Patchwork Heroes Review

            Like all the portable games I play these days, this one was played almost exclusively during my lunch break at work in a small room with several people staring at me, wondering why a grown man enjoys lunchables and videogames so much. And like Bangai-O Spirits before it, it has become something of an institution for me. I played it almost every week day for like 30-40 minutes for over a month. And in this case, I played it for 30 hours. That's a lot. 

            Patchwork Heroes is a 2d game in which you and a small crew must crawl around on a giant flying airship. Your objective is to saw it to pieces until you get it very small, causing it to crash. You must do this before time runs out and it gets to your village and bombs it HARD. You crawl around on the ship with the analog nub or the arrows. L makes the view zoom out as long as it is held down. You will usually need to switch between this zoomed-out view and the normal view quite frequently to keep an eye on your surroundings. Holding down circle makes you saw. While sawing, you move slowly. If you separate a piece of the ship completely, the smaller part falls away, so ideally you want to chop whatever is left of the ship in half to get rid of the most at once (although this is almost never possible once you get into later levels. I'll explain why soon). The bigger the piece of warship you chop off, the longer the airship will temporarily stall, which freezes the countdown timer. Pressing square makes one of your squad members stay in place with a bomb that will go off in a few seconds (they parachute away as the explosion goes off). This is useful for taking out areas that are reinforced metal, which you can't saw through. However, each member of your squad also acts as a hit point, so you must be aware that you are trading a hit point for an explosion. You can have up to four people on your squad. You usually start a stage with a few and can also rescue others who are trapped in prison cells on the airships.

               Guarding each level are robotic defenses. These range from stationary missile turrets to insect-like robots that chase you. Each robot has a different AI routine. Some chase you down mercilessly. Others move in a set pattern. Others only attack while you are sawing, or when you aren't sawing. There is quite a variety, and there are usually quite a few in each level. You can block enemy attacks by hiding behind a shield by holding R. You can do this indefinitely, but the clock is always ticking... Surprisingly, you can't directly attack enemies. The only way to kill them is to saw them off with the piece of ship they are standing on or  trap them in the blast of a bomb. Killing enemies fills up your mojo meter. If you have any mojo, you can press triangle to activate a mojo attack. While you are in this state, the mojo meter drains rapidly. You run quite fast, sawing as you go, and you can saw through reinforced metal in this state. You are a little hard to steer, though, as you are propelled forward without stopping and have to take big wide turns instead of sharp ones. You can often try to set yourself up for a mojo attack that chops the ship in half, which in turn nets you lots more mojo so you can go and try to repeat the feat. 

             This all might sound somewhat basic. It's easy to understand, but the game really sets itself apart with its incredibly clever level design. Once you get a few levels in, the design of each ship is really, really smart. There are some that are very complex and interlinked in many ways, almost like a little maze. Others seem basic but have different sections connected in multiple little walkways that all need to be cut. Others seem straigh forward until you see the little bits of reinforced metal you have to find a way to deal with. Many also featuring strategically placed enemies that chase down and repair any cuts you make in the ship. Many levels also feature objectives you must complete, such as saving prisoners with time-bombs on them or not chopping off a certain part of the ship, or using timefreeze power-ups and stalls to complete a level with only 5 seconds on the clock. All these levels are quite different from each other, but they are all very efficient at making your task of slicing the ship anything but straightforward. You need a plan in order to chop that thing up in time, especially if you want to rescue all the optional prisoners as well.

            There are many levels. I played all 30 story levels and all 50 challenge mode levels on normal and pro difficulty levels. That's 160 levels played, and I was having a blast all the way to the end. It's quite challenging even on normal mode, and pro mode makes everything move maybe 2-3 times as fast, which is hilarious and makes even basic enemies very deadly. Challenge mode, which gives you alternate win conditions such as winning without sawing, or without bombs, or any number of other conditions, gets really out of control toward the end. It's quite challenging but so engaging that you won't mind re-trying its hardest levels 20 times.

            The game also has a great art design, nice music, and a cool story. The art looks like Russian steam-punk or something. The airships look like giant quilts. The menus are all animated tube screens, mechanical gears and gadgets, and projections. There are also little mechanically animated dolls all over the place in the menus. It's all in nice dull colors. The music is also great. There is a lot of horn and woodwind work that fits perfectly with the visuals and is a nice change as you usually don't hear that kind of stuff featured so prominently in a videogame. The story focuses on a captain in the airship fighting squad named Titori, the missions he and his friends undertake to defend their home town from the airships, and the things that start to come to light about the airships when he meets Asli, a young woman who joins his community and starts to ask him to retrieve airship parts for her while he is out sawing airships. This story starts out pretty strongly, and I had high hopes for it, but it doesn't finish as strongly as I would have liked. It's still pretty solid though, and also adorable.

            The game has a strong sense of theme to it in the way it does many different things. For instance, each time a squad-mate dies, the screen temporarily freezes and their name and age pops up on the screen along with the word “dead.” It's kind of heart breaking, especially since these people end up in a graveyard that you can visit between levels. You can even think of them fondly and place flowers on their graves. The game also encourages you to try and save as many prisoners as possible for moral reasons. Characters say thing like “You wouldn't leave them behind, would you?” Each person you rescue (and there are a few hundred) has a little write-up about them and a unique portrait. You also get a nice sense of progression as each mission earns you pay depending on your performance, and you increase in rank after you get paid a certain amount. Rank increases usually unlock bonuses, like songs to listen to or special cutscenes and even a gallery with 99 wonderful pieces of concept art. Even when you don't earn a rank-up or reward, the game will comment on big accomplishments, such as congratulating you on beating story mode or challenge mode on pro, or completing the game having rescued every prisoner. Unfortunately this is one of those games where you need to have played the game on every difficulty for your save to read 100%. Not a big deal, but it bothers me a little that after playing on the normal and pro difficulties, I would still need to play every stage on easy and hard to get to 100%. I'm not going to do that. I wish beating a stage on pro made it count as if you've beaten it on every difficulty.

            It's hard to think of any flaws in Patchwork Heroes. I'm not sure there really are any. I don't think I'll give it a perfect score, but it certainly flirts with it. It might be there if the story took a little different direction and had a stronger conclusion. The game's simple concept mixed with its smart implementation and scenario design and wonderful aesthetics make it great fun for the long haul. It's a great game, tier 2.

Game Cube Bucket List

     So I made a GameCube bucket list. According to this list, my GameCube may have already kicked the bucket. I'm putting all of these games down as maybes since there is a very good chance I won't, ever fire that thing up again. But hey, I just might.

Chaos field – cool shmup – looks good

Metroid Prime

Odama

Chibi Robo – looks ok

PS3 Bucket List 8/12/14 Update

     So I've changed up my bucket list quite a bit, so I figured I would update it. It now includes PS1 games, since they are playable on PS3. You'll see sprnkling of them them peppered around by genre. I've also removed from the list any games I am positive I don't want to play but were still on there. I've also removed the handful of games I've played since my last update. Finally, they are grouped more accurately in each genre by the amount of interest I have in them. Green means "must play." Yellow means "I might play it or I might not." Red means "There is only the slightest chance I might play it." Blue means that it is a multiplayer only game that I want to play if I find someone to play with or the means to play. I am still very excited to play all of these games over the next few years! Can't wait! Enjoy!

Non – Games

Flow – beautiful non game – disc version with flower and Journey – will flow's dlc still work?

flower

Proteus – explorer non game

noby noby boy

minecraft

Journey

linger in shadows cool interactive art

Undergarden – ecco like exploring

doki doki universe – scribblenauts + personality quizzes? Retro Genesis Collection – Jeremy owns this Tower Defense Sanctum 2 - 1st person tower defense – cool castle storm – td with action parts – looks cool – avoid queen dlc though vector td tower defense mini cool look field runners comet crash TD with offensive component Pixel Junk MonstersPS3 version – tower defense core blaster – puzzley tower defense Defense Technica – generic sci-fi tower defense, can block paths Arkanoid BreakQuest 2 magic orbz Horror lone survivor – 2d pixel horror hysteria project 1 and 2 Siren: blood curse – doesn't look great, little girl level looks cool, see through enemies' eyes Dead Space – 1 &2, 3 has salacious posters, peng Open World Simpsons - looks cool – open world Bionic Commando – if no other cool open world swinging games – not really open world Prototype 2 2d ship shooter sine mora +? Luftrausers – 2d plane fighting, looks awesome astro tripper whos that flying -2d ship shooter flying hamster – 2d ship shooter red star – shooter and beat em up Titan Attacks – space invaders, but looks fun – short though pixeljunk sidescroller pixel junk shooter 1 and 2 jetpack joyride – more like a shooter Einhander – if I can get it cheap G Darius – 2d shooter that looks AMAZING Thunder force V – cool but basic shooter soldner x2 final prototype  if I liked the first Microbot – twin stick with traveling in human body beat hazard – twin stick – uses your music to generate level Ray storm and Ray crisis – shmups with cool locking on mechanic galaga legions DX – more like a twin stick ion assault – twin stick, doesn't look too good sky fighter – 2d dogfighting like rocketbirds parts mini squadron – rocketbirds like 2d Platformer rocket birds Rogue Legacy – looks amazing 2d adventures octopus Guacamelee Thexder neo – 2d transforming robot – cool crescent pale mist – cool 2d sidescroller Klonoa – 2d platformer ghosts and goblins – the old arcade one, looks awesom black knight sword – bloody platformer Wolf fang – 2d mech game, PS1, sprites, fast paced, LOOKS AMAZING! cloudberry kingdom – hardcore platformer gunstar heroes  rocket knight magician lord – Altered Beast like old game Explodemon – MegaMan like guy who explodes pix'n love rush – platformer with retro skins hard corps – contra like heart of darkness – awesome cinematic platformer Scarygirl – the mini looks ok, 2d platformer – ps3 version doesn't look great spelunker hd sound shapes – musical platformer giana sisters – 2d plat mr. driller – fast paced ps1 dig dug super motherload – drilling down 2d Lode Runner – old school puzzle platformer, looks cool – there is a version with 2 games in it Silhouette Mirage! skull monkeys – cool claymation platformer Pixel Junk Eden – look for bundle young thor Megaman 9 and 10 terrover panda craze Tomba – use a walkthrough alien spidy – hard speed runney platformer mutant mudds – 2d platformer Ninjamurai – runner + shinobi tales from space: about a blob – short 2d platformer rushn attack – stealth 2d platformer pow EWJ2 – if I can get it cheap fancy pants – 2d platformer bonk's adventure – old platformer cave man duck tales – platformer castle of illusion – mickey platformer dust force – hard platformer – looks ok derrick deathfin like ecco but a race – looks ok moon diver – strider like Weird Minis idiot squad – sheep follow tiles you lay wackylands boss alien havoc coconut dodge duael invaders – 2 invaders at once, control both floating cloud god Kaleidescope – trippy mini games Hungry Giraffe – like coconut dodge – cool blimp age of hammer wars arcade essentials – to try q bert clone Evolution has asteroids, frogger, and cave gravity flyer paper wars – tank in a corner run ghost run – clone of shooting bubble split games me monstar – monster fighting running around – cool graphics beam em up Speedball – future sports – looks not great normal tanks aero racer Love Cupid – shoot and catch hearts Puzzle platformer the swapper – cool game, make clones, ingenious puzzles like Braid limbo abe's exoddus – abe box? widget's odyssey 1 and 2 – platformer with cutscenes Fez archibald's adventures – cool puzzle platformer Edge – block roller – really cool – puzzle platformer brothers Portal munch's odyssey Thomas was alone – dlc if I like it do not fall – puzzle platformer – fast stealth inc – puzzle plat Magrunner – portal clone w/cthulu themes Vessel – cool puzzle plat – lead creatures around with cool ai Quantum conundrum 2 dlc packs Constant C – gravity and time manipulator Kahoots – puzzle platformer? A-men 1-2 military puzzle platformer Pid – cool puzzle plat revoltin youth puzzle platformer 2/ great soundtrack sideway ny – puzzle platformer Rain – stealth/puzzle Warp – puzzle teleporting – not super great Pallurikio – weird puzzle platformer Swarm – play as tons of blue guys who die, platformer Lemmings – looks ok Snowy – puzzle platformer Valiant Hearts – not that great looking Master Reboot - 1st person puzzle explorer Funky lab rat stick it to the man – puzzle platformer – not great ethan meteor hunter puzzle plat with tele like funky lab rat – doesn't look as good though Strategy Battle Hunter – very cool , very different tactical rpg mecho wars akimi village- non violent rts – short first queen iv – rpg/rts – in japanese, but looks cool battle of tiles – strategy – no info – awesome stormrise rts commanded from troop level – supposed to be bad, but looks cool x com enemy unknown within gene mods screen is salacious planets under attack – galcon labsish Eufloria – like galcon rock of ages – roll rock down a mountain carnage heart – if I like psp version Syndicate Wars – like the small force missions in starcraft – looks ok star hammer tactics – SRPG – maybe greed corp – maybe, primarily multiplayer history egypt – or romance? Supermarket mania – maybe best of these time casual games hello flowerz real time gardening sim romance iv under siege – RTS  Ruse – WWII RTS – cool zoomable map Point and click Secret of Monkey island 1 and 2 (no tales of) – 2d adventure strong bad Machinarium – adventure game another world – cool rotoscoped old game myst Action/adventure Wolverine – looks amazing okabu blood omen soul reaver fly fu pacman dx – fun pac man variant eat them – 3d kaiju destruction – cool Shinobi – ps2 psychonauts demon's souls Entwined – play as 2 things at once flying down tunnel lost planet – no #2, 1 and 3 ok Majin – lead a giant around action – bad voice acting pretty naughty bear – teddy bear manhunt – looks cool fairytail fights – cute/ bloody beatemup – cool de blob 2 – color city, looks very cool Medievil Stardrone – pinball like game – control spaceship indirectly Katamari forever – looks good The Last Guy – weird maze in city game magic carpet pac man ghostly adventures – bad 3d plat Pac man world 25th Floating Runner – very cool big 3d game Grid Runner – cool capture the flag game Machine Hunter – yes! MDK – play it again! Qbert – seems cool Crusader no remorse – cool isometric action game Mini Ninjas – looks fun future cop orc attack – 3d brawler – not good – some cool boss designs Lair – has patch for normal controls Lego Hobbit dead nation age of zombies castle crashers retro cave flyer – like velocity mini game Gravity crash – also like velocity mini game gatling gears – play greed corp first Ico and Shadow HD* Neutopia – zelda clone from back in the day alien crush – old pinball rotastic- weird grappling hook game mystic heroes dynasty warriors esque ps2 game captain america – decent action game DW gundam 3 – crazy long DW stuff  Thor – beat-em up looks cool Firemen 2 – sprite based japan firefighting – looks kinda boring Cursed Crusade – bad looking 3d action Assault rigs – looks cool – drive tanks around quickly, weird graphics and music – looks smooth Irritating Stick – super hard game of maze moving Nanotek Warrior – very cool shooter on circular tubes Steel Reign – tank game with directional shield mechanic. Sounds fun il sturmovik -ww2 flight, nothing special Blazing angels – ww2 flight Hawx – looks ok, has cool 3rd person mode TMNT out of shadows – looks ok Sky dive – squirrell suit simulator – no replay value Driving Fuel – post apocalyptic open world racing driver San Francisco – teleporting split second – over the top racing game, fast and cool full auto – combat racing with cool destructible environments FPS Bioshock Infinite carnivores dinosaur hunter hd - + an ice age mini version sequel alien rage – fps with combos and score – looks cool Jumping Flash – maybe Descent – on disc call of duty – no black ops 2 – try modern warfare Brahma Force – cool fps w/ mech and exploring Hexen – fp stabber – looks cool King's Field – 1 and 2 Fpslashers – dark souls roots, looks cool Turok – cool fps Bioshock Protector trials and challenge rooms Wolfenstein – not new order, just wolfenstein – looks cool jurassic: the hunted – dinosaur fps, looks ok Singularity time travel fps – looks decent Unreal – tourney 3 has single player that is bot matches w/story operation flashpoint red river – methodical fps – red river? Sniper Elite – v2 – same but wwii – better but wwii Condemned 2 – ok 1st person brawler Resistance- 3 sci fi fps's Timeshift – bad fps with time powers Medal of honor warfighter – fps 3-4 hrs – looks ok Cabellas newest – like sniper elite but with animals Painkiller sniper ghost warrior – 2 might be ok if desperate for military fps sniper only Brink - 1st person – best for multiplayer – not good single player Puzzle Vempire – puzzle game voodoo dice – puzzle dice moving, like cube moving game Digitiles – hard math game Auditorium HD enigmo like puzzle game with cool music effects Mad blocker alpha – tetris like with great art Storm – nature puzzler Aqua panic puzzle game I don't understand -which is awesome Cubixx HD – not the mini Deflector – enigmo vibe Intelligent Qube – great – expensive Droplitz – puzzle game Critter crunch puzzle game Lup Salad – block pushing puzzler Angry birds  Germinator/ ms germinator – like bust a move in reverse Super stacker – puzzle stacking 3d twist and match – spin 3d objects – puzzle Chime super deluxe – musical puzzle game Influence – hard puzzle game Mr. Domino – very weird cool puzzle game Circles – puzzle math Runner impossible game – runner one epic game – runner with shooting feisty feet – runner – racing I must run – canabalt with levels that end 3rd Person Shooter the club - 3rd person shooter – run through going fast – looks cool transformers war for  and fall of cybertron Wanted – looks cool, gungrave in slo mo dark void DLC survivor missions Stranglehold – like gungrave Ghostbusters – disc game - 3rd person – looks cool g force - 3rd person shooter/ platformer – looks decent – bad story Fracture - 3rd person – you can lower and raise ground  the bureau – cover shooter Deep Black – underwater sections look cool, rest looks bad splinter cell – try blacklist maybe? ghost recon future soldier – near future 3rd person Fighting Cyberbots – 2d fighter w/robots Kareteka – different fighting RPG Child of Light – flying, rhyming herc's adventures – top down ps1 action rpg – looks great 3d dot heroes labyrinth legends – dungeon crawler Adventure time – boring dugneon hack and slash Dungeon explorer – old action rpg Threads of Fate – looks ok, action rpg Alundra Multiplayer Only Awesomenauts Sportsfriends Ibb and Obb

1000 Tiny Claws Review

   Arr, I be doin' this 'hole review in me best pirate speek!!! Just kidding. It is tempting though.  How do you pronounce this game's title? Is it “One-thousand” Tiny Claws? Or “A Thousand” Tiny Claws? Personally, I've been saying “A Thousand,” but that may just be my South Jersey accent.

     In this game, you play as a sky pirate named Rana. Each level is a small island floating in the sky. You have pulled a cursed sword out of a stone, unleashing a horde of giant insects, and now you must use the sword to defeat the bugs and save the rest of your crew from execution. In order to do that, you must knock 5 waves of bugs off the edge of each island level before they knock you off.

     From an isometric view, you must hit the bugs with your sword toward an edge to knock them off. If they attack you, you get bumped toward the edge. The more something gets hit, be it an enemy or yourself, the further they fly when hit (is this how Smash Brothers works? I've never understood that game). If you get hit just a bit off the edge, you will grab on and have to mash X to pull yourself back up.There are also some cool boss fights that use different mechanics, which I won't discuss too much since they are pretty cool and there are only a handful of them.

     You move with the d-pad, X is swing your sword. Holding down the direction button that corresponds with the way you are facing and mashing X makes you do a stationary combo that finishes with an attack that splashes out to a slightly bigger area than normal (protip- you are invincible during some parts of the animation of this attack). Double tapping a direction makes you run that way, and if you press X while running you will stop and perform a powerful rush attack. When you hit enemies, you build up a sword meter on the side of the screen. If it fills up, you can hold down square to charge up a big attack that kills everything in a 45 degree arc in front of you and a small circle around you. O is block. If you press a direction while blocking, you'll hop around quickly while continuing to block.

     You face many types of bugs, each with unique characteristics. Some are small and try to swarm you at an angle, others are big and shoot fireballs at you. There is one that spawns more basic enemies and one that goes beserk and runs at you when it sees you (and a bunch more unique types). Hitting big bugs a few times usually flips them on their back, where they will stay for a good while. When they are like this, you can hit them across the stage, taking out big swaths of other bugs if they are in the way. There are also crates that drop into the level at set intervals that do the same thing. This makes for cool moments where you can charge right into huge crowds of enemies because you know you are about to flip a big enemy and send it flying through the crowd.

     There are also a few different types of terrain you'll be fighting on. Some places have many obstacles that bugs will bounce off of when hit. Sometimes these obstacles are placed in sections where you would want to hit bugs off the stage, making bugs bounce right back at you rather than leaving. A lot of later levels also feature collapsing terrain that leave holes in the map as the level progresses. The levels get pretty challenging pretty quickly as the game is not afraid to throw very large crowds of bugs at you. You have to concentrate and not make too many mistakes to be successful. There are 25 story mode stages. Each takes just a few minutes to run through, although you will probably need to restart quite a few of them.

     A typical level usually throws a nice mix of enemy types at you. You might be fighting off a big horde of small enemies in one round, then a mix of big and small, then a horde with a few specialists harassing you. For most of the story mode I just used the basic attack, although the post game content will teach you how to use all the other moves efficiently.

     That post-game content includes a challenge mode and a survival mode. Challenge mode features some really cool challenge types, such as a mode where you must kill as many enemies as possible but you start out with very low defense, so you go flying very far if hit, a hyper boss mode, where you fight stronger versions of the game's bosses, and a mode where you must hit enemies through a soccer-like goal. Most of the other challenges are a bit too frustrating to be fun, and even the fun ones have the difficulty cranked up a little too high. I almost gave up several times before finally completing all the challenges. You will learn how to use all of the different attacks and techniques in this mode though as you need to experiment with different strategies to figure out what works best in each challenge. Playing story mode after completing challenge mode is a bit of an eye-opener, as the story mode levels are much easier once you learn more advanced strategies in challenge mode. Survival mode has you facing unlimited bugs until you die. It's fun to play around with for a few minutes, but once I got the in-game trophies related to it, I called it quits.

     Completing these different modes earns you in-game trophies and pages to the ship's log, which is written as a quite funny dialogue between the ship's captain and Rana as they comment on various things about the game. Acutally, about 99% of the game's writing in the short cutscenes, loading screens, and in these unlockable pages is really great and funny.

     Character and sprite design is likewise very well done. The many types of bugs look great, as do the huge bosses and the weird pirates. Like many minis, some of the menus are grainy when played on PS3, but fortunately the actualy levels look good. The music is mostly good. Some of it isn't that memorable. The title screen music is downright grating after the first few times you hear it. Other tracks sound like they are straight out of a Mega Man game which suits the game's action well. The pirate shanty lyrics during the credits are pretty cool too.

      There is something a little off about the game though. It's not quite engaging enough to merit the amount of dedication it takes to beat some of the harder stages. I think there needed to be a few extra moves for your character to do or character progression or some other element to really hold your interest. Instead a lot of levels feel the same as you just mash X to hit bugs. So much in the game is really well done, and my rat's off the developers. But the samey-ness of the levels and the amount of restarts neeeded in these samey levels really drags the experience down. That's why 1000 Tiny Claws is a Mediocre Game, Tier 1.

The Last of Us Grounded Mode Review

            You might remember from my TLOU review that I thought survivor mode could be exploited to make it not so hard. Imagine my surprise and delight when shortly thereafter a new harder mode was announced as DLC.

            In Grounded Mode, The Last of Us has the hard mode it always needed. There is no HUD, so you don't know how much health you have. You also don't have an onscreen indicator for details about your weapons. So you don't know how many hits are left on your melee weapons, what's going on with your shanks, and most importantly, you don't know about your ammo situation. When you switch weapons, you can see how many bullets you have on the inventory screen, but from there you are counting in your head how many shots you have. And of course there is no listen mode.

            Other than that, enemies seem to try to move, hide, and flank you more often. And the checkpoints are sometimes very far apart. I've played certain longer battles for close to a half-hour without an autosave to help me out. And the final scenario in the game has no checkpoint, which is crazy.

            Everything is a tad harder in grounded mode. Runners are almost worse than clickers as they can take you out in an instant if they run up and tackle you and you don't interrupt their animations with bullets or melee attacks. The crazy amount of ammo drops you can generate in survivor mode have been toned down. You can still get ammo by killing enemies when you are low on ammo, especially when you use your last bullet. But it isn't as pronounced as in survivor mode. You will leave some encounters with little to no ammo. The game's loot drop AI makes sure to give you just barely enough supplies to scrape through the current segment without coddling you like it does in survivor mode. And Ellie never gives you anything! Well done.

            Enemies are so deadly in Grounded Mode that you often need to methodically take them all out before trying to get through an area (although there are still a few encounters you can totally bypass by some sneaky sneaking, especially if you throw in a couple of stealth kills or distractions). If you're anything like me, you'll have to adopt some new tactics to get through this mode. In wide open areas, I often had to run from runners and then turn to fire on them since they are so deadly. I also used bricks by the dozens. Throwing them at peoples' heads is essential to survival to the point where if I were Joel I would empty out that backpack and fill it with a dozen bricks. Bricking someone, taking them hostage, and then shooting their friends before killing them is something you do in Hard and Survivor Mode, but you'll be doing it constantly in Grounded. Or just getting someone alone and bricking them when they spot you. Getting the angle on people and sniping them out of nowhere to reduce the amount of dude's you have to face is also very useful. Using the bow to stealth kill from a distance is also more important than ever. Lots of fun to be had and new things to try. And I got through the game's infamously hard (in my book) final encounter by using a “stealth flamethrower” technique, something I never would have thought of it I didn't run out of options. You gotta experiment.

            My disappointment in Survivor mode is now forgotten, replaced by the absolute blast I had with Grounded Mode. I sort of wish I never played Survivor, but I did learn a lot of tactics that applied  very well to Grounded Mode. Learning the hard way in Grounded Mode might have been too much. But maybe not. 16+ hours of too easy Survivor mode is a lot...
            I had some weird trophy things happen on this playthrough. I got a bunch of the trophies for collectibles near the end of the game despite not getting them all in this playthrough. I had a few conversations and jokes not trigger for me this time around when they were supposed to, so I didn't get those trophies. But then when I went back on level select and triggered the jokes I missed, still no trophy. Oh well... I doubt I will re-play the game, so I'm not going to get all the trophies anyway. I still haven't gotten any of the new game + trophies since I'm not into new game + for TLOU (see review).

            Grounded Mode is great. It's a near perfect balance of really hard but doable. A few segments took me many tries to get through (like 20 tries...), making my total playtime a lot longer than my first playthrough. But TLOU's mechanics are so great and shine so well at this level that it was a great experience. I definitely recommend putting a few months between your first TLOU experience and this one, especially if you played the game more than once. Forgetting a bit about the story is key to enjoying it again. This time around I really enjoyed the beginning of the game story-wise, which is odd since I disliked the beginning a lot during my first 2 playthroughs. Tess is a great character and I got some more insight on her this time around. And re-playing again was the perfect warm-up for Left Behind, which I will be playing soon. And I will most definitely be playing it on Grounded Mode. It's a great game, Tier 2.

Dark Void Review

     A review of Dark Void that I recently watched had quite a few negative things to say about the game. I would call it a mediocre to poor review. But all I could think while I was watching it was that the game looked amazing. I love the feeling of disagreeing with a reviewer, of seeing the good in something that others don't like. Sometimes these situations don't pan out, and the reviewer is totally correct. In the case of Dark Void though, my first impression of the game was right. It is awesome. 

     Dark Void is a 3^rd person shooter with some unique elements. The main one is that for the majority of the game you have a fully functional, unlimited-use jet pack and are set looses in massive levels to fight however you want. Amazingly, this angle is pretty fully realized. Many levels are GIGANTIC, requiring you to dogfight your way between key locations. My favorite level has you flying between multiple gigantic flying bases while dog-fighting in a gorgeous waterfall valley. You must raid the bases on foot and then use a combination of on-foot and jetpack movement to navigate massive shafts inside the bases to get to your targets. There are quite a few levels with this kind of great mix of dog-fighting, on-foot combat, and something in between. The fact that you can take off at great speed and fly around freely at any time is great. It's a sense of freedom that I have only felt in a small handful of games. The levels do have limits; flying too far away from the action results in your character turning around automatically. But, within reason, you really can fly up to and walk around on almost anything you can see. This leads to some great moments of exploration and some interesting combat tactics, such as finding sniper nests, or flanking enemy cover by positioning yourself above or behind them.

     The controls for the on-foot sections are the standard cover-based 3PS scheme. The left stick moves you and the right stick aims. Clicking L3 makes you run. The right stick controls where you look. X is jump. Pressing X while in the air lets you boost around at slow speeds with the jetpack for a limited time, after which you will slowly hover back down to earth. Pressing O while hovering cuts the engines. O is melee while you are on your feet (which is extremely powerful, btw. Like, much more powerful than almost every weapon, which is kinda weird). Square snaps you to cover and allows you to do cover-based maneuvers on a contextual basis, such as vaulting over cover or quickly switching over to other nearby cover. Holding L1 makes you take more careful aim, but slows you down to a slow walk. R1 fires your weapon. R2 is manual reload, and L2 makes you throw a grenade wherever you are aiming. I like this grenade throwing system, mainly because it avoids the thing that's present in most shooters where you can throw a grenade with pinpoint accuracy while totally behind cover. In Dark Void you have a lot of control over where the grenade goes, but you have to aim with your normal reticle, so you have to pop out of cover. Pressing any d-pad button will switch you to your other weapon (you can only hold 2 at a time).

     Pressing triangle twice (or once if you are already in the air by jumping or falling) makes you take off with your jetpack. You move at very high speed while flying, so hitting anything is bad and will probably kill you. You may need to work on your take-offs a bit, as I died by crashing into the ground or a nearby object several times immediately after taking off. But after awhile you will be taking off an landing like a pro. You land by pressing X, which snaps you back to hover mode. While flying, you control your movement with the left stick, but the y-axis is now inverted, so you control like a plane (you can change this in the options, but it works well and has a nice feel to it, so I'd encourage you to leave it that way). The right stick controls your rotation, which are far as I can tell is not too useful, but fun to mess around with. Holding triangle makes you fly faster using limited after-burners. While flying, you can't move your reticle around without moving your body, you can only fire straight ahead. R1 fires your twin machine guns. L1 fires your secondary weapon (which is mainly used when you are flying an aircraft, more on that in a second). Holding R2 makes the camera freely movable using the right stick. The d-pad buttons snap the camera to make it look to your left or right or behind you if you hold them down. And holding L2, the most useful of the camera options, makes you look at the nearest enemy without altering your course. Using L2, you can set up some great maneuvers during dog fights with enemy air craft. You might see that they are coming up fast on you and slow yourself down to get them in your reticle. Or you might see that they are above or below you, or to the side, and set yourself up to swing around and get them in your sights. I've had the experience in several games of trying to swing around and get targets in my sights in a 3d space, but oftentimes it doesn't work. In Dark Void, it somehow does work. It just feels right to see where the enemy is and then maneuver them into your sights, making it feel like you are in a real dog fight.

     The controls for barrel rolls and spins and swoops are all controlled by clicking R3 and then moving the analog sticks. Moving them right or left makes you barrel roll, and moving them down or up makes you turn around by either losing or gaining altitude. Moving one up and one down makes you turn around in place in a way only a jet-pack can. All of these maneuvers take up your boost meter, which also drains if you hold triangle to increase your speed. The meter is pretty big and recharges quickly if you stop using it, but if you do run out of boost and try to execute a maneuver, you'll go into an out of control stall.

   Finally, O lets you hijack enemy aircraft if you get close enough to them. You land on them and then resolve a quick-time event that prompts you with button presses. It's quite the spectacle to see you land on an enemey craft, dodge it's guns, force its cockpit open, and wrestle the pilot. If you are successful, you hop into the craft and seemlessly take control of it. These enemy craft (as well as the friendly craft you can land on and take over) control very similarly to the jetpack, but they manuever slightly differently and they have a compliment of high-powered missiles. These missiles have an interesting lock-on mechanic. It seems like if you fire them when an enemy is directly in your reticle (indicated by it turning red), the missile will lock on and follow them. I like this as you don't just automatically lock on, you have to work at it. If the craft gets damaged or you just want to leave, you can jump out by pressing O twice.

     Dark Void's on foot sections are pretty fun. They would be pretty standard if it weren't for the jet-packing you can do to get around the many vertical levels they often have. The enemies are also quite the bullet sponges, which gives the game a nicely different feel than the usual 1 head-shot and you're done play of other shooters. The weapons all also have a nice feel and look to them. There aren't a ton of weapons, but they are all pretty unique. There's an awesome disintegrator that actually disintegrates enemies. There's a cool sniper rifle that always zooms a medium amount when you aim with it and is semi-automatic. This along with its larger than usual clip gives it a different feel than the sniper rifles present in other shooters. These guns also have great upgrades that make them do even more unique stuff, like giving you explosive rounds, or making enemies explode when they die. You get these upgrades by spending points you get for killing enemies. You'll only be able to afford a few upgrades during a game; just enough to upgrade a handful of your favorites. I liked this because when I re-played the game on hard mode, I upgraded the other weapons and had a different experience. There are a few other unique guns as well that do cool stuff. I'll let you see them for yourself.

     There is also this thing called vertical combat where you either jump down to lower platforms or use your jet-pack to rocket between platforms by pressing square when you are lined up, all while taking cover underneath and on top of said platforms as enemies shoot at you. This is really fun as the camera shifts behind you and enemies fall toward you if they are above you or away from you if they are below you. Melee is really cool during these segments as you can throw enemies off of the platforms. Watching enemies fall past you as you shoot them, and watching the inhuman way the robotic enemies flip around the platforms and grip them to get a good angle on you is very entertaining. It's also quite the mind melter to switch between the normal camera and this camera view. It's just another way the jet-pack and the level verticality are fully realized.

     The jet-pack dog-fighting sequences are a lot of fun. It can take some effort to take down enemy fighters, especially if you don't upgrade your jet-pack's weapons. High-jacking a UFO is often a good idea so you can get access to it's missiles. The QTE for high-jacking UFO's is fun and stays fun, but I kind of wish it either was a bit shorter or required a few extra button presses. As it stands, there are certain parts of the QTE where you have to wait for a few seconds, which kind of interrupts the flow of the battle. Still, they are great to look at. Switching between flying your jet-pack, hijacking UFO's, piloting friendly fighters, landing on foot, and having the option to control stationary AA guns in some stages keeps the flying segments fun and interesting.

    The game's visual design is really great. The robotic enemies and their tech are especially impressive. They are sort of like Terminator skeleton robots, but a bit bulkier. They have a great metallic look to them. There are a few organic creatures and enemies that are really well designed as well, including some downright scary lizard-like creatures that spookily slither toward you and some characters with surreal, ever-flowing appendages. The aircraft also look great, from the retro-high-tech look of your allies' planes to the incredible gyroscopic cockpits on the enemy flying saucers. There are a lot of great details and moving parts on all these different characters and items. Very impressive stuff.

    Now for the bad parts. The story is awful. Actually, the story is fine (it's about the Bermuda Triangle, the famous people who have been sucked into it, and the other world that lies below it and the race of beings trying to break through that world to earth). It's the writing and cutscenes that are bad. The story scenes are completely nonsensical, and you leave nearly every one thinking to yourself, “I have no idea what just happened, and I don't care.” Because of the bad writing, the journals you can pick up as collectibles feel like a chore. They are really boring and pointless, so it takes the fun out of collecting them. It's a shame since the basic idea of the story and the character and mechanical design is so inspired. The voice acting isn't half bad either. Fortunately you can get through the game without caring about the story too much, so it doesn't weigh the experience down all that bad.

     There are also a few bad choices in the overall game design. Recharging health makes absolutely no sense, so it really shouldn't be included. It's also kind of hard to know how damaged you are as the screen just blurs a little when your health is low. It plays pretty well with its re-charging health system, but you can waltz through a lot of battles without much overall strategy for the level as you only have to survive to get back to full health before the next conflict. There's also some weird pacing, with a few super-long levels followed by a 5 minute level, things like that. I also noticed that auto-save doesn't really work like the game explains it to you. It tells you that whenever you see a certain symbol on-screen, the game is auto-saving, but it really only saves your progress at certain checkpoints. The game also forces you into new game + mode once you beat it, so in order to play hard mode without my weapons' power already jacked through the roof I had to delete my save game data. The Last of Us and this game really don't get the point of new game +. I want to play hard mode for a challenge, not have it be the same difficulty because I'm starting with uber-guns! Not a big deal though, just delete your save.

     The final bad part is that there is a bad, bad trophy glitch. I've read that many of the game's trophies are glitched and won't pop, but the one I couldn't pop (and many, many others have had problems with it) is the most time consuming trophy that you get for upgrading all of your weapons. It doesn't pop for a lot of people and the only solution the internet offers is to replay the game and farm a lot after deleting your save, a solution which takes about 5 hours. I'm not doing that. No platinum for me. This is a big slap in the face from the developer, especially since I put a lot of work into the platinum only to have the game fail it for me. I'm just hoping that when I get the DLC and the accompanying patch it will magically pop, but I doubt that will happen.

     I know these flaws sound bad, but Dark Void is a really, really fun game. Only a handful of games deliver on the promise of a sense of open freedom. Dark Void's massive levels deliver big time on this concept, maybe more than any game I've ever played. The cherry on top is the great visual design. These two great strengths far outweigh the garbage writing and the other quirky flaws. They push Dark Void up to a Great Game, tier 2.