AJC3317

Has any game franchise done more with less than Resident Evil? It started as a somewhat interesting survival horror game on the PlayStation, complete with clunky controls and a Capcom trademarked story that was both hilariously convoluted and embarrassingly simple. From there it spawned a bunch of mediocre sequels and spin offs, peaked briefly with Resident Evil 4, before quickly devolving into the convoluted mess that is Resident Evil 6. The newest installment tries to be a mixture of both the original game and the more modern third person shooters of today, and ends up being the worst of every world. The basic premise of Resident Evil 6 is that there are 4 separate campaigns to play through, allowing you to see the zombie apocolypse of the month from 4 different viewpoints. That's the theory anyway. In practice, the campaigns are all so short that about half the cutscenes in the game are shared between them. Another thing that sounded much better in theory was making the campaigns have a different feel, i.e. one being a more traditional survival horror, one being a more traditional third person shooter, etc. In practice, however, there is basically no difference between them all. Long time series mainstays such as Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, and Jill Valentine make their usual appearances. The most interesting character is Ada Wong, who hovers around all the other characters like Batman, protecting them when they find themselves in yet another perilous situation. Her campaign is supposed to tie all the stories together, but really all that happens is you reach the end, press a button, and get talked at for 5 minutes. If the impenetrable story didn't already turn you off of Resident Evil 6, the gameplay certainly will. All the characters are so stiff to try and steer around the levels, frequently continuing to move even after you let go of the thumbstick. After all their years of zombie hunting they still haven't grasped the concept of moving while aiming, and there is a laughably poor attempt at a cover system. Capcom keeps these things in Resident Evil games for tradition I suppose, but games intentionally ignoring good design choices in favor of tradition just makes them all the more frustrating. This all happens, of course, when the game begrudgingly allows you to actually play it. Control is taken from the player so often so that the camera can pan to something the game is so proud of, or so that characters can talk at you over your headset, or so the game can throw one of it's hundreds of quick time events at you, that the actual time spent playing Resident Evil 6 is probably close to about 3 hours. The quick time events deserve special mention, as they often come completely out of nowhere, and flash on the screen for about a quarter of a second. They really couldn't be implemented any worse. And if all this wasn't bad enough, the game thinks that ramping up the stakes is to simply throw the same giant monsters at you about 5 different times, often after you've convincingly killed them previously. The characters never seem to learn to completely obliterate a monster after they've downed it, always being content to just continue on their way. They never seem surprised or concerned when the same baddie later confronts them for the umpeenth time however, and if they're not concerned about it I just don't see why I should be either. The best games are made when player and game co-exist harmoniously. The game allows the player to freely explore it's worlds, and the player uses the tools given to enjoy the journey. Resident Evil 6 hates it's players. During the brief moments when it remembers it's a game and not some cheaply made horror/comedy film, it gives players stiff and dated gameplay to fight the same monsters over and over and over again. The only way Resident Evil 6 is even remotely worth playing is in co-op mode with a friend, that way you can both laugh at the sheer awfulness of it all. Trying to play it solo will do nothing more than bring you to tears.

Cheesy B-grade sci-fi movies were a staple of the 50s. So low budget you'd think they were made by a high school AV club, with actors who over-emote every line of dialogue. They have an undeniable charm about them. The Deadly Tower of Monsters is an isometric platformer that faithfully recreates the look and feel of a cheesy sci-fi monster flick from that era, and pulls it off with a unique presentation and really nice attention to detail. The game is presented as a DVD movie, with the director of the film doing a running commentary as the stars progress through the story. The commentary is easily the highlight of the game, as some of his lines are laugh out loud funny. The stars of the film/game are **** Starspeed, Scarlet Nova, and **** robot, Robot. They each have some funny dialogue as well, the best coming when **** finds his broken down Robot friend. Together they must stop Scarlet's father, the Emperor, from killing all the apes of the planet they are on. Not a lot to go on, but it's a B-grade sci-fi movie parody so it's to be expected. This all takes place behind a noticeable film grain covering the screen, really selling the low budget look they're going for. The gameplay is a twin-stick style shooter with some melee combat mixed in. There are an amazing amount of enemy types. It would be impressive for a AAA game, but for a game like this is simply staggering the amount of time and effort designing these monsters must have taken. Enemy design is where the attention to detail truly shines. Flying enemies have a visible string attached to them. The director mentions that they used dogs in costumes for some of the monsters, and you can easily tell that some of the monsters are definitely dogs wearing costumes. Weapon variety is also big in The Deadly Tower of Monsters, but this doesn't work as well. You are given a new weapon almost every other checkpoint, and in a game this short you quickly begin to feel bogged down by them. Not everything in The Deadly Tower of Monsters works quite as well as planned. The camera is fixed, and what it feels is important to look at and what the player wants to look at are often two very different things. It also has a tendency to swing wildly and unpredictably around. I even felt slightly motion sick at some points. Each character is largely the same, with the only differences being a different special power they can use, and **** gets a speed dash move that is not used once in the game. I guess they felt each character needed something unique, it's just strange to give the worthless power to the main character. If your character is knocked down in combat it takes them a good 4-5 seconds to stand back up and keep moving, which kills pacing. And while this is a minor quibble, the collectibles are completely inane. They either have nothing to do with the game (fall through a bunch of hoops floating in the sky... what?), or are in spots that are so far out of the way they'd be nearly impossible to find without a guide. Everyone loves a good B-grade sci-fi flick, and The Deadly Tower of Monsters parodies one very well. It not only pokes fun at the genre, but at movie making as a whole with some clever fourth wall breaking sequences. The attention to detail is spot on, and while the game itself doesn't quite reach the same level it's still very much worth your time. A little more polish could have made it something truly great, rather than just interesting and very good.

I have a confession to make: I've never played a single second of Minecraft. I feel like a circus freak. "Come one, come all! Gather round to see the freak who's never touched Minecraft!" In fact, not only have I never played it, I know very very little about it. Most of my knowledge of the game comes from that one South Park episode. The adults in that episode portray me perfectly. So I was a perfectly blank slate going into Minecraft: Story Mode, which I felt was an advantage because if something was portrayed incorrectly I would have no idea and it wouldn't affect my experience. Minecraft: Story Mode starts with our hero Jessie and his rag tag group of friends going to a Comic-Con esque building competition. They're going up against a group of leather jacket wearing expert builders who win the competition every year. And just like in every sports movie ever made, the underdog group of friends defies the odds to win the day! Well, almost. Until their project catches on fire, and one of the mythical members of the Order of the Stone shows up and unleashes a world ending demon upon the people. Jessie and his friends, with the help of the Order of the Stone's amulet, set off to reunite the Order of the Stone and stop the monster from destroying the world. The story follows a pretty typical hero narrative, except there is a group of heroes realizing their potential instead of just one. There is the typical Telltale Games problem of characters personalities varying wildly from chapter to chapter, or sometimes even from scene to scene within the same chapter. Each member of the Order of the Stone is a gigantic tool, but that's the point of the story. There are some genuinely funny moments, and probably even more if you are more familiar with the Minecraft universe. Most enemies are explained well; I now know what a Wither is and why it's scary. An Enderman on the other hand, not so much. The oddest part of the story is that it wraps up in 4 chapters instead of Telltale's typical 5, and the 5th chapter is a different, fully self contained story. They say you should never meet your heroes, because they'll never live up to your expectations. That's the moral of Minecraft: Story Mode. The Order of the Stone was idolized by Jessie and his friends, and indeed the whole world. But when they were called upon to save the world once again, it was found out that they were frauds. Minecraft: Story Mode teaches us to find the hero both within ourselves, and within our friends.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's... another LEGO game! This time it's LEGO MARVEL's Avengers. And yes, I'm aware that opening line comes from a DC Comics character. But what strikes me the most as someone who's not a huge fan of comic books is just how similar both Marvel's and DC's rosters are. There are blatant rip offs of characters up and down each side. But let's focus on Marvel for now. LEGO MARVEL's Avengers tells the stories of the blockbuster films The Avengers, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron where they team up to defeat Loki and Ultron, respectively. If you've ever played a LEGO game you know what you're in for. Progress is made through levels by breaking and/or rebuilding things, which is always fun, and there are a mind-boggling amount of collectibles to hunt down. The emphasis of LEGO MARVEL's Avengers seems to be on the collectibles, since there are only 15 story levels to play through. Of those 15, only 12 are dedicated to telling the stories of the movies. The other 3 are dedicated to short stories of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. The LEGO games usually thrive in re-telling an already told story with added humor and charm, but due to the reduced number of episodes the stories become too compact and hard to follow. Even the humor and charm seems somewhat phoned in, as most scenes simply attempt to rely on a running gag involving a milkshake. You normally play as multiple heroes throughout each level, some stages of which can take place in vastly different places from one another, so the level design feels disjointed. Small improvements have been made to every LEGO game over the years, and LEGO MARVEL's Avengers is no different. The game will now (finally) remember which red bricks you had turned on between your gaming sessions, so you don't have to go into the options menu and turn them on every time you start up the game. Most characters now roll after landing from a jump, which helps keep their movement speed up and thus keeps the flow of the game moving at a good pace. Unfortunately there are also a few notable feature removals from this iteration. There is no small character select wheel when playing in free play, you must always choose from the giant roster of characters available which quickly becomes tedious to try and scroll through. Speaking of the giant roster, there are many characters included in LEGO MARVEL's Avengers that only the most hardcore of Marvel fans will recognize, yet inexplicably removed from the game is the feature that tells you each characters' skill on the character select screen. I ended up using only a small handful of the available characters who's skills I already knew throughout the game because of this. Of other small annoyance is the minikit detector still not being able to make up it's mind about whether it wants to show me where the minikit will appear, or what I need to do to make it appear. The LEGO games have always thrived on charm, but LEGO MARVEL's Avengers misses the mark in that department. And when that happens the flaws that the LEGO games have appear more brightly. LEGO MARVEL's Avengers is a one step forward, two step backwards entry into the series, making small improvements to the franchise but removing features and still refusing to fix the problems that have plagued the games forever. It's still enjoyable to play, but it misses the heights that previous versions have reached.

Cars 2 is a video game adaptation of the Pixar film of the same name. Interestingly for a game consisting completely of cars, the game is a first person puzzle platformer, with some light RPG elements thrown in for good measure. Anyone buying that? No? Ok, fine. Of course it's a racing game! And a surprisingly solid one at that. Lightning McQueen and the C.H.R.O.M.E. agents are out to stop Professor Z from setting off weapons all over the world. The best way to do this, obviously, is to have a bunch of races. But none of this is actually happening, because the entire game takes place inside a simulation. So much for drama! Don't let the child friendly appearance of the game's subject matter confuse you, Cars 2 is a very well made racing game. All your favorite Cars characters are on display, and while they do have differing stats (the only two stats being speed or power), they all handle fairly similarly. But the similar feel is a solid one as each car handles nicely as you careen around the track. You can gain turbo by pulling off aerial stunts, bashing into other cars, or drifting. A nice touch was added to the drifts, where if you drift into a wall your character will automatically hop up on two wheels to ride the wall and keep the speed and flow of the race in tact. Each raceway has numerous hidden shortcuts to find, and you will need to use them if you want to win some of the races later on in the campaign. Again, don't go into Cars 2 thinking every race will be a walk in the park. You will need to use all your racing skill if you wish to take home every gold. There's more than just the standard race mode that Cars 2 has to offer. Battle race gives the game a Mario Kart feel as random weapon pickups are available on the track. And like Mario Kart, the further behind the leader you are the better weapon you will obtain. Attack mode has you chasing down Professor Z's minions, cleverly named Lemons, on the race track. You must destroy as many as you can to keep the timer from reaching zero. Survival mode gives you a constantly depleting shield that you can replenish by driving through checkpoints and destroying enemies. Each of these modes switches up the formula of driving around a track just enough to be worth playing. Cars 2 also boasts local multiplayer, and in addition to every mode listed above being able to play with friends, there are also two multiplayer specific modes. Arena is a pure head to head destruction competition, where the first player to destroy enough cars wins. Disruptor is a capture the flag type game, where players must take a spawned bomb to their opponents base in order to destroy it. These modes are a nice diversion for when you get tired of the more standard racing affairs. While Cars 2 may not do anything to revolutionize the racing genre, it doesn't do anything wrong either. While many may dismiss it as a kiddy game due to it's subject material, and others may dismiss it for being a movie tie-in, it exceeds both of those labels. If you are a fan of the Cars films, or you simply like racing games, give Cars 2 a chance. You won't regret it.

Toy Story Mania is a party style game originally released for the Nintendo Wii. It is designed primarily for the Playstation Move controllers, but functions perfectly fine with a regular Dualshock. Every playable area is based around a Toy Story character, although sadly Slinky Dog doesn't make an appearance. Even more sad is that the Toy Story licence is probably the best thing about this game. A good party game needs variety to keep things entertaining for the group, Toy Story Mania is anything but varied. Every area is stylized as a carnival style shooting gallery. Different objects are worth more or less points, but it doesn't seem to matter where the targets are located as 5000 point targets are often as easy to hit as the 100 point ones. There are a few other games mixed in here and there such as ski ball, and a Fruit Ninja type game, but the main course is the shooting gallery. There is no skill needed for any of these games. You have unlimited ammo, and there is no penalty for missing shots. All you need to do is hold down the fire button for about 2 minutes and you'll rack up points. A curveball comes about halfway through the game when a robotic arm appears and starts throwing pies at the screen. You then need to use the right stick to move a stick figure out of the way of the incoming pies while still attempting to aim at the targets in the background. This adds a patting your head and rubbing your stomach type of multitasking to the proceedings which helps to relieve the otherwise dull shooting. That's really all there is to say about Toy Story Mania. It can be difficult to judge a party game like a more traditional game, as they are trying to do different things. There's no story to be told, no individual challenges to overcome. That said, as a party game Toy Story Mania leaves a lot to be desired. The games are not nearly varied enough and are far too easy to hold anyone's attention at a gathering. Unless you or a young child you know is a huge fan of the Toy Story series (and I mean huge), there are much better options when looking for a game for you and a group of friends to enjoy.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Day of the Tentacle is a point and click style adventure by LucasArts that was first released in 1993. The remastered version contains updated graphics and developer commentary, but beyond that the versions are much the same. We follow the characters of Bernard, Hoagie, and Laverne as they travel to the mansion of Dr. Fred, under the assumption that he is going to kill Bernard's friends Green Tentacle and Purple Tentacle. When they arrive they find that Purple has mutated, due to him drinking some of the toxic sludge that Dr. Fred has pumped into a nearby river, and has visions of taking over the world. The trio must travel back in time to stop Dr. Fred from ever pumping the toxic sludge out of his lab, but while attempting to do so they end up in a time traveling snafu that leaves them all at the mansion, but at different points in time. Point and click adventure games don't need a lot of explanation. You walk around an area, picking up every single object that the game will allow you to, and you try combining those objects with every other object you find until something works. Usually the solutions are about as convoluted as you can possibly imagine, but Day of the Tentacle has a surprising amount of straightforward solutions to it's problems. There are certainly still puzzles that make you question just what was going on in the head of the designer at the time, but it was refreshing and actually challenging in it's own way to see so many obvious solutions be the correct solution. Day of the Tentacle also doesn't have a traditional hint system. Rather, the game is cleverly designed so that visual and audio clues will be scattered throughout the game itself. It forces the player to pay attention to the environment, and examine each object closely, as you never know when one of the characters may reveal the players' "ah-ha!" moment. If there was anything negative to say about the gameplay of Day of the Tentacle, it's that the game is somewhat over designed, which is odd for a game more than 20 years old. That was the style of point and click adventure games back then however, so you often get many unnecessary options to use to interact with an object. For example, you can choose to "open", "pull", or "use", a desk drawer, all of which result in the same action. Also, clicking on an object just isn't enough of a commitment for the game to think you want to use it. You can click an object to walk to it, but then you must click a different button to actually use it. Thankfully, point and click adventure game designers agree that these were flaws, and we don't see them as much in newer versions of the genre. Where Day of the Tentacle truly shines is in it's humor. The game is downright hilarious. Every line is delivered with fantastic timing, and every situation ends in a laugh. Even a man attempting suicide becomes a funny moment in a still tasteful way. The character animation does it's part in bringing out the humor as well, especially the characters faces as they may give a sly smile when they've tricked another character, or raise their eyebrows at the screen to acknowledge that they just saw what the player saw. There is quite a bit of slapstick comedy as well which has a very similar style to the old Looney Toons cartoons. Characters eyes will bug out when surprised, they will fall through the ground, and steam will be released from their ears when they're hot. It all works extremely well together. Day of the Tentacle is a giant in the point and click adventure genre, and with good reason. Over 20 years later it still holds up and can go toe to toe with anything the genre currently has to offer. The puzzle solutions will make you feel smart about yourself, while simultaneously not requiring you to melt your brain to attempt the most out their solutions you can come up with. And the comedy the game has to offer is what truly sets it apart. If you're like me, a fan of the point and click game who had never played one of the godfathers of the genre, do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Dust: An Elysian Tail is a Metroidvania style side-scroller about the oddly named Dust, and his equally oddly named companion Fidget. Dust appears to be Raiden from the Mortal Kombat series re-imagined as a raccoon, while Fidget is some sort of cross between a cat and a bat. Together they are tasked with defeating General Gaius, who is wreaking havoc on the lands. Luckily for the two of them, they aren't going into this battle empty handed. Joining them is the mystical talking sword Ahrah, one of the five blades of Elysium, who has been watched over by Fidget and her people and gets mysteriously summoned by Dust. The story starts off shaky. Dust has amnesia, that old video game story writing crutch, and while many people of the world seem to recognize him he cannot recall any of his past. However, without wishing to spoil, the amnesia criticism gets removed as the story unfolds as it truly does fit with the character. Along the way you will come across many villages populated by innocents caught in the crossfire of one man's quest to claim the world as his own. Heartbreak and loss are common place, and some fantastic voice acting truly brings to light the pain these characters are suffering through. Fidget in particular is a wonderful sidekick. Too often sidekicks can become annoying throughout the course ****, but Fidget's childlike naivety, sarcastic quips, and unwavering moral guidance provided constant entertainment and emotion during the journey. As mentioned in the opening sentence of this review, Dust is a Metroidvania style platformer. So expect many enemies that constantly respawn in every area, lots of backtracking to get hidden items as you unlock new abilities, and the occasional platforming section to reach new levels in the same area. Combat consists mainly of Dust using Ahrah to slice and dice his way through enemies. A twist is thrown in early on when Fidget receives a projectile attack. This is the attack that can turn the game from moderately challenging to cakewalk if managed properly. At first, Fidget's projectiles are good for crowd control, but do little to no damage. However, with constant upgrading and finding items that can multiply the damage Fidget can do, hordes of enemies will soon kneel before her power. The biggest quip I have with the game is in the platforming. Dust has a split second delay between when he lands on a platform and when he can jump again. This can lead to some frustrating falls from high places. And lest you think stopping on the platform is always a safe bet, if you're moving too fast horizontally, Dust will take an extra step left or right just when you think he's stopped. Again, frustrating falls from high places will follow. With all that said, the mechanics are all pretty solidly done, but if you aren't already a fan of this type of game then Dust probably isn't going to convert you. I'd like to take a moment to mention the collectibles of Dust. Just about every game has collectibles now. Some are useless and difficult to collect (GTA 4). Some are useless but fun to collect (Mafia 2). The best however are collectibles that actually add to the game experience, and this is where Dust shines. Scattered throughout the game are various characters from other independent games, hidden in areas that are unique to the games they come from. The character from Bastion is hidden in a room where the floor flies up beneath your feet. The character from Braid is in an area where the sound will move forward or backwards depending on which direction you're running. The characters from Spelunky are found within the cave area. In addition to being cleverly hidden, each friend you find will add 5% to your health, giving you the motivation to seek out and find everyone that you can. It all adds to the air of 4th wall breaking that Dust is going for. The game isn't afraid to tell you you're playing a game, with Fidget going so far as to say "I hope you saved" before entering a tough area. Dust: An Elysian Tail manages to tell a much more engaging, emotional story than just about any big budget title can claim. And unlike many other independent games, the gameplay isn't sacrificed at all. While the backtracking does get tedious at times as you fight through the same enemies time after time after time, the combat flows nicely enough that it doesn't feel like a huge burden. With solid enough controls, engaging characters, and a story you'll want to see to the end, Dust is certainly worth a playthrough.

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal takes place following the events of Going Commando. Although you wouldn't know it judging from the opening of the game. One of these days someone is going to have to explain to me why Ratchet constantly feels the need to throw away all his cool stuff that he gets on his adventures, forcing him to go and regain them every time. Clank is the smart one of the group, he still has all his upgrades. But anyway, our heroes see a planet getting destroyed on the news, fly to it and become the new commander of the Galactic Rangers by virtue of having a pulse, and along the way uncover the plot of the evil Dr. Nefarious. In typical Ratchet & Clank style you fly from planet to planet slowly uncovering new pieces of the story. While Up Your Arsenal is in fact the sequel to Going Commando, you'd be forgiven in thinking that it was the other way around. Up Your Arsenal is significantly shorter, and half of what content is there feels either like padding or that it was simply copied and pasted from Going Commando. After nearly every mission you are forced to fly back to the Starship Phoenix, the command ship of long time series goof Captain Quark and his pals. Once there you often do nothing more than simply watch a cutscene that tells you which planet you need to go to next, something other games in the series managed to accomplish with a simple phone call. And the game cleverly puts you at the far end of the Starship Phoenix, as far away as possible from your ship forcing you to hike back to it every single time. The missions are also padded, with many of them being nothing more than helping the Galactic Rangers by fighting off waves of Tyhrranoids. There's even a point where you take time out to help Clank film his Secret Agent Clank TV show. It makes the story feel much less urgent when you're constantly forced to do these trivial things rather than progress towards the evil villain. Even the sections where you play as Clank feel much more uninspired than in previous games. Normally you use Clank and his little robot friends to help you navigate puzzles and traverse obstacles. In Up Your Arsenal, however, Clank's little robot friends are often reduced to keys, needed to open doors to the next area and then never seen again. Most of the puzzle navigation comes in the form of a monkey who follows Clank around for some reason, and the only thing you can do with him is throw a banana for him to fetch. It's a disappointing downturn from what is usually one of the highlights of the Ratchet & Clank games. Crazy weapons have always been a staple of the Ratchet & Clank series, and Up Your Arsenal certainly delivers on that front. Electric shotguns, black hole producers, and whips that require ammo to use for some reason are just a small slice of the variety of weaponry that Up Your Arsenal has in store. Some weapons make you wonder whether or not you should use anything else, while others make you wonder whether or not a feather pillow may be a more effective choice. My favorite is the Plasma Storm, which fires balls of electricity the entire length of the screen, arcs towards any enemies that get too close, and can take out any enemy in two or fewer hits. The most notable of all weapons is the RYNO, or in this case the RY3NO, which can reduce any enemy to dust in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately the padding of Up Your Arsenal isn't limited to it's story; it also spills over onto the weapons. Some of the weapons are complete copies of ones from Going Commando, name and all, and while each weapon can be upgraded to level 8, a short game means you are forced through a lot of grinding if you want to see each weapon reach it's full potential. While many parts of Up Your Arsenal are similar to Going Commando, there's one unfortunate similarity that needs to be addressed: the checkpoint system, or lack thereof. As you progress through the game and the enemies and platforming segments become tougher, it's far from a guarantee that you will make it through a level without dying. If you do happen to lose all your HP, the game sends you all the way back to the beginning of the level, respawns all enemies, and just as an extra kick to the gonads it decides not to give you any of your ammo back forcing you to buy it. While Up Your Arsenal is slightly better than Going Commando with regards to more frequent health boxes that actually restore a decent chunk of your health rather than a small fraction of it, this massive oversight was infuriating in the previous game, and is downright unacceptable in the sequel. To add even more insult to injury, the Captain Quark side scrolling video game levels, which take all of a few minutes to complete, have more checkpoints than the main game. So Insomniac obviously understood the concept of checkpoints, but decided that we didn't need them while playing as Ratchet. Dialogue has always been a strong part of every Ratchet & Clank game. Games that are accessible to the younger audience while keeping the older audience entertained can be a tough to hit sweet spot for any form of entertainment, but Insomniac Games are masters at it. The subtle adult humor will make many kids wonder why their parents are standing at the back of the room trying to control themselves from laughing too hard. While the story itself isn't anything to write home about, the writing is entertaining enough to continue watching every cutscene. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal was originally released in 2004. It is certainly a product of it's era, doing the best it had with the technology and trends at the time. Is it fair to judge a game that came out 12 years ago against more modern games of the past 5 years? Probably not, but with the trend of remastering old games that is still going strong the developers are bringing the comparisons upon themselves. And when compared to the newer Ratchet & Clank games, Up Your Arsenal doesn't quite stack up. The new Ratchet & Clank games may stand on the shoulders of the old ones, but that still inevitably means that the old ones are lower.

Imagine, if you will, that Destiny and Minecraft had a baby. Well that baby would be the most overhyped game in quite a while, rimshot. And yet somehow, both of those statements accurately describe No Man's Sky. No Man's Sky was first announced by Hello Games, to it's own detriment at this point, back in 2013 and it set the internet on fire with it's promise of an entire universe worth of planets to explore, space battles to fight, and aliens to encounter. The game ultimately delivers on most of it's promises, but unless a game with as much hype as No Man's Sky literally comes down from on high providing simultaneous cures for AIDS and cancer while ending world hunger, it will be panned by the very same people who did the hyping in the first place. No Man's Sky starts you out on a random planet with a broken down spaceship and a laser mining tool. You are given the objective to fix the ship so you can get off the planet. After you do that you need to find parts to fix the ship's pulse drive so you can fly faster through space. After that... Well after that pretty much everything is up to you. The game does have an ultimate objective of trying to reach the center of the universe, but whether or not you decide you want to pursue that goal is entirely up to you. The planets you discover in No Man's Sky are huge and nicely diverse. One planet is about the size of your typical sandbox game, if not bigger, and then you remember that there's a whole universe of these planets to discover and you start to get a feel of the scale Hello Games was going for. Some planets have lush environments, filled with diverse plant and animal life in every shape and color you can imagine. The animals themselves all belong to different species, with some breeds of animals even belonging to the same species. You could spend hours or even days trying to catalog all the different types of life you find on just one of these planets. Other planets are desolate and barren, with just rocks and minerals waiting for you to come and extract them from the ground. After you finish on one planet and point your ship at the next planet in the sky, a notification comes up telling you that it would take multiple hours to reach it if you decided to take it slow the entire time. Again, the scale of the game comes to the forefront. You also meet with three different races of aliens along your travels. The Vy'keen, Korvax, and Gek have all set up outposts on the planets that you are free to come and visit. They also preside over the space stations floating above certain planets. With the help of knowledge stones and monuments that you can find on the planets as well, you will slowly but surely learn the languages of these three races. It's extremely satisfying to go from talking to an alien early in the game and having no idea what he's trying to communicate to you, to learning many of their words and being able to piece together their sentences. The aliens you come across are looking for assistance with something, and if you correctly give them what they need you will be rewarded with a blueprint, which you can use to build better accessories for you, your ship, or your weapon. The building of the accessories, however, is where the game's annoyances begin to crop up. The only items that stack in your inventories are the elements such as iron and plutonium. Other non-elemental items will each take up a slot in your inventory space. So if you have a blueprint that calls for, say, 5 of a certain item, you will need to have 5 spaces free for that item PLUS a 6th spot to actually construct the item itself. As you progress through the game and have better and better items taking up valuable inventory slots, you become more and more frustrated at the extremely questionable decision to not allow item stacking. Another annoyance is with the aforementioned outposts. The plant and animal life is so diverse on each planet that it's disappointing to see that every outpost is nothing more than a copy/paste of each other on every single planet. There are some variants within the outposts themselves, but really there's only about 4 basic types that you will continue to see over and over. Even the ones that have the potential to unlock something cool are let down by repetition. As an example, you occasionally find observatories that tantalize you into unlocking them and finding a new location among the stars. However, the puzzle to unlock them is ALWAYS the same, and they ALWAYS lead you to a ruin that isn't even on a different planet. The potential for something great was there but it was severely missed. If I'm going to continue harping on annoyances then I must mention the game's upload system. When you're exploring a planet you have the option of scanning all the plants and animals and then uploading them, sharing your discoveries with the world. You even get money for doing so, so there's certainly incentive and you want to do it. Yet inexplicably the game doesn't simply upload your finds automatically. There isn't even an option to upload everything at once. So you must tediously go through your entire records page uploading every plant, animal, and save point that you've found. Either that or completely break the flow of the game to pause every 5 seconds after you find something new to upload it. This is a massive oversight that I cannot actually believe got through any sort of quality control. Before you decide whether or not you want to play No Man's Sky you must be completely honest with yourself about what type of gamer you are, because ultimately that is what will determine how much enjoyment you get out of the game. Are you the type that craves a story driven narrative, with characters who change over the course of their adventure? Do you like action, with every minute of the game giving you more things to shoot at and blow up? Do you like choosing your own path at your own pace, free from any sort of constraints a game might place you? All these desires are perfectly valid to have, but only those who identify with option 3 will enjoy No Man's Sky. Those people will find hours upon hours of a diverse universe to explore and enjoy.

Doom is a continuation/reboot of the classic mid-90s shooter of the same name, although at first glance you may mistake it for Rage which was also released by id Software in 2011. Unlike a lot of games that attempt to modernize releases of the past, Doom stays mostly faithful to the classic style that made the game so popular. You move around the maps extremely quickly, in a motion that isn't so much running as it is gliding. I like to imagine that your character has one of those hoverboard things strapped to his feet and that's what he's rolling around on. Most of the levels are based around key hunting puzzles that you have to solve when you aren't up to your eyeballs in hordes of demons. There are health and armor pickups that you need to hunt down when your health is low rather than simply hiding behind the nearest wall. And the weapons all feel satisfying to use and never need to be reloaded (except for one, which was almost never used for that exact reason). Another thing Doom loves is it's upgrades. They come in three main flavors: character upgrades, weapon upgrades, and weapon upgrades for your weapon upgrades. This may sound confusing so I'll clarify: the weapon upgrades add a secondary firing ability to your weapons, while the weapon upgrades for the weapon upgrades further enhance that ability with things like more powerful shots and reduced cooldowns. The character upgrades and weapon upgrades are usually fairly well hidden in the game's large and open maps, meaning that exploration is both encouraged and worth your while. The weapon upgrades for your weapon upgrades on the other hand are given out like they're free samples. You get them for finding secret areas (which often contain the aforementioned weapon/character upgrades), completing in game challenges, or for simply just killing a lot of enemies. Since killing enemies is almost always required before you can proceed to the next area, you will get many of these upgrade tokens without having to sweat about it too much. And if you aren't feeling overpowered enough after all that, the game also places short term powerups in many of the battle zones. These range from very very helpful to very very useless, and I found I was really good at finding them almost immediately after I had finished killing all the enemies in the room. If you're playing Doom for the story then you're probably playing it for the wrong reasons, but I'll go ahead and give you the gist anyway. Doom takes place on Mars and in Hell, which looks suspiciously like Mars but with more floating platforms and blood. A group of scientists were looking to solve Mars' energy crisis, and decided the best way to go about this was to use the energy from Hell. Along the way one of the scientists decided to release a bunch of Hell's demons on the promise that she would be taken care of by the demons, because that always works out so well for those people who decide to go that route. The story is mostly played out in the background, with the Doomguy quite obviously not caring about anything that doesn't involve shooting or punching things, and to it's credit the game understands that and allows you to skip past most of it. There are a few moments when the pacing grinds to a halt and you're forced to listen to dialogue, but they're fairly short. The only story you really need to understand is this: 1. You're a badass marine. 2. There are tons of demons with copious amounts of blood, squishy organs, and bones more breakable than a suicide pact between angsty teenage girls, 3. Go nuts. Doom fills the void of arcade style shooter better than any game has in recent memory. It turns the mindless violence switch up to 11 from the very beginning and doesn't stop until the end credits. Enjoy killing the unambiguously evil enemies, hunt for all the secrets the game has to offer, and use the brief dialogue intermissions as an excuse to go refill your snack pile.

Just Cause 3 is the ultimate sandbox game for sandbox game fans. An incredibly huge map filled with tons of things just waiting for your explosive touch. The draw distance is fantastic, as you can see glimpses of settlements and military bases from way off in the distance. Anything you can see you can go to. Once you're at one of these settlements, the choice is yours as to how you go about bringing down the enemy encampments. You can sneak around, using your mystical grappling tether to pull objects down. You can quickly dart from object to object, planting explosives as you go. You can hijack a helicopter or tank and laugh at the puny reinforcements who try and stop you afterwards as you mow down everything in your path. I personally found the planted explosives route the best, as you have unlimited amounts of them from the start of the game and almost every object can be destroyed with 1 or 2 bombs planted on them. Unfortunately the game's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness. The framerate begins to chug as soon as the explosions start, and the more simultaneous explosions you set off the lower the framerate will dip. The game is a wonder to look at, make no mistake, but the beauty is only skin deep. The flaws become apparent when you look closer. Just Cause 3 gives you a multitude of options to traverse it's gigantic map. You have your trusty grappling hook, unlimited parachutes, and a wingsuit all at your disposal. The game also gives you cars, motorcycles, boats, jets, and helicopters for you to travel with if you so choose. Unfortunately most of the vehicles handle terribly, with the motorcycles being the biggest offender. There's always a delay when attempting a turn, so it's all too common to run off road or into other objects. Fortunately however, the grapple/parachute/wingsuit combo is so efficient at quickly moving across the map, you literally never need to hop in a car or bike unless the game forces you to for a mission. The quickest, most efficient, and downright funniest way to stop Rico when he's wingsuiting is to simply crash headfirst into the nearest wall and watch Rico ragdoll, holding his head while he contemplates how many brain cells he just lost. The ragdolling becomes far less humorous however when you are in a firefight and get hit with an explosion. Rico will then lie on his fat ass for about 5 seconds thinking about pudding, while 1000 enemies take potshots at him. The game does have a story, but it's paper thin and basically an excuse to blow more stuff up, often stuff that you can't otherwise access. There are also random encounters throughout the game that have you do all sorts of activities ranging from freeing a rebel who's been taken hostage and fighting off his kidnappers to... opening a locked gate. Yes, seriously. The most interesting part of the story comes at the end of the game as you realize just who Rico Rodriguez really is. You've been told all along that he's fighting for the freedom of Medici, to pry the country from the clutches of the evil dictator Di Ravello and to push out all his military encampments. Yet as you supposedly free more and more areas you realize that nothing has really changed. All the armored vehicles, the armed guards, the watch towers, they're all still there just with a different logo on them. Rico will kill fellow rebels and civilians without any remorse if they're in the way of his goal. You slowly begin to realize that Rico is actually just another dictator with the same lust for power as Di Ravello. Just Cause 3 takes sandbox games to a whole nother level. The map is gigantic, is fun to traverse, and is filled to the brim with things to blow up and enemies to take down. Just don't go in expecting much more than that, and pretend that the framerate dips are really just the game going into slow motion to highlight the cool explosions, and you'll come out of the experience with all smiles.

Gravity Rush Remastered is the updated version of the popular Gravity Rush game on PSVita. I don't own a vita so I was excited to get the chance to experience this game first hand. You play as Kat, a girl from a special race known as Shifters with the ability to control and change her own gravitational field. At least i think it's a special race, it's never explained where she came from or how/why she has these powers. I personally like to think she is a prostitute on a really good ecstasy and cocaine high and the game takes place in her dream state. She runs around in her lingerie, which no one seems to question what so ever, and she is immune to all fall damage so i think the theory holds up pretty well. You even meet another Shifter along the way, and she's dressed in even skimpier lingerie than Kat, so it seems all the prostitutes in the city have teamed up to fight crime. But i digress. Kat also will not be confused for a brainiac. Early in the game she falls into a sewer and instead of being disgusted like most normal folks would be, she decides to build a home out of the biggest pipe she can find. But she certainly has a big heart, as she decides straight away to help out the city that she finds herself in without knowing anything about it. The story is pretty cliched. Kat wakes up with amnesia and finds the city of Hekseville has been split into four parts and has been overrun by Nevi, which are the evil cousins of Link's annoying helper in The Ocarina of Time. the Nevi are apparently being controlled by an evil villain. However, you fully reunite the city and dispose of the evil villain about half way through the game, and the game then spends the rest of the time contriving more reasons for Nevi to still be in the city. A new evil villain is even introduced towards the very end of the game, but there's not enough time for you to get invested on why you should care about him. There are more than a handful of funny dialogue lines, so it's still worth it to not simply skip through all the cutscenes. The gravity manipulation, which is the core feature of the game, works well most of the time. It's not as disorienting as you might think when you're floating mid air and have the ability to move in 360 degrees. Kat does get hung up on small things like lamp posts too often however. Part of this can certainly be attributed to user error, but I feel as though if i'm flying through the air at close to the speed of sound I should be able to break down a few of the relatively skinny things the city throws up in your way. The gravity field you manipulate can affect pedestrians in your immediate vicinity as well. It's always funny to hear the screams of the mere mortals as you take off to fly around and take a few passers-by with you. Combat consists of boringly kicking enemies, not-so-boringly gravity kicking enemies, and somewhat boring special moves. The gravity kick is where you will spend most of your combat time as it is by far the most effective and fun way to dispatch your enemies. It's somewhat annoying against flying enemies however, as the tracker that it uses can be a fickle mistress, and if the flying enemy you're trying to hit moves a quarter of an inch you will most likely send Kat flying right past it. Gravity Rush is certainly worth your time to play, either on Vita or PS4. As long as you don't mind the cliched and unfocused story, the gravity manipulation is an interesting gameplay mechanic that, after a little practice, makes for fun times sailing all across the city, and Kat is a likeable character who, while she doesn't fully understand what it is she's doing, understands that she's in a position to help people who need it and will do so whenever necessary.