I’ve been a bit irresponsible when it comes to Dragon’s Dogma. I had my first taste of the game a couple months back while at Captivate 2011. In lieu of there being any Mega Man titles, Dragon’s Dogma was easily my favorite of Capcom’s offerings (and this was still the case at E3). I fully intended to report my impressions on the game back then, but I sort of just… let it fall by the wayside. It would be a travesty to make the same mistake twice, so I’ll now, finally, regale you my impressions along with data I picked up from Captivate.

Dragon’s Dogma is a completely new game from Capcom, which we were told at Captivate has been in development for the past four years. It’s an action adventure title set in a Tolkein-esque world of mythos. I’m not quite clear on the game’s story, but you essentially play as a warrior tasked with hunting down and killing a mysterious dragon with the power to threaten mankind (and naturally, as seen in the trailers, there’s an evil culty guy wanting to use its power). On the other hand, said dragon has a bond with the main protagonist (since it kinda ripped out the main protagonist’s heart), and speaks to him telepathically and gives him tasks to fulfill, hence the name Dragon’s Dogma.

Some have been noted to consider this game Monster Hunter for westerners, or Monster Hunter if it were made by BioWare. To an extent I have a hard time disagreeing. You essentially run around in an open world taking quests and hunting various big monsters like hydras and griffins. You can be joined in adventure by up to three AI controlled heroes called Pawns, and issue them basic commands in battle like “attack” or “fall back.” While not perfect, Pawns can be surprisingly efficient, and in most cases my smothering defeats were due to my Pawns getting wiped out (you can revive them if they’re felled, and vice-versa, but I just wasn’t paying attention).

Another factor that makes it similar to Monster Hunter is that there’s no RPG-style skill system. Every means to improve yourself is based on finding, buying or making new equipment. Even the magic based mage class doesn’t have stats like MP or such; the effectiveness of the spells they use is based on how long they chant its incantation. Thus Dragon’s Dogma becomes a lot more focused on skill and action rather than balancing statistics. Big monsters are also similar in that you have to learn their attack patterns to get an upper hand on them, and certain parts of their bodies are more vulnerable than others. However, there is a system in place unlike Monster Hunter that lets you grab onto virtually and part of the monster and climb around on it, as well as attack it while attached.

There are three classes available. Fighters, who specialize in brute strength. They wield a big sword and shield, but it sounded like they might even have elements of hand to hand or unarmed combat as well. I’m not certain how this would work, but it would be awesome to just punch a griffin in the face. Striders are they light and swift class. They are armed with short swords as well as bows. Mages, as I mentioned above, use magic spells and incantations. While they seem to have offensive ability, they are just as useful in support since they can heal you and imbue your weapons with special attributes in the midst of action.

The game is wrapped in an over-arching story, but as I said it’s open world and you can seemingly follow events at your own pace. You’re free to wander the land, which we were told at Captivate would take roughly an hour to traverse on foot. Events are always taking place; you might come across a town being attacked by a big monster, for example. It’s to your discretion whether you jump in and help or keep on walking. The outcome of your decision may affect later events. There is also a day and night cycle that affects the availability of some events and such. Towns themselves are customizable, although it wasn’t explained how this worked exactly. But the option is available to have a town attract certain classes above others. All NPCs in towns are fully voiced, have their own attributes, and are capable of being potential Pawns. Your own character is also customizable, and even attributes like the weight of his weapons and the length of his legs will have an impact on his performance. However, since the game does have an implicit story in the background, I’m unsure if it will put limitations on character customization (if you can make your character a woman, etc).

The original demo at Captivate had a fight with some orcs, which quickly sprawled into a battle with a griffin. This demo was also available at E3, as well as another that had you surviving an attack from the dragon, making your way through some catacombs and then fighting a chimera-esque beast (which I think they called a Wyrm). Everything is pretty dynamic in what can happen in a battle. Your Pawns can grab onto smaller enemies and hold them down for you to kill, and you can then use their carcasses as bait to attract bigger beasts. The fighter class can launch you into the air to grab onto flying enemies. Mages can imbue your weapons with fire, and then attack a monster will set them aflame. It was pretty impressive to see the griffin get hit with a flaming arrow and come crashing to the ground in a blaze. The big monsters get noticeably deformed and banged up as you assault them.

There are some setbacks. The controls can be a bit cumbersome to get a handle on, as pretty much every button is utilized. Outside of jumping, your main buttons are also used for different attack types, but I found myself usually sticking to just one button. Also like I said, Pawns are pretty helpful but they’re not perfect. Every time a Pawn does some assist move, such as grabs an enemy or prepares a spell to help you, the action slows down and the camera pans over to where the Pawn is. I can understand why they made it do this, but it really pulls you out of what you’re currently doing. Pawns also have a tendency to talk a bit too much and say the same lines over and over. Then they can just sometimes do silly things. In one instance of the griffin battle, the mage kept climbing onto the griffin where he was useless to everyone. Admittedly, I noticed most of these things more from the Captivate build; the E3 build was a bit better. They also gave monsters plenty more health, giving big boss monsters stacked health bars. This was great because the griffin got ridiculously easy to beat at Captivate.

I was also bummed that I couldn’t carve parts off the griffin after killing it, but that’s an aspect I think I’ll have to live with.

The guy I chose to tape here wasn’t quite getting the hang of the demo, so this is not the most exciting footage around.

One of the things I really look forward to in Dragon’s Dogma is its online capabilities. As fun as the game is looking so far, I can see it being many times more fun by replacing the Pawns with your online friends. Capcom has yet to get into details about the online mechanics. While it was announced at Captivate it would make use of online, they wouldn’t reveal anything more than “it will have a twist,” to paraphrase.

Dragon’s Dogma is set to release for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, expected sometime in 2012. I can tell you that I’m definitely looking forward to this one, and if you have a taste for open world action games that are full of depth, I think you should be too.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 was the one real surprise announcement from Nintendo concerning their 3DS hardware. I had some requests from friends to check the game out, but there was one problem: I had never played nor did I know anything about Luigi’s Mansion. Fortunately, the pal I was staying with owned the game, and I gave myself a brief tutorial in it the night before to have a basis for comparison. What new horrors await the timid, second Mario Bro?

Best I can tell, the premise is roughly the same as the original Luigi’s Mansion. Instead of exploring one big mansion in search of Mario, Luigi is now sent to various mansions to gather metaphysical research for Professor E. Gadd, who is hands down the dumbest Mario character ever conceived (yes, even dumber than Waluigi). He’s obviously just written in as an excuse to introduce some kind of technical device the gameplay centers around, and he’s never fit in as a Mario series character in my eyes. Fortunately, he’s been relegated mostly to extraneous games like this, but I still wish they’d stuff him already.

The demonstration level was roughly fifteen minutes, and tasked Luigi with tracking down a brainy ghost that enjoys loitering the mansion’s library. It was a pretty basic level, consisting of only five or six rooms to explore. Stashed around the area were plenty of coins and cash (???) for Luigi to suck up with his vacuum. There were also various surprise stingers, pretty much only frightening to the man in green.

I can’t say I got really involved into the mechanics when playing Luigi’s Mansion, but nevertheless the play control in Luigi’s Mansion 2 feels a bit more streamlined. This perhaps owes to not having to use the Game Cube controller, which I’ve never liked. Rather than turning the flashlight on and off now, it’s always on and you hit A to pulse it and stun a ghost. Vacuuming is handled with the R button, and curiously L will make the vacuum blow. I don’t know that the original Luigi’s Mansion had this feature, and I never found a use for it in the demo. The vacuum can also suck up the ends of curtains and table cloths and the like, and pressing A tugged them off. Moving Luigi’s aim up and down can be handled either with the 3DS’s gyroscope, or by using the X and B buttons. I found both to have their strengths and weaknesses.

Ghost combat also seems unchanged for the most part. You stun the ghosts then whittle down their resistance as you suck them up. The one difference here is occasionally you’ll see the A marker briefly appear while ghost busting. Hitting A while it’s up will give Luigi a boost and knock a few points off of the ghost’s resistance immediately. I still don’t quite understand the mechanic or, I guess more appropriately, the skill for beating ghosts. While wrangling them I’d seemingly get knocked back for no reason and lose some coins. I believe it depends on holding the analog pad away from the direction the ghost is tugging, but I never really got a feel for it.

Although Luigi’s Mansion 2 is definitely more along the lines of an adventure and puzzle game, I couldn’t help but be charmed by Luigi’s characterization and the game’s theme, ridiculous as it is when you really consider it. I’m not usually into this sort of game, but I’m interested in checking out more of it. I think this probably has to do with having no previous experience with it; the same thing occurred with Animal Crossing. Many of my friends bemoaned that Animal Crossing: City Folk rehashed too much content from Animal Crossing: Wild World. However, never having played one previously, I enjoyed City Folk a bit. (And that could change if the 3DS Animal Crossing suffers the same fate.)

Luigi’s Mansion 2 is slated for a 2012 release. The name is still technically temporary, so there’s always a chance it’ll end up being called Luigi’s Mansion 2: Electric Boogaloo.

In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Lynne dies. Oops, did I spoil it for you? In truth, I spoiled nothing. Lynne has to die. If she didn’t, there would be no way to progress the storyline. That’s really how Ghost Trick rolls: death is only the first piece of the puzzle.

This latest adventure title from Capcom’s Shu Takumi is the first to come completely separate from the well known Ace Attorney series, and not only features a new world with unique characters and story, but an entirely different gameplay system as well. Nevertheless, logic and problem solving are still key in this quest to avert fate.

In Ghost Trick you play as Sissel, or rather his departed soul. Awakening from unconsciousness, Sissel’s spirit is presented with a scene in a junk yard. A hitman is pointing a shotgun at a young woman, and his own corpse is lying in between them. Unfortunately, Sissel lacks all memory of the man he used to be, and why he was killed. Initially, Sissel only cares about recovering his memory, but another enigmatic spirit persuades him to help the woman using his “ghost tricks.” She’d be the first lead in figuring out his own truth. But there’s a problem: Sissel only has until dawn before his spirit disappears forever.

The above mentioned “ghost tricks” are the key to unraveling Sissel’s story. Various objects in the environment have “cores” that Sissel can latch onto, and the player can guide Sissel to them with the touch screen (and while the game is heavily touch screen focused, you can actually play it entirely using the buttons as well, if you prefer). Sissel’s soul can only extend so far, though. Certain items Sissel inhabits can then be manipulated. If he inhabits an umbrella, for example, he can make it open and close. Additionally, Sissel can move across phone lines to any other location, so long as a phone call is made from there, which becomes his primary means of getting about.

But Sissel’s most prominent ability is to inhabit dead bodies, which will come up pretty frequently in the storyline. This allows Sissel to use his greatest power: traveling back in time four minutes before the person died. When he does this, not only is he able to watch how the person’s final moments played out, but he can also manipulate objects during the time to change their fate, and prevent them from dying.

"The afterlife you always dreamed of."

While Ghost Trick has different mechanics than the Ace Attorney games, it has a somewhat similar structure. The game is divided up into real time segments, which sum up to an investigation mode of sorts. For the most part, though, you’re just trying to figure out how to manipulate the right objects to get to where you want to go. Also, you gain the ability to speak to people whose lives you save and interrogate them. This just fleshes out the story, though. You won’t have to be taking this information to court.

Then there are the segments where you’re trying to avert someone’s fate, which are akin to Ace Attorney’s court room sessions. Here, you must manipulate objects to prevent whatever happenstance causes the person to be killed. Watching the replay of the victim’s last moments, and seeing what items get interacted with, give you a good idea what to do.

The trick is, while you’re in the Ghost World (which is where Sissel moves from object to object) time stops, but outside of this events continue in real time. And it’s not enough just to manipulate objects. Sometimes you will need to wait for people to affect objects or the environment before you can proceed. This occasionally means you only have a small window to affect a proper change. And as time draws nearer to death, the music intensifies, much like when you press a witness closer and closer to cracking in Ace Attorney.

The puzzles get more tricky as the game rolls on, and in some cases there are intentional dead ends if you miss a cue or don’t manipulate an object at the right time. This may make the game seem pretty frustrating, but the truth is you can’t lose. If you get something wrong, you can rewind time again and again until you get it right. Even if you end up letting a person die, it just prompts you to start over without penalty. Additionally, often you can alter a person’s fate before averting it entirely, and these act as new restart points.

On top of that, there are thought bubbles you can press for hints, and the game is pretty good at signaling when you’ve worked yourself into a corner. To be honest, it’s better to start out just playing with objects and seeing what they do before concerning yourself with solving the puzzle right away. It will save you some pulled hair.

"I hope the accident was somehow chicken related then."

Another thing that helps keep Ghost Trick fun and fresh is its amazing presentation. The game uses 3D models that are entirely unshaded, and the perspective is always on a 2D plane, giving the game the appearance of a very smoothly animated cartoon. And it’s really the intricacies and details of the animation that give the characters so much life. Seriously, it takes pretty amazing effort for a game to impress me on the aesthetics. The music is also fantastic. It’s both jazzy and electronic, and works very well at setting the mood for scenes.

Of course, a fine story is also necessary for Ghost Trick to work, and I don’t think it disappoints here either. Granted, if you’re looking for something dark and somber in a mystery story, Ghost Trick might disappoint since it features the same lightheartedness and Japanese-style humor the Ace Attorney games are known for. I think this actually helps keep the story flowing and enjoyable since it largely focuses on death, which is not an easy topic to make fun. Nevertheless, the game does have its sad moments as you start learning how other people are connected to Sissel, and their own hardships. Aside from some nitpicks, and a few parts I thought were lame, I really enjoyed the story of Ghost Trick.

I also like how the story is divided up. It’s contained in 18 decent sized chapters, as opposed to Ace Attorney’s four to five enormous cases. And while those cases are broken into smaller segments, Ghost Trick’s chapters bring about an easier means of jumping back and replaying specific points of the story, if you so desire.

By and large, Ghost Trick is a fun mystery-themed adventure game. I’d certainly recommend it to any Ace Attorney fan, and I’d also say it should suit any fan of story-based adventure games who might find Ghost Trick’s features something off the beaten path. I can’t say I’ve ever played another game that offers the same experience as this.

This review is based on a copy of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective purchased by the reviewer.

"When in Rome, do as the assassins do."

What’s this? Crotchety old schooler Adam is reviewing a modern, immersive, narrative-driven game!? After all that stuff he’s said about old games being so much better!? What’s the world coming to!?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I know this is quite a shock to you all. I am outed. Much in the same way a Halo and God of War loving self-proclamated hardcore would be sheepish to admit he likes Pokémon, I must confess that Assassin’s Creed is one of my guilty pleasures.

Okay, so it’s not like I’m actually embarrassed about it or anything. And as much as I’d love to review something like Donkey Kong Country Returns, truth be told I was looking forward to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for some time (or AssCreBro as we’ve come to call it around the WingDamage HQ).

So how does it stack up?

Some people have dubbed this game Assassin’s Creed 2.5 and honestly, such a label is neither untrue nor unkind (well, depending on how you feel about Assassin’s Creed 2). Despite the new locale and other new assets, you will pretty much feel like you’re playing Assassin’s Creed 2. Storyline-wise, the game even picks up at the exact moment Assassin’s Creed 2 left off. Soon Monteriggioni falls under siege, and Ezio travels to Rome, which is under the oppression of the Borgia family. Ezio will have to fight to free Rome from the tyranny of his new nemesis, Cesare Borgia, as well as retrieve the Apple that was stolen from him. In the present, Desmond replays these memories with the prospect of further improving his assassin’s skills and locating the Apple in the present day.

Rome is by far the biggest parkour playground featured in any Assassin’s Creed game, and is boasted as such. However, it’s also the only one. Some side missions will take you to other regions, but they’re much smaller and more linear in design. For that reason, Rome features a gamut of terrain types, including large, bustling city blocks, smaller scatters villages, and rural expanses. In a sense it feels like they took all the locations from Assassin’s Creed 2 and rolled them up into a single, huge stage.

"No one seems to like you when you're an assassin."

One of the game’s primary features is freeing Rome from oppression and restoring it, which in turn supports your own crusade. This is carried out by taking down Borgia towers, of which there are ten. Each one carries influence over a certain area of Rome. You must infiltrate them, assassinate the commander in charge, and then burn down the tower.

Once you free the area, you can start opening shops and buying landmarks there, which in turn provides you with continual income. Each tower has a difficulty rating based on its layout, and also two types of commanders: those who stay and fight, and those who try to flee if they catch wind of you. Truth be told, though, they’re not terribly tough if you recon enough, and I managed to take down a four star tower pretty early in the game. The only real “loss” is if the captain manages to escape, in which case you need to wait an in-game day for him to return.

Other ways of effecting change, and padding your pockets, include paying to have aqueducts repaired, opening up underground tunnels for fast travel, and establishing factions for the mercenaries, courtesans and thieves. What’s more, while the initial game objectives will have you do these things just to get a taste for them, for the most part you’re free to tackle them at your own pace. You can use your money to open up new shops as soon as you get it, or buy up weapons and artwork instead. You can try to take down as many of the Borgia towers as possible right away, or not take down any. You can do as much or as little as you want as you see fit.

Besides all this, there are a number of other side quests to distract you from fulfilling the main objectives, including assassination contracts, helping courtesans, hunting down Templars and reliving Ezio’s heartbreaks. Oh, and collecting flags.

Then of course there’s the brotherhood; the titular feature to the game. As the story progresses, Ezio decides to form and train a brotherhood of assassins. You will find citizen recruits being hassled by the guards (an event reminiscent of citizen rescues from the original Assassin’s Creed), and rescuing them will bring them to your ranks. You can find three to start with, and add an additional recruit with every Borgia tower you bring down.

Once you have them, it’s your job to train them. This is accomplished by sending them on missions all across the continent to level them up. A rate of success is determined by the difficulty of the mission, the number of assassins you send and how skilled they are. Leveling them up allows you to improve their weapons and armor. Truth be told, despite “Brotherhood” finding its way into the game’s title, you can’t really ineract with them and they have extremely little bearing on the story. They are little more than your personal hit squad.

"You guys got this? Ok, cool. I'm gonna take five."

And man, what a job they do. Target any unfortunate guard, hit the left bumper, and your crew will fly in and go to town. Early on, I accidentally called a newbie assassin trying to target a guard. I figured he was done for and rushed in to save him, but he felled the guard before I could get there. In fact, once you have six assassins at the ready, you can hold the left bumper to summon an “arrow storm.” And that’s really what it is: arrows will fly in from seemingly nowhere and kill every guard in your vicinity. There was one mission where I was required to assassinate my target while sitting down to get full synchronization from the mission. However, a gaurd was standing right in front of me. I figured I’d target him and summon an arrow to take him out quietly, rather than have an assassin jump in and cause a commotion. Instead, every enemy was slayed, including my target, who I didn’t even see at the time. The mission ended.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Ezio doesn’t have to get his hands dirty. While the game does open with a typical “you lose all your stuff” bit, you still do get to hang onto your hidden blade, which has the poison tip and the pistol. From there you can get new weapons and armaments from shops. You can also meet Leonardo for special missions to get new equipment from him. There are a few new weapons, including the devastating crossbow. It’s every bit as deadly and accurate as the pistol, but you can carry much more ammunition with it.

Combat has also changed a little. In order to move fighting away from the counter-attack waiting game, and to allow for much more threatening enemies, the combat now has a “first strike” system. Simply put, whenever you kill someone, you can immediately target someone else and immediately execute them before letting them get a move in. If your timing is good, you can chain this action and take down huge groups of enemies in no time. This is useful especially for getting the jump on larger, heavily armored guards who you can’t counter-attack.

"For someone who commands fear and respect, this seat is terrible!"

Truthfully though, not much else has changed. The core gameplay, the enemy AI, and even a bit of the music and soundbites are all the same from Assassin’s Creed 2. It also still has the same, somewhat unrefined control system, where your player character doesn’t always jump the way you command him (and usually plummets to his death as a result). To consider the singleplayer alone, it is a smaller game as well, even with the huge amount of optional side missions. I know to overlook multiplayer is missing out on one of the major elements of the title, and the way they formulated it sounds pretty unique, but it’s not something that grabs me so far.

So as a continuation of the storyline, it reaches the same great standard the series is now known for, but there’s just less of it. On the other hand, they truly went all out with the story. While it is a shorter adventure, it doesn’t mean what happens doesn’t matter. I am pretty sure playing the next major Assassin’s Creed installment without following the events of this title would lead to some confusion. That is definitely something to keep in mind when you weigh the value of this title. Overall, if you enjoyed Assassin’s Creed 2 and want to keep up with the story, Brotherhood will probably come through for you. Otherwise, unless you’re really dying for some new online multiplayer gameplay, I wouldn’t recommend jumping into the series here.

This review is based on a copy of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood purchased by the reviewer.

Games can grip you for many reasons; good stories and characters, interesting gameplay, or a fun setting to name just a few. With their independent title, Machinarium, Amanita Design has combined a point and click adventure game with traditional puzzles and an entertaining story of lost love and robots.

Machinarium uses a very unique visual style of very detailed hand-drawn,  sprites and backgrounds. They have created an interesting world made of robots and mechanical devices that is bursting with personality.

I first saw Machinarium in action at PAX. At a quick glance, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I thought it was some kind of still screen or digital storybook page. I was intrigued when I finally saw the characters in motion. In some adventure games, the characters and backgrounds stand out from each other. They end up looking like they are from two different artists whose styles don’t mesh. This is definitely not the case here. It is obvious that a lot of time was put into the creation of all the game’s assets to make sure everything fit in.

Machinarium has no dialogue. The story is conveyed through character action and occasionally through talk bubbles that contain animated sequences. You play as a small robot who finds himself in a junkyard. He has been taken away from the house where he happily works alongside his girl robot counterpart. There is a gang of three ruffian-bots that have been causing trouble throughout the city, and it’s up to you to stop them and rescue your friend.

The basic gameplay is a point and click adventure. The twist is that you can only interact with objects within your reach. Fortunately, the robot’s mid-section can be stretched out to make him twice as tall, or scrunched down to get to hard to reach places.

In most instances, everything you need to solve the puzzle is either on the same screen or nearby. It’s really just a matter of using your wits to put the pieces together. There are also several traditional puzzles and brain teasers that must be solved to progress. One sequence even has you playing through parodies of some retro games like Space Invaders and Adventure to progress.

There is a built-in hint system in case you get stuck, which has two parts. The first part is a thought bubble at the top of the screen. Once per area, you can click on it to show you what needs to be accomplished to progress, but not how to accomplish it.

If you are still stuck, part two is a sealed book, which requires you to play through a very basic Shoot ‘em up (shmup) mini-game to unlock. If you make it to the end, it shows you step-by-step how to solve the room you are currently in. Take notes, because you have to play the mini-game each time you want to look at it.

Machinarium is a game I can highly recommend. The puzzles are fun and challenging, but have enough logic to keep you from banging your head on the keyboard in frustration. The world and the characters are very charming. The high level of detail in the game’s artwork really adds a lot to the experience. When I think of games that have stories and characters that will stick with me, Machinarium rises high on my list.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Cross-platform games are nothing new, but looking back at Flashback: The Quest For Identity is a little ridiculous. While originally for the Amiga, Flashback has appeared on everything from DOS to the Sega CD. I played the version for the Super Nintendo, as it was my main gaming console of the era, so that is the version I played for review.

Flashback was developed by Delphine Software International, the same people behind the similar (though graphically simpler) title, Another World.

Flashback opens with a cinematic (rare for us non-PC gamers of the era) showing our hero and agent for the “Galaxia Bureau of Investigation”, Conrad B. Hart, being chased by laser fire and eventually shot down off his space bike into the jungle.

"What'd I laser last night?"

When most people think of Flashback, they think of the iconic first level in a strange alien jungle. There is good reason for this. Not only does the level look fantastic and have a memorable art style, but the game is really difficult. My theory is that most players back in the day never made it past the first level. I’ve talked to several people who spoke as if the entire game took place there.

After making your way through the jungle of Titan, Conrad buys a gravity belt from a crazy old man which he uses to jump down a giant hole that leads to the first city you come across in the game, New Washington.

"Thanks, crazy old man!"

Once you find your friend, Ian (spoke of in a holo-recorder you find in the jungle), you get your memories back, and learn of an alien plot to destroy mankind. Apparently shape-shifters are disguised as high ranking officials and want to wipe out Earth for some reason.

You make your way back to Earth by participating in a “Running Man” style game show called “Cyber Tower” (originally called “Death Tower”, but the big N was still censoring this sort of thing). After arriving on Earth, Conrad discovers more of the alien plot and hitches a ride to the alien home planet to put a stop to their shenanigans.

"These guys must be "Bladerunner" fans"

After navigating the alien home world and fighting off a ton of shape-shifters and other strange creatures, you end up finding an injured man who was also trying to stop them. He gives you some explosives, which you then go on to use to kill the aliens and save the day.

Why Did I Pick This Game?

When I first rented Flashback in the early 90′s, I was blown away by the quality of the animation. It was the same thing that happened when I had played Prince of Persia and Out of This World (aka Another World). They all used the rotoscoping technique of drawing over video footage to get the highly smooth look.

What appealed to me most was the adventure game and platforming/exploration elements. This is one of those games I loved as a kid, but was never able to finish.

In fact on this play-through, I discovered what I thought was the last level was actually next to last. I will admit right now that at the time of this writing, I was still unable to finish the game. It gets that hard by the end.

How Does It Hold Up With Time?

While the cut scenes look very dated, the sprite work still holds up and the rotoscope animation looks fantastic. The controls are a little hard to pick back up. I spent the first ten minutes just trying to remember how to do everything. Playing through is a bit of a commitment, and not meant for a casual player. Save points are few and far between.

It has a lot of elements reminiscent of point and click adventure games. You’ll find items hidden on one screen that are used to open a door or solve a puzzle on another. These and the exploration elements are what make me still enjoy this game. The combat, however, is a lot harder than I remember. I was constantly getting killed once I was fighting space cops with jetpacks and shields, not to mention the shape shifting aliens.

If you are looking for a tough game with a lot of character, Flashback may be right up your alley.

Hey WingerDamagees. (Is there a good phrase for the readers of this site yet?) This is MrColinP, taking a quick reprieve from my temporary Wing Damage exile to let you know about a series of LucasArts themed illustrations that I just completed for the great LucasArts and post-LucasArts centered news site MixnMojo.com. It’s been a dang eventful and joyous few months for MixnMojo and the fans of what they cover, what with the new Monkey Islands, the imminent arrival of Brutal Legend, the comparatively quiet release of A Vampyre Story and the just previewed DeathSpank.

MixnMojo is running a series of retrospectives on each of the classic LucasArts adventure games and were nice enough to let me do illustrations for three of them. Three of the best ones, actually. Links below the break.

There are two links for each illustration. One for my blog entry on that illustration, and one to the article it was created for where you can view the illustration itself.

Day of the Tentacle:
My blog entry
MixnMojo article

Full Throttle:
My blog entry
MixnMojo article

Grim Fandango:
My blog entry (including lots of way cool wallpapers!)
MixnMojo article

Cool! Which is your favorite Wind Gamagers?

“Can I have that bucket?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s there.”

“Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay”, the second episode in Telltales new Monkey Island episodic series, picks up immediately where the first game left off. While most Telltale episodic games can be played out of order without leaving the player completely lost, this is not the case with Tales. These episodes are written along the lines of old movie serials.

The first game left off with a cliffhanger that put Guybrush in a tight spot. This one picks things right up from there, starting with a sword fight. Rather than the insult sword fighting of the older games, this one has you solving a puzzle during your duel.

"And I've got a TIP for you. Get the POINT?"

The game controls exactly like episode one. You point and click to interact with objects, but move Guybrush with either the “WASD” controls or by dragging the mouse. You can also run when moving with the mouse by holding down the right click. This feels incredibly awkward, but the increased walk speed is worth it. I am still of the opinion that the old point and click interface works best, especially since you are already using it for a majority of the game.

Once again, the writing is top notch. From start to finish, the game provided plenty of laughs. Now that I have finished the original Monkey Island (and Special Edition), I can see that they are really building off of the existing MI universe in these new episodes.

The voice actors also turned in great performances. Since this one allows Guybrush and Elaine the chance to interact more, you get a much better feel for the characters and their relationship. The secondary characters are off the wall, as you would expect, and the actors do a great job bringing the universe to life.

"Two Unsavory Pirates"

Without giving away any spoilers, I have to say my favorite parts of this episode were the interactions between Guybrush and LeChuck. I’ll leave it at that, because I really don’t want to spoil anything.

They also mix up the locations more in this one, as you go island hoping between several tiny islands to solve many of the puzzles. While it did make the game feel a little bigger moving from island to island, this was counterbalanced by the fact that most of the islands are very tiny; so tiny that the screen barely has to scroll over for you to have walked across the whole thing.

Like the first episode, the majority of the puzzles made enough logical sense, at least within the game universe’s twisted logic, that you can get through this episode in just a few hours. If you do get stuck there is, once again, a built-in tip system to help you out. If you aren’t progressing, Guybrush will randomly say helpful things to clue you in on the next puzzle.

“The Siege of Spinner Cay” is a nice continuation of the story and I am looking forward to the twists and turns they take us through in episode three.

You can get the entire season of “Tales of Monkey Island” from Telltale’s official site.

This review is based on the PC version of Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay provided to us by Telltale.

"Here There Be Monkeys"

Can I first start by saying, seeing the Lucasarts logo at the front of an adventure game again really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling? Because it did.

Now it is time to come clean. While I love Lucasarts’ classic adventure games, pirates, and comedies, I have never actually played a Monkey Island game. This gave me a unique perspective going in to the new “Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal”, the first in a new episodic series from Telltale games.

In a way I’m glad, as the game did not have to live up to some high bar it’s predecessors have set for many gamers. I have played several of the Telltale adventure games already, so there is the second bar, another high one, that I’m sure many will be judging this game by.

You will be happy to note that the game lives up to the hype you may have built up for yourself. In that I mean, it is a clever point and click adventure game that is laugh-out-loud funny.

The basic plot is that LeChuck is at it again, this time trying to use some crazy monkey based voodoo to bind the seven seas to his will. You, once again taking on the roll of Guybrush Threepwood, are attempting to stop LeChuck and save your wife Elaine when things go horribly wrong.

This kicks off the start of what is to be a larger story that spans all five episodes of this new series. After this initial encounter, Guybrush is stranded on the mysterious island of Flatsom. Here all the winds are blowing inward toward the island, making it impossible for ships to leave. His hand has also been cursed, so he’s got that going on too. The story is well presented, the characters are charming, and as mentioned above, it had me laughing hard for most of the game.

The play control is a little different than I was expecting. In most point and click adventure games, you click where you want your character to move and they do it. Here that mechanic only applies if you are clicking on something you want Guybrush to interact with. To walk, you have to use the good old “WASD” or you can hold the left click and drag him around. It is a little strange at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

Being an episodic game, it is fairly short. I was able to get through it in just a few hours. The difficulty curve was a little lower than I was expecting. This is either because they wanted to ease people into this new adventure or that after playing many of the other Telltale games, I have started getting into the mindset of how their puzzles work.

There is a built in hint system, like most of their games, where the character will say things to give you clues as to what to do next. You can adjust this higher if you find yourself getting stuck. The folks at Telltale seem to want you to enjoy the game and not get frustrated and quit like what would often happen in old-school adventure games. I think they have struck a pretty good balance with this one.

There isn’t a lot more I can say without spoiling the plot or the puzzles, so I’m going to cut this review a little short. I would definitely recommend this to fans of adventure games, comedies, or pirates. If you are new to the genre, this game will ease you in and make you smile while it’s at it. If you are veteran, there are some references thrown in just for you.

Personally, I can’t wait for the second episode.

This review is based on the PC version of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal provided to us by Telltale.

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

For me, playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the PSP was a lot like coming home.  Unfortunately, it was a lot like coming home to find out that your bedroom has been converted into your parents gymnasium.

When I was 12 or so, my uncle gave me a Playstation and three games: Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider 2 and Test Drive: Offroad. I think to date, I’ve finished the first two Tomb Raider games at least six times. So when I picked up Anniversary on sale for the PSP, all I could imagine was pure win. And truth be told, there are a lot of really amazing things about this game. The graphics are beautiful, the sound is clear and I never cease to be amazed at how clean everything looks, even on a hand-held.

For those unfamiliar with the series, my first question is: Where have you been for the last ten years? The adventurer Lara Croft has been an icon of the gaming industry for a long time; her long, dark braid, red glasses and unrealistic physical proportions are recognizable to just about anyone who didn’t start their gaming career with an XBox.

The series’ recognition has declined in recent years, first due to the vomit-inducing “Angel of Darkness” installment, and then a licensing battle which put it on the back shelf for a while. Only very recently has a brand new Tomb Raider game (Underworld) been released.

Tomb Raider is an action platformer in the most classic sense. As Lara, you explore tombs, pyramids and a variety of other environments, many requiring puzzle solving and working out how to get to Point B from Point A using a clever combination of running, jumping, grabbing onto a ledge and shimmying around the head of a Sphinx.

Pretty awesome, right? Anniversary is a remake of the original Tomb Raider, but it is more than just a “prettification” of the graphics.  Lara’s house is now much more interactive as a kind of mini-game and there are entirely new moves Lara can perform that weren’t possible with the original game. The transition from controller to PSP is fairly fluid, for the most part. Though it took me a bit longer to figure out what the D-pad was for (it is used for sniping, using items, etc.) than I would have liked.

The instant I worked out my first puzzle, I was so thrilled, all the nostalgic memories and joy I got out of playing the game was right there at my fingertips. As such, I would definitely say anyone who loved the original series should give this a shot, but with a very strong disclaimer.

For a game that is very dependent on timed jumps done at the right angle…the camera is less than ideal, and the controls are quite clunky. As someone accustomed to the original controls, I attempted to walk up to a ledge, tap backwards and then make a running leap to what appeared to be the ledge I needed to reach. Several factors got in the way of this being successful.

First, to “walk” you’re supposed to gently push the toggle stick, but on the PSP, it is really difficult to find the right amount of pressure. So instead, Lara runs off the end of the ledge she’s on and I have to try again. Luckily, an addition to this game is that she turns and grabs the ledge so she doesn’t crunch like a ragdoll.

Secondly, there is no ‘tap backwards to hop back’, so the entire rhythm is thrown off.

Third, the camera pans, zooms and holds at extremely awkward places, making it difficult to always know where and when to jump. Climbing up boxes and ledges takes much longer than it should because it’s so easy to get turned around and then be forced to stop and re-approach. While not a deal breaker, it DOES slow down gameplay.

Finally, there is the problem that is dark environments. Mixed with a frequently glaring screen, added to a not perfectly rendered depth-issue, which leads to Lara running, leaping and grabbing… nothing, because what I was reaching for was much farther away than I thought.

Despite these gameplay set backs, Tomb Raider: Anniversary is extremely fun. The puzzles are challenging but not so difficult as to be truly frustrating, and the acrobatic feats Lara performs makes you feel like you “pwn” at life. Once you’ve picked up the groove and worked around the camera and controls, the game really picks up, and for the most part, the benefits and fun of playing outweighs the difficulty and frustration.

All of this is to say: Tomb Raider is emerging again as a successful, fan-making series and in many ways, this reboot does justice to the spirit of what got us all hooked on it to begin with. Although new players may be put off by the awkward controls and camera issues, I would strongly suggest long-time fans to pick it up and give it a shot, because it will bring new hours of fun at the same time taking you back to “the good, ol’ days”.