Believe it or not, that’s pretty much it. Well, except the compelling storyline.

Synopsis

So your character (one of three builds) decides for vaguely heroic reasons to hack their way across the world to the small town of Torchlight. It’s a mining town, and they trade mostly in ‘ember.’ Ember is a precious crystal that is imbued with magical powers. Think materia, if you’re from a Final Fantasy background.

Anyways, like the Dwarfs from Lord of the Rings, they miners went too deep, and got too greedy. The end result is that the dark n’ evil things living in the bowels of the earth are now free-roaming. This is obviously bad for business, the town, and probably for the world to some extent. Think of the market spikes!

You roll up into town and take it upon yourself to rid the mines of evil. You also get to rid it of any valuables along the way, which I’m pretty sure is the unspoken rule with heros. A sort of payment in lieu. You button mash your way down through the levels of the mine, getting ever closer to the cause of all the bad…ness. Badness. Yeah, sure let’s just leave that one sitting there.

Gameplay

I have no idea how this plays on a computer (it’s platform of origin) but it plays out pretty smoothly on a console. The controls are simple, and you can customize them to best suit your playing style. Well mostly. Some keys are perma-bound, but it’s not that rough.

So Torchlight does play almost exactly like Diablo, which makes sense given that the team that made it worked on Diablo in the first place. I’d say there was a conflict of interest or stolen IP or something, but I assume Blizzard hasn’t noticed; they’ve been to busy rolling around on their giant piles of money. It takes the same isometric angle, the same horde of monsters approach, the same skill tree system, etc.

Seriously it’s Diablo. If you enjoyed the mechanics of Diablo, you’ll enjoy the mechanics of Torchlight, as there is almost nothing that’s different.

You can gamble, you can socket, you can enchant, you can use town portal scrolls, you have to use identify scrolls, there are level portals you can use to quick travel. The music is even similar (again, same people working on it), so you’ll feel right at home ripping baddies apart.

A lot of effort was put into making the controls as simple as possible for the player. You have a smashy button, a block button, a healing button, and a mana restore button. Every other button can be mapped to whatever you want. This allows you to set up your skill load-outs as needed. On top of that, you can get use the D-pad to swap between loadouts, so that you can have specific setups for specific situations.

Graphics

The graphics are shockingly rich, though given it’s a 3/4ths view game where you can’t really zoom in, I doubt they had to work all that hard on the textures. Regardless, The environments look lush, the enemies match the style of the game, and your character looks reasonably bad-ass. The detail put into the spells and ambient lighting is impressive, I must say. If anything, they probably put more effort into that than the rest of the texture work.

Now that all being said, when you do get to look at your character close-up, they do start to look a bit boxy. For obvious reasons, the poly-count was probably toned back as much as possible. When you start trying to render 20-30 badguys on the screen at once, you really want to try and make that as easy as possible on your rendering engine. Sadly though, it does make parts of the game look cheap.

Music

Have you played Diablo or Diablo 2 at all? If so, you’ll feel right at home in Torchlight. I mean, they got the same guy that did Diablos music to write the score(s?) for Torchlight. While Torchlight does have its own feel in with the music, you can’t help but thing that the composer probably didn’t have to work all that hard to put it together.

Issues

It’s boring.

If you are looking for a deep, driving storyline, you won’t find it here. If you want to feel like a god as you mow down 20 guys at the same time, you’ll have fun. It’s not that it’s boring to play so much as it’s not compelling you to play through it. It really is a game for those who like to grind through levels and power up like mad.

In terms of story… well there is no story really. I honestly didn’t give a toss about anyone or anything in the game, and that includes my little wolf sidekick. There aren’t really other characters, so much as there are NPCs who will shower you with ‘quests’ and gold and such.

It’s easy.

If you spend a couple minutes looking over your skill-tree, you’ll realize that there’s a pretty easy setup that you can go through that will basically make you a god. That’s what I did, and even though I played well past the end of the main story, I only died 2 or 3 times. Those deaths were normally caused by me just not looking at the screen. Which brings me to the other part of this:

All you have to do is button mash. Never have I played a game that rewarded button mashing so much. It’s stupid. What’s worse is that you have to button mash. I’d love to target something and have my character bash the shit out of it until it dies, I die, or I decide to change tactics. I shouldn’t have to ruin 2 buttons on my controller just to play through a game.

Overall

Is it a bad game? No. Was it fun? Yes. Would I play it again with the other characters? Nuh uh. Would I buy it again? probably not. Do I feel like I wasted my money? Nah.

5/10

The whole ‘open world, do what you want, oh by the way there’s some actual story here if you wanna play it’ model never really did much for me. It’s neat and all, I get the appeal, but I never really got into it.

So then they start talking about L.A. Noire, and my first thought was “oh good, GTA in the 1940′s but this time you’re a cop and will get shot at by bad guys instead of the other way around. Yawwwwn” and promptly ignored it. But then they started releasing the trailers for L.A. Noire, and I watched them. And then I watched some more. And then I started reading about what L.A. Noire was really going to be. A detective game, but with chases, shakedowns, shooting, and moral implications.

Then I got excited.

I’ve read many a thing about L.A. Noire since it’s come out, but the best one I’ve found so far is “It’s Phoenix Wright, but with claws” and I think that’s a very good way to put it. L.A. Noire is, at it’s core, an adventure game. You track down clues, you talk to suspects, and you try and make an arrest. That is the core of L.A. Noire, and it does it very, very well.

It still has the city-driving that GTA-lovers will enjoy, but you cant just walk into random stores and talk to people, you can’t just shoot everyone, and (as far as I know, being 60% done the game as of this writing) there’s no actual involvement of your home life. You apparently have a wife and kids, but I’ve yet to see a trace of them.

You’re also punished for running into people, smashing cars, and destroying property. Yeah, that’s right; you can’t just go flying around like a maniac, decimating the city in a manic attempt to bring it under your heel.

Synopsis

The year is 1947, you’ve come back from the war, and joined the L.A. police force to act as a beacon of hope and fortitude in this crazy city. You’re a go-getter though, you don’t just do what you’re told, but make the extra effort to make sure things get done and done right. This moxy gets you noticed by the higher up detectives, and you are told to “get yourself two suits, and get them pressed.” Soon you’re starting your illustrious career in the detective world, interviewing folks and finding clues.

Gameplay

The game splits up the gameplay into ‘cases’. You can only have one case going at a time, which I think was done to keep your head from exploding. The stories can get fairly intricate, and trying to do them all at the same time would probably kill you. Each case opens with an in-game cinematic of the crime itself, but done in typical noire fashion; that is to say that  you never see the perp, only the end result of their mis-doings.

The mechanics of the game can be broken into five sections: Free-roam, Clue finding, Interviewing, and The Chase, Intuition

Free-roam

Yes, you can drive around the stunningly re-created 1947 L.A. should you choose to. There are some incentives to do this as well. There’s all the monuments you can find (30) film reels you can hunt down (50) and the badges for those that pre-ordered the game (20?). On top of that, there are 95 different vehicles to drive, and 40 street crimes to address.

Having said that, when you are on route to a destination and a street crime pops up… well driving across the city is only fun the first time. Especially when cars don’t get out of your way, even when you’ve got your siren on. Really, most of the free-roaming should be left to the end game, so that you can find everything without worrying too hard about the costs you will wrack up at the end of the case.

Clue finding

Rockstar must have thought hard about how to handle this. The reason I say this? They did a damned fine job with it. When you enter a clue-gathering session, the music goes into ‘detective mode’ and your character walks slowly. You walk around until a small cue (rumble and staccato music flourish) when there’s something to investigate. The catch is that not everything needs to be looked at. Much of the time, they will be random items that do not pertain to the case. But if you want to find all of the clues, you’ll look over everything, like I do.

When you pick something up, you can move it around, looking for important details. On top of that, many clues can be further investigated, which can reveal even more for your case.

All the relevant clues are then logged in your little black book for use during interviews.

Interviewing

Interviewing people is an enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating part of L.A. Noire. When talking to someone, you will be given 3 options when any exchange has ended. You can assume they’re telling the truth, you can doubt what they’re saying, our you can call them on a lie. Only one of the options is correct.

If you think their lying, but you’ve got no proof, you can use doubt. That’s what this is really for. It took me a while to understand what they meant with ‘doubt.’ I thought you would ask further questions when in fact it’s more or less calling them a liar without calling them a liar.

When you call someone out on a lie, you’ve got to pick the proof that backs up your claim. This gets harder as the cases go on, because you start amassing a lot of evidence and it becomes somewhat more difficult to find what evidence backs your claims. As it stands some items in your roster never actively come into play, but sit there, ruffling their red feathers at you.

When you pick the correct answer, you’ll hear a certain piano tinkling of keys. When you pick the wrong answer, you’ll hear a different, slightly more depressing tinkling of keys. It only takes a couple screw-ups to have these sounds embedded in your skull.

The Chase

More often than not, you’ll have to run down a guilty party. They always run. Always. It’s irritating at the best of times. You either run people down on foot, which usually results in a football tackle; or by car wherein either you smash the hell out of their car and they crash, or the game feels sorry for you and eventually smashes them into something for you.

Thankfully, if you’re terrible at chasing people down (as I am with the car chases) the game will only force you to try 3 times. After you’ve failed that many times, it gives you the option of skipping it without any demerit applied to your end score. Now, I’m a stubborn bastard, so I haven’t used this yet, but I’ll admit the 2 times that the option has been offered… well it’s been tempting. I wouldn’t blame anyone for taking the game up on the offer; it lets you focus on all the other, more entertaining parts of the game.

Intuition

Intuition is an interesting concept. It’s basically a way of applying a gut feeling, when you’ve not got one yourself. In less fancy terms, you can use it for 2 things: revealing all the clues in a location (like a crime scene), or to remove one of the 3 options when interviewing someone. I should state that it only removes an option for that specific talking point, and not for the entire conversation. It also strikes out any evidence that doesn’t pertain to a lie in that conversation branch.

I’ve used intuition enough during the game, and there’s no shame to it. Some people are just really hard to read.

Graphics

In some ways, L.A. Noire is amazing to look at. The obscene amount of work they’ve done with facial scanning really shines. If they don’t use this technique in every game after this, they’re insane. It is really, really good. And that’s important in a game that bases a good bulk of itself around reading peoples faces. You can’t skimp on that, and Rockstar did anything but.

The rebuilding on L.A. is impressive as well. Rockstar has a habit of making their game environments as realistic as possible, and L.A. Noire is no exception. They pull this off by using whatever they can. With GTA, they drove around and took pictures. With L.A. Noire? They used extreme vintage aerial photography. Yeah. They found a huge stash of vintage photos taken by a half-insane aerial photographer, and used those to make their L.A. as close as they could get it. They’ve done a really good job of it, too.

They’ve also done a swell job with the cars. Then again, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, as a good part of their fortune is based on a game that involves a lot of car stealing/driving/destroying.

But then there are things that just don’t quite do it for me. Namely in the people. Despite the amazing facial work, the body mechanics have some work to be done. Everything ends up being jerky, regardless of how much motion capture they do. There are also some textures that seem really low-rez, despite the fact that so many others are super crisp. If they can capture these things, they’ll be set.

The Writing/Storytelling

When Rockstar wants to make a game as close to a film noire as they possibly could, they’ve done a pretty bang-up job. A lot of obvious care has gone into the game, and that really shows in both the writing, as well as the directing of each and every scene.

There’s not much I can say about the writing other than it’s fantastic. It’s accurate to the time (which means there is a lot of speech that lands itself right in the middle of ‘totally inappropriate’ territory with the modern day). It works perfectly for L.A. Noire though, because it’s a time piece so Rockstar can get away with pretty much anything.

Something that really needs mentioning though isn’t so much the writing (once again, fantastic), but the art direction and scene directing. Now I’ve not played much of Rockstars fare (as previously stated) but I’ve got a feeling that they usually do a good job with directing. However, I think it’s safe to say that due to the noire aspect to the game, they really had to step things up a notch.

The direction given in this game is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. I actually care about the outcomes; I care about the characters I should care about, and I dislike the ones I’m supposed to dislike. I am putty in the hands of Rockstar with L.A. Noire. The long cinematic scenes aren’t agony to watch, in fact it’s quite the opposite: I look forward to seeing them.

As any avid game would know, most of the time the cut scenes are the boring bits that try and convey a story in-between the fun bits. Such is not the case with L.A. Noire. No no, you watch these scenes, soak them up, and that makes the fun bits just that much more fun.

Music

I’ve always been a fan of Big band and the like, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of the music in L.A. Noire. But just mentioning the ambient music you hear in cars, diners, and piped through the radios of 1940′s L.A. would be a sin. It would be a sin because the actual music that was composed for L.A. Noire is really, really fabulous. It’s stunningly good mood-setting music. From the low, eerie tones of the investigation, to the fast-paced chase music, the composed music for L.A. Noire is stunning.

Issues

Despite the obvious amount of gushing I’ve been doing about L.A. Noire, there are a couple issues that really annoy me. It’s like having a fantastic burger served up to you, but then finding a topping on it, say tomatoes, that just takes away from the whole experience.

Also yeah, I’m not a fan of tomatoes. Deal with it.

Issue the first is the inability to save when you want. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this was, but the fact that I can’t save between looking for clues and then interviewing people really bugs me. Especially since I’m a completionist, and want to get every conversation right. The game more or less picks and chooses when to save, and you’ve no control over it what so ever.

Hell, lets say you just wanted to free-roam around, and wanted to save at a specific part of the city. That’s a decent enough request right? Well too bad. You don’t get the option. The game saves when it wants to, and you’ve got little control over it.

That said, I have found save ‘areas’ that seem to trigger the save ability. These are usually outside of the station or investigation areas. This of course assumes the game is going to let you waltz out of the area without failing you. You’ve been warned.

My second issue, which has become infinitely more irritating for me is the driving. Not just driving around town, which can be irritating and dangerous as it is (people don’t really move out of the way, even when you’ve got the siren on). No my issue is that everyone you chase in a car seems to become this amazing rally driver, able to pull turns that don’t make any sense. They’re obviously scripted, but there is no way my car can pull the stuff they’re pulling.

The result?

I end up smashing into cars, lamp posts, and anyone on two legs. This is not a good thing. It negatively affects the end of case results and ranking. I mean I’m not a good driver in games at the best of time, so forcing me to rally race around a heavily populated L.A.? Yeah, that’s not going to end well.

Tailing on that last one, I’ll lump my last issues together: People are too fast. Every car goes as fast as my squad car with the peddle floored, and everyone I have to run after seems to become an Olympic sprinter. This includes the 70 year old man I had to gun down, as well as the fat motherfuckers that I’ve chased all over hells half-acre. It makes no sense!

Overall

A fantastic game, and I’ll happily purchase all of the DLCs as they come out. There are only a couple issues, and I can deal with them mainly due to the fact that the rest of the game makes up for them by being totally bad ass. If you’re into detective games, good story telling, and compelling stories, I’d suggest you grab yourself a copy of L.A. Noire.

9/10

Pretty much everyone who played the first Portal has been chomping at the bit for a sequel of sorts to come around. That being said, Portal was a bit of a sleeper hit (and meme generator). It took a while for it to become popular. It took even longer for for it to become popular to release on its own. It did, of course, and I’ve been the proud owner of Portal: Still Alive (the XBox 360 release) for a good while now.

So when I heard about a Portal 2 coming out, I became very excited (along with a good portion of the Internet). What’s interesting is Portal came out in 2007. There is a 4 year gap between the two games, which is a long time in the game industry. With that kind of gap, people are going to be expecting a lot from this release.

So the question is: does it stand up?

Yeup.

A friend of mine who happens to be on Steam gained access to Portal 2 early due to Valves early release crowd-source thing. A brilliant marketing scheme, it has to be said. Get loads of people to buy and play other titles on the Steam network, and they’ll release the game that everyone wants early… maybe.

Brilliant.

Anyways, his description of Portal 2 was two-pronged. The first statement I got was “It’s like Portal, but with money thrown at it.” The second: “It’s what Portal really should have been the first time.” I think these two statements sum up Portal 2 almost perfectly. I’d go on to say that a re-release of the original Portal with the new engine used in Portal 2 would gain a whole shedload of new sales for Valve. Yes it’s that good.

I should say that this review is based on the single-player experience of Portal 2. I haven’t had a chance to play the co-op mode, so I can’t speak to how amazing that most certainly is. If anyone reading this has Portal 2 on the Xbox and wants to play, lemme know. When I do get a chance to play the co-op, I’ll update this review. Anywho, on with the review!

Synopsis

You’re back in Aperture Laboratories.

After a brief wakeup from your stasis (for tutorial purposes), you’re woken again to a very different scene. You’ve been asleep a long, long time, and now Wheatley – that’s the robot that cares for all the humans in the facility – is trying to save you from dying. You get a refresher course on how to use the portal gun, and then you’re off the races.

You run into GLaDOS again, and she’s just totally psyched to see you since you killed her ‘n all. You get thrown back into the testing ring, with GLaDOS feeding you back-handed compliments and offering up some of the best writing ever. You work your way through the tests, until things get weird, and then they get much, much weirder. I’d explain the whole thing, but I can’t bring myself to spout off any major spoilers because, honestly, it’s so much better to just play the game and experience it.

Gameplay

Portal 2 plays out almost exactly the same as the original. The portal gun still shoots 2 portals, you can still fall from any height, but can’t swim. Also, pretty much everything can kill you. Nothing too surprising there. The floaty electro-orbs have been removed, in favour of using more of the thermal discouragement beams that you have to aim into targets. You also get excursion funnels, repulsion/propulsion/conversion gels, light bridges, cubes for redirecting lasers, and faith plates. Yeah, you lose the bouncy energy murder balls, but you get a lot more to play with. I’ll try and break it down for you:

Thermal discouragement beams (and the redirection cubes)

Lasers. Seriously that’s what these are. Lasers that go in a straight line, hurt anything that isn’t a cube, and are used to power switches and the like (just like the bouncy energy balls from the original Portal). The redirection cubes do exactly that: redirect. Specifically, they redirect the beams. Straight-forward really, much like the beams.

Light bridges

They’re bridges. Made of light. You can walk on them, block bullets, etc. It’s a wall you can walk on, basically.

The gels

The gels were probably some of the neatest additions to Portal 2. They more or less do what they say on the tin. The Repulsion Gel makes you (or anything else) that hits it bounce. Objects you coat in the blue stuff will also become high-speed bouncy balls. Propulsion Gel makes you move fast (somewhat exponentially). Conversion Gel turns any surface it’s a part of into a Portal-friendly surface. This is something I wish you had access to more often throughout Portal 2, but sadly is rather limited.

Excursion Funnels

These are basically levitation tunnels. You go in them (or put anything into them) and you will be pulled along in the tunnel until you hit a wall. You can slide out of the tunnel at any point, but you cannot fight the flow of the tunnel or move faster within it. You can basically only go sideways.

Faith plates

These launch you (or other things) through the sky to land on a target somewhere across the way. These are probably the most terrifying things you come across in the game, and yet they are the safest thing you’re likely to interact with in the whole game. It’s one of the few things in the game that can’t really kill you, since the landing spots are always the same.

Graphics

In many ways Portal 2 looks like the original Portal. At the very leave the look ‘feels’ the same, except it’s been polished so goddamned much it burns an awesome-shaped hole in your soul. It looks stunning. Effects aren’t over-done, but look stunning. The lighting is impressive, and their attention to detail with all of the decay is astounding. The views you get in this game are enough to make you stop and stare. The Ratman’s artworks are back in Portal 2, and these ones are very much of the ‘art’ variety. They’re worth finding, if only to look upon them and be moved.

All of the normal elements you interact with in the game have been obscenely polished as well. Companion cubes hum a little tune and glow pink in their cores. When you walk into rooms, Panels clean themselves up. Liquids are really, well, liquidy. Everything you interact with just shines with the effort and love given by the Valve team.

The writing/storytelling

Oh my god the writing. The writing in Portal 2 has been on a level beyond professional. The writing in Portal 2 surpassed the writing from the original by a mile. It’ probably helped that there is more than one person to write for, and back and forth banter is always better than writing monologues at the player. Here are a small, hopefully not very spoiler-y sample of the brilliance within Portal 2:

“Most test subjects do experience some, uh, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now, you’ve been under for quite a lot longer, and its *not* out of the question that you might have a *very* minor case of serious brain damage! But, don’t be alarmed, alright? Uh, although, d-do feel alarmed. Try to hold onto that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being told that you’ve got brain damage!” – Wheatley, upon waking you up from stasis.

“Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that. Don’t let that “horrible person” thing discourage you. It’s just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother’s decision to abandon you on a doorstep.” – GLaDOS, upon your finishing one of her tests.

“Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to put on a few pounds.” – GLaDOS, basically being a bitch.

This is, of course only the lightest sampling. Much, much better stuff exists in Portal 2, but to avoid massive spoilers, I’ve opted not to include them. The fact that Cave Johnson is voiced by J.K. Simmons really should be enough to have anyone play. If you’re from the UK, Stephen Merchant does the voice for Wheatley, and he does an amazing job as well.

Moving beyond the basic banter writing (which is some of the best game banter I’ve heard in forever), the story itself is compelling in its simplicity. You are given a lot of history and a lot of explanations. The story is paced out perfectly, and you get a lot of closure by getting through it all.I have to commend the Valve writing staff for this one. They’ve always done good work with their writing, but Portal 2 is a work of art in terms of writing and story-telling.

Music

Not much to say with the music in Portal 2. Well, not much that I can say without giving away even more of the game. What I will say is that where there is music, it’s used to very good effect. Never really over-bearing, but still helps set the mood of the scene and gets into your head. Also, do yourself and have a listen to companion cubes, and the end points for lasers and switches. They all have little tunes that both delight and annoy.

Issues

Nothing I can really say other than one or two of the puzzles just baffled the crap out of me. I did well overall, but some of them just had me sitting there wandering aimlessly until I happened to notice some platform or ledge that I needed to get onto.

My only advice is that as you get further into the Lab, you’d do well to take a moment and look around (in every direction) and note anything out of place or interesting. Chances are, you’ll need to interact with that point in order to finish the puzzle. Don’t forget you have a zoom option in Portal 2. Seriously, don’t forget that. It’ll help.

The other issue is that the single player campaign (as I haven’t been able to get into co-op yet) is shorter than I would have liked. I logged somewhere between 10-15 hours, and I would have been fine with another 5-10 in there. Then again, maybe the co-op will handle that. I guess I’ll have to wait and see about that.

Oh, and while not actually an issue, this is more of a note: If you haven’t played Portal 1, you do yourself a disservice if you don’t play it before playing Portal 2. You’ll still enjoy Portal 2, but you’ll be missing out on a lot of the jokes.

Overall

Brilliant. One of the best games I have played in a very long time. brilliant story, brilliant writing, everything’s been polished to a hefty sheen, and it’s basically amazing. You will be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t pick this one up.

9.5/10

When the expansion for Costume Quest came out, I burned through it and found that Double Fine threw in an easter egg/achievement that advertised their new game (and subject of this review), Stacking.

With some interesting mechanics, and the Double Fine sense of humour, Stacking makes for an interesting addition to the Xbox Arcade.

Synopsis

Stacking, by Double Fine Productions takes place in a semi-russian universe where everyone is a russian stacking doll. I have no idea how they breed or anything, but that’s just how it is.

Anyways, the story revolves around Charlie Blackmore, the tiniest of the Blackmore family; a family of chimney sweepers who’s motto is “Ain’t no mess we can’t address!” One day, their father comes in saying he’s been given a new job for The Baron, and that their money troubles are over. Sadly though, the Baron is a bastard and instead kidnaps your father. The rest of your family goes to get him back, and are subsequently kidnapped. The Baron’s men then come for your mom and Charlie, but opt to leave him behind since he’s so small. Apparently Charlie’s no use to them. This makes no sense, given there are many Charlie-sized holes in the areas that would be a perfect fit for him.

I totally meant that pun. I am un repuntant.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now this sound’s like a terrible situation for wee Charlie to be in, but he has an ability that is, under normal circumstances, terrifying. Charlie can hop into a larger doll (one size up) and take them over and use their abilities. They can then stack them into the next step up, etc.

Using this ability, Charlie works through different parts of the Stacking world, freeing his family as well as ending child-labour and ruining the Evil Baron’s plans.

Gameplay

Stacking is basically a situational puzzle game, using the skills of the other dolls around you to overcome challenges. Most of these challenges are story-driven, and come with a guilt-free hint system that will basically spell things out for you if you’re totally lost. Each challenge has more than one solution, and it’s neat to see what ones you can come up with on your own. Some are less obvious than others.

The mechanics are polished, which is good considering how simple they are. I’d be pretty upset if the controls were jerky in a game as straight-forward as Stacking is. I found the follow camera to be a bit wonky at points, but overall worked fairly well. performable actions are in the top right of the screen at all times, which is helpful for telling you when you can/cannot perform things like stacking, talking, etc.

The level designs are cute bordering on whimsical, and utterly non-threatening. The levels are generally sprawling, but very linear. Stacking does a lot of hand-holding if you want to just go through the motions of finishing the game. If you get lost, there’s even a button to point you in the direction you need to go.

As for extras, Stacking comes with two options:

Collectable Dolls

In every level, there are a number of unique dolls that you can collect by stacking into them. These dolls are, in many cases, the ones you will need to use to get through most of the challenges, so you will end up collecting a good portion of them as you go along. There are also dolls that have a special ability that will make any unique dolls in the area glow.

Like I said, there’s a lot of hand holding.

Hijinks

These ones are far less obvious. The names of many of the hijinks are vague or just straight-up unhelpful. The only saving grace is that they all have to do with using a certain dolls ability on something or someone a number of times. When you get one the first time, the hijinks is registered in the menu and you then find out what you actually have to do.

Basically if you stack into every doll, and use it’s ability on a man, a woman, and a child, you’ll probably find most of them. I won’t blame anyone for using a guide for these though. Otherwise they could be quite a time-drain.

Graphics

Stacking is a cute-looking game. That translates into ‘not super high-def’. Does that mean the graphics are poor? Far from, but for those out there that dool over things like the new Crysis 2 demo, Stacking will be a bit underwhelming, visually. Having said that, there are many little details that made me smile; paintings on walls, the little russian-doll motifs worked into carpets and wallpapers, etc. It’s in the details that this game shines, graphically. Special detail has been given to the dolls themselves, which I’m sure is a hat tip to the intricate designs you will find on more traditional matryoshka dolls.

The videos are also an interesting change. They’re all shot in a silent movie format. They look gritty, they’re all shot to a tinkling piano score that’s very appropriate for the supposed timeframe of the game, and they even have the interruption of video to have the speech text displayed as a black and white panel.

Issues

Nothing major with Stacking, really. It’s not trying to do too much in terms of inovation, which could be considered a problem. The linear nature of the main storyline will be a turn-off for those that prefer a huge open-ended world.

I think that Stacking, much like Costume Quest, is amied more at people (or children) that are new to the genre (or gaming in general), as opposed to the hardcore gamers. This will stop some from purchasing it, which is a shame, given how much fun it really is to play and explore. It can be a bit boring if you’re used to more complex puzzle games, but that’s more of a personal preference for masochism.

A major hang-up I had with Stacking was an inability to skip some of the key videos. I’m aware that they did this so that you knew what was going on, but If you are good at understanding what’s going on well ahead of the script, these videos are a slow torture.

My biggest issue is that Stacking is pretty short for it’s cost. I’m pretty sure I clocked about 6 hours on Stacking (that includes doing all of the extras) and finished. I know it’s an XBL game and all, but that’s pretty damned short. This is doubly true when you’re paying 1200 microsoft points for it. If it’d been priced at the more normal 800 points, I probably wouldn’t have made it a point, but it’s not and so I am.

Overall

Stacking is fun. Stacking is cute. Stacking has some interesting game mechanics. It won’t blow your mind, but I’m sure no one would outwardly dislike it. If you can’t find something else to spend 1200 Microsoft points on, you won’t go too wrong dropping them on Stacking. I’d suggest waiting for a sale though.

6.5/10

However, there are a bunch of legitimately interesting movies coming out right now. So much so that I am willing to go to the movie theaters to watch them (though I’ll admit that this decision is assisted heavily by the 2 for 1 deal I can get every wednesday).

One such movie that has just come out here in the UK is Black Swan, staring the ever impressive (to me, anyways) Natalie Portman, and the spunky Mila Kunis who shocked me with an actual acting ability. Classed as a psychological thriller, Black Swan draws you in, and then effectively horrifies you on any number of levels for most of the film. For those too lazy to read the rest of this review, I will leave you with the words I uttered when the credits began to roll:

“Holy shit… Holy. Shit.

Synopsis

Nina, played by Portman, is a ballerina at a large theatre house in the city she lives in (both, as near as I can tell are unmentioned). She’s a dedicated performer that hopes to become the next leading lady in the house’s production of Swan Lake. Her mother, played terrifyingly well by Barbara Hershey, is a failed ballerina that has in turn focused all of her energy, hopes, and dreams into Portman’s career. So much so that their relationship is far from healthy.

As the movie progresses, Nina wins the role but is told that she must be both the White swan – fragile, beautiful, a ‘virgin’ – and the black swan – evil, manipulative, seductive – which is a mental state that Nina cannot easily summon. This is due to her borderline insane home life that has cocooned her in a semi-child-like life and has stunted her sexually. She starts noticing scratches on her back, and starts to see a darker version of her as she walks around or looks in mirrors.

Then you have Lily, played by Kunis, who is for all intents and purposes, Ninas opposite. She’s sexy, she’s carefree, a rebel, and a dancer that doesn’t conform to perfection, but flows naturally to the music and as such can lose herself in the moment. Effectively everything Nina is not. They strike up an odd friendship that just goes all over the place. There is a shockingly passionate scene between the two in the film, but when Nina confronts Lily about it, Lily denies it ever happening. This adds weight to Ninas worries that she’s losing her mind, and her paranoia goes through the roof.

As the movie nears the end, Nina distrusts Lily, thinking that Lily is trying to steal her spot as the Swan Queen. As all this is happening the movie gets more and more surreal, with Nina visually losing her mind, not understanding what is going on or even why. Her personality becomes more erratic, and she’s terrified of what’s happening to her.

The movie climaxes with Nina taking her spot as the Swan Queen – much to the chagrin of Lily. As the white swan, she’s nervous and actually blunders one of the scenes. There’s an altercation with Lily where Lily is killed before the show, but at intermission we find out that she’s not dead at all. This confuses Nina, but only for a moment before she transforms herself into the black swan. She dances ‘perfectly’, transforming on stage into what appears to be a human swan. In actuality no such thing happens, but this is what Nina sees.

The end of the movie is very much the same as the play in which the movie surrounds itself with. She embraces the role, and as she says she was ‘perfect.’ This carries so much gravitas, and caused me to go slack-jawed from the power of its delivery.

What I liked

Oh where to start? I could gush for a very long time about Black Swan, but I’ll do my best to stay at least somewhat objective about it.

The acting

Everyone in Black Swan holds their own. The casting was shockingly well done, with everyone managing to click. Portman, Kunis, Hershey, and Vincent Cassel do an utterly amazing job of making you give a shit about the story. Everyone plays their part perfectly; Portman plays the insecure and fragile ballet dancer that just wants to be perfect; Hershey plays an unstable mother with control issues stunningly; Kunis plays what is probably an easy role for her as the sultry, carefree temptress; and Cassel does an amazing job of playing the manipulative, greedy, semi-antagonist.

The chemistry of everyone on screen is explosive. Each direct relationship works perfectly. Real cudos should be given to Natalie Portman, who does an amazing job throughout the whole film. While all the supporting actors work perfectly in their roles, Portman does a good portion of the movie solo. This is a hard thing for any actor to do, let alone one that must demonstrate a degrading psyche with bouts of paranoia and an emerging split-personality. Tack that onto the fact that this girl is fragile in so many other ways, and you are left with a performance that will leave you awed.

The music

You never really realize where some scores are from until it’s spelled out for you. In this case, pretty much all of the music is pulled directly from Swan Lake itself. The tone and flow of the movie fit unsettlingly well with the scores chosen. While many of the scenes in the movie can hold their own without music, the accompaniment of scores from the ballet do so much to help underscore the joy of some scenes, the adulation of others, and the reserved , crushing sadness of the rest. Whoever set up the score for this movie deserves a medal.

The cinematography

This is probably the first film I’ve watched that does a follow-cam to good effect. A good portion of the film is shot over Nina’s shoulder. This happens more and more the further along the movie you go. The technique is used to brilliant effect, and the entire time it’s happening you feel like you’re literally watching her from over her shoulder. This in turn makes her seem uncomfortable to the watcher. There are scenes that are shot in this method where you can hear Ninas breathing, and mild panic-y grunts as she dances trying not to step out of perfection. Sounds are ramped up during many of these scenes so that you really get a feel for how she’s feeling.

Other shots are done with an experts eye. Mirrors are featured heavily throughout the film, and there are many shots that take full advantage of them. Many of the special effects applied are through these mirrors, and of them, most are subtle. If you’re not looking at the right spot at the right time, you can actually miss some of the more unnerving elements of a scene. Many scenes will have just a moment of something off-putting: a face in the mirror glancing in the wrong direction; a ripple in Ninas skin texture; the off glances; the list goes on.

Symbolism

Oh man. Ohhh man. If I was in university for say, psychology or mental illness or occult studies or something, this movie would have made me cream myself. There are layers and layers to this movie that you could spend hours ripping apart and analyzing. You’ve got the creepy one-on-one relationships, Nina’s youthful room, the scratches, the use of mirrors, the self-visualizing Nina does, the sexy-time scenes, the eyes, the use of blood, and a billion other things that I won’t bother listing.

What impresses me about these though is not so much that they’re strewn throughout the movie, but that they’re applied with such academic perfection, that in many cases you don’t even realize what’s going on unless you’re looking. Yet the fact that they’re there affects your interaction with the movie regardless of your noticing them or not.

The movie operates on so many levels that it actually took me a good while of thinking about it to really start to understand just how much was truly going on. I mean on the surface, the plot is not dissimilar to Swan Lake (how meta), but under that there are layers of emotion and concepts that the movie is trying to convey to the user. The strain of being in Ninas position, the stress her mother puts on her, the pressure she gets from Thomas Leroy (Cassel), this list goes on and on as well. Under all that, the movie opts to explore mor basic human nature and needs. Seriously there’s enough going on in this movie to let you analyze it for days.

What I disliked

Shockingly little ends up in this section. Other than a couple of odd bits of CG use that just didn’t look as polished as they could have been, I’ve got no real complaints about Black Swan. I wish there was more to say about what fell short with this movie, but honestly there’s nothing. The only thing I could think to mention is some people seem to dislike Portman for no reason, and seem to transfer that dislike over to the movie itself. This is a damned shame, but people are allowed to do that.

A word of caution

Black Swan is fucked up. I don’t mean that in a zombie-fest sort of way, or in a Chucky sort of way. I mean fucked up on a truly disturbing and upsetting  level. A common phrase to use for Black Swan is that it is ‘difficult to watch.’ This is very true. Black Swan pulls no punches, and while some movies love to roll around in the field of your personal discomfort (laughing all the way), this movie does not. It makes you uncomfortable because you need to be to really get into this movie. Black swan takes no pleasure in upsetting you, but does it so that you can understand (or at least try to) just how tortured Nina is.

If you dislike movies with a lot of thinking, movies with deeply unsettling themes, or scenes of people being sort-of taken advantage of, you will not like Black Swan. Please trust me when I say that this movie will not be for you, and you will be angry at yourself, the movie, and its creators if you go to watch it.

Black Swan is fucked up. It’s amazingly fucked up, but it’s fucked up all the same.

Overall

I could go on and on about Black Swan. It’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, and will easily land itself in my favourites list.

The acting was stunning, the score was perfect, the technical aspects were spot on, and there was enough content to read into that could keep my chronically over-analyzing brain happy for a long time. It’s screwed up, it’s dark, it’s revealing, and it’s a work of art.

9/10

This is pretty much how it played out until one day I woke up with a copy of Borderlands in my hand, and a dead horse in my bed. I’m still trying to figure out where that copy of Borderlands came from.

Synopsis

The storyline to Borderlands is, at best, weak. Well, not weak, but straight-forward. You and your (potential) band of merry mercs are off to Pandora to find the legendary Vault. No one knows what’s in the Vault, but everyone wants whatever’s in it. You get to choose from one of 4 characters, all typical in nature:

Lilith the Siren

• Support class. Basically the ‘mage’.
• Bunch of self-preservation skills.
• A whole whack of alterations for her main ability.
• Uses the SMG mostly.

Mordechai the Hunter

• The sniper, or otherwise long-range character.
• Has a bird for his special ability that he can launch at enemies.
• Mildly psychotic sounding.
• Sniper rifles and pistols.

Roland the Soldier

• The all-rounder.
• Special ability is a deployable turret that can be upgraded to heal/replenish ammo.
• Decent balance between skills and health.
• Probably the best choice for solo play.
• Machine guns.

Brick the Berserker

• The wall of meat. Angry meat.
• Special ability turns him into a high-speed murder-machine, delivering justice and agony with his fists.
• Ability can be upgraded to replenish his health with every punch.
• Hilariously large in comparison to anyone else.
• Pistols and fists.

It doesn’t matter who you choose, the story remains the same. You basically have to go around fulfilling an unreasonable amount of quests for other people in order for you to reach your eventual goal: The Vault. I’m sure the different characters originally had more character behind them, but that ends up getting a bit lost throughout the game.

Gameplay

The gameplay is fairly standard fare for the shooter RPG series. You get guns, you point them at things and you riddle them with bullets. In reaction, the things you are trying to murder will then try and tear your face off. You have a health bar, a shield (which is like a health bar, but not nearly as resilient), up to 4 weapons, augmentable grenades, and your special skill. You run around the country side fulfilling quests and generally causing mayham.

Ironically a lot of the quests you complete are rather grey in nature, and not simply a good vs. bad. There’s no morality system in Borderlands, which is good because adding such a system would have ruined a lot of the fun that Borderlands brings to the table. There’s only so many midgets a game would let you get away with murdering before you’re character would either start to develop PTSD or at the very least an unhealthy gleam in their eye.  Thankfully Borderlands assumes you’re going to be murdering an unreasonable amount of people, so they just let you get on with it.

As you murder people, complete quests, and personal achievements (like shooting 100,000 bullets) you gain experience. This experience in turn levels your character up. When you level up, you get skill points. These points can be applied to a selection of trees that alter the way your character fights. Generally they are split into ‘special skill’, ‘combat’ and ‘support’. What actually resides in those trees changes completely from character to character. They allow you to augment your character to best suite your combat style.

Weapons are plentiful, and many of them feature a variety of alterations. Some have scopes, some have extended magazines, some are shotguns that shoot rockets, etc. etc. It isn’t uncommon in Borderlands to have what you thought was an amazing gun, only to toss it away 10 minutes later when a totally different but equally awesome one lands at your feet (fresh out of the hands of the bandit you just wrecked). You also have access to grenades that can be augmented to do a wide variety of entertaining and damaging things (MIRV is my personal favourite).

Oh and of course each of the playable character has their own special ability they can use to change the course of the fights.

Graphics

The graphics take on a sort-of-but-not-really-cell-shaded approach. People, guns, and cars seem to have a cell-shaded effect applied to them. You don’t really notice it unless you get right up into someone’s grill. At that point though, you are either taking advantage of the unintentionally funny dialogue that the NPCs spew out, or you’re too busy putting bullets into said persons grill.

The detail is surprisingly high, though in a weird surreal sort of way. Of course, the whole game is supposed to feel a bit other-worldy, so giant mushrooms and 100-story wind turbines only have to have so much thought put into their rendering.

The enemy and NPC designs are stylized, but it’s a style that works for the game. It really comes down to the little details that make the user designs. Badass psychopaths are beefed-up versions of their non baddass counterparts, but their one arm is shrivelled  up and tiny, making for a comical offset to the giant murder-ax that they’re swinging at your head. The different types of skags all have brilliant little details that separate one from another. As you go up the scale, they not only get bigger, but their armour changes, and they start to develop more ridges and their colours change.

The environmental effects that guns and certain enemies give off should be mentioned as well. With the slight set back of occasionally lagging out my Xbox when you have roughly a billion of these things going off around you, they make for far more interesting (and gratifying) combat situations. There’s nothing quite like watching an electrocuted enemy’s head explode to make you enjoy your work, or watching them turn to ash from the fire you turned them into.

Sounds

There isn’t much to say for the typical sounds. The music was an afterthought, not that you really notice it all that often. The guns sound like guns. The vehicles sound like vehicles, with revving engines and the like. Where the sounds really shine is in the actual voice acting. The scripts they got people to read from had to have raised some eyebrows. phrases like “You gonna squeal before we fuck ya?” are thrown around with nigh-reckless abandon.

The scripting for the main characters (that is, not your character, but the main ones you interact with) is quite good, and in many cases quite funny. Anything that comes out of Tannis’ mouth is always worth waiting around to listen to.

Your own characters are pared back to a couple of reactive statements. When you stand around for a while, find some loot (awesome or otherwise), spawn a vehicle, etc. These sorts of actions will reward you with a passing phrase. That’s it though. Borderlands takes what I call the ‘Legend of Legia‘ approach to conversations, wherein you never actually say anything, but your actions apparently handle all the gabbing for you.

Issues

Two things really got me about Borderlands. The first is that the vehicles all perform as if on ice. And the driver is severely impaired. And the developers that made the physics engines just gave up on life half way through the vehicle portion. Your control is spotty, and it’s surprisingly easy to wedge your car into invisible barriers or walls or other cars, which results in you having to get out and punch your car back onto the ground. It can get pretty annoying in a multiplayer game when your partners have cars and decide to be dicks and just drive into you which results in both cars getting stuck.

Fun times.

The other is a mild annoyance with your character and their general excitement whenever you open a chest. They say things like ‘This is amazing‘ or ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before!‘ But you know what? You fucking have seen things like this before. Like a million goddamned times. You see a lot of guns. statements like ‘This is amazing’ should be reserved for weaponry that is actually amazing. At the very least something on par with your current equipment.

It’d be so much better to be a high level player, open a box, and have your character spout something like ‘Well this is useless’ or ‘More junk for the shops’ or even ‘What the fuck is this? They actually put this in a chest? Assholes!’ I would love for my character to become more jaded the higher level they became.

Extra Goodies

If you invest your time into Borderlands, and enjoy the overall environment, might I suggest you invest some more money and pick up any or all of the expansions? They add an easy 10 hours of gameplay to the game per DLC, and the writing in them tends to be as good, if not better than the originals.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

Not Dr. Zed. Dr. Zed, his evil brother. Seriously. The moustache is totally convincing. This one is your typical Zombie expansion. You have to aim for the head, corrosive and electric weaponry don’t work very well, and you will get swarmed. Lots of fun, and probably one of the funniest DLCs in terms of writing.

Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot

This expansion features arena battles. Basically an endurance run regardless of how many players you have in the arena. The point of this one is to go rounds with the local folk and try not to die. This gets harder the longer you stay in the arenas. Basically get this one if you’ve done everything else and you hate yourself just a little bit.

The Secret Armory of Generall Knoxx

Remember how much fun fighting the Crimson Lance was in the original Borderlands? No? Annoying as shit you say? Well get ready to do that all over again, but more! This expansion brings in a bunch of new vehicles (oh boy.) and pits you against the Crimson Lance for most of it. It also comes with a secret extra boss that you have to be level 60 or so to even attempt.

Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution

Easily has the best writing of the DLCs. This one features Claptraps revolting against their masters, and your job revolves around stopping them. As an added bonus the local populace becomes assimilated by the Claptraps, which results in some weird-looking enemies that say things like ‘please just let me die‘ and ‘come with me if you want to die.‘ Oh, and you get to shoot Claptraps. A lot of them. And they drop panties that you can collect for achievements. Yup.

Overall

It took me a little while to fall in love with Borderlands, but in the end it’s been the one game in my collection that has utterly succeeded in its ROI. It’s legitimately entertaining, doesn’t really lull that much, and has a great selection of DLCs that all feature game mechanics that will appeal to everyone.

8/10

That said, the new Professor Layton came with a veritable feast of new mini-games, new puzzles, and one of the best story-lines in a game I’ve played in the last while. As a result, the newest addition to the series (Professor Layton and the Unwound Future) ends up being the best of the series (thus far).

Synopsis

The Unwound Future takes place after the events from the Diabolical Box. Layton and Luke have been invited, somewhat at random, to a scientific demonstration of an apparent time-machine. Things go south (as all preludes in this series do), and days later you get a letter from Luke that has a posting date from 10 years in the future. Now since Layton has conquered ghosts, missing peoples, phantom trains, and imaginary clockwork people, solving a temporal mystery just seems the next logical step.

Luke and Layton follow the instructions, and end up at a mysterious clock shop (surprise, surprise). When brought into the back of the shop, a giant clock awaits them. This is, apparently, a time machine, and before they can think it through, the shop owner throws the switch and Luke and Layton are thrown into the future. Here they notice the changes (and similarities) between them. Eventually they run into Future Luke, and things just get weirder.

As the story unfolds, you find out that the scientist from the demonstration and Layton have some shared past. Namely, they went to the same school, and happened to be in love with the same girl: Claire. The scientist (Dimitri, in case you’re wondering) at first seems to be out to get Layton due to Layton’s winning the affections of Claire. Things, though, are not what they seem. As the story progresses, things get well messed up, and it really does take right up to the 11th hour for everything to come to light.

It ends with, in my opinion, one of the saddest endings I have ever witnessed on the DS. Possibly one of the saddest endings on any Nintendo title that I’ve played. Things are tied up well, if not nicely, and you’re not really left with any questions other than ‘WHY DID THEY JUST DO THAT TO ME?” I was honestly more upset than I thought possible, given the game I was playing. I didn’t sob or anything, but it did move me.

Mechanics

The core mechanics of the game have been left pretty much unchanged. New faces, new places, but the environmental stuff hasn’t moved on much. It doesn’t really need to, either. They got it right the first time, so there’s not much of a need to change it. Tap everywhere to find puzzles and/or hint coins. Solve said puzzles with or without the help of said hint coins. Move on.

The mini-games have changed again. You now get a toy car game, a parrot-guiding game, and the sticker-book game. The toy car game is similar to the hamster game from the last Professor Layon, with a few obvious changes (water, comes to mind). The sticker-book game is fun because you have to put the correct stickers in the correct spots on the page. When this is done, you get to read the whole story. It’s a bit juvenile, but entertaining.

Then there is the parrot game. I hate the parrot game. I hate it more than slider puzzles, and I really hate slider puzzles. The idea is to draw ropes from peg to peg in order to help the parrot (who can only seem to hop short distances) get to end flag before the timer runs down. I’m just going to say right now: I cheated. I don’t even feel bad about it. Know why? because I spent hours and hours trying to legitimately figure the damned parrot puzzles out, and to no avail. Well screw that noise, I have better things to do (shutup I do so) than to run the same parrot simulation over and over and over and over and over and motherfucking over.

The Highs

The laytest installment (see what I did there?) comes with a heaping dose of wonderfully animated cut-scenes, which are pretty much par for the course by this point. The music is wonderful (the alteration of the main/professors theme is sublime) and as goes well with both the puzzles and the story points. Some new items have been added to the score selection, though the puzzle theme remains just as ponderous as it always was.

A special shout-out has to be made here for the grace in which the Professor’s history is handled. While I enjoyed the previous two stories for being entertaining, the Unwound Future is the first in the series that actually made me care about any of the characters. Even Luke, who in many cases I find to be grating, was given a lot more … Luke-ness. That’s a good thing, surprisingly. They really went the extra mile to make the characters mean something more to you than simple puzzle gods, and it shows.

The Lows

Slider puzzles make a shining return in the latest installment, which of course means that I stared at the DS’ screens for a while, scowling in hate until my fail-safe method of random sliding paid off. On top of that, the writers really went out of their way to include more utterly ambiguous riddles. I’m talking about the kind of riddles that legitimately have more than one answer (which makes them shit riddles to begin with) but will only accept whatever cryptic answer they keep locked up in their brain-can. Also, there were a small number of puzzles that looked eerily familiar to past Professor Layton puzzles. I worry that they may be running out of puzzles for the series. Hopefully not.

I also have to say that one of the lows was the feeling of utter depression I got upon finishing the game. I could spoil the ending for you (though I will not) and ruin your day, but suffice it to say that it really struck a chord for me. The only thing that makes a depressing ending worse though, is an unnecessarily depressing ending. They didn’t need to do what they did,  but I guess they felt that the best ending to a light-hearted puzzle game would be to break everyones heart. Repeatedly.

Woe upon the parents who buy this game for their 11 year old daughter, only to have her run into their room, sobbing uncontrollably.

Overall

A great addition to the Professor Layton series, and what will probably go down as my favorite. That is of course until this comes out, and I am forced to purchase a 3DS just to play it.

Regardless, it’s a great title, if not a bit depressing at the end, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series. I would suggest picking up the previous two if you’re new to the series because it will allow you to appreciate Unwound Future so much more.

9/10

Putting aside my moment of Little Tim, Theresa got me a present I’d have never thought to get myself. Hell, it was a gift I would have never guessed, as I’ve never exhibited that much outward desire for it. Now unless you’re not paying attention or you’re simple remedial, I am talking about the
Amazon Kindle.

Now I would have never thought to buy myself a Kindle, because I am a huge proponent of physical books. Books can do so much that the Kindle cannot. Such lists exist out there, but I won’t start ranting about it in this post. I love books. I love their smell, their feel, the sense of accomplishment you get from finishing them, all of it. I love books, and have since I was a wee lad. So when I saw the eReaders start to come out, I just sighed gently and continued going to book stores, knowing that eventually these wondrous bound tomes would eventually go the way of all great things.

As such, I’ve never had the desire to own a Kindle. I have a reader on my iPhone and iPad, and figured that was good enough for when the physical book could not be owned. I can’t buy a lot of books here, so this is for the time being, quite the requirement for me.

So when my Kindle did arrive (January 7th, thank you very much. Next day delivery my ginger-haired buttocks), I was pleased to have it, but more because I could finally open my Christmas present. I wasn’t really salivating at the thought of owning the Kindle itself. However, since my girlfriend did spend a decent chunk of money to purchase the Kindle for me, I decided that I should at least give it the old ‘college try.’

Here’s what I have to say about it.

First Impressions

I own the Kindle 3, graphite with wifi and 3G. We decided to go big or go home. If nothing else, the fact that I have some sort of access to the Internet anywhere I can get 3G signal is, I admit, a selling point.

The first thing I noticed was how light it was. It weighs next to nothing. I’d argue that it’s lighter than my phone, and I carry that around all the time. I also noticed that it has roughly the same dimensions and feel to it as the PADDs from Star Trek. This is of course a point in its favour.

The next thing I noticed was the display. They go on about how you can read it, even in direct sunlight. This is almost true. You can read it in direct sunlight, just so long as you don’t have the sun bouncing off it just right so that it refracts into your eyes, readily blinding you. It’s not colour (obviously), which I’ll get to in a moment.

It’s got an a-z keyboard, with most of the extra keys (symbols, numbers, etc) tucked away in a sub menu. It’s a device for reading, which means that a keyboard doesn’t need to be overly thorough. It would have been nice though. I miss the touch screen of the iPhone/iPad but I understand that the Kindle isn’t an iPad, and a touch screen wouldn’t do that much for the user experience (or the weight).

There are a slew of usability options for those with bad-eyesight, or other difficulties reading such as font-sizing, changeable fonts (though only to condensed or sans-serif) and more. There’s almost an irony in the fact that they work so hard to help those with reading difficulties, but utterly fails everyone else on a number of points (this is covered in the issues section). There’s also some neat experimental stuff that I’ll get to at the end of this review.

The Kindle can also store upwards of 3000 books at any given time. That’s a lot of goddamned books for any one person to carry around. Does the term ‘choice paralysis’ mean anything? It also boasts a month-long battery life, assuming you keep the wifi off. I can’t really complain about that. Heck even with the wifi constantly on, it lasts a lot longer than I expected it to.

That all being said, there are some issue with the Kindle. Some more glaringly obvious than others.

Oh, and before we move on, it should be noted here that you can leave notes per page/book; you can add bookmarks for easy jumping; you can post quotes to mail,twitter and Facebook; and some other features that I will honestly never use. I am merely mentioning them for the sake of completeness.

Issues

Paging buttons

First up, the paging buttons. On the left and right of the Kindle are 4 buttons (2 per side). One goes forward, and the other backwards. Pretty routine, yes? One button on each side is larger than it’s sibling. Now at first glance you would think that the big button on the right would page forward, and the big button on the left would page backwards. You would of course be wrong. Both big buttons page forward, leaving the page back function to the little sibling buttons.

Now I do understand why they do this: no hand-held bias.  Hold it with either hand, and the controls are the same. That’s fine and dandy, but when you hold it with two hands like, oh I don’t know, a book, your brain gets confused. This irritates me. Basically if you read with one hand, you’re fine, but with two, you actually need to think about things if you want to go backwards.

The display

Great though the display is, there are some issues with it due to the materials chosen to construct it. You see the screen uses an e-ink technology that allows the Kindle to shock an image into the e-ink and walk away. There is no charge required to hold the image there, and this is part of the reason the battery life on the Kindle is so good; it doesn’t use much to just sit there, showing text.

My issue with the display is two-fold: first, e-ink only comes in one colour: black. you can do shading on the Kindle, but that’s it. No other colours can you have. Second, every time you have to turn a page, the screen goes all black before showing the new text. Now I get that this can be a visual queue for people, but unless you’re into your book, this ‘black flash’ can get distracting. It’s the most noticeable when you are skimming a book; it’s damned irritating, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Apparently this flash is worse on the older models. My version turns pages 20% faster! Yikes.

Speed (or a lack thereof)

The Kindle isn’t nearly as snappy as I expected it to be. It reminds me a lot of the hand-held games from times of yore. You know, the shitty little beeping things where you dodged hammers or raced a car. I’m spoiled with my flashy iDevices, so I’m used to my tech responding quickly. The Kindle seems limited in its speed due to (I think) its screen. It can only go as fast as the screen can refresh, which isn’t all that fast. It’s not terribly slow, but it’s slow enough to get annoying when you’re just trying to move around the device quickly.

The Keyboard

It’s awkward, it’s stiff, and having to access an on-screen menu for additional characters (like say, the comma or the question mark) is insane. I don’t really want to mention the horrifying 5-way cursor … thing that you have to endure.

No Goddamned Backlight

For serious? You want me to spend how much on a case to have a light? Fuck you. You could build one in and give me the option of turning it on or something. I’d have paid for that, no problem. Easily my biggest hang-up with the Kindle.

No fucking backlight, I mean seriously now. Cocks.

General usability issues

If I gave the kindle to my mother, and told her to do anything on it, the following would happen:

• Pick it up
• Look at it
• Click some buttons
• Frown
• Look at me
• Look back at the Kindle
• Click some more buttons
• Smash it against a rock and throw her feces at it like an enraged orangoutang.

The reason for this is that my mother isn’t tech-savvy. As such, things need to be made as simple and as obvious as possible without taking away from the experience. The Kindle isn’t any of this. Contextual menus don’t retain common options that you’d expect; the 5-point navigation abomination is a method of slow torture; visual queues aren’t that noticeable; and buttons that don’t do what you expect. Hell, the first thing you see when you turn it on is the manual. If you don’t read through the first 15 pages of this thing, you’re going to be super duper lost.

I read the manual, and I never read manuals.

Also, unless you make yourself some collections, once you start adding more than say, 10 books onto the Kindle, you’re going to have to start paging a lot to get to the books at the end. On that note, collection creation and management could be improved immensely. Took me a while to figure out how to add books to an existing collection.

Despite it all…

Despite everything listed above, the Kindle does it’s job shockingly well. Yes, in spite of  itself, the Kindle does allow you read a book, and quickly. I’m devouring books on this device like a fat man in a skittle factory. I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m getting right back into reading, or if the device actually allows me to read faster. I don’t know, but I’ve been using it for less than a week and I’ve finished 4 books.

for the record, yes I have a job, and no I don’t just sit there and read all day. I actually do work. I do so! Shut up, you don’t even know me. You’re not my father! You don’t own me!

Buying books through the Kindle, while a bit janky, is surprisingly easy and the 3G option allows you to get books pretty much anywhere. This will spell disaster for my bank account. The Kindle store is simple enough to navigate, and the prices are alright. Not as cheap as I really think they should be (for godsake it’s a stripped-down PDF, not a bound book.) but still cheaper than buying the paperback.

The Browser (and the other experimental stuff)

I have to tip my hat to the Kindle team with the experimental portion of the Kindle. While I have not tried everything (such as mp3 payback or audio books) the browser and the text-to-speech tools are impressive.

Now with the browser (a webkit-derived browser no less!) you have to remember that it’s black and white, and it’s on a Kindle. Basically, don’t expect to be blown away. You have to zoom large pages, scrolling around is weird, and it can crash. That said, I did manage to use my Kindle to chat to someone using the meebo mobile site, which was doable, if not entirely enjoyable. I should state that if you plan to visit Facebook, for the love of god, visit the mobile version. The main version is heavy, and it broke my Kindle. I had to do a hard-reset just to fix it. Normal off/on wouldn’t work.

In case anyone is wondering, a hard reset can be performed by sliding the power switch over and holding it there for at least 20 seconds.

The voice-over tool actually impressed me. While not as smooth as Apples text-to-speech AI voice actor thing, the Kindle does a decent job not sounding like Steven Hawking on a bad day. I don’t know if I could have an entire book read to me in that voice, but it is far better than I expected.

Overall

I’ve learned to like the Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever truly love the device, but I’ll probably miss it when it goes away. It does its primary job very well, and web browser doesn’t totally suck. There are som obvious issues with the usability that hopefully will be removed in later iterations of the Kindle.

6.5/10

Anyways.

On top of all of this, Bioshock hits the market and ends up getting a whole slew of reviews and press. No solid reviews have come out beyond the wank-fests of the big game rags, and he Internet waits for the independent reviews to start coming in.

That’s where this review comes in. For those that don’t want to play along, yes this is a review for a game that I only just got around to playing about 3 years later. I was a busy man, probably.

To the review-mobile!

Overview

Bioshock is the story of one mans trip through another mans dream come nightmare. Not in a weird outer-limits sort of way, but in a legitimate ‘I built a city under the sea where the success of he individual is more important than the thriving of he many, but something went terribly wrong and now the city is falling down around my ears and I am half-blaming you’ sort of way.

Basically your plane crash-lands right at the entrance of Rapture, an under-water city built where the free man could truly be free. You walk into the spire, and are treated to an introduction by the man himself, Andrew Ryan. However, when you get to the city, you quickly realize that something is a bit… off. You are then sucked into a whirlwind adventure that is similar to a bad, bad trip though an abandoned theme park. That’s under water. Where everyone is addicted to self-alteration. And everything wants to wear your skin as a fine suit. You know, that tired, old story again.

As you work your way further into Rapture, more of the story unfolds with Ryan trying to kill you and Atlas, the perky Irishman talking you through the place to help keep you alive. Things, of course, are not what they seem to be and nothing can ever just be straight-forward. Especially in Rapture, the city of scaring the shit clean out of you.

A you get further and further into Rapture, you start to learn about how it used to be, and were it all started going wrong. The lines start to blur between the good and the bad, and you realize that even your own actions can have repercussions.

Gameplay

Bioshock plays more or less like your standard shooter. You have a melee weapon, your pistol, your shotgun, your machine gun, your explosives, and your sniper derivative. However it also comes with the added bonus of Plasmids, which are more or less ways of altering your genetics to allow you to do such things as shoot electricity from your hand. These Plasmid skills work along side your normal weapon arsenal to allow you quite a lot of freedom in how you deal with the local combative population: the Splicers.

The splicers come in a variety of flavors, from melee fighters, to explosive-toting assholes, to these jackass splicers that can disappear and reappear somewhere else just to fuck with you. They are all super-duper extra crazy, and when they’ not trying to rip your face off, you can listen to them saying any number of creepy, upsetting things.

Now, Plasmids don’t come cheap. Well okay yes, the Plasmids you find laying around are, but the good ones have to be purchased, and you cannot buy them with cash. In order to get your greasy palms on Plasmids that don’t suck, or to upgrade your health etc. you need to get yourself some ADAM. This is where things get worrying.

You see everyone wants ADAM, and theres really only so much to go around. The solution then is to recycle it from the dead because, hey, they don’t need it anymore now do they? So what’s the best tool for that job? Why genetically altered little girls with glowing yellow eyes, underwater sea slugs imbedded in them, whom have giant metallic body guards, and say creepy things like “look Mr. Bubbles, I can see the Angels.” Mr. Bubbles is the giant metal guard dog thing, just to keep you in the loop here.

You get the choice: do you harvest the little girl(s), getting way more ADAM but killing the girl; or do you rescue her, leaving you with less ADAM but lets you sleep at night. Are they monsters or victims? It’s your call.

So this is all pretty much par for the course in Bioshock. Pretty much everything in Rapture is meant to upset you, scare you, or put you on edge. Believe me when I say, Bioshock does a very good job of this. Hell, this is part of the reason it took me so long to even play Bioshock; I don’t do well with scare-tactic games. That is to say that I get wayyyyyy too into them, and this causes me to get really scared, really easily. Attach that to my itchy trigger finger and you get a guy that is running around scared and out of ammo for most of the game.

There are also the hacking and photography aspects to Bioshock that I should touch on. Hacking is pretty straight forward: you hack things to have them work in your favour. Hack a vending machine, and you get cheaper prices and a greater variety; hack a turret, and it’ll work for you instead of trying to shot the hell out of you; hack a safe, and you get its contents.

The hacking game is literally that old windows game Pipe Mania where you have to guide a glowing blue liquid from the start to the end without screwing up. This gets old pretty fast, and the only way to get around most of the hacking comes from photography.

Photography in Bioshock is something you really want to invest some time into. As you photograph Splicers, turrets, security cameras, and little sisters, you get perks. These range from increased damage against said genre of beast, instant hacking ability, or slight increases to your health and EVE (the juice your Plasmids use). Fully research something, and it usually ends with a Plasmid or Combat tonic (basically the same thing). Totally worth it. If nothing else, the ability to auto-hack turrets was a god-send.

I’m also going to say here that the levels are massive, sprawling, and filled to the gills with secret passages and hidden treats. Even when you finish a ‘level’ you will probably be tempted to explore every inch of the place before moving on. Actually, scratch that. You really should explore every inch of every level, because your whole Biohock experience will be that much better.

Also, it’s a total bitch to go back to a previous level.

Graphics

Rapture is pretty, in that exploded, ruined, and drug-adled sort of way.

I am playing this game 3 years later on an xbox 360 (with the framerate unlocked, which actually tones the graphics back a bit), and I can state with confidence that Bioshock is one of the best-looking games I have ever played for the 360. I’m sure there are others that can beat it, but remember that his game is 3 years old and still holds it’s own.

It really comes down to the little details in Bioshock that make it shine: the detail in the plaster walls, the screwed up make-up of some of the female splicers, the 1950s style art deco fixtures and posters, the list goes on. Simply put: Rapture is simply gorgeous to look at.

Music / Sound

Rapture may be wonderful to look at it, but its the ambient noises that will put you on edge right from the get go; creaks, pangs, haunted footsteps, distant screams, the list is endless. There isn’t a lot of music in Bioshock, but the music that does exist is well placed, and generally contrasts the situation so drastically that it only helps to increase the tension.

To cite an example: when you are walking around an abandoned apartment waiting for something to jump out at you, and “how much is that puppy in the window” is plinking away in the background, well… It screws with you.

Lets not forget all of the wonderfully terrifying things that everyone says. I am torn for my favorite; its either the woman singing “hush little baby, don’t say a word” to a pistol in a stroller, sobbing because the ‘baby’ wont cry; or its the lady lamenting how she came to Rapture to be a star, and then screaming “now look at me” is the angriest, most anguished voice possible. Seriously, the first half of this game works your brain like a fine dough, mixing in terror and fear this each knead of your mind.

Sometimes it’s the absence of sound that is more terrifying. There is point in the game that, if you decide to explore a little harder, you turn the normally loud, findable Spider Splicers (they climb walls and shit, yeah you read that correctly) into mute clay mannequin versions of themselves. They no longer talk, and no longer make a noise as they crawl up behind you. Trust me when I say that this is so much worse. It means that even in silence you are no longer safe, which was up until that point your one sole indicator of relative safety.

There is also a lot of background sound going on that I highly suggest you stop and listen to. The ‘Rapture Reminders’ change throughout the game, and give hints as to the situation and its deterioration. The info bytes featuring Mary and Jim start off as helpful tips, but slowly turn into a propaganda machine and they too help outline what is going on to Rapture and yourself.

There are also the audio diaries you pick up along the way. These help outline what is really going on, expand on the main characters, and even give you some random insights into the day to day life of the once brilliant Rapture. If you want to get the most out of your time in Bioshock, I suggest you find as many of these tapes as you can.

Issues

I’m really hard-pressed to find issue with Bioshock. The only glaring issues are the obvious ones: hacking is a pain in the ass, and taking photos of enemies basically gives them free-reign to rip you apart while you try and frame them just so.

Now as my own pet peeve, I’m just going to through it out here that any and all escort missions should stripped from games. The AI scripting for every escort mission in every game sucks just a little too much. Escort missions tend to become high-stress, annoying interludes to the fun parts of a game. Bioshock’s escort mission is no exception to the rule. It’s long, it’s tedious, and was easily my least favourite part of the game,

The only other thing I can really find issue with Bioshock is that going between levels is hard. Its in no way impossible, but its such a pain in the ass that even when you CAN go back to a previous area, you have no desire to.

Overall

Damned awesome. I wish someone had talked me into playing it when it first came out. I suggest that if you haven’t had a chance to play Bioshock, that you clear out a week in your schedule, kiss your loved ones goodbye, and secret yourself away in front of this game. Make sure only come out when your brain has melted and Rapture has been saved.

9/10

I’ll do my best to follow a format or at least some kind of general flow, but thats going to be hard. The reason is because TRON Legacy sucked. It sucked so very, very badly. At this point feel free to insert whatever sort of ‘your mother’, ‘thats what she said’, or whatever else variable joke you can associate with that statement. I will also state that I haven’t seen the original TRON, but im pretty sure if I had, I’d have probably been pretty upset with what the new release has done.

So with that out of the way…

Overview

TRON legacy, near as I could tell, goes like this: A boy’s father either a: made the original TRON and goes back in to perfect it; or, b: was in the last movie, but was probably not the original creator, and instead goes to make a new version and/or work on the old version.

Anyways, some obvious logic issues crop up and the computer program, CLUE, that Kevin Flynn created betrayed him. Why? Because users were an imperfection, and CLUE was told to create the perfect system. Like I said, basic logic problems. This is logic loops 101 for god sake.

Fast forward roughly 20 years, and our protagonist, Sam Flynn, who happens to be the major share holder of his fathers company but refuses to chair the thing due to his inability to grow up, ends up getting a cryptic message from his fathers old arcade (P.S. his father owned an arcade that somehow hasn’t been torn down or vandalized in the last 20 years. Oh, and it still has electricity). He then gets sucked into the TRON universe where it turns out it was all a master plot by CLUE so he can somehow come into the real world etc. Etc. Oh and the son has to get back to the portal (which is in a totally different place than where he came in for some reason) or he will be trapped there forever (like his dad).

Que the hilarity.

Issues

The premise itself isn’t terrible. Is it oscar worthy? Fuck no, but then again a lot of movies I enjoy can be classed in such a way. It’s a sci-fi movie, and as with all sci-fi movies, I have long since learned to let a lot of shit slide. A lot of utterly bizarre, useless, or outright insane things can and should just be accepted for the sake of the movie. Hell the only time I generally get pissed is when known scientific facts, such as physics, are thrown into a dark cupboard and kept there all night without its dinner.

TRON legacy really pushes a lot of the scientific boundary stuff but it’s an entirely new world so okay fine, whatever you want to do in that universe is well enough. I wont even touch on the fact that it was a linux build, and somehow didn’t crash or require any sort of bootstrapping to get going.

Now, I could create a list of the obvious flaws, of which there are many, such as how come light planes can somehow stall in a world that effectively has no atmosphere. I wont though, because it would both quadruple the length of this review, and there are others who have done a much better job than I could. Google yourself some reviews and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

My major issue is the fact that the acting in this movie, with a quazi-exception for Simon Pegg, was by far the worst acting I have seen in a large scale movie... Possibly ever. Seriously. Everyone is pushing for a single-dimension of complexity, and their character bios can be drawn in goddamned smelly-marker.
Like so:

• Kevin Flynn, Father, ambitious when young, hoisted by own petard when older. When old becomes a zen hippy who will sacrifice himself for his son to make up for fucking off for 20 years. Make sure he says some obviously hippy things, like “harshing my mellow” or something, but make sure they are all delivered painfully.
• Sam Flynn, Son, a renegade that doesn’t want to grow up nor take over his fathers company due to resentment. Basically trys to emulate the new Kirk, but without the acting flair or joy.
• Quorra, Girl, obvious love interest, naive but a good fighter. Must be rescued at least once during the movie. Also, she is an obvious plot device.
• CLUE. The computer program that, despite being born in the single, most complex code-base in the universe, takes his initial instruction literally, which makes him an asshole for some reason.
• Rinzler, the eventual turn-coat, who does so for reasons that don’t actually make sense, even in the goddamned TRON universe. Deus ex machina in a helmut. Make sure he looks like evil Stig.  - Before anyone bitches, yes I know that he used to be a a good guy, blah blah blah, but his reverting back makes no sense.
• Zeus, a super flamboyant David Bowie knock-off who has read Alice in Wonderland and has upsettingly dark gay fantasies with with Mad Hatter. Oh also he has to turn on the users. Give him a cane, every flamboyant turn-coat has one.
• Everyone else, fucking useless.

If you take these characters and the plot points mentioned previously, you will get the gist of the new TRON.

More issues

I wouldn’t be so angry about the new TRON if it didn’t look so damned cool. Seriously, the movie is a visual orgasm of technology. The fact that it looks so good, whilst the acting was so terrible points out just where all the money was spent. Well, not all of the money. The rest went to Daft Punk, who did their absolute damnedest to make up for the the terribly story the only way they know how: fresh beats.

The music really does need some special mention here, because it was really, very good. Not as Daft Punk-y as I was expecting, but very good regardless. It is a soundtrack, and one I will seriously consider purchasing. Sadly, this will cause people to ask me about the movie and how boss I thought it was, which will lead to a similar tirade to the one you are reading now, and will end in some awkward silence.

Summary

TRON Legacy is a super-cool tech demo put to a bitchin’ soundtrack that was ruined by the addition of actors.

3/10  (7/10 if someone can make a cut that doesn’t have any actors in it)