Velocity Review (PSP/PS3)

      Not too many games do teleportation that I can think of. I rented a Genesis X-Men game when I was a kid where you could bamf through walls as Nightcrawler. I hear that Dishonored does it well. And Portal, of course (I still haven't played this, shame on me). Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner has a really great teleport mechanic where you press the button and then the direction you want to go and you suddenly appear quite far in that direction, even behind enemies. But Velocity does teleportation in a very basic and satisfying way that works so perfectly, it makes you wonder why no one ever did it before. More than any other game I've played or heard of, it really makes you feel like you are legitimately teleporting.

     Velocity is a vertically scrolling 2d space ship shooter released as a Playstation Mini. As the screen scrolls by, you move through the level, but even in this basic idea in Velocity is different than most shmups I have played. You are moving through an actual level with structures all around you instead of just flying on top of a scrolling background. You don't take damage from touching structures, but if the bottom of the screen pushes you against an object, that will kill you. The object of the game is to find survivors who are floating around the levels in little survival pods. So you have to navigate through the structures to get at the pods and pick them up. Sometimes the pods are behind walls or inside the frame of the space station, meaning they would be impossible to get to in a traditional 2d game. That's where the teleportation mechanic comes in. When you hold down square, a cursor appears. You control the cursor instead of your ship's movement as long as you hold square down. When you release square, your ship nearly instantly appears wherever you left the cursor. This elegant, unlimited use ability is the backbone of the gameplay of Velocity, and because you've probably never played anything like it and it is executed so well, you're going to have a blast with it.

     The other controls include: cross to shoot, circle to launch bombs, R to fly faster, triangle to drop a telepod (more on this later), and L to bring up a map.

     The story is that a black hole is about to destroy a space station and the government has decided to send the prototype Quarp Jet into action immediately to rescue the people there. You are its test pilot, so in you go. An electromagnetic pulse from the black hole has knocked out a lot of power to stuff, so that's why they can't just save themselves. Also, some of your enemies are taking advantage of the power outages to attack and steal stuff, so they show up. The story is halfway decent. It's told from time to time in the game in the form of short blurbs of text and cool pieces of still art. You also get some of it from reports you can read from the menu that unlock as you go.

     There are three different qualities that a level can have, and a level can have more than one quality. Search and Rescue missions focus on finding survivors. Hostile Forces missions have more of a combat tilt, but still involve rescuing. Critical Urgency missions have strict time requirements and are often adrenaline-pumping petal to the floor races to the end of the level.

     You fail a mission if you get the end of the level and haven't rescued a minimum amount of survivors, or if time runs out (or, of course if you die). You get three lives per mission, and you can take a couple of shots or collisions with enemies before losing a life, although getting crushed by the edge of the screen will instantly kill you. Loosing a life sends you back to a checkpoint that is usually pretty close behind you.

     I wouldn't really call this game a shoot-em-up, as it is really squarely focused on rescuing survivors. There isn't much shooting, and when there is, it isn't that intense or great. It's ok, but the game is totally focused on getting as many survivors in as little time as possible. There are a few weapon power-ups to make things interesting, but teleporting around and grabbing those poor helpless people is where you'll be spending most of your time.

     So, in a typical level, you'll be teleporting through walls and into little cubby holes and such to grab every survivor pod you can find as you scroll toward the exit. You may also need to shoot some numbered switches in order to deactivate forcefields that block your path. You can launch bombs in the four cardinal directions based on which direction you are flying. This mechanic is used to hit switches off to the sides or behind you in many clever ways in conjunction with the teleportation mechanic and leads to some cool moments as you jerk your ship around to get bombs to fly in the right direction. It's hard to explain how much fun all of this is, but it is. You just have to try out the teleportation mechanic for yourself to see what I mean.

     There are 50 main missions to play through, and many of the latter-half involve the use of the previously alluded to telepods. This is a second form of teleportation in the game. You have a certain number of telepods you can drop in these levels. Once you drop one, you can bring up the map with L and then select that pod to teleport back to it. This allows you to access areas that you have already scrolled by. This is also a really great and really fun mechanic. It allows for some mind-bending puzzles that have you quickly jumping all over the level to hit switches in order and return to newly opened areas once you have your network of telepods dropped where you want them. The game prompts you to drop the pods at key locations, and it is usually right, but there were a few spots where I dropped them differently than suggested, especially when trying to get perfect speed runs.

     The game rates you on each level in three categories: number of survivors rescued, time taken, and points (which you get from blowing stuff up and collecting pickups and survivors). There are three target values for each of these categories, and getting the best at all three in one run will give you a satisfying “perfect” stamped on that level. Getting these perfect ratings is quite challenging, but it was so fun, I got all 50. Mastering the teleportation and telepod techniques is required to get these perfect scores, but I really recommend doing it as the mechanics are so fun and different from other games that you stay motivated to keep trying. It's very satisfying to blaze your way through a complicated level that took you forever your first time around, or to finally speed through a critical urgency level without missing a single survivor.

     As you go through the story mode, you unlock tons of extra content, including: concept art, bonus missions, in-game trophies, a calculator (?), artwork, story text, and mini-games (including fun clones of Minesweeper, memory, Bomberman, Coconut Dodge (which was also made by this game's developer, Futurlab), Snake, Space Invaders, and some game that plays kind of like pixeljunk shooter or asteroids or something). Actually, I find the Space Invaders mini-game to be very not fun. The others are a blast though. That's a lot of mini-games, and that so many of them are fun is a really amazing. I never knew Minesweeper was so cool!

     The bonus missions you can unlock are like really short regular missions but you can't touch the structure at all or you instantly fail the mission and you are on a very strict timer! They are challenging and very fun, and really push your ability to teleport super-fast and super-accurately to the limit. The bonus missions are where the one big glaring flaw in this gem of a game is, however. One of the missions (bonus mission 14) is unfortunately glitched so that it is not possible to complete. When you complete it, it says you missed some survivors, even if you didn't. The developer has confirmed this. I played this mission for a few hours before I learned about the glitch, so that was annoying. But the game is so good, I really didn't even care and moved on.

     This game is also crawling with little secrets and Easter eggs all over the place that I won't spoil for you. The trophies help point the way to a lot of them. Others you'll find on your own. And still others involve codes and stuff you can find on the internet. The game is also filled to the brim with references to science, scientists, and science fiction. Keep a look out and you'll see little references to Alien, Ender's Game, The Big Bang Theory, and many more.

     The multitude of in-game trophies do a great job of cheering you on to complete every aspect of the game, including the bonus missions and grabbing those perfect scores, along with a bunch of other little goals. Unfortunately you can't get the trophy for getting every trophy, since you can't beat that one bonus mission. I got all the other trophies though, with the exception of the Space Invaders trophy, which I gave up on after many tries since I wasn't having fun with it. This makes me sad.

     The graphics are really great sprites with some cool effects thrown in. Especially impressive is the trail that follows the quarp jet around, and jumps drastically when you teleport. This can be especially hypnotizing when you unlock the ability to change how the trail looks. The music is also worth mentioning. I don't really know how to describe it, but it's really good. A few of the tracks are fast-paced and urgent, and one or two are slow and mysterious. They all fit the action really well. I heard that they are going to release a re-mix album of these tracks, and if they do, they are good enough that I might pick it up.

      There are a few other minor little problems with the game. Quitting a level often involves going back to the main menu, not the level-select screen, which is a little cumbersome when you are trying to switch levels. There's also no way to check what your time and survivor quota is without going back to the level-select screen that I could find.

     But beyond the one bonus level glitch, the space-invaders clone mini-game not being fun (I'm just bitter that I couldn't get the trophy for beating it!), and the minor menu interface issues, this game is extremely fun, challenging without being overly frustrating, innovative and well-executed, and bursting with secrets, references, and in-game trophies to collect. It's a great game, tier 2.

Bioshock 2 Minerva's Den DLC Review (PS3)

       Here's a little hobbledehoy review of Minerva's Den that doesn't go into detail about mechanics and such since I'm assuming you've played Bioshock 2 (which, awkwardly, has not been reviewed on this blog).

       Quick run down of my thoughts on Bioshock and Bioshock 2: The first Bioshock is without a doubt a tier 1 great game. It's truly a masterpiece of theme, setting, storytelling, and gameplay, and one of the best games I've ever played. I've heard Bioshock 2 get a bad rap to some degree for not being as great as its predecessor, but it's a really great game that also deserves a lot of praise. If Bioshock the first didn't exist, 2 would be the revolutionary masterpiece in its place. It's solidly a tier 2 great game.

       So, Minerva's Den is a single-player DLC mini-campaign for Bioshock 2, and it shares all of the same basic mechanics, although some have a few tiny little twists. Real quick run-down of the controls: analog sticks are used to walk and look, L2 to use plasmid, L1 to switch plasmids, R2 to fire weapon, R1 to switch weapons, triangle to jump, square to reload, cross to interact with stuff, circle to melee attack.

       I'm going to assume that you already know quite a bit about Bioshock since you have to own Bioshock 2 to play this DLC. You play as a different prototype Big Daddy named Subject Sigma who's been enlisted to help one Mr. Porter, the creator of Rapture's main computer system, The Thinker, take back the high-tech district (Minerva's Den) that houses the system from a super-crazy splicer and his friends who have taken it over. I'm not going to say one more word about the story since, as you may have heard, it's fabulous and needs to be experienced first hand and without spoilers.

       This DLC is 3 levels that play out exactly like Bioshock 2 levels. You set out to accomplish story-driven objectives, all the while fighting off Rapture's now homicidal inhabitants, and planning out how to deal with the Little Sisters and their hulking guardians, the Big Daddy's (and their crazy counterparts, the Big Sisters). Dealing with Little Sisters is your only significant source of Adam, a substance that allows you to re-write your genetic code to give yourself super-human abilities. But you already knew that if you are a Bioshock player. All of the Big Daddy's in Minerva's Den are of a new type not seen before in the main game. I won't spoil exactly what they do and are equipped with, but they are cool and fun to fight, if not really all that different then fighting some of the other types from the main game.

       There are a few new abilities to play with. From what I saw, there is one new plasmid, which can be upgraded to level 3, and one new weapon, which has a few upgrades and three types of ammo, just like the other weapons. I'll leave you to find out exactly what these new toys are, but I will tell you that they are both fun and I used them a lot.

       Basically every other mechanic from BS2 makes a return in MD, with the exception of Power to the People weapon upgrade machines. Instead, you can find upgraded weapons laying around every once in awhile. Basically, this is 3 brand new levels of Bioshock 2 action with a little bit of variety on the standard themes and a really standout story. These levels are every bit as good as those in the main game, and building another character up from scratch with some fresh-squeezed Adam was great fun.

       There are a handful of trophies that go along with this DLC, but nothing really of note.

       I don't have a lot else to say about this campaign, except that I highly recommend it. If you are a fan of BS2 (or even if you didn't like it but are a big fan of the 1^st), then do yourself a favor and pick it up. It includes everything that made BS 1 and 2 great but in a smaller package. You may want to have some time between beating the main game and playing this DLC, since gameplay-wise it is mostly identical, but it's well worth your time to check it out at some point. Just like Bioshock 2 proper, Minerva's Den is solidly in great games, tier 2.  

Anomaly: Warzone Earth PS3 Review

            Just finished getting the final single-player trophy in Anomaly: Warzone Earth for PS3. In this game you play as a commander who guides a handful of units through city streets to combat stationary towers. It gets called a “tower offense” game quite a lot because it is almost the polar opposite of the genre known as tower defense. In tower defense games, you build stationary towers to defend against enemies that march in on a set path. And this game is literally the exact opposite. You send your troops in on a set path to attack stationary towers. And it's really, really fun.

            The unique (as far as I know) game mechanics take a few levels to get used to, but are really great once you understand them. At the beginning of a level, you get a set amount of money to buy armored vehicles with. You can purchase, sell, upgrade, and change the position of these units at any time. You can have up to six vehicles at a time, with most missions starting you out with enough cash to buy 1 to 3. You earn more money as you go by destroying towers and by collecting minerals that are sometimes scattered around the levels. Once you have purchased your starting squad, you set your course on the tactical view map. Once you start, your vehicles roll (or in the case of the crawler, walk) along the path you have set for them on the tactical map at a set speed, and you have no direct control over them. You can pause the game and access the tactical map to change your route at any time by pressing triangle. This map pops up instantly, which is very important since you will be accessing it very frequently, and any lag time would be very detrimental to the flow of gameplay. The vehicles will automatically fire on any enemies within range.

             You are in direct control of your commander, a soldier on foot in a high-tech battle suit. You are very fast, and have a health bar that quickly recharges if you take damage. If your health is totally drained, you will be unable to move for about 3 seconds while your health fully recharges. You only fail a mission if all of your vehicles are destroyed (or if you fail at a mission objective). Your commander does not have any direct attacks, but can employ 4 different powers. Pressing cross pauses the game and brings up your menu of four powers, each assigned to a different direction. To deploy it, you hold the direction of the power you want (for example, up for repair) to highlight it. Then press cross again to activate it. Each of these powers places a stationary circle on the map centered on where your commander is currently standing. The powers are repair, which fixes any of your units that drive through it; smoke screen, which causes any of your units in its radius to be harder to hit; decoy, which displays a holographic tank that all enemies in range will fire on until its timer or health bar give out; and airstrike, which targets enemies within its radius for a bombing run from air support. You have a limited amount of each of these powers, and you get more by killing towers. They are also dropped in at certain points in the level by air support. A few miscellaneous controls include zooming in and out with the R1 and L1 buttons, and speeding the game up temporarily (literally just fast-forwarding everything) by holding either R2 or L2.

             So you basically build, maintain, and upgrade your units as you set their path on the tactical map, and then you use your powers to babysit them to make sure they are successful. I've never played anything like it, and it is really well done. It almost sounds like it plays itself, but it actually requires you to pay attention the whole time as leaving your units alone will result in them being destroyed post haste.

The main campaign mode has full voice acting and a somewhat interesting story about something crash landing from space in Baghdad and Tokyo and causing a giant red dome to cover those cities. You go into these domes and start fighting the newly formed towers inside. The story is not offensive, but not that great. It has a few cool elements though.

             In each mission of the campaign, you have an objective. These have a really great variety that really adds to the game. It feels like you are doing things a little differently in each mission. Some have you getting from point A to point B. Others have you taking out specific targets or protecting a VIP unit embedded in your squad, or clearing a path for an airborne transport that slowly flies through the level. Some levels have a timed element. Most of them have more than one objective, revealing new ones as you accomplish your current goal. And there are a few really cool ones that I won't spoil (I feel like I've been giving too much away in these reviews, I'll try to leave a few things for you to discover). Missions take around 10 to 30 minutes each, which is a good length for what you are doing. Suffice it to say, I was really pleased with the great diversity of tasks and situations that the game throws at you. This game would be really solid even if each level had the same objective, but the fact that you are doing different tasks in each level that are all fun to accomplish really pushes the game's greatness forward.

             Pressing square pauses the game and brings up the menu that lets you buy, sell, and upgrade units. The units you'll be controlling are all pretty interesting. A few examples are the basic APC, which has high armor but low attack, the high attack powered crawler, a missile-launching quadrupedal mech, the shield generator, which adds another layer of armor to units near it, and the supply vehicle, which generates power-ups when you kill towers. These along with the handful of other units are all fun to experiment with, although once I had access to all of them I quickly developed a favorite load out and basically stayed with it. Experimenting on the fly is very easy though, since you can sell units at cost as long as they are repaired up. So if you try a set-up out and don't like it, you can sell it all and start over at any time.

             There are several types of enemy towers to contend with. You got your basic ones that shoot lasers at you when you get close enough, then there are big ones that fire slowly but are very powerful. Some have a chain-lightning effect, causing damage to adjacent units as well as the one targeted. There are also some more indirect ones, like one that absorbs the energy of your commander's powers if they are deployed near it, then uses that stored energy to re-build any towers that were destroyed near it. There are a few other enemies as well, some of which have very interesting abilities besides just attacking you. In the story mode, some of these are portrayed as enemy responses to certain tactics and technologies, which is actually a nice touch as these explanations of enemy powers makes sense.

              Once you beat the campaign, you can play through it again on a harder difficulty if you like. There are three. I beat it on “hardcore” mode, the hardest of the three, and while it was challenging and required some new tactics to get through when compared with “advanced” (the game's normal mode), it was not the super-hard task the name makes it out to be. I think they could have probably added in another difficulty setting above hardcore that would really push the player to the limit of what's possible in the game. It would have been fun to push up against a truly hardcore challenge using these great mechanics.

               There are three bonus stages that you can play independent of the campaign. Baghdad Mayhem gives you 5 minutes to march across the map and destroy a big generator. Once you destroy it, the clock resets and new enemies and a new generator spawn. This lasts for 10 rounds. It's a fun little romp that is worth checking out.

             Tokyo Raid has you going from island to island, with each island giving you a different mission objective. It's a marathon of 18 islands, and unfortunately you cannot save, so make sure you have close to 2 hours on your hands before taking it on (it made me stay up past my bedtime to complete it!). Tokyo Raid is really fun since you very quickly run through many different types of missions. You never know what you'll be getting into when you cross the bridge onto the next island! By the time you're done, you'll feel like you played a whole campaign in 2 hours.

             The last bonus stage is Baghdad Mayhem Rearmed. It's the same as Baghdad Mayhem, but lasts for 18 rounds. It takes about an hour, and represents the game's toughest single-player experience. I died on rounds 17 and 18 several times. Managing your powers so you don't run out is very important in this mode, as you'll be facing hordes of the game's toughest towers in a crazy melee of destruction by the final few rounds. I felt a great sense of accomplishment beating this mode on the hardcore difficulty.

             There is also a co-op mode, which I unfortunately can't comment on since I have no one to play with.

             The game's graphics are very good. Although it plays from an overhead view and is therefore 2d in practice, everything appears to be rendered in 3d with dynamic shadows and remarkable detail. Zooming in reveals a level of detail in almost every facet of the environments. It didn't need to be as pretty as it is, but the extra effort to make it look so nice really makes the game shine. There are only a few music tracks, but they are worth listening to and adapt quite nicely to what is happening on screen, becoming tense as you fight, then placid as you walk through the rubble of abandoned streets. I got this music stuck in my head a lot at my day job, and it would dynamically ebb and flow in my mind as work got hectic and then slow and then back to battle again.

              This game has a decent spread of trophies. The majority of them are for doing specific things in a level, such as covering a full squad with a smokescreen, using all four powers at the same time, and fully upgrading a unit. These are cool milestones that I got at different points while playing through the campaign. I love it when trophies make you do stuff with the gameplay you might not normally do, and these are great examples of that. I had my eyes open to try out what they asked me to do, and executing them when the opportunity was ripe was good fun. You also earn trophies for beating the bonus levels. The hardest one for me to get (I got them all except the 2 trophies relating to co-op mode) was “Avenger,” which wants you to kill 5,000 towers. That's a lot of towers. I got it after completing everything on the advanced and then hardcore difficulties, and then grinding out a couple hundred more kills on a level that features re-spawning towers.

              So what's the verdict? Well, this game innovates, and it's new mechanics are very well executed. Combine that with a good deal of polish in the graphics department and a lot of well done design choices, and you've got a tier 2 Great Game.

Hoard Review (PS3)

      I got the free demo of Hoard on PSP, and I was very surprised how much I really, really liked it. It reminded me a little of Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? although it is totally different. So I soon picked up the PS3 version, and that is what I am reviewing.

It's tough to review Hoard since I have now seen that it seems to be designed for multiplayer and I didn't have anyone to play with. I played with my brother a few times, but in general I played its single player mode. It has a really big single player mode, but as you'll see, some of the magic is missing in this mode.

     In Hoard, you control a dragon who is trying to gather up tons of treasure. As we all know from Tolkien, dragons love treasure (can't wait for The Desolation of Smaug!!!), and as we all know from Trogdor, dragons love burninating stuff. You control your dragon from an overhead view and fly around in two dimensions, although everything is rendered in 3d and looks really nice. The left stick moves the dragon, and the right stick activates your fire breath. While you are breathing fire, you stop moving, and you can only breathe for a limited time before stopping for a few seconds to let it recharge. This is represented as a little meter that quickly fills back up when you stop attacking. R1 activates any power-ups you may have picked up, and triangle brings up your upgrade menu when you level up.

      In the game's main mode which is called treasure mode (I would call it the main mode, I'll tell you about the other modes in a sec) you fly around trying to get as much money as possible in 10 minutes. You are given a bronze, silver, and gold target amount of gold to collect, and you also have the goal of having more treasure than the other dragons in the level if there are any. There can be 1 (meaning just you) to 4 dragons in any given stage, with most having at least 1 opponent for you, although in a few it's just you, but it throws some interesting twists at you, like powerful enemies.

     As time progresses, farms, towns, and castles develop, and a little economy starts to flourish as trade begins between these places in the form of carts full of gold traveling between them. You can swoop in and burninate these towns, farms, castles, and carts, causing them to drop gold. You pick up the gold automatically as you fly over it, but you can only carry a limited amount, represented by another little meter. When you are full, you need to fly back to your titular hoard (“Huh, huh” - Peter Griffin) and drop the gold off. Dumping gold into your hoard fills up a little level-up meter, and when that gets full, you get the option to start upgrading your dragon. You can upgrade your speed, attack strength, carrying capacity, and armor. Each time you level your hoard up, you get a few more points to put into your upgrades.

     As time goes on, all dragons get a score multiplier that multiplies the amount of gold they drop off. It starts at x2 and then goes up to x3 at set intervals that are equal for all dragons. This multiplier is reset back to nothing if you run out of health (which causes you to automatically fly back to your hoard to heal for a few seconds) or if your hoard is stolen from. Towns can produce thieves that steal from your hoard, and other dragons can get a power up that let's them steal from you as well.

     Towns produce archers that shoot at you, and castles produce knights that attack you. You have a small health meter that recharges whenever you are at your hoard, and since having your health depleted means resetting your multiplier, stopping back at the base to heal up is important. Oh, dragons can attack each other too, if I didn't mention that already.

     There are a few other ways to get money. Castles also produce carriages with princesses inside. Burn a carriage, take the princess, and fly her back to your hoard to hold her ransom. The ransom will be paid if you can keep her there for about 15 seconds or so, but kidnapping her causes all the knights around to rush in to try and save her and carry her back to the castle as they attack you. Other dragons can also fly by and steal the princess at any time to hold her for their own ransom, so you have to guard her pretty carefully. They are worth big money though.

     If you attack a town for a bit without totally destroying it in a match with at least one other dragon opponent, a little medallion of your dragon's color will appear above the town, meaning it is now loyal to (read: scared to death of) you. It's archers won't attack you, and it will send carts to dump gold into your hoard at regular intervals to placate your wrath. Turf wars break out a lot as a towns loyalty will change quickly if another dragon attacks it.

      Mage towers can also appear on the map from time to time. They shoot magical energy at you. If you burn one, they leave behind a giant gemstone, which is worth a ton of gold but slows you down a lot while you are carrying it. Giants also occasionally wander into the area and start destroying stuff. They leave a huge pile of gold if killed, but they have tons of hp and attack power. If they are destroying something you want to keep around (like a town that is sending you tribute or a castle that is producing princesses for you to ransom), you can harass them a little and they will wander off to smash something else, like your opponents town.

     There are a few power-ups that pop up on the map, such as super speed, maxed out attack power, and the ability to steal from other dragon hoards. There are a few others too, but I realize that I am spoiling the whole game experience, so I'll leave them out.

      Treasure mode is really fun on single player for awhile, and some of the many maps have a really different feel to them. Some give you your own little corner so you can explore a little without worrying about too much trouble, while others have 4 dragon hoards right next to each other right in the middle, causing all kinds of chaos. One level is just you with no other dragons but tons of mage towers that can gun you down in a flash.

     After awhile, I got bored of this base game though. It's a challenge to win against AI dragons for the first few rounds, but once you understand all the basics I just explained, beating them becomes very easy. Disrupting their multiplier while retaining yours works like a charm, and you will usually beat the AI by a landslide. Trying to get the gold medal amount of gold is very challenging, but I didn't find it very compelling, so I soon quit playing the game.

     The other modes include princess rush, where the first dragon to ransom 15 princesses wins, hoard mode (Gears of War reference?), where you must simply survive against ever increasing hostile forces as you slowly level-up automatically, and co-op mode, where several dragons share 1 hoard and try to get tons of gold together. These are fun alternate modes, but the main meat and complexity of the game for me is in treasure mode.

     This game has many in-game trophies for destroying certain amounts of stuff and completing some interesting tasks, but I got bored before I got too into earning them. Its Playstation Trophies are tied to these in-game trophies. Earning a certain percentage of them will earn you the “real” trophies, the ones that pop and make a noise (although I think the in-game trophies pop too, which is cool). The other Playstation Trophies are earned by increasing your Hoard rank, which I think you increase by getting medals, but I'm not totally sure on that.

     So in summary, I had a ton of fun for a few hours with Hoard, but ultimately got bored since I was only doing single player (I unfortunately do not have the option of online play). My small glimpse of multiplayer against my brother in local play leads me to believe that the multiplayer is probably a ton of fun to play regularly, and probably compelling enough to lead you to try and earn all those trophies. Human players are much, much better at disrupting other player's multipliers while maintaining their own, which is kind of the missing link that makes the single player experience less compelling.

     So as a single player experience, I would say this game is a Tier 2 mediocre game. It was very compelling and fun for a few hours. It looks great and plays great, and has a really well balanced set of mechanics. But once I realized I could beat the AI very consistently, it became boring. Trying to earn the gold medals doesn't make up for it either, because the point of the game is supposed to be fighting other dragons, which you barely have to do once you figure the AI out. But I want to qualify this classification by saying that if I got the chance to play online or with a local group, I would play this game a lot more and probably give it a much higher rating. I'd probably go after those trophies too. I feel like a jerk since I'm judging this game solely on its single player element, and it was designed for multiplayer, but it's all I can do. I don't really recommend it if your not going to be able to play with other people, unless you just want to try it out. But from what I've seen of it and from some of the things I've heard other people say, it is probably a really great multiplayer game. I just don't know yet. Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to find out sometime in the future.

Jelly Pops PSP/PS3 Review

            I bought Jelly Pops almost solely because it was made by Pom Pom games, makers of the really, really great Alien Zombie Death (reviewed in January 2012). And at first, I was really disappointed. It certainly doesn't live up to the greatness of AZD. And I think I may have been anxious at the time to focus on playing Wipeout HD Fury (reviewed in June 2012). But now that I've had a few months break from it and picked it up again, I finished it off and really enjoyed my experience with it.

     Jelly Pops is a PSP/PS3 mini, which can be played on either system once you purchase it once. It was made by the same three person team at Pom Pom which made AZD. Gameplay consists of guiding a snake up and down on the left side of the screen as the level flows past you from left to right. It's a strange effect, as the snake is supposed to be moving from left to right (and you do get that impression), but it never really leaves the left side of the screen.

     On the left side of the screen is a life force meter that depletes over time. If it runs out, you die. To refill it, you must collect life force gems as they fly by. To increase your score, there are different kinds of gems you can collect. And then there are a few types of “negative energy” that you can't touch or you'll die. The only controls are to use the nub or left analog stick to guide the snake, and pressing x to “boost” or move faster (an ability you earn on each individual stage after surviving a certain amount of time and earning a stage medal). There is also a multiplier system similar to AZD's. The score multiplier meter slowly fills up over time, and when it gets totally full, it resets but puts you at a new multiplier level. So once it fills up once, each scoring gem you collect gives you double points. Once it fills up twice, you earn triple points, and so on. The meter fills up more quickly the faster you go. If you weave up and down the screen, it moves slower, and if you boost straight ahead by pressing x, it fills up faster (although it is harder to control snake when you boost). The level ends when you die.

     The game uses a medal system very similar to AZD's. Each stage has 7 medals you can earn. They all have 2 stage medals, which you earn for getting through a certain number of stages or sections within the level. They all also have 2 score medals, which you earn for reaching certain scores. Earning the first stage medal in a level grants you the ability to use the boost function for that level from then on (starting with your next run-through, I believe). Collecting the first score medal unlocks spirit gems for that level. Starting in your next run-through of that level, mobile spirit gems will appear. Collecting them earns you additional points.

Besides those 4 medals, each stage has 3 more that you earn for doing various things, such as collecting a certain number of a certain type of gem, collecting spirit gems, and collecting certain colors of gems in a chain without touching anything else.

     Each of the 8 levels has a gimmick that you need to exploit in order to earn the medals. I won't spoil them all, but some task you with powering up life force gems before you collect them by first touching same-colored gems. Some include rollers that you can push around to knock hazards out of the way, and others have gems you need to collect that move around and shoot at you as you try and get them. The variety is nice and each level feels unique.

     Each level also has it's own visual style in the form of an animated background. These are really great looking. Along with the look of some of the obstacles and gems, they really give you the feeling that you are in some form of wet, microscopic environment. Highlights include a red level with giant red-blood cells floating by, and a brown level with what look like grains of salt seen through a microscope floating through it.  

The game basically has two music tracks, and they are both excellent. There is the title-screen music, which is really good. Then there is the level music, which plays during each level. The level music is a basic track, and your actions provide the rest of the sound. Collecting gems creates sounds that add to the music, and because each level has different gem set ups, each level sounds different despite having the same basic background track. The level music is really great, and will stay with you. I remembered and thought about it often during the months between the first time I played this game and when I just recently picked it up to finish it. It is a slow, melancholy song that is strikingly similar in my mind to some of the band oOoOO's music. In fact, when I think about Jelly Pop's music, I often end up listening to a mash up of the level music and some oOoOO song in my head, and they are a perfect duet. Great music.

     Unfortunately, Jelly Pops also has a small glitch (just like AZD!). I completed the game 100%, and then when I loaded up my save file later, it still read 100%, but none of the medals for the last two stages were unlocked. It's weird, because my high scores were saved, and even though they were higher than what was needed for the score medals, they were not unlocked. This is annoying. I had my PSP on sleep mode the whole time I played, so I unlocked all of those medals without having to re-load, but I can imagine it would be frustrating to lose medals if you had to re-load your save while still trying to get those last few medals only to find some of them missing. Not a huge deal over all though.

     I had fun with Jelly Pops, but it was a little too short and easy, especially compared to AZD, which offered a longer play time, greater challenge, and more engaging play. I think it might ultimately be forgettable (except the music), but it was fun while it lasted. Kind of what I would normally expect from a mini, except that my first mini was AZD, which went so far above the call of duty. Jelly Pops is a Tier 1 Mediocre Game.

Wipeout HD Fury PS3 Review

   I'm not going to go into too much detail about Wipeout HD, the game that Fury is a DLC pack for, except to say that it is an absolute masterpiece, one of my favorite games, and very solidly in the Tier 1 Great Game category (meaning it is almost perfect in my opinion). Needless to say, Fury needs to be really good to hold your attention after you've played Wipeout HD, and it is indeed really good and really different. It centers around three new modes of play, Eliminator (which has been featured in previous Wipeouts, such as the Pulse entry on the PSP), Detonator, and Zone Battle. These new modes are available to play on all of the old Wipeout HD tracks as well as 12 new ones drawn once again from the fertile source material of Pure and Pulse. There is a new 80 event campaign to play through that splits these new types of events about 50/50 with more traditional single races, tournaments, and speed laps, all on the new tracks. From here on out I'm going to do a mini-review of each of the three new events, as they are the stars of the show.

       First up is eliminator, which isn't new to you if you've played Wipeout Pulse. In this mode, you fly around the tracks trying to score points by destroying other ships. You also score a small amount of points for hitting another ship with a weapon (even if they don't get destroyed) and by surviving laps. You also loose points for being eliminated yourself (you then re-spawn, as do any other eliminated ships). Unlike in a normal race, weapon pads don't fade out for a few seconds when a ship flies over them, so everyone gets a fair shot at the weapons. There are no shields, turbos, or autopilots in the weapon slots, just offensive weapons, and you can't absorb them to regain energy. By pressing circle, you can sacrifice your current weapon to activate a shield for a few seconds. You also regain a small amount of energy at the beginning of every lap. The event ends when a ship hits a pre-set point target. There are a few differences between this eliminator mode and Pulse's. I can't officially confirm this, but the weapons seem less powerful than they were in Pulse. The leach beam is definitely wayyyyyyy less powerful than it was in Pulse. Also, the special weapons from Pulse (the shuriken and repulsor) are absent. I believe in Pulse you scored by the kill instead of by points. And finally, and most importantly, Fury adds a feature that makes eliminator a lot more fun and interesting. Tapping L1 flips your ship around 180 degrees, allowing you to fire front firing weapons behind you. This drastically slows you down, but you can quickly flip back around and accelerate again. This seemingly simple mechanic really adds to the event and makes it even more fun than it was in Pulse. Backward quakes, rockets, and missiles add a whole new element to the mode, and it is terrifying the first time someone charges up a plasma then spins around to instantly fire it in your face (and an insane rush the first time you do it to someone else). The amount of strategy and fun this simple addition brings to the table is really impressive.

       This is mode can get really insane, especially on the elite difficulty. It's hard to even explain how chaotic the track can get. I've literally cringed several times as weapons go off unexpectedly and exploding ships go flying everywhere all the while everyone is approaching uncontrollable speeds. Did I mention you'll be doing all this (and all of the normal racing event) in some really wonderful looking new ships, which are similar but different to their HD counterparts, and feature enhanced stats? Wild. I've had so many great moments occur in this mode.

       Next up is Zone Battle, which puts you in competition with other ships while in the always thrilling zone mode. In a traditional zone event, you are alone on the track as you accelerate automatically, going faster and faster as you go through different zones. This continues until you crash and burn. In zone battle, you and your seven opponents accelerate automatically and the event ends when one player reaches a specific zone. Running over a speed pad in this mode charges a meter at the bottom of the screen. You can drain the meter by pressing square to accelerate a certain number of zones, up to eight at a time, or you can press circle to drain the meter to recharge your energy. When you press square to accelerate through zones, you also leave a hexagonal wall behind you that you hope the other ships will crash into. When you press circle, you put up a temporary shield that lets you pass through walls as your energy recharges. Hitting a wall drains your meter and your energy, and losing all your energy means re-spawning and losing some zones. This mode is my least favorite of the three. It's a great idea, but its mechanics aren't quite as tight as the other modes. On normal mode, I found that you just need to hit many speed pads to win, pure and simple. If you don't, you'll loose. If you ever use your meter to recharge your energy or pass through a wall, you'll loose, making the whole mechanic of passing through walls and recharging energy useless. It also means that if you hit a wall or two or miss a few speed pads in the beginning of the race, you'll never catch up. The mode is more fun on the elite difficulty, as the zone goals are higher and you actually can recharge your energy without loosing. You can also catch up if you get a little behind on elite, because the goal is higher and another ship won't just get there before you get a chance to do anything. I know it sounds like I'm down on this mode, but I really do like it and had a lot of fun with it, especially on elite difficulty. I just wish its mechanics were a little tighter. P.S., the ships you use in this mode are gorgeous; black chassis's with clear holographic wings and fins.

     Last but not least is Detonator mode. This is also a zone mode with a twist. In fact, it seems like detonator was designed as a visually and mechanically trippy-er version of normal zone mode, which is wild enough as it is. In detonator, you control an odd little team-branded craft and race through up to 14 laps, each one faster than the last. Scattered around the course are mines and one bomb per lap. You can shoot the mines with your unlimited ammo cannon, but you have to reload every fifteen shots. You can also run over EMP pads to charge up your EMP weapon and then fire it by pressing L1. It is a quake-like weapon that clears all mines in front of you. The more it's charged up, the farther it travels. You score points by destroying mines and bombs, and by chaining together shots without missing. Mines you leave on the field turn black at the end of the lap, and are worth less points from then on. You earn medals by reaching score goals, and the round is over when you ship explodes or if you complete all 14 laps. This is a really great mode. It really seems to stack things in your favor, as your cannon shots hug the track, can blast through multiple mines, and even bounce off of walls, allowing you to shoot around corners (or just spay and pray and hit mines off of ricochets). The EMP lets you wipe out whole sections of mines, and the detonator ship is just as agile as a normal zone craft. You also regain ten energy per lap, allowing you to make up for mistakes. But as the laps progress, both your speed and the total number of mines on the track increase, and it's amazing and wonderful how quickly things turn into a desperate high-speed battle to stay alive long enough to get to the score goal you need for your gold medal. Things can go bad really fast if you hit a couple of mines in a row or a bomb, and as the laps roll on, you start to become very vulnerable in the second or two it takes to reload your cannon. It's also a lot of fun to learn how to get your score up when you're having trouble meeting the score goal. Do you try and be really accurate to gain chain bonuses, or do you try to blast every mine in sight to stop them from becoming black mines on the next lap? I think this mode is so fun because you have to struggle both to not explode and to achieve enough points to get the medal. This mode is also really beautiful. Mines and bombs explode into crazy colors and particles, and when you run out of energy, the camera pans around your ship as it detonates into a million little particles which stay in a sphere shape and then begin to pulse with the music as the score results pop up.

     Speaking of the music, there are a handful of new tracks, and they are all great, as usual. The Wipeout series' licensed techno/dance music is always so perfectly matched with the setting and adds so much to the experience, and these tracks are no different. Not to mention the track that plays during the new title screen and perfectly accompanies the beautiful and hypnotizing new title screen visuals.

     The graphics on the new tracks seem to have taken a small step up, which is amazing, as HD already looked great. There is plenty of eye candy here, and if you're into photo mode like me, there are many more great PS3 wallpaper photos just waiting to be taken (see photo dump at end of article).

      There are a few new trophies included with Fury, and they are generally fun to pursue. They usually challenge you to do something different than you would normally do in one of the three new modes. They are fun, but all of them can be accomplished in just a handful of tries, so if you're looking for a challenge along the lines of Zone Zeus, you unfortunately won't find it here.

       Since I'm reviewing this DLC on its own, as if it is its own game, I'm going to have to put it as a Tier 2 great game. It is really, really awesome, but if you compare it to Wipeout HD on its own, it's not as tight and perfect. However, if you look at the two games as a complete package, which they kind of are, things change a little. Although on its own Fury isn't as good as HD on its own, Fury does add to HD as a complete package. In other words, Wipeout HD with the Fury expansion loaded in is a better game than just Wipeout HD alone. That is a great compliment for a DLC pack. So the two together are definitely a Tier 1 Great Game, no question, and a must have for racing game fans and non-fans alike (I don't play any other racing games, but Wipeout is one of my favorite game series). There is so much to do. With the additions brought by Fury, there are now 8 event types, and 28 course (if you count the reverse courses, which I definitely do as they are often quite different than their forward versions). I've played these games for over 85 hours (without touching online multiplayer) and have loved almost every minute of it.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD PS3 Review

             So I just got my Platinum Trophy in Stranger's Wrath HD, a PSN game. It was a very fun game to play, with its easy to use 1^st person/ 3^rd person hybrid perspective, really great character design, interesting story, and well done combat scenarios. It has a few problems here and there, and some strange game design choices, but overall it is a really great game.

              You play as Stranger, a cowboy dog-man (or something) who is bounty hunting in order to pay for a mysterious surgery that he needs in a wild west world (where all the normal people are chicken-men and all the outlaws are lizard-men). The Stranger (like every other character and creature in the game) is very well designed. If you've played any other Oddworld games you will recognize the crazy and unique creature design and the “feel” of the whole scenario. The characters and situations are an odd mix of goofy, funny, depressing, disturbing, and bizarre. For example, the grubs are a funny looking race of lizard people who talk funny, but their lives are portrayed as kind of hopeless. It's a bizarre motif, and it takes a little while to get used to, but it is excellently executed and lends a very unique flavor to the game.

             The game has a general flow to it. You come into a town, head to the bounty store, take on a mission to bounty an outlaw, and then head to their hideout to take on their gang and finally the big outlaw his or herself in a boss fight. You then head back to town to “get peid” and then take on another bounty. Once the town is out of outlaws, you'll be heading out to the next town and the next set of bounties, all in pursuit of enough moolah to pay for your surgery. Let's take a look at the controls of the game.

              When in 3^rd person mode, cross is jump and double jump, square is used to bounty an incapacitated or dead enemy (sucking them up into Stranger's bag for transport back to town), and triangle is used to “shake-off” damage (an interesting take on the regenerating health bar. When you are holding still, you can press triangle to recharge your health bar while draining your stamina bar, which will then slowly recharge). The left analog stick controls your movement, and the right the camera. L1 makes Stranger perform a spinning punch, and R1 makes him headbutt. In 3^rd person mode, Stranger will run on all fours if you get his speed up by running for a while or running downhill, something he can't do in 1^st person mode. Pressing R3 switches you over to 1^st person mode. The face buttons all do the same thing in this mode, except that circle is now used to manually reload and bounty-ing a foe will force you back into 3^rd person mode. The left and right analog sticks now function like a traditional FPS, with the left controlling where you walk and the right controlling where you look. R1 now fires the ammo you have loaded in the right slot of your crossbow, and L1 fires the ammo in your left slot. R2 and L2 both make you punch. Pressing L3 in 1^st person mode allows you to use your binoculars to look at far away objects and fire your sniping ammo. Pressing the arrow buttons in either mode pauses the game and allows you to select the ammo you want to equip to the right and left sides of the crossbow by moving a cursor over the ammo type and pressing either left or right to equip it. This control scheme sounds a little odd at first, forcing you to constantly switch between the more maneuverable 3^rd person mode and the 1^st person mode where you will be doing all of your shooting, but it is executed beautifully.
                 A while after it came out, Stranger got a patch that enabled Playstation Move control. I just recently tried it over a year after writing the original version of this review. When using move, the button controls are generally the same for jumping, melee, shaking-off, etc. The big difference is that in  3^rd person-mode you constantly control a reticle with the motion controller that moves the camera while you move Stranger with the thumbstick on the navigation controller. This is a little awkward, as it can be hard to hold the camera still. And then, of course, when in 1^st person-mode, you aim with the motion  controller. I only played the game this way for about a ½ hour to test out the controls, and my 1^st impression is that the controls aren't as tight with Move. Aiming would definitely take some getting used to, but I think it would work quite well if you stuck with it. Movement is affected negatively, however, as Stranger doesn't start moving his body until you aim to the left or right quite a bit. This makes his movement feel awkward to me. It may be something that you would get used to if you played the game this way for a few hours, but the game is so smooth on a traditional controller, it's hard to imagine playing the whole thing on move. But, take all that with a grain of salt because I only very briefly tried out the Move controls before deciding I didn't want to keep going. Also, I found that right when I started using Move, my older save data seems to be corrupted. Hopefully this is a coincidence and not some kind of glitch in the patch that added Move support. Luckily, I already have my platinum and don't care about my save files. 

             Your only weapon in the game is the crossbow, but there are several types of ammo for it, and they are all unique. Bounty-ing a dead outlaw (regular or boss) gets you much less money when you cash them in back in town, so the game has a great balance of situations where you try to incapacitate foes without killing them and situations where you need to quickly kill enemies in order to survive. The ammo types reflect this, as there are several lethal varieties, and several non-lethal varieties. For example, there are spiders that you shoot at enemies to wrap them up in webs, and skunks you fire to make enemies puke, allowing you to bounty them without killing them. And then there are exploding bats and stinging bees you can fire at enemies that will kill them. Combine this lethal/ non-lethal mechanic with the “shake-off” damage system mentioned earlier, and you get some intense firefights. You'll be trying to find a way to incapacitate an enemy to get more money all the while also trying to find some cover to hide behind and shake off your damage. You'll be forced to kill enemies instead of incapacitating them sometimes just so you can survive, and other times you will find clever ways to knock them out one by one so that you can get more money. Other ammo types have different effects. The chipmunk ammo lures enemies to the spot it was fired at (and makes wisecracks at you while it sits on the crossbow, waiting to be fired). There is also a furry and mad creature that can be shot at the ground or a wall and will attack enemies that walk by. Most of the ammo types have an upgraded form, which changes their appearance (some hilariously) and their effect. Since all of the ammo types are living creatures, you can catch most of them in the wild. Everywhere you go you will see them flying or crawling around and can shoot them to stun them and then collect them. The ammo types are all balanced and greatly effective when used in the right situations, and you will find yourself using every single one many times and in many combinations to get the job done. The fact that you can equip two different types at once and fire them independently gives you great versatility. It's the icing on the cake to the really dynamic and standout ammo types.

                I also wanted to mentioned the super-fun environment kills you can pull off in the game. There is a lot of deadly stuff laying around in the world, and you can use it to your advantage. There are many explosive barrels to be shot that will blow enemies up. They are placed really well and really add to the experience. There are also many machines you can activate with your electric bug ammo, such as cranes that will drop the rocks they are holding or mills that will crush downward when activated. Using the chipmunk to lure enemies under a crane and then activating it and seeing their bloody gibs fly everywhere is hilarious. You can also punch enemies off high structures and drown them by having a fuzzle trap pull them into the water. Late in the game you get an ammo upgrade that forcibly pulls enemies to where you fire it, allowing you to pull enemies into water to drown or near short-circuiting consoles to get electrocuted. It's a blast, and it really adds to the gameplay. When you approach a group of enemies, you usually try to get some kills using one of these methods before they notice you and a fight breaks out, and during the fight, it's a great thrill to see the enemies walk under a crane or near an explosive barrel and to quickly take them out.

               Sniping is also done really well. You can only hold a few sniper rounds, and they are hard to find, but they are really effective at a really long distance. You almost always hit your target and one-hit-kill them. I thought I'd mention it because I love how the sniping is almost 100% effective but ammo is scarce. It just feels great to almost never miss your sniping shots.

                After a firefight, take a look around you. There will be stingers that the enemies have shot at you everywhere. It's really cool to see the other side of a rock you have been hiding behind and see just how many stingers the enemy has been firing at you. If you get hit by stingers or knives, you will see them stuck in Stranger. Shake the damage off, and the stingers go flying, sticking into objects in the environment. Take out a big boss and go look at their body. There are all the bee stingers you shot at them littering their body. It's the little touches that help make an already great game even greater, and this game has a lot of those little touches. Like previous entries in the series, this game wants you to feel like you are in Oddworld, and you will feel that way.

               The story and dialogue are both good. The dialogue is generally well done and funny, but some of the lines aren't quite as clever as they think they are. But you will laugh plenty during the game. I can't really talk about the story without spoiling it, so either play it for yourself or check out my comments in the spoiler section below for a few additional hints. The talking system is a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. There is a ton of spoken dialogue in the game, from the cutscenes to the random conversations you overhear as you walk around. As you progress through the game, it will seem like there is an unending stream of things you can make Stranger say and overhear people talking about. Pressing square will make Stranger talk. If you aren't around anyone, he will just say what he has to do next. If you are next to someone, he will ask them about his next objective. These conversations are often quite amusing, as are the things you will overhear people talking about. Unfortunately there is a weird problem with talking to people. If someone else starts talking, the person who is currently speaking will stop speaking. So if someone is about to tell you what you need to know and someone else walks up to talk to you and starts talking, the first person will stop talking. This can happen multiple times in a row, meaning you'll have to keep asking people about stuff until you get an uninterrupted answer. This is really annoying, and even cuts off random conversations you are overhearing. The random stuff people say is really funny, and you'll want to hear it, but unfortunately you won't always get to because of this bug. The talking system is cool, and reminiscent of the first Oddworld's, but this problem mars it pretty badly.

               The game certainly has its difficult moments. Some of the boss fights are very hard as you will be facing an army of henchman along with the boss. These lengthy fights can take many tries to complete, but fortunately they are just shy of frustrating. I played the game on normal difficulty and then on hard. It is worth playing again on hard mode. All your mistakes are punished more severely on hard mode, but not to a frustrating extent. It will provide a challenge, but isn't really all that hard if you've already played through the game and are experienced with its systems. I got all of the game's trophies in 2 ½ playthroughs. Most of the trophies aren't really that interesting, with the exception of one that I will talk about in the spoiler section. My rough estimate is that each playthrough took me around 10 hours, but I'm just guessing.

The music and sound effects are all in the good to passable range, but nothing really stands out. The voice acting is above average across the board (although I could do without the small pauses Stranger sometimes takes between words. His acting is good otherwise, but the pause or stutter is a little off at times). Kudos to the voice actor who plays the chipmunk ammo; well done, it's hilarious. There are a few sound effects that are a little grating, such as the blaring neon sound that gets really loud when you are next to some neon signs, and especially the sound of some catapults and missiles, which constantly drone on in the background during a few sequences.

              The HD graphics look really good in this game. Some of the outdoor areas like the Mongo Wilds are really stunning. There are a few graphical hitches, such as some digitized shadows that appear in some views and shadows that are visible through floors and walls, but in general, this is a beautiful game. The game will occasionally hiccup while you are traveling through a tunnel or canyon to a new area, but once you get there it runs perfectly.

            Overall, this is a great game. It has a few flaws, but its solid and well designed combat really make it a great experience. Oddworld is a great franchise, and I hope it continues with a new game (or an HD Munch's Odyssey!) sometime in the near future. It is a Tier 2 Great Game.

Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!

Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!

Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!

Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!

There are a few things I wanted to mention that involve some spoilers for the game. Namely, about halfway through the game the entire tone of the game changes in dramatic fashion. In the first half of the game, you are trying to get money. In the second half of the game, you are out for revenge, and all your money is gone. The theme of the game takes on the more traditional Oddworld theme of nature vs. industry. I spent the first half of the game trying to balance saving money against buying upgrades, only to find out that I did not need any money to complete the game. The game makes you think that you are going to need $20,000 to complete it, but really, you don't. I can't really knock the game for this because the second half of the game is done really well, but its just odd that it throws the whole wild west get-money theme out the window out of nowhere and sets you off on a revenge quest. It would have been cool if you really did need to keep doing bounties until you got all the money you needed. But as I said, the second half of the game is just as well done as the first, so this change in tone is easy to overlook. Also, the one trophy that was pretty cool is the “More Moolah” trophy, which you get for collecting $20,000 before the game's second act. It's a trophy that you get for playing the game the way the game tells you to play it, even though you really don't need to play it that way.

End Spoilers.

End Spoilers.

End Spoilers.