wolfenstein 3-D, the name id has been synonymous with first person shooters. Even though the company's been through a lot of changes since then, they have managed to come up with a great shooter in RAGE.

RAGE has been talked about for years as the next huge thing to come out of id, a benchmark to today's games in a similar way Doom was back in the mid 1990s. Now that it's out, does it deliver? As a first person shooter, definitely. As it seems at first glance, as an open world experience, not so much.

The story opens up with the apocalypse of Earth. An asteroid wipes most of the life on the planet and everything turns into a desert. Luckily for humankind, the planet's government had a plan, to save the last bits of humanity in the form of arks, which held the best specimens our race had to offer: grunts. Fast forward a few hundred years, your ark opens and you're pushed out to the real world. You're the last of these survivors left intact and you're about to find out you are not the only person alive on the planet. Gangs and mutants have taken over and it's up to you to help out the last pockets of humanity if they ever hope to survive for long.

Frankly, that's not the most original of stories but it serves as a nice excuse to shoot the crap out of things. In that regard, RAGE excels. id's engineering for first person shooter is at its finest, from the quantity and variety of weapons, that range from the trusty shotgun to a point-to-point precision crossbow, to how enemies behave and attack. Weapons can be upgraded and there's also a crafting system that makes use of some of the junk you find lying around the desert. If you don't feel like tinkering, though, you can buy everything in the convenient general store out in the desert. On top of a pretty fun on foot shooting system, you also get to drive and equip your own set of wheels for races and destruction.


Sadly, it's the bit with the driving that might bog down your experience with RAGE. The open world feeling that is passed through cutscenes and visuals when you start the game doesn't really carry through to the end. Missions are very straightforward and there really isn't a whole lot to do in between the pockets of quest givers you drive to and back. Sidequests make repeat use of the same areas you 'instance' into for the main story and don't vary a whole lot from the same "shoot all that moves and pick up this bottle for me" mold you've come to expect. Even though the driving itself is a lot of fun, it doesn't really amount into much at the end.

Speaking of the end, the ending section to RAGE is also extremely disappointing. Without going into spoilers, you're given an incredible weapon and basically rats to shoot at with it. It's a frustrating conclusion to an otherwise exciting set of missions that could have been probably arranged at an alternate order and have resulted in a more satisfying experience.

Once you're done with the single played campaign, there's an entire separate section of the game devoted to multiplayer. If you can find people to play it with, the multiplayer portion of RAGE is varied and rewarding, even if it's somewhat under-populated at the moment. Instead of taking the easy way and throwing out a simple deathmatch mode, id decided to take the co-op approach and designed a set of cooperative missions set in the main game's levels. They're presented in the form of legends of the wasteland, side stories that involve the cast of RAGE and how they happened to have two very willing individuals who took down a lot of enemies.

Your other online option is a handful of racing tracks where you put your pedal to the medal, racing and fighting with other players. You can count on a similar leveling system you've seen in other online shooters, which rewards you with better weapons as you gain experience. While not the most original set of options around, RAGE tries to set itself apart, with relative success.


Whether you're tearing through the desert or just playing cards at the local bar, there's no denying RAGE is one of the best looking games in this generation. id's new graphics tech is easily one of the prettiest so far. That's especially true in outside environments, where the sky is visible and it just blows you away with how everything is so well lit and drawn. id's touting a new 'mega-texture' technology in RAGE, which is basically a fancy way of saying that all the textures are painted in a single, huge file that's supposed to help loading textures be much faster. In RAGE's case, that works most of the time, even though there are still some instances of draw in, even more when you're turning around all the time. That's when the illusion pops out and you can see behind the curtain of how it all works. That only happens once or twice, though, mostly when you're on foot outside.

Characters also look really charismatic and act cartoony. We're treated to John Goodman as a voice actor early on in the game too, which only ups the presentation. He's not on for too long but the rest of the cast manages to keep the bar high once he's gone. The cities you visit each have a distinct feel and definitely looked lived in and put together differently. Levels are relatively large too and aren't exactly a set of tunnels duct-taped together, although they don't escape the curse of being fairly straightforward.

As a shooter, RAGE is an excellent game. In comparison to other game's that claim to be open world experiences, like Borderlands, it doesn't really deliver. While not the most unique FPS around, it does what id's been known for years and looks stunning in doing so. The multiplayer component also helps, keeping you busy for a while longer. If you don't mind the cookie cutter story and lack of mission variety, you'll dig living through yet another post-apocalyptic journey RAGE's serving. |8

Goombd Played! - Trine 2

Following in the footsteps of its 2009 predecessor, Trine 2 is absolutely gorgeous. It carries the great combinations of beautiful art and smart puzzle design the original Trine an amazing indie game and takes some core ideas even further.

The magical artifact called the Trine calls upon the trio of heroes yet again. The wizard, an expert in conjuring items out of thin air, was busy taking care of his new family, while the bulky, sword and hammer wielding knight killed evil weeds and the acrobatic thief looked for the next big heist. Called off for a new adventure, they each employ their unique set of skills in their new quest to save a kingdom. Their only catch, which quickly becomes your problem - you can only control one of these guys at once.

That is if you're playing Trine 2 by yourself. This is the first time in the series where you're able to invite a friend onto your couch or online lobby to join you, each controlling a different character. Playing solo is possible and fun on its own but Trine 2's big draw is the new cooperative mode. The puzzle design is brilliantly designed in a way that allows you to figure everything out on your own but can also be broken up by a group of players putting their brains together.

Much like the first Trine, Trine 2's story is presented in a fairy tale book style. Each colorful level brings its own flavor, hitting your eyes with vibrant visuals in just about every corner. Even caves are beautifully drawn in this game. This is probably one of the few instances where you'll be happy to be in a dank place for so long, only to find your character drawfed by a gigantic sunset.

There's a lot to look forward to in Trine 2 if you're familiar with the original game. Likely, you probably got annoyed by the character development tree in the original or how magic drained a meter with every spell. One of these matters are done away with, in a sense. The magic meter, of one, is gone, while the development tree is made much simpler to deal with. A new skill point is earned with every 50 experience points you collect. It can be spent in new abilities for one of the three characters. This time, though, you're able to freely "respec" the tree at any time, so even when you don't have enough points to max everyone out, you can activate the right abilities at the right time and switch everything out on the fly.

These special abilities play a big part in game. Some puzzles require simple deduction and probably only one of your characters while others deal with complex timing that demands quick reactions and multiple abilities working in tandem. That's the fun aspect of Trine 2 that constantly dares you to be creative and think outside the box or even better, not to over-analyze a situation and simply look at what is dealt to you.

Trine 2 is a blast. While not the longest of journeys you'll embark in anytime soon, it's one hell of a ride. It's gorgeous, smart and mostly importantly, it doesn't hold you by the hand. This is one the best sequels out there and it can easily fall into anyone's 'favorites' list like it did with me. If you're into puzzle games with charm, personality and a little something extra, you should look no further. Trine 2 is just that. |8

Goombd Played! - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

What can you say about a game like Skyrim? Possibly, that it's a huge undertaking for anyone planning to play it. Like previous Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim is immense, filled with little bits of content just about everywhere. Are you ready to get started?

Dragons are back to terrorize the Tamriel continent of Skyrim, the snowy home of the proud Nords. Sadly for our viking friends, the drakes aren't their only worry. The Empire is moving into their territory as well in their quest to gain even more power. But that's not for your lowly character to worry about. He or she has bigger problems. They're about to die at the gallows.

Without spoiling anything, it's obvious that your avatar in the game survives and it's exactly at that point that Skyrim begins. You're left alone, in the middle of a destroyed town with only a nudge about where to head next. Do you follow your fellow prisoner to safety or will you trust an Imperial who just moments ago was ready to lob off your head?


Skyrim is a game about decisions. They start with whether or not you want to help a greater cause or with the mundane task of deciding about your character's gender or race. If you don't want to focus on the main story, that's fine. Wanna rush it all and get it done with? Cool. You'll find something cool to see and mess around with at just about every corner of the icy lands of Skyrim.

Like in Oblivion, the guilds are easily best distractions in terms of quest content in Skyrim. Sadly, some of the groups seen in Cyrodil, like the Fighter's Guild, are nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, the groups that did survive the cut manage to provide some of the coolest quest lines in the game. If you were like me and loved the Dark Brotherhood missions in Oblivion, get ready to be blown away in this one as well.

Most of the action in Skyrim is reliant on how you build your character and how you decide to use your powers. In the Elder Scrolls tradition, abilities level up as you use them, for instance, if you're a heavy bow user, your marksmanship points will go up as you line up and make shots. That also goes for involuntary skills like heavy or light armor, as you take hits. Unlike previous games, though, you can also level up by talking to certain trainer characters and pay your way up the scale or by reading special books that you can find by exploring.


Irregardless to how you decide to take your character, there's always a companion just around the corner that will easily counter balance your development skills. Bethesda took one of the best aspects of their other RPG series Fallout and applied it to Skyrim in the form of companion characters "for hire". These guys are very damn useful, especially for less resistant character builds like wizards and can take a lot of punishment. Unfortunately, they aren't as well developed as your buddies from the Capital Wasteland and very rarely bring more story elements for you to mess around with.

In terms of story, I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed with Skyrim's main quest line. The build up for the most of the game is very well developed but it just doesn't go anywhere. The ending is not satisfying at all. The world keeps going, people go back to their routines and heck, even though you did something that should have rid the world of a particular kind of problem, as soon as you step back into the world and keep playing, lo and behold, they're still around causing havoc.


Still, if you take into account the sheer number of things to do in this game, the fact that the main story is its weakest element is pretty much forgivable. The guild quests, allied with just about a ton of extra tidbits and areas to spelunk in are easily more exciting and will be the main crux of your activities in this game.

I'm very much looking forward to see what Bethesda will do with Skyrim in terms of DLC, especially after loving what they had to offer in Fallout 3 and finding most of the areas that heavily hint on possible threads to explore in future downloadable content in this game. You can be sure that once you're through with everything this game has to offer, you won't be done.

Skyrim is easily recommendable to just about anyone looking for a fantasy world to dive into. The content is rich and the shortcomings are easily overcome by the sheer amount of awesome stuff to do in the frigid land of the Nords. Whether or not you decide to be a hero or a villain, one thing is for certain, this is one of those gaming experiences that are not easily forgotten. |10

Goombd Played! - PixelJunk SideScroller

Happy 2012, everyone! To start things out with a bang, after all we're all living in the future, where soon we'll be driving flying cars, why not go back in time, at least figuratively, and play an old school arcade shooter?

PixelJunk SideScroller was probably one of my best surprises at E3. I unassumingly walked into the Sony booth and found the game right there and boy did it hit all the right notes for me right then. Even as a limited demo, I fell to the charm and care given to SideScroller right away. Now, with the full game in hand, that feeling is just even more evident.

SideScroller plays pretty much like an old sidescrolling shooter, hence its name, bathed in a new coat of paint. Well, paint probably isn't the correct word. More like new lines. The horizontally scrolling sections have their own unique look to them, despite the simplicity of the the vector look of the presentation.

You get to use three different weapons right from the get go. As you destroy enemies, you're given power-ups that boost the currently equipped weapon, whether it is the precise and focused but limited in scope laser, the scattered and extremely destructive cannon or the standard albeit very useful machine gun. From their descriptions, you can guess which of those is my favorite.

Too bad that regardless of which weapon I grew fond of, PixelJunk SideScroller still kicked my merry ass to oblivion. It's a very tough game right from the beginning and doesn't let up even at lower difficulty settings. Shooter purists will be glad to know that there are many incentives for diving into the harder modes and newcomers will have to get better at the game if they hope to see the true ending. Takling casual mode will only take you so far! As you'd might expect, if you'e been reading this blog for a while, I fell back to casual mode a lot during my playthrough!

Even though you'll probably get yours handed to you as well, you'll be receiving it in style. SideScroller is one great looking game and the music department is just as impressive. Awesome beats indeed. Similarly to previous PixelJunk games, this is one sleek package.

Regardless of my skill, or rather, my lack there of in this game, it wouldn't be fair to call it unfairly difficult. Challenges are introduced at a quick pace and can be surpassed if you persevere. SideScroller is the sort of game that rewards yours dedication with even more challenges.

In the PixelJunk pantheon of games, SideScroller ranks high among my favorites. I'm a big fan of both Shooter entries although SideScroller's simpler form of gameplay scratches my itch rather nicely. |8

Goombd Played! - Pinball FX2 Vengeance and Virtue DLC

I haven't been making much of a secret how much I enjoy Pinball FX2. Even though I completely suck at pinball, this is one of my favorite games of 2011. So it comes as no surprise that its latest piece of DLC, dubbed Vengeance and Virtue, is such a ringer.

Following in the footsteps of previous Marvel Pinball releases, Vengeance and Virtue features Marvel Comics themed tables for you to play in Pinball FX2, each with its own unique hero motif and gameplay style. This time, we get to bump some pins with Ghost Rider, the X-Men, Thor and... Moon Knight. The first three choices are easily solid picks in the Marvel Comics pantheon of heroes, but Moon Knight? You're probably scratching your head over this just as I did, right?


Well, once you start playing, you'll start loving this table, just as I did. Moon Knight is a fairly obscure character for any casual comic reader but his table is anything but. In fact, it's probably the best one out of the bunch. Not only did it get an unique intro 'cutscene' but it also sports some of the fastest designs out of all Pinball FX2 tables. It makes for some crazy high scores and it's an easy table to pick up in terms of doing missions, too. A very varied mission selection also makes this table a blast. Midnight Man, you're absolutely insane!

The other tables in Vengeance and Virtue are pretty good too. Thor follows the more contained and more straight forward style seen in the core Pinball FX2 tables, with steep ramps that require a lot of speed and less careful aiming. In terms of presentation, it's extremely flashy but in terms of actual pinball, it's probably the least exciting out of the new tables.

Professor Xavier's crew, the X-Men, are given their own table and it's much like the previously released Fantastic Four level. Villains show up in just about every corner to hinder your progress. For instance, Magneto uses his trademark powers to slow your ball down and Blob shields certain ramps with his... uh... glut. Out of the new tables, this is probably the most visually busy and distracting one, but it still packs a punch.

Ghost Rider's trip to a hellish carnival is easily Vengeance and Virtue's most unique table. Heck, it features a freaking shotgun that is often used during gameplay and that's a big plus in my pinball book. In terms of crazy ramps, this table has plenty to offer right out of the launcher, with a very different way of scoring a skill shot that mimics old carnival ball toss games with the ball you're putting into play. The motorcycle dare devil nature of the Ghost Rider character is also explored in the lane and ramp design, that provide fast turns and some crazy jumps.

If you've been enjoying what Zen Studios has been dealing out in terms of Pinball FX2 DLC, you'll find a lot to like in Vengeance and Virtue. They explored the darker corners of Marvel Comics and came out with some of my favorite tables. If you're new to Pinball FX2, this is one of the best DLCs so far and a great chance to start playing.

Now I want to read up on Moon Knight! Who would've thunk he'd make such a great theme for pinball? |7

Goombd Played! - Akimi Village

It's the PlayStation 3's time to start building! Akimi Village was released a while ago and if you're not familiar with the name, think of Keflings. Still not ringing a bell? NinjaBee's Xbox Live Arcade franchise started out with one of the first games to use the dreaded Xbox avatars, A Kingdom for Keflings. Last year, we got to mess around with its sequel, A World of Keflings, which carried over all of the best from the resource gathering and building world had to offer.

Akimi Village is pretty much the same type of game. After choosing your character, whether it's a boy or a girl, you're given the task of aiding a race of 'very' little people with the rebuild and cleaning of their world. There's a group of core materials you have to start out harvesting and from there, a handful of blueprints to build from. Each building carries an unique function. Some help you generate more villagers to help with the gathering of these materials, while others, for instance, help turn stored items into other types of building blocks that you'll use for different constructions.


Just like the 'Keflings games, your goal in Akimi is to build every single blueprint. There's no particular challenge to this, in the 'challenge' sense of what games have come to accustom us to watch out for. You're never put in any danger nor will you have to fight any enemies. Building and harvesting are the only goals, and even though they might seem simple and crude at first, they're not.

This is a ridiculously busy game. You won't feel like you're aimlessly playing it at any point thanks to a very well paced style of gameplay. There's always a new goal to strive for and just like 'Keflings, you're always treated to some very funny writing and an extremely colorful visual presentation.


Sadly, though, some of the gameplay improvements introduced in A World of Keflings did not carry over to Akimi. You're not given the option to move buildings that you construct nor are you able to guide workers into helping you complete blueprints on their own. The interface is also a little hard to figure out, due to small and sometimes similar looking icons that are confusing to pick out from.

Regardless of some of these issues, if you're in the hunt for an easy going game that doesn't treat you like a 6 month old toddler but isn't as complex as a military strategy simulator, Akimi Village might just suit you. It's a fun download that should take you about nine hours to get through and after you're done saving a world, you can take your gathered resources and help other players online save their own, if you so wish. |7

Goombd Played! - Jurassic Park The Game

It is said that some things are just better left extinct. In the game of videogames, certain styles of game design can fall under that category. One in particular was born in the 1980s, with Dragon's Lair as its shining example. It showed how colorful and well animated games could look but how boring and non-interactive they could be as well. You could only guide the knight Dirk by pointing which way he should head and depending on your choice, he either lived or died. Since then, we haven't gotten hardly any games fully based on that concept. It was pretty much dead and buried after a few other disastrous attempts a few scant years later.

What we now know as QTE (quick time event) can somewhat be associated with that concept, although very rarely do we get to play games that are solely reliant on it. It's usually used as just a gimmick, a break between action scenes that more often than not tends to be plain irritating, demanding precise timing and in most cases, brain dead button mashing.

So it came as a surprise when Telltale Games, the people behind episodic games like Sam & Max and most recently Back to the Future The Game, announced that they had acquired the rights to the Jurassic Park film and would be making an adventure game that would exclusively use this sort of mechanic instead of giving direct control of characters on screen. The resulting works mostly well but isn't rid of a few annoying problems.

Similarly to Back to the Future The Game, Telltale's pick for a niche to place the story for Jurassic Park The Game is rather interesting. Rather than being a sequel to the somewhat lackluster Jurassic Park film franchise, Telltale's game is centered around a can of shaving cream. That can of shaving cream. Barbasol. The one Dennis Nedry, Wayne Knight's obnoxious computer hacker character from the first Jurassic Park movie tried to smuggle dinosaur embryos out of the island in but ultimately failed. His contact decides to send two agents into Isla Nublar in order to recover the prize and that's where the game begins.

Scenes play out and don't give you direct control on what's going on with the characters and the situations they are placed in. Instead, you're given the task of correctly (and timely) pressing the buttons shown, like a quick combination of controller buttons and analog stick tilts. For most of the time, the intensity and demand of what you have to press fits with the chaos that's going on, while in others, it's just frustratingly obtuse.


Telltale has managed to convey a sense of immediacy for what happens to the game's characters into the indirect controls you're given to do but sometimes the game's interface manages to do a great job getting in your way. The graphics and character animation do a great job of showing emotion (mostly of desperation, as it's to be expected when dinosaurs are trying to eat everyone) but in some instances, amidst all the action it becomes extremely difficult to see some of the prompts or get the timing wrong due to how often the indications on screen become obscured by the camera that is often shifting positions and moving along a predetermined path.

The timing in which to press the buttons was my most frustrating issue of contention with this game. I rarely reached a point where I just wanted to give up, due to how well the check-pointing works in this game, although some people might get turned off after seeing their unlucky fictitious friend get eaten due to a mistaken or missed input. Regardless of how forgiving the action is for most of the game, allowing a fair number of mistakes before slapping you with a game over screen, it's still disappointing to see it happen instantly in some of the more exciting parts of the game, in "insta-kill" mode.

If you persevere, though, you'll be rewarded with a surprisingly well developed story that is delivered in the confines of this four part episodic series. Telltale once again manages to develop an exciting plot that plucks an overlooked element off the movies, all the while creating their own original elements that perfectly fit in the mythos of Jurassic Park, something that both of the movie sequels failed to do. Two other islands? Really, Mr. Spielberg?

While it's a little annoying that you don't get to guide much of what happens in the story, it's mostly up to you to uncover additional tidbits of background information on characters and the Jurassic Park canon. They're hidden behind certain dialogue choices and button prompts that can be easily missed if you aren't looking. The overall script is set, though. Certain character deaths, for instance, are written from the beginning and happen regardless of how perfectly you execute action sequence button prompts. The way you get to certain points in the plot can somewhat differ but it's nothing dramatic or short of a few extra bumps and awkward falls on the way to an objective.

It'd be easy to classify Jurassic Park The Game as passable if the scope of comparison was focused on action adventure games like Uncharted. But as an adventure game that strips the 'point' out of 'point and click' and replaces the 'click' with button prompts, analog stick movements and a few cases of insane button mashing, it works relatively well. You're still picking dialogue choices, examining items and solving a half of a handful of puzzles, even though most of what you do is firmly strapped in on a story that moves along a pre-determined track. Jurassic Park The Game might not be one of Telltale's best titles, but it's certainly the most unique of the bunch. |6

Goombd Played! - Swarm

If you've grown tired of keeping your Lemmings alive all the time, Swarm might turn things around for you. In Hothead Games' departure from the adventure genre, you're rewarded for being sadistic. In fact, the more evil you are to your poor, hapless blue minions, the bigger, baddest, best score chain you'll get. Points are good, right?

Yes they are. You'll need plenty of those. Swarm's levels are only unlocked once a minimum cap is reached. Points are earned by collecting strands of DNA, killing Swarmites (it's what these lovable blueish guys are called) in creative/evil/fun ways and by being quick about it. Things aren't that straightforward though. Traps and puzzles liter your way and thanks to a smart implementation of direct controls, there's hardly a point where the game itself turns out to be an obstacle.

Surmounting these pebbles on the road, though, is another matter. There are various ways to use your little army of 50 Swarmites. They aren't as useless as Lemmings that simply walk one way or the other. They're obedient. You give them an order, they do it. Want them to stack on top of each other? Done. Jump over a chasm? Pff, easy. All these actions are mapped to a few button combinations and are unlocked the further you progress in the game.

Swarm is the type of puzzler that likes to throw new things your way every so often. New moves become available as you make your way through new stages. You're also awarded with medals the more you murder your blue victims too. These medals can then be upgraded the more kills you achieve on a particular style. Unlocking all is a matter of thoroughly exploration and discovery, and it's probably one of Swarm best features.


I'll admit (admissions are a part of Goombd!, after all) - I like to earn achievements and trophies. I don't particularly go out of my way to win them, though. I dig hunting when they make the game more fun and interesting, which is the case for Swarm. Going after them is an added layer of challenge and will demand nearly perfect results on all stages.

It also helps that Swarm is a pretty game. The Swarmites look like "claymated" and deaths would look adorable if they weren't so gruesome. Okay, I'll say that they are really darn cute. You never see any blood, though, so if you're into that, you won't find it here. You will, however, see plenty of blue. All over the damn screen.


Swarm is the type of game that could easily take you just a few hours to make it to the credits. That's just the beginning of it all, though. Getting all medals, awards, best scores and unlockables can easily quadruple that amount of time, if you are looking for replayability. And who wouldn't? Swarm is a blast. Or a jump in a vat of acid. Or a blue-tinted barbecue. You get the drift! |8

Goombd Played! - Eufloria

If you're anything like me, you're awful at real-time strategy games, the RTS, like all the cool kids like to call them. Maybe it's due to the unrelenting nature of having to make split second decisions, the stress of having thousands of virtual lives in your hands at all times. I'm just bad at them. I take too long to do the right thing at the right time. When it's time to attack, I'm still building my base, carefully placing my units around the base and when it's time to turtle up, hey, I'm mounting a thousand marine death-to-the-scourge single file attack force.

Regardless of what type of RTS player you are, you ought to give Eufloria a go. I might be wrong when I call this game a RTS, but it's the closest comparison I could muster. It's on a league of its own, in more than a single aspect, really.



You're not in control of armies of orcs or anything that you might associate with war. Helping along a plant empire colonize asteroids is Eufloria's push for a story. Starting out with little seedlings, you're tasked with exploring space and finding patches in which to sink the roots of your civilization in, quite literally. Early into your journey, though, you discover that not all is quite as it seems when opposing seeds races start competing for fertile ground.

Despite its incredibly simple art style and gameplay, Eufloria packs a lot of depth. It slowly takes you through the core elements of getting a game going, like planting a tree so more seeds are produced. From there, after a few slowly paced missions, you're in control of hundreds of units. Unlike other games that have you micromanaging lots of things at once, though, Eufloria's simple and extremely effective control options make it easy to keep track of just about everything. All it takes for an order to go through is a click or prolonged drag of a mouse (or in my case a single or extended PlayStation 3 button press) and off a group of seeds goes or a tree gets planted.


Due to the easy going but at the same time fast nature of Eufloria, even when I failed I never got frustrated and felt the urge to give up. It's incredibly quick to get things going again, rebuild an "army" and try to take on a challenge again. And if you don't think things are moving fast enough, a speedier game option is just a menu away too.

Aside from the story mode, you have the option to dive into special challenge levels that work like tests for everything you learned. These rank you in a variety of ways, not just for how many points you score, but for how fast you finish the stage and how efficiently you've done so, counting how many units you've built and lost.


There isn't an option to play this online, though, so you're locked with dealing against a moderately calm and pacifist computer controlled enemy. The A.I. won't completely destroy you by attacking as soon as you discover an opposing asteroid but it's not a pushover either. Maybe it's due to how bad I am in this sort of game, but I found myself having just the 'right' amount of challenge with Euflori and for that I'm thankful. I can appreciate a huge hardcore RTS game like SHOGUN2 that offers so many options, tactics and the whatnot, where I can just about finish the earliest of portions in a campaign mode before getting overwhelmed.

I'm just happy to claim that I have a RTS game I can enjoy without getting stressed over the many aspects of managing an army. I can simply click away and point my little friends towards an objective, hoping that they'll be successful. In the middle of all the explosions, deaths, blood and gore that we're so used to seeing with games nowadays, a "little" and simple" game like Eufloria has a reserved spot in my list of favorites any day. |8

Goombd! Played - Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road DLC

Unlike the title might suggest, in Fallout New Vegas' newest piece of downloadable content, you're hardly ever alone. Lonesome Road picks up right after Old World Blues, where you discovered that you are not the only Courier in the Mojave desert. Courier Six, the first person approached with the task of delivering the Platinum Chip and who refused to do so, is hot on your trail for mysterious reasons.

It all begins after you get transmission from Six and are sent to the depths of the Divide through a conveniently placed entranced in the middle of the wasteland. Much like previous DLC, you're not allowed to take any of your party members along. The trip is hardly solitary though, since as soon as you get to the first area of the Divide, you meet an eyebot named ED-E, that much to your surprise, acts a lot like another ED-E you might have met during your journey through the Mojave.


Much of Lonesome Road revolves around discovering the reason why you've been brought there. You come in contact with Courier Six rather early on and he hardly gives any clue about why you're there, let alone how to find him. You do, however, run into a crap ton of active nuclear warheads, Deathclaws and irradiated mutants who must all perish in the name of Six.

This DLC goes so far as to give you a special gun that activates those warheads in order to clear the path through all the rubble in the Divide, along with a few new pieces of gear to don and fashion on your way back to the Wasteland. Red Glare is a new type of rocket launcher that has the added bonus of being upgradeable. ED-E can also receive updates if you're thorough in your exploration and can manage to find his fallen eyebot friends scattered around. The best part about upgrading the little flying hunk of metal is that it all transfers to your original ED-E party member once you travel back to the main game.


The best part of Lonesome Road that I found to be extremely rewarding, besides the smartly written story and dialogue, that are not as heavy in delivery as Old World Blues, is how your actions in Divide play a pivotal role in the main New Vegas campaign. None of the previous downloadable packs provoked consequences in the Mojave, aside from giving you exclusive pieces of gear, but depending on your choices in particular parts of your visit to the Divide, your main Mojave quest might be deeply influenced.

I'm talking extermination here - things that can create ripples in your New Vegas experience. This is an awesome part of Lonesome Road that makes it worth playing through and to put an end to a four part story that began way back in Dead Money, where I for one hardly thought they would reconnect story-wise in any way. I will go so far to suggest that you give this a go right in the middle of your main New Vegas experience in order to see how the hell these consequences play out in the story. You also run into recordings made by Six as he explored the areas covered in the previous DLCs that tie into and help carve out a personality for this enigma of a character.


If you enjoyed New Vegas, there's no reason not to give any of the four DLC packs a try. As a combined experience, New Vegas' pieces of downloadable content managed to deliver a much more solid overall story than say Fallout 3's, and that's saying a lot, considering how much I liked those back then. |8