Looking at: Goat Simulator

Broken Masterpiece

Despite how it's built, it is possible to break the game.

Goat Sim is something of a hard game to discuss, much less review. When a game advertises itself as being a broken, barely playable game, but then does that to the perfect degree is it still a broken game? Can something that's meant to be terrible still be good if it's good at being terrible.

It's odd that I'm putting this much though into a game about being a goat.

In a way though, that's what Goat Sim is, a game with ideas that are more far-reaching then it's own initial impression. It's a really, really, really stupid game with some really smart ideas and commentaries to provide about modern games. It's a parody that's smarter then it looks, even if it doesn't realize it.

G.O.A.T Goat

There's also an MMO parody included, for some reason.

So what is Goat Sim about? Obviously it's about being a goat and doing goat things. Provided, of course, that your idea of "goat things" include wanton destruction of property, a complete disregard for physics, wholesale slaughter of small European towns, and the occasional demonic sacrifice and satanic ascension. That's just a small slice of the weirdness that awaits in Goat Sim, never mind the World of Warcraft inspired fantasy DLC that adds quests and an inventory system. It's a parody through and through, although a parody of what exactly I'm not really sure.

Gameplay-wise Goat Sim is bizarrely similar to the Tony Hawk games of old, but with a bigger focus of senseless destruction and less on sweet 720 kickflips. You control the goat of your choice as you wander around the open levels, looking for secrets, collecting trophies and combo-ing together your swathe of destruction to complete objectives. It's fun enough singleplayer, but the game really thrives with a few friends and your madness is spread in a wider arch with more people.

Backassward

Flying through the air will constitute most of the game.

Where some games pride themselves on their advanced physics, Goat Sim seems to laud how horrible and broken the physics are. Goat Sim is built on the Unreal engine, and apparently was slapped together out of pre-made assets and whatever was lying around. While the Unreal engine itself is decent, it does have some odd tendencies when it comes to how it renders physics, and it's here that Goat Sim finds itself a niche.

Goat Sim is a broken game that's been sealed up and resold as a broken game. The Steam page advertises that it's full of bugs, and true enough things in Goat Sim often seem completely removed from any basis in reality. It's important to remember, however, that Goat Sim isn't an unplayable game, and is actually quite stable. All of the bugs are internal and sort of personify that old joke of "it's not a bug, it's a feature"

Baaaahd

Crowds of horrified people constitute the rest of the game.

Like I said, it's incredibly difficult to actually critique Goat Sim because it invites you to hate it. It's a game that covers itself in crappy makeup then asks you to call it a psychopath. In an age where the validity of game reviews is constantly being called into question, Goat Sim rises above because it doesn't care what the reviews have to say about it.

Goat Sim isn't that great of a game, and yet at the same time it's a fantastic game. It's a joke that's gone to far, and yet hidden within are even more jokes that make you laugh more. It's deliciously deranged in all the right places and invites you to do likewise. Goat Sim is the anti-game, the anti-review, and the be-all end-all of simulation parody games.

Looking at: Dying Light

They're Coming for You

Dying Light looks great during short moments of calm.

I have stated several times how much I love zombie based games. I don't really care if the genre is completely overrun, the thrill of smashing the undead has never lost it's luster for me. The Dead Island series in particular was an interesting attempt to add something new to the genre by focusing on first person melee combat, and it's these failed experiments that lead to today's topic. Dying Light is an attempted apology from the former Dead Island developers and, strangely enough, the second game directly based of the mediocre series, albeit this is the one with less Pigeon John and Jack Black.

Dying Light's attempt to revitalize the formula is the introduction of free running and parkour, the french "art" of running around like a jackass and jumping off buildings. Besides that it's still most of Dead Island, so the question is, is it enough to make for a good game?

Wandering Dead

Not all infected are created equal including the hard hitting Goon, the speedy Viral...

The setup for Dying Light is that right before a major sports competition, a viral outbreak occurs in the ancient Mediterranean city of Harran. You play as Kyle Crane, an agent hired by the Global Relief Effort to infiltrate the city and recover a stolen file containing information that could lead to a virus cure. Oh, and the virus turned everyone infected into zombies, so there's a fuck-tonne of zombies walking around.

While the plot wanders more then the infected, and the payoff at the end isn't worth all the effort, it is at least coherent, which is more then I can say for the Dead Island series or any other number of zombie games that have plots. The characters are interesting enough, even if most of them are 2d archetypes, and there are a few interesting twists, but it's really nothing to write home about.

...Or the annoying and disgusting Bomber. 

What I did like about plot was the backstory that was woven into the game. Several times major events are brought up and explained in a way that makes sense, rather then just telling the player with a wall of text. The Harran outbreak was big news and a lot of people know about it, including Crane, so it's refreshing to hear him act like he knows what's going on. It's refreshing and really helps to sell the immersion.

Even better then the main plot are the numerous side quests, which often start simple and lead to adventures in their own right. There's a couple dozen of them, ranging from simple fetch quests to long involved missions, and they're pretty great for the most part. More importantly, doing these quests often lead to great weapons and upgrades, so doing them is very encouraged.

Like a Ripe Cantaloupe

Old Town is where Dying Light really shines, letting you make the most of your abilities.

But the story's not what we're here for. The reason to play Dying Light is to smash zombies by the dozens, and man is this the game to play for that. Combat has been greatly refined since Dead Island, and weapons have a real weight and impact to them. Smashing a zombie with a lead pipe or a crowbar really feels like it did some damage, and enemies react accordingly. There's a satisfying crunch, thud, or splat to go along with each hit and it makes combat exciting.

If you want to avoid combat, which you likely will in the early hours of the game,there's also the ability to run. The parkour...works, which is about the highest compliment I can pay to a first person parkour game that isn't Mirror's Edge. It works...most of the time. There's a lot of issues jumping from one ledge to another and I can't count how many times I over jumped something I was certain I'd land. There's also an annoying amount of invisible walls that don't look like they should be, and I've spent way to much time trying to scale a wall that wasn't ever meant to be scaled, despite obvious grab points everywhere. Regardless, for the simple purpose of traversing the city the parkour is functional, if a little strange at times, like the idea that garbage bags and cars can break your fall.

Other then parkour, Dying Light's other twist is it's day-night cycle. During the day it's a run-of-the-mill zombie game: smash Zeds, fight special infected, and finish quests. But as the sun falls it goes straight up survival horror thanks to the introduction of UV light-hating infected Cthulu looking monsters that will chase you clear across the city to tear you apart. Avoiding these is a must, especially in the early half of the game, and being caught after dark can instantly spell disaster if you're not careful.

Rotting Stench

Zombies explode with gore on a particularly good hit.

Dying Light is an almost unfortunate game, one that's so good at what it wants to be that it's flaws get exaggerated tenfold. And there are flaws aplenty in Dying Light. Things like the inability to check your watch, requiring pausing the game to check the time. Or the fact that you have to build every item one at a time, even if you want to queue up twenty Molotovs in a row. There's also the odd time the game didn't register my commands during a hairy sequence and I died unnecessarily. There's odd balancing issues, making the early game brutally difficult and the late game hilariously easy. Certain incredibly important upgrades are locked away to far down the upgrade tree, and there are numerous upgrades that are completely useless.

(Not a complaint, but my particular game was glitched, so every time I loaded it Crane would scream out "HOLY SHIT" at nothing in particular.)

The Drop-Kick instantly became my favorite ability, for obvious reasons.

Dying Light is a good game, certainly a much better game then those that inspired it. When everything works it works really well, and there's a great wealth of content on offer. The plot is fun in an "it's trying so hard that I kind of appreciate what it's attempting" sort of way, and the combat and free running are enjoyable, especially when you start chaining abilities together. If all your looking for is a great way to spend ~20 hours beating up zombies then you could do a lot worse then Dying Light.

Image Sources

http://gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Dying-Light-logo.jpg

Looking at: Max Payne 3

What's in a Name?

From it's opening moments, Max Payne 3 promises explosive action.

Max Payne is likely the most aptly named character in video games, save perhaps the actual characters of War and Death in the Darksider series. Despite his relative humble beginnings, Max is a man who's only real skill is in dealing pain and death to anyone in his way. For his third outing Max decides to take his unique brand of justice to the crime filled streets of Sao Paulo in one of the bloodiest, angriest action games I've ever played.

The Max Payne series has never received as much attention as some other classic games, perhaps owing to the fact that despite being in existence for over ten years there's only three games in the entire series. The first game, released in 2001 by Remedy (who would later go on to make the Alan Wake series) was an interesting break from other games of the time, with the dark noir story of Max's struggle do deal with his murdered wife and daughter. The second game in 2003 saw Max now dealing with forces much larger then him as he attempted to aid the fem fatale Mona Sax in her quest for answers.

The IP lay dormant for some time as Rockstar and Remedy parted ways, but finally Max returned to the small screen in 2012, this time courtesy of Rockstar themselves and despite sharing the same name, this was a whole new game.

Dime-store Angel of Death

Dynamic comic-book panels break up the numerous cutscenes.

If you didn't play Max Payne 1&2 don't worry, as the events of those two games are barely referenced at all, and it's clear that Rockstar were distancing the series from the original games. The set up is that Max is a disgraced former NYPD officer turned alcoholic, and has found work as a private security guard for one of the wealthiest families in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Things quickly go wrong as the family is repeatedly targeted and kidnapped by a local gang called the Comando Sombra and Max finds himself fighting a seemingly endless roundabout of people trying to kill him.

It's a dark and twisted story, owing much to the noir films of old. Max is older, angrier and almost suicidal throughout the experience and shows a lot more character then in the older games. This is helped by a great performance from James McCaffrey, who also provided the mo-cap for Max. All around the production value is Rockstar's normal quality of absolutely astounding with top quality acting and motion capture all around.

It's the character of Max that's likely the most interesting part of Max Payne 3. Like I said, this Max is older and angrier, and his inner demons have certainly done an impressive number on his psyche. He's a pill-popping drunk, and a few years of inactivity has put some meat on his once athletic body. There's more then a few grey hairs on his head, at least before he shaves it all off, and his beard is a tell-tale sign of a man that no longer takes care of himself. This is Max Payne for the new decade, tired of everything around him and constantly wishing that the next bullet will put him out of his misery.

Payne Killer

A moment of relative peace in Max's turbulent travels.

Make no mistake, there will be a lot of bullets. Payne attracts more unwanted attention then most other protagonists combined and despite it's noir narrative this is one of the most action-heavy shooters in a long time. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it's estimated that throughout the 8-10 hour campaign you'll gun down north of 500 people, all in gruesome detail. You'll blow up cars, drive boats, and most importantly, fling yourself around in unscripted John Woo-esque slow motion dives to score fatal headshots and avoid enemy fire.

Rockstar has stated that they've purposely never made a first person shooter (prior to GTA V HD), and they consider Max Payne the closest they've ever gotten. What that means is that Max Payne 3 is, without any doubt, one of the smoothest, most fluid third person shooters I've ever played. Few games ever achieve the type of action that Max Payne 3 creates and, with very few exceptions, the game is able to constantly deliver damn near perfect gameplay. Everything in Max Payne 3 works flawlessly, whether it's popping out from behind cover to take down an enemy or flinging yourself through the air.

You'll do a lot of flinging, probably more then Max's body should be able to take. You'll do this because it slows time to a crawl and lets you score headshots. You'll do this because you'll constantly need to avoid enemy fire to stay alive. You'll do this because god DAMN it looks cool to spray bullets as you descend from the heavens like a heavily armed messiah. Bullet Time has always been a trademark of the Payne series and here it's reached it's absolute pinnacle. Despite the cover system in place I often found myself lunging towards waves of enemies, taking them head on as I rolled around the geography returning fire with ease.

Facilitating this constant flinging in Rockstar's in-house animation and physics engine, appropriately named the RAGE engine. RAGE first saw use in GTA IV, but here it's been refined to perfection, with frighteningly realistic animations. While the animations and physics on Max looks great, the engine really shines in the firefights, where it creates constant cinematic experiences dynamically.

Elite Squad

Throughout the game Max remarks on the divide between rich and poor in Brazil.

That's the key word in Max Payne 3: Cinematic. This is cinematic gaming at it's absolute best, never sacrificing the actual game for the movie-like experience. Max Payne 3 constantly feels like a high end action film in the best way possible, something like The Raid or John Wick. Not to dumb, but simple enough to understand.

Problematically, this leads to some of Max Payne 3's biggest issues. First and foremost is the linearity of the game. I'm all for a straight-forward game sure, but Max Payne 3 is linear almost to a fault, occasionally actively discouraging any exploration with Max himself chiding you for taking to long. There is a bit or replayability, thanks to the included arcade mode and hidden collectibles, but you'd be forgiven for only playing this game once.

There are other stumbles, like occasional glitches in animation. The worst one is during a last stand, where you're given one chance to kill the man that shot you in return for a second chance at life, the camera becomes locked and you won't be able to actually hit your target. It's a bit hard to explain, but if it happens it can ruin a good run.

Max Payne's pacing is also all over the place, acting like less of a rollercoaster and more of a ship at sea caught between several separate storms at once. The story makes like Max himself and constantly flings itself in several directions, ranging from Hollywood action to morose self reflection in just seconds time. It's jarring, and maybe in a certain light refreshing, but newcomers to the series might not get what's happening and can be turned off.

Long Hard Goodbye. 

Max is constantly living in a world of shifting shades of grey, with almost no real moral compass.

Max Payne may not have received the following some of his early 2000's counterparts did. No one cos-plays as Max Payne and there hasn't been a slew of sequels. But none of that really matters because Max Payne is a fun, enjoyable, and interesting game to play and stands a reminder of why Rockstar is considered one of the best developers in the industry.

Max Payne is shooting perfection, and a rare type of game in today's market. With a strong script, great voice work, excellent animation and visuals, and explosive action, Max Payne 3 is a game that reminds me why I like games so much. It's a hard-boiled, no-nonsense game and it's a hell of a good time.

Looking at: Hatoful Boyfriend

Bird Brained

Your best friend, the rock dove.

My best friend is a pigeon. That's fine because so are all of my classmates, my teacher, my boss at the cafe I work at, and everyone I interact with. They're all pigeons. Also, I'm in Japan and it might be the post apocalypse. There's pudding and ghosts and creepy rapist doctors.

Hatoful Boyfriend might be one of the weirdest games I've ever played.

You live in a cave and talk about your "Hunter Gatherer instincts". 

Dumb Novel

Okosan.

Hatoful Boyfriend is... bizarre. At a glance it's a simple parody of the weird, often confusing sub-genre of games known as Visual Novels that are popular in Japan. These games range from well done and emotional stories to poorly disguised hentai sex simulators. My experience with them is limited at best, but I can tell that despite making fun of them Hatoful Boyfriend comes with a lot of experience.

People have all but forgotten how to make a proper parody, be it in games, books, or movies. The idea of a parody is not to simply point at the original and laugh at it, but rather to create an exact copy of the original in a humorous manor, accentuating the flaws and exaggerate the funniest parts of the original work.

Take, for example, the greatest parody film ever made: Airplane! Airplane is a comedy, and a damn funny one at that, but strip away the comedy parts and you're left with a really crappy but completely functional airplane disaster movie. That's because Airplane was written to be a crappy disaster movie, using an actual disaster movie script as the basis and just exaggerating what was funny about it.

In a similar vein, Hatoful Boyfriend is making fun of Japanese Visual Novels by being an almost exact copy of them. You play as a girl going through highschool life, taking test and meeting boys. It's a fairly common scenario, although usually played from the other side, that would fit right in with any normal Visual Novel.

Except for the pigeons.

Hatoful Boyfriend is constantly strange, and hilarious.

Our Feathered Friends

This happens too. Not sure what to make of it.

Everyone other then you is a pigeon, albeit extremely intelligent pigeons capable of speaking. There's about two seconds of back story to explain this, which is immediately ignored. You're going to have to accept that everyone is birds and just sort of move on.

There's your best friend, the rock dove. The teacher is a narcoleptic quail prone to falling asleep halfway through a senescence. There's mourning doves, fantail pigeons, and more, all with their own accompanying human portrait. Except the one bird seems to be an actual bird in a suit that's addicted to pudding.

This is a weird game.

Even the local punks are birds. Everybirdie is birds.

Each bird you interact with has their own personality and can be woo'd through repeated interaction. Hatoful Boyfriend is a game that, provided you can look past the weirdness, demands multiple playthroughs in order to see everything. To help this along a complete run will only take you ~90 minutes, but there's a staggering amount of outcomes that can be achieved.

I don't know if I can actually recommend Hatoful Boyfriend, because I don't really know what the fuck Hatoful Boyfriend is. It's a parody, and a damn good one at that. It's also an exceedingly funny game with strange writing and an almost alarmingly low budget appeal to it, including using Christmas and public domain music for most of the soundtrack. But it's still a visual novel, with almost no gameplay and a tonne of reading.

Beware of Blaster

Hatoful Boyfriend is a game worth playing if you're looking for something that's not only outside the box, but doesn't even live in the same neighborhood as the box's relatives. It's a game that spits in the face of everything else and looks damn weird while doing it.

image sources:

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danielnyegriffiths/files/2014/06/Hatoful-Boyfriend-Logo_1402053849.png

Looking at: Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/162075-mercenaries-playground-of-destruction-xbox-screenshot-the.jpg

그 괴팍스러운 미치광이
geu goepagseuleoun michigwang-i

http://s.pro-gmedia.com/videogamer/media/images/xbox/mercenaries/screens/mercenaries_1.jpg

Air strikes are effective, and fun as hell.

North Korea is the whacky next door neighbor of world politics. They're always getting up to something crazy, be it threatening the world largest military power, claiming they have missiles, or getting really upset about a second-rate Seth Rogan comedy. The entire county is one non-stop comedy of errors and if it weren't for the atrocities committed to their citizens they'd be an absolute laughing stock and an international joke.

Who am kidding, they are anyway.

Despite this, DPRK has rarely been represented in the world of video games. Perhaps it's because one game featured them, and did such a great job that no one else wanted to even try.

파괴의 놀이터
pagoe ui nol-iteo

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/media/xbox/mercenaries/mercenaries1.jpg

The AI will dynamically fight battles against one another, letting you join or ignore them at your discretion.

Like the title of the game suggests, you play as one of three mercenaries from Executive Operations hired to enter North Korea in the midst of a second all out Korean war. Your task is to take out General Song, the newest dictator, as well as the Deck of 52, comprising of Song's 51 lieutenants. That's really it, the plot never goes anywhere else and there's never any twists, which kind of works to the game's favor. It reinforces the idea that you are a mercenary who's only in it for the money. You don't have a personal vendetta against Song, hell you don't even know him personally until the final mission. He and his men are just objectives for you to complete, and nothing else.

That's not to say Mercenaries is devoid of story. In order to progress through each of the four chapters of the game you'll need to interact with the various factions at play in North Korea. The UN and China are the two biggest players, with the UN looking to stabilize the region and China looking to add NK as the newest Chinese province. South Korea is in play, backed by the CIA who almost certainly has ulterior motives. Finally, the Russian mob is hanging around making trouble and selling equipment to the highest bidder. All of these, plus the DPRK forces will stand in your way, and often working for one faction will displease the others.

재미와 이익을 위해 촬영

jaemiwa iig-eul wihae chwal-yeong

http://images.gameskinny.com/gameskinny/5c270d150d94e305d0d19b627477fe97.jpg

Mattias Nilsson, one of the playable character, voiced by the awesom Peter Stormare

You don't name your game "Playground of Destruction" without offering something to blow up, and sure enough there's destruction in spades to be found in Mercenaries. Every building can be leveled, ever city block reduced to ash. Battles have a huge, bombastic feel as bullets whiz past and bombs create craters in the ground. Best of all fights are largely organic, and just traveling from one location to another can spill into a huge running battle that will keep you busy.

To facilitate this endless destruction is an alarming array of weapons and vehicles. Each faction has multiple vehicles to choose from, ranging from simple jeeps and humvees, all the way to heavy tanks and armoured personnel carriers. There's also helicopters to allow you to easily traverse the bumpy terrain of NK and clear enemy positions with ease.

Also supplementing your equipment is the various support options available from the various factions. The UN or China can provide you with access to their artillery systems, allowing you to completely decimate an area with the light of a flare, while SK and the Russians provide you numerous different equipment drops for a re-arm in the field. It's unfortunate that the system for requesting these ordinance is so clunky and unintuitive, because you'll find yourself using them a lot.

Graphically Mercenaries is just another victim of that mid-2000's attempt at 3d. Like most PS2 or Xbox games it doesn't look horrible, and there are enough details to make looking at it bearable, but there's no denying that it can't even compete with games like Doom 3 or MGS 3 from the same era. Where Mercenaries does stand out is it's use of explosions and destructible terrain, both of which are masterclass and unmatched even today. Destructible terrain on that scale became what Pandemic Studios was best known for until their closure in 2009.

큰 바보 재미
keun babo jaemi

http://www.game2k.cz/data/images/games/m/mercenaries_playground_of_destruction_ps2_6.jpg

You'll sow a path of destruction in your quest for Song.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction isn't a life changing or genre defining game. By all account's it's a second-rate third person shooter that barely stands up to it's own contemporaries. At best it's a bizarre North Korean knock-off of the GTA franchise, albeit with slightly more explosions and slightly less swear words. Despite all of this, Mercenaries does remain as one of my more favoured games of it's type and one of the better games from the sixth gen.

There was a sequel a few years later for the next generation of consoles, but it didn't have nearly the same feel to it, and likely aided in the eventual demise of one of the better EA developers. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is a simple game, with a simple premise, and a shitload of explosions, and that's just fine with me.

looking at: The Legend of the Titanic

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjId97UtjnPL8ajxu_5OfSPRr7at9oZIP3mrOr-fBkuF6ewp3kEJ1FT7RVWjLUa0YGA2UVJEj28DIYAVAFQbpE4vXhyeDTiel0OXBfRecmnL9jsnj1JXwWRCENu5ZUPzUefKbqGWCv1kaCT/s320/fb_8.jpg

Nearer my God to Thee

https://somekindofmoviesadist.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/titanic5.png

Elizabeth learning that she can speak to animals, as well as one of the, apparently flying dolphins.

On the evening of April 14, 1912 the Titanic, long thought the greatest vessel ever built, struck an iceberg and, over the course of almost three hours, sank to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. 1500 people lost their lives in the dark, icy abyss and it remains, even today, one of the worst nautical disasters in history.

Except apparently that was all just a "misunderstanding" and none of that really happened because a couple of talking mice, a super intelligent dog, a British heiress and her Gypsy prince lover, along with talking magical dolphins and the goddamn Kraken managed to save everyone from the evil whaler and his scheming shark friends.

I assure I did not just suffer a stroke. What I did just suffer was watching Italy butcher, not only one of the worst nautical tragedies of all time, but also the art of animation at the same time.

Mouse Overboard

http://thegreatwhitedope.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/titanic21.jpg

The adorable Kraken, sinker of ships and destroyer of all he sees fit.

The story is told by our main character, a mouse named Connors, telling the tale of the Titanic to his grandkids since he was on the Titanic. Basically, while the humans were boarding the Titanic, so too were a shitload of mice. Conners is a sailor of some sort, who falls in love with a girl mouse and becomes friends with her Brazilian soccer playing little brother who's name is apparently Ronny.

Meanwhile Elizabeth, the daughter of a British Duke, is lamenting at the idea of marrying a guy that looks an awful lot like Phil Ken Sebben. Also, there's a Gypsy prince hanging out with his super intelligent dog. Elizabeth and Don Juan (seriously) fall in love immediately too, but their love can never be because they are just two different people.

If this sound familiar that's because this is a really, REALLY messed up version of the plot of James Cameron's magnus opus from two years prior.

Anyway, some stupid stuff happens, and the mice learn that the whaling dude Elizabeth is supposed to marry is super evil, and Elizabeth gains the ability to speak to animals because magic, and then Don Juan learns to speak with animals because magic, and the Phil Ken Sebben looking dude is super evil. Eventually he does away with subtlety and hires his shark friends to sink the ship.

Did I mention that, for no explained reason, the American whaling magnate can speak to, and control, sharks? Sharks that all speak with a Brooklyn accent and wear prison clothes? No, good.

The sharks convince the Kraken, who looks suspiciously like a mouse himself, to hurl an iceberg at the Titanic and the ship does what it's best known for and starts sinking. Tentacles, the fucking beast of the abyss, feels bad and decides to save everyone on the Titanic from their watery graves. He apparently dies, and so does a character that we're supposed to know and love, but everyone else gets out ok.

Finally in New York the survivors (read: everyone because no one died apparently) gather for Elizabeth and Don's wedding, and also the mice have a wedding too because why not. Then it;s revealed that Tentacles, horror to every sea man and terror of the seven seas, is actually alive, and so is that mouse that died. Everyone is happy and there's a party and the end.

Che cazzo, anche?

https://somekindofmoviesadist.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/aaaaaaaaaaaaah.png

The look of slack-jawed horror mirroring my own.

"When I think of Italy the first thing that pops into my head is definitely their animation!"
Is a sentence that no one has ever uttered. The art style and animation are both clearly attempts at Japanese anime, but without any of the style or ability that the medium can provide. Characters don't look horrible when their not moving, which is unfortunate because they're constantly moving. Animation looks weird, like it was animated well below the normal 24fps of an anime, then sped up to match it, then had some frames removed for no reason.

There is no lip sync whatsoever. None. For the mice their mouths are wide open whenever they're speaking, making it seem as though their lines are just guttural utterances spilling from the endless void. Humans fair a little better, but it's still never correct. I realize that, like most anime, this movie wasn't made for English and that trying to match English lines over characters speaking a different language is difficult, but most animes, even shitty ones, manage to at least give it a try. Here the mouths just open and close randomly, no where near in time with what's being spoken, so half the dialogue comes out despite the character's mouth actually being open.

The plot, as recapped above, is obviously insane, but what's worse is the audacity this film has and the blatant disregard for anything factual about the Titanic. Listing the historical inacuracies would take me a whole other article, so let's just stick with the most insane:

* The explanation for how Elizabeth get's her ability to speak to mice is that her tear split a moon beam in half and the dolphins cast magic on it.

* Because of that Don Juan can speak with animals because "their souls are intertwined" or something.

* This is disregarded because for no reason Elizabeth's father can perfectly understand the mice later.

* The ship's captain is, at best, unqualified for his job. For no reason he tells the crew to reduce speed to half. When the ship hits the iceberg he immediately incites panic and does nothing to help.

* The mice decide the best way to stop a transmission from going out is to completely wreck all of the ship's internal wiring. When the shop starts sinking one of the mice decides to sacrifice himself to save everyone by acting as a wire (more specifically his mustache acts as the wire). He dies, but not really because he comes back with no explanation, even after the ship sinks.

* Despite jumping into the freezing Atlantic, none of the characters are cold, or even wet, when emerging.

* Accepting that everyone was saved by the Kraken -which is insane but ok- the film still has the audacity to have the band play "Nearer my God to Thee" which is what the actual Titanic band played as they sank into the ocean.

Sinking Ship

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Zw1GBczTJfo/hqdefault.jpg

HA HA! Whaling!

The Legend of the Titanic is an impressively terrible film, one that surpassed my expectations and resides in the depths of bad movie hell alongside Food-Fight for worst animated feature. It's an unbearable, uncomfortable watch and absolutely psychotic to boot.

What's worse is that while watching this movie and doing research on it, I was informed that, for reasons unknown, this is actually one of three different, unconnected Italian animations concerning the Titanic. It's the worst one to boot, but by how much remains to be seen. Join me again when the legend continues.

Looking at: Rogue Legacy

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Lasting Legacy

The upgrade tree is exhaustive, and there's three of these.

Long before games had the ability to contain voice acting or coherent plots, they were only about the joy of exploration. Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that his original inspiration for The Legend of Zelda was the fun he had exploring caves as a child. Games were simple, they were stupid sure, but the were all about letting the player explore the world and piece together what was going on themselves.

This idea has sort of gone by the wayside in favor of deep involved stories and exposition out the ying-yang. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, and some of my favorite games in the past few years have been story-heavy. But there is a sort of yearning for a game all about exploration, a return to form and a joyous challenge. A game like Rogue Legacy.

Genre Mishmash

Bosses offer a heady challenge, and taking them down will take time and practice.

The title Rogue Legacy is incredibly apt, as this is a Rogue-like game with a legacy system, that's also paying homage to the legacy of games from the past, and also it's something of a rogue title amidst more mainstream games. Wait! Come Back! It's not as crappy or pretentious as it sounds!

Gameplay wise RL is technically a Metroid-Vania style game, although it's really closer in style to Legend of Zelda 2: Adventures of Link. You move through a 2d world comprised of a castle, dungeon, forest, and a haunted tower. The world is, being a rogue-like, randomly generated every time you re-enter it, although you can lock down a layout for a substantial penalty to gold collection. You'll fight your way through hordes of enemies, jump around, and solve the occasional puzzle. There's bosses to fight, challenges to overcome, and every once and a while a minigame to attempt. It's all fairly standard stuff.

Death to Live

You'll need to choose your character carefully before you attempt the castle.

Where Rogue Legacy sets itself apart is it's use of death. Almost, but not quite, taking a page from Dark Soul's book, death is education and often just what you need to overcome a challenge. After you die you get to choose a new adventurer and spend all of the gold collected on your last run, with the caveat that you'll loose the gold once you start a new run. You'll purchase new upgrades and equipment before attempting the castle again. Can't beat a boss with your mage? Get killed, buy a health and damage upgrade, and spawn in as the much more powerful barbarian.

The other gimmick that sets RL apart is how your characters are chosen. Rather then letting you customize your character, every time you respawn you're given a choice of three potential characters, each with different strengths, weaknesses, and traits. It's this last item that really changes how you play RL. Traits affect gameplay is a variety of different ways, from incredibly minor changes like the bald or gay traits, to completely changing gameplay like flipping the world upside because of vertigo or making you miss-cast spells because you have two left hands. You'll often need to make a hard choice, as traits will be mixed and matched at random, and deciding on what traits to take can make or break a run.

While you can't customize your character, you can customize your gameplay. To do so there's a staggeringly large upgrade tree that allows you to upgrade everything from health and armor, to how much damage your downward thrust attack deals, to even the possibility of cheating death. There's also equipment and runes to buy and attach to your character, each with they're own set of balances. There's a boggling amount of options to play around with and testing out new builds is an interesting experience.

Castle funnies

Traits can affect everything from how you play to how the game looks.

Rogue Legacy is the kind of indie game that makes me happy. There's no pretentious "higher meaning" to it, it doesn't have some hidden message about stupid shit. It's a game that's meant to be fun, whether played for a quick burst on the bus, or for hours on end. It's a love-letter to games long gone without just trying to be a long lost game.

Rogue Legacy is also the perfect example of just using old ideas really, really well. It's not a particularly original game, save for maybe the idea of randomized character traits. But what it lacks in originality it more then makes up for in plain enjoyment. Challenging where it needs to be, yet accessible in every aspect, Rogue Legacy is a legacy worth spreading.

Looking at: Doom 3

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Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Witness the wonders of science, until it tries to kill you.

I've mentioned how much I love the Doom games. To me they're the epitome of perfect shooters and, albeit with some modification, still a lot of fun today. But the Doom games didn't stop at two. Back before it was popular, and way before publishers fucked up naming conventions ID software decided to reboot Doom and give the original Xbox one hell of a send-off. This was, in a lot of ways, what the original Doom games were meant to be, even if we didn't realize it at the time.


Welcome to Mars City

The classic Imp, in it's natural environment.

Like the original games, Doom 3 takes place in and around Mars City, a research station located on, where else, Mars. Unlike the originals, and much to some people's dismay, Doom 3 actually has a plot to give your actions context.

You are a new marine arriving on Mars to replace part of the existing guard detail. After a short introduction you're given your PDA, a flashlight, and a mission to find a missing scientist. You find the good doctor as he's trying to send out a message, only to accidentally avoid the opening of a portal to hell. For some reason you're not immediately zombified so you, being of sound ass-kicking mind, decide to kill some demon spawn and get off station.

As you progress the story never really changes, it mostly just a barely connected string of events to lead you through Mars. You'll need to re-link radio relays, check in with the few survivors, and find security badges and audio logs, all while killing a shitload of demons. The story never goes anywhere, and there's no real twist. You know the bad guy is evil literally the first second you see him, and none of the characters ever change.

That's fine though, because if you're playing a Doom game for the plot you're doing it wrong. We're here for the sweet satisfaction of blowing apart hellspawn and, sure enough, that's here in spades.

Bloody Brilliant

Your flashlight is great for illuminating your impending demise.

Being a 2005 shooter and not a 1998 shooter, Doom 3 was rather evolved from it's predecessors. Most notably was the full 3d aiming, something the previous games sorely lacked. Not that it matters much, since most of the time you'll be spitting out lead like it was going out of business, but it is an overall smoother experience the the originals. Also, there's jumping and crouching, which are also a series first.

All of this just facilitates the shooting, which is great. Each of the guns has a distinctive and weighty feel to them that gels well with the overall experience. Particularly the shotgun, which sounds as nasty as a shotgun should, and solidifies why ID are the kings of great gaming shotguns. Not to say the other weapons don't feel great, like the vicious chainsaw, the rapid-fire machine gun, the ominous minigun, or the hilariously overpowered BFG. Best of all you can carry all of these at the same time and switch out at your leisure, something most modern FPS games have annoyingly done away with.

Of course, what good are guns if there's nothing to shoot them at. The entire roster of classic doom enemies are here, from the lowly zombie and zombified soldier, to the terrifying Cacodemon or the rocket slinging Revenant, or the towering Hell Baron. All of them rendered in horrifyingly glorious 3D and with full lighting.

All of this is thanks to the Id Tech 4 engine which, at the time, was revolutionary. It's still not a bad looking engine, especially when properly applied, and it does a great job of creating the atmosphere in Doom 3. Even better, on the PC version there's the Sikkmod, as shown in all of the screenshots here, that make Doom 3 look great.

Doomed from the Start

Try not to loose your head in the madness of Mars City.

I love Doom 3, and I loved it when it came out in '05. Strangely though, there are people that call it the worst Doom game of the bunch, save bizarre Doom .Wads. I think these people are wrong, and also kind of missing the point of Doom 3.

See, Doom 3 leans more towards horror then it's predecessors. Like I said, the game is shrouded in shadow, and you'll need to rely on your flashlight to get through. There's also jump-scares a-plenty and hidden ambushes throughout. All of this seems in contrast to the original Dooms, which had you whizzing around at the speed of light killing hordes of monsters with reckless abandon.

Except that, in their own way, the original Dooms were also horror titles. There's no denying the scary visage put on by the demons, and the feeling of dread that the sight of a zombie, let alone a Spider demon or Cyber Demon can conjure up. And the original Doom's had jump scares to, or the closest approximation to jump-scares that Doom could render. Go back and play Doom 1&2 and try counting how many times the game spawns enemies behind you after you flip a switch, you'll probably loose track.

Doom 3 isn't as good as the original Dooms, and that's fine because on it's own it's an incredibly enjoyable game. The shooting is tight, the graphics were top notch, and it's all very fun to play. It had an expansion pack that added co-op and brought back the double-shotgun, as well as a less then stellar remake a little while ago. There was also the movie, but we don't talk about that.

Doom 3 is a great game, fun to play and challenging in a way that's not found in many shooters now a days. It's a throwback to a bygone era, and forges it's own path while doing so. A remake and a sequel, and an all around fun time.

Looking at: The Dead Island games

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Slumped Over

Don't loose your head over these games.

The Dead Island games are not good games. They're buggy as hell, barely functional, fail to deliver on most of their promises, and despite their focus on melee combat, the actual combat is floaty and awkward. So why is it that I've put dozens of hours into these games?

I equate the Dead Island games (Dead Island and it's sequel Riptide) to movies from the 80's. Films like The Miami Connection, Road House, or Conan the Barbarian. It's the combination of enthusiasm, mixed with complete nonsensical incompetence that creates this special, almost enduring to-dumb-to-exist product. Dead Island is a game that's fun to play because of how bad it is. It's a game you play with your friends, just to laugh at how awful it really is. Dead Island isn't Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it's damn close.

The Trouble with Trailers

The only reason anyone knows about Dead Island, and the only reason people pre-ordered the original is because of this trailer:

It's a powerful trailer, well edited and emotional. People bought into the hype hard core and expected great things from Dead Island. Never mind the list of promised features:

* Open world filled with zombies

* Hard hitting melee combat with improvised weapons

* Tonnes of insane weapon mods like flaming swords, and electric sledgehammers

* Diablo-like loot system

* Online co-op with up to four people

* Thrilling firefights with human enemies

* An emotional rollercoaster through a zombie apocolypse

Surely this game was going to be the best. This was 2011, zombie games had already stagnated and this was going to be the swan song of an entire sub-genre. This would be the game to make killing zombies awesome again. 

When your not curb stomping zombies, the games can look quite nice, from a distance.

Kicking corpses

The human character models, creepier then any zombie.

Dead Island finally released right before Halloween, 2011. If the trailer above was the treat, the actual game felt like a trick. Here's how everything stacked up:

* Open world filled with zombies - Yeah no. There is an open world, for the first 1.5 acts of the game. After that your stuck in cramped sewers, linear jungles, and a prison. 

* Hard hitting melee combat with improvised weapons - The melee combat is floaty, and it's hard to tell when hits connect. Worse, it's really hard to aim, and the desired headshots can be impossible to pull off. 

* Tonnes of insane weapon mods like flaming swords, and electric sledgehammers - There are weapon mods, but there are only, maybe five or six of them and they just repeat ad-initium. 

* Diablo-like loot system - Hardly. There are, confusingly, chest scattered around the world, but enemies rarely drop weapons, and the best loot is usually bought. 

* Online co-op with up to four people - The one thing that works properly. 

* Thrilling firefights with human enemies - The human enemies are, confusingly, worse then the zombies. They never react properly and don't seem to know how to exist. 

* An emotional rollercoaster through a zombie apocolypse - HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

To say the least, Dead Island failed to live up to expectations. Thanks to it I, and a lot of other people, no longer trust trailers. 

But it isn't necessarily a completely bad game. Dead Island does get a lot of points for originality, even if it's "original" ideas are just mashing together already existing ideas. It was a new type of game, and even better, a new IP. It was functional, especially after some patches, and the first few hours were legitimately fun to play. With a few friends it became an engine for laughs, mostly aimed at the games faults, and there's no denying the cathartic joy of smashing in a zombie's skull with a sledgehammer. Dead Island is almost enduring in how stupid it is, kind of like that kid from grade school that ate paste and sucked at math, but everyone still kind of liked him. 

Sucked up by the Riptide

Weapons, even guns, can have elemental damage added. Squeal with delight as the zombie dances.

Inevitably, Dead Island somehow spawned a sequel. Actually, to be fair, Dead Island has somehow spawned an entire franchise, complete with a competing knockoff made by the scorned original dev team. There's Dead Island, the expansion pack Riptide, a MOBA in the form of Epidemic, a god-awful adventure game Escape Dead Island, and now a proper sequel Dead Island 2 later in 2015. There's even a comic book about the game, a movie is in the works, and a novelization of the games events is planned too. Impressive from a game this mediocre. 

Anyway, I'm here to talk about Riptide, the standalone expansion pack, side-quel to Dead Island. Riptide is a game that does everything a sequel shouldn't. Let's start at the beginning, or more correctly, the before the beginning with Riptide's attempt at marketing:

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A bloody, bikini wearing, torso. Someone, somewhere, thought this was an appropriate way to market a game. I'm not going to delve into women and gaming, I simply haven't the time, but regardless of where you stand on that, this is pretty disgusting. Worse, it's just confusing, and I honestly don't know who, outside of snuff-film enthusiasts, would want something like this. The statue offer was pulled pretty quickly, but this was to be somewhat telling of the final game. 

Indeed, Riptide is a bikini wearing torso of a game. Hold on, let me explain that incredibly bizzare metaphor. Riptide is an attempt to be the best parts of Dead Island. There's more weapons, the world is actually open, there are far less human enemies, and questing is better handled. But it's still missing some key parts and worse doesn't even fix most of the issues from the first game. 

I will say this, in Riptides defense they didn't even try to be serious with the plot. It's pure, uncut 1980's schlocky B-movie nonsense, complete with evil scientists and world domination plans. It's almost to dumb to believe, and that really helps since you probably won't pay much attention anyway. 

Technically speaking, Riptide is the better game, only because of the few improvements it makes on the original. Most improved is that, as I said, the world is actually open this time and your rarely shoved into a cramped space. Even when you do have to descend through sewers it's much better handled and actually stands out as one of my favorite parts of the game. Grab some friends, pick this up on sale, and have a few laughs. 

Every once and a while Dead Island manages a moment of actual terror. These are few and far between.

Still breathing

Characters have "Rage Mode" that will highlight enemies and make you unstoppable killing machines.

Like I said, somehow the Dead Island franchise is far from ... well dead. Dead Island 2 is due out later this year, and Dying Light, made by the original devs of Dead Island just came out (expect a review of that soon). 

I've played a little bit of Dead Island Epidemic and didn't like it very much. It's a Free-2-Play MOBA like DOTA 2 or League of Legends, and I just don't really enjoy that type of game. More over, it just wasn't really that fun. 

Dead Island is a weird specimen, a series running purely on what I can only imagine a cocaine filled high. They're terrible games that barely work. But they're incredible stupidity is probably what helps and they're worth playing anyway, if only to witness how dumb they really are.