Let me start off by saying that I consider myself to be a relatively calm person. I don’t let anything get to me and I don’t get ‘worked up’ over something that’s not worth getting worked up over. That said, Dustforce has found a way to pull at strings of mine I didn’t even know I had.

Dustforce is a game from a small group of developers, Hitbox Team, that takes the player on an adventure through mansions and forests alike. Players must run, jump, dash, and sweep their way to victory. In essence, Dustforce is a platformer, but it’s so much more than that when you really get into it. This is all due to the neurotic leaderboard ranking system that has been marvelously utilized. Like I said, it can make the calmest of people become completely and insanely addicted.

As mentioned earlier, Dustforce is a platformer at heart. You control a person on a sidescrolling, 2D map. You run. You jump. You hit all the right points to move on. However, in Dustforce, the player has two particular goals to accomplish: sweep up all the dust/leaves/garbage and do it in a time fitting of the coveted S rank. This, of course, does not do the game any justice as there are many elements that must be taken into account should you want to complete every level perfectly.

Take the combo meter, which counts up the amount of dust you have swept up until you go too long without sweeping anything. It’s critical to maintain your combo meter just as it’s critical to use your special attack at precisely the right moment. This special attack can only be used when you have swept up enough dust to fill the meter at the bottom of the screen. It’s a powerful attack that clears out most of the dust that can be seen on the screen at the moment it is executed. In most cases, I found myself using it twice in most levels; once about midway through and again at the end.

Now just how the heck am I going to get up there?

At the end of every level the player is rewarded judged on their completion and timing and to the right side of their own ranking, the player can see the ranking of all other players on Steam. Not only that, but (this is where the “marvelous” part comes in) Hitbox Team has included a feature where players can click on any of the listed players in the leaderboard and watch a full clip of how they completed the level from start to finish.

You see them jump from there…run up that ledge…jump twice there…hit that…OH! Then, run down there and jump up there…you get the point.

This is critical for players who are itching to attain that double S rank on every level or for people who just want to watch in awe as they witness the prowess of the people who have mastered this whole virtual parkour thing. Me? It just makes me hate my inferiority even more and leads me to incessantly click that restart button every time I make a single wrong jump or miss one leaf on the ground.

The only thing in Dustforce that doesn’t make me become completely neurotic is the music. Indie games, as of late, have been stepping it up when it comes to the musical score of their games (Minecraft and Bastion come to mind). Dustforce’s music is one that I would definitely purchase if I could. Your goal in this game is to clean. That’s it. And it provides the perfect tune to compliment your menial task. It doesn’t try to embellish the gameplay or make it seem like the situation is dire. You’re cleaning and the music is fittingly calm. You have enough to make you go crazy, anyway.

I have no idea what is coming out of that vacuum.

I feel it’s important to point out that as of this review, there is a locked level editor mode where I presume you will be able to go in and create your own levels for yourself and hopefully all of the Steam community to try their hand at. This will beautifully play into the community aspect that the leaderboards have given the game already and hopefully generate a bigger and broader community of creators a parkour enthusiasts alike.

As you might be able to surmise already, Dustforce is not an easy game. A majority of your time will be spent watching and rewatching videos of players that have attained the double S rank and then trying to replicate their moves on your own. This, along with the lack of achievements (well, there’s one), will definitely turn many players away but given the attention it demands, players can find themselves happily addicted to this fun parkour platformer. At just 9.99 USD (it’s on sale for 8.99 USD as of this review) it’s definitely worth checking out. Besides, I think you’ve played enough Skyrim.

Before you launch Trine 2 for the first time, make sure you have your visual sugar resistant goggles on – this game is a looker. Consider this a fair warning, as this game is like candy for your eyes, even sweeter in the graphical sense than Bastion was.

Trine 2 is a co-op puzzle platformer.  It’s set in a fairytale world where there’s magic, goblins and enchanted forests – pretty much everything you’d expect from your regular children’s bedtime story (giant frogs and treasure hunting included). The game operates on the premise of solving environmental, physics-based puzzles  with some additional combat in-between to get from level to level. You control one of the three heroes at a time, and you can switch between them on the fly with a simple press of either bumper. In the case of a character’s death, they’ll resurrect at the nearest checkpoint bubble, so they’re never gone for more than a couple of minutes. If you decide to play in co-op, which really seems the only right way to play Trine 2, you can either play with one or two friends. If you choose the former, you’ll still be able to switch characters. The latter option has all three characters assigned. This is a very comfortable solution, because if you’re one buddy short, the third character can be switched to at any time.

My eyes! My eyes! It's too pretty!

The team is made up of a brave Knight, a cunning Thief, and a mighty Wizard. All three characters have unique skills which are all vital to the puzzle solving that awaits you. The Knight is the best character to fight the incoming goblins and spiders, and he also has a shield that he can use to deflect projectiles, which is very helpful at times. As I mentioned before, this is a physics based game, so you can direct the deflected projectiles where ever you want by adjusting the angle of your shield accordingly. These little things are what makes Trine 2 fun to play, not just to watch. The Thief has a bow and a grappling hook, however you won’t want to use her for combat – she’s more of the get-there-fast character, with speed and agility at her disposal.

The Wizard is more of a conjurer than anything else, because apparently all he can do is create boxes and planks out of thin air and make them levitate. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Unfortunately, it is too much in fact, and you can very easily break the game if you decide to abuse the simple trick of making one hero stand on a box, and then just flying them above all obstacles and puzzle elements. Discovering this pretty much ruins the fun of puzzle solving, because roughly 80% of all the game’s puzzles can be simply avoided using this trick. Perhaps this is something the developers would want to look at before releasing any major patches.

Gotta stack 'em up.

If you decide to go against your natural urge to simplify everything and choose the honest way to play Trine 2, you’ll find the puzzles not too demanding at all. There is a hint system in case you really get lost, but in all my time spent with the game I had to wait to hear the hint only once, and probably only because I was very tired. The puzzles are mostly constructed in one rather simple way. Create a couple of boxes to get to higher ground, rearrange some pipes to divert flames/water/steam, pull a lever, and exit through the door. Maybe it’s a difficulty setting issue, but the game almost felt too casual to me. It’s not very challenging, but it’s great to play with a friend. The gorgeous visuals make it a fun way to chill with a buddy.

Trine 2 was certainly made to be enjoyed with other people. And this very fact seems to be its biggest, only major problem. For a co-op focused game, there sure are too many bugs that appear only in this mode. The way co-op works is very near to being broken, and here’s why. First of all, the characters can’t be too far from each other, because the camera will focus on just one, making it impossible for the other players to know what they’re doing. If you have one character standing in the middle of the frame, and the others go too far in any direction, the camera will zoom in on just one, instead of zooming out to get them all. This causes all kinds of frustration and bad language. Once the camera loses track of someone, they’re as good as dead, because the levels are designed in a way that forces you to constantly avoid environmental hazards. It’s certain that if a player can’t see their character, they’ll immediately fall into their deaths, or get killed by fire and projectiles.

Another thing that bothered me while playing co-op was that the characters are unbalanced to the point when you’ll often tell your buddies to just kill themselves to get resurrected at the next checkpoint, because you’ve already gone past the platforming sequence their characters  seem unable to negotiate. This issue and the completely busted camera almost make me want to say that Trine 2 is a co-op game with broken co-op. Fortunately there are ways to get past these issues, even if they mean not playing the game as it was intended by the developers. If Trine 2 is ever to be considered a successful release, the team has to do something about these game-breaking bugs right away.

"Guys? Are you off-screen again?"

Trine 2 is most definitely an outstanding achievement in the graphics and art design departments, and it’s simply a delight to watch. No doubt this is the most well-done and enjoyable part of the game. It looks so great that even though it’s very far from being a perfect product, you’ll often find yourself making excuses in its name, like “well, this is obviously broken… but look how fantastic it looks!”

There’s rarely a game that I have no strong feelings about either way. Normally, I can say and deconstruct exactly what I like and dislike about a game, and either tear it to pieces or praise its name on high. As a player, I feel that I can take along quite a lot of messages from a title, good or bad, and use them as reference when looking at the mechanics or presentation of future games. However, Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland really has me stumped. It’s a labor of love kind of game, a title that would feel right at home in the late PS1/early PS2 era with its old, forgotten, turn-based brethren. And, for better or for worse, it remains faithful to that era of gaming while doing its own thing, leaving an end product that has me more confused than anything.

Atelier Totori is the sequel to the equally as difficult to pronounce Atelier Rorona, taking place five years after the events of that game. As someone who has never played Atelier Rorona, I did feel very comfortable in the universe that Atelier Totori was able to produce. Characters from the previous game do enter the game here and there, occasionally referencing plot elements from the previous game, but it’s all done for the benefit of using those elements to enhance the new characters. The plot from the preceding game doesn’t completely overtake the main story, they are just characters who happen to be in the same world as the Totori characters. This is the best way to design a sequel – make it reward players of the previous title without dumping a massive amount of information on new players to establish the universe’s rules or expecting them to know it. The characters feel natural, just like NPC’s in a fresh, new title with bright personalities that enhance the main characters.

As for the story itself, Totori isn’t particularly big on it. You’re a girl named Totori who is one of three alchemists in the world. However, you’re a ditzy anime teenager, so you make yourself explode rather than alchemize great items most of the time. The remainder of the story is basically an expansion of this concept – Totori is an airheaded teenager who travels through the world and has wacky interactions with characters while gathering ingredients for alchemy. This is framed by Totori’s mother being an adventurer and having gone missing.  Totori doesn’t want to believe her mother is dead and desires to find her dear old mama out in the world, but that element of the story feels more like an excuse than a driving point. Totori and those around her never have that great of an emotional connection with their mother, to the point where Totori’s mother could be replaced with a cute kitten she found one day and lost before the game began; the entire plot thread just feels very superfluous in the grand scheme of things. As for Totori herself, she’s a very standard protagonist, filling the role of a not-very-intelligent, optimistic, and driven main character to a tee. There’s never truly a point where she begins to stand out as a character. Other side characters, too, seem to be placed in solely to fill roles; the headstrong and goofy best friend, the burly and boisterous older friend, the aloof badass guy who broods a lot, the set is all here. Traditional tropes and clichés all apply with these characters, making their interactions forgettable and, ultimately, uninteresting. That’s not to say the characters are bad, by any stretch of the imagination, just nothing special that the player can take with them after the game’s end.

This is just like all of my Japanese animes!

The heart of Atelier Totori, however, is in its gameplay mechanics. Totori manages to do something that is impressive, admirable, and terrifying all at the same time; create a game entirely about grinding. Atelier Totori is a quest-driven title with turn-based RPG combat. The basic gist of the game is you report to a quest-giver to give you one of several quests with an in-game deadline. You then accomplish these quests by either going home to perform alchemy or, more likely, going into a pre-selected wilderness area to fight monsters and gather materials. The combat is handled in a manner very similar to Final Fantasy X, with three playable party members at a time and turns for both allies and enemies shown in a helpful display.

Combat is exceptionally simplistic, having attack, defend, and flee commands, as well as special skills unique to each character that pierce defense, ensure a critical hit, improve item drop rates, or inflict status effects. It’s a very simple system that rarely expands on its base concepts, with one distinct exception: only alchemists may use items. For the majority of the game, this means that the player will have access to only one healer, as healing abilities are conspicuously absent from the skills of the other characters. In addition, there are no inns in Totori – the only way to heal is either through items or devoting in-game time specifically to healing up. However, this limited inconvenience does little to really shake up the formula of a turn-based RPG; it just ends up encouraging the ‘adventure for as long as I can, heal between battles, then run home’ strategy that is commonly employed in turn-based titles.

Items, however, tend to be the main focus of the game over its combat. As an alchemist, Totori can mix items together to create newer items, based on pre-existing recipes from books she finds or purchases. In addition, oftentimes quests will revolve around collecting a certain amount of ingredients or a particular alchemized item, furthering their importance. On top of this, each item that is used for alchemy has its own special properties, and based on the complexity of the recipe; these properties can be redeemed, such as improving the selling price of an item, improving its effectiveness in battle, or giving it explosive properties to be used as an attack. On paper, this is a deviously complex system that makes the player mix and match ingredients to alchemize in order to create the best items possible. In reality, the differences between items based on these stat gains are pretty negligible, and most ingredients of the same type have similar properties anyway, making it more of a mix-and-match. Each ingredient also has a “quality,” which basically improves the odds that an alchemized product won’t end up exploding randomly. Typically the higher quality ingredients win out over those with unique powers, again, making the process a bit more pointless.

Here a character demonstrates the 'cleavage highlight' skill.

The game runs on a time system where certain actions – fighting enemies, traveling to locations, alchemizing, resting, and gathering materials, most specifically – take up certain amounts of an in-game day. Most actions take up either one day or a majority of one day, with the game putting a time limit of three in-game years to reach a certain point in levels, areas explored, alchemy recipes discovered, etc. In the end, the title just seems to be grinding for the sake of grinding – you go to more places so that you can complete more quests, and after completing more quests, you get more items which you can use to defeat the enemies in more places to get more items to complete more quests to get more money to get more items and then you combine those items with other items to get more items and… well, you get the idea. There is some variation in that, as time passes and new areas are discovered, you do get new party members, but as there are only a handful of special techniques per party member; most of them are pretty insignificant. The overall game actually reminds me a bit of a turn-based Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, with the map layout and distributing your time evenly in different areas being very similar.

For the little details, Totori has a pretty lovely graphics system. The characters aren’t quite as well-rendered as, say, Catherine, but they look very pretty and bring the anime art style to a 3D realm well. Seeing the characters and enemies in motion is rather pretty as a whole, capturing the spirit of the art style used well. Backgrounds, however, are far less detailed, kind of making the very colorful and detailed characters pop out and catch the player’s attention more as a result. Though this does help highlight the lovely character models, there feels like an odd dissonance between the characters and the world they live in. Voice acting is serviceable, but nothing spectacular. NIS typically has a stable roster of voices for its localization projects that do a fine job, but the voice actors and actresses in Totori aren’t really up to snuff. They aren’t horrible or detract from the experience, by any extent of the imagination, but they’re fairly bland and add little life to the characters. Music, as well, is soft and underplayed, creating a ‘cute’ medieval-type mood but never really going anywhere with it. There’s no ‘standout track’ to be found in this title, and I’ll probably forget most of the music in a day or two.

D'awwww she's so forgettable, I mean adorable.

I leave Totori with a truly odd feeling. I can’t call it a bad game – it’s a very solid turn-based RPG at heart, it has a sound concept, and it executes what it wants to do competently. However, it’s just so understated that the entire experience becomes underwhelming as a whole. Nothing, from characters to graphics to music to gameplay, really stands out and leaves a strong impression. As such, I can’t, with a full heart, recommend this title to anyone other than someone looking for a turn-based RPG fix. Totori is a fine game, but that’s all it is – ‘fine’. All of the elements do exactly what they have to and nothing more. In a future game – and based on my Google-Fu, I know there’s a sequel to this game being made – I would really like to see the development team run with this idea, maybe flesh out the characters and unique properties of items more to make a more unique experience. They have a solid foundation with Atelier Totori, but a foundation needs to be built upon, or else it is quickly forgotten.

Another week, another submission from a new writer! Christopher Sheridan loves a good platformer, and just like the rest of the staff here at Reaction Time, the idea of a new 2D Rayman game for modern consoles got him excited. Well, it looks like Rayman Origins lived up to all of his expectations and more, and he does a fantastic job of explaining why below. Read his review, and let him know what you think in the comments!

It’s generally fairly easy to identify when a game has had a great deal of love put into its development. There’s a palpable increase in the amount of care that has gone into its development, and everything about the game, from top to bottom and in every ounce of production, simply shines with a polish that can only be obtained from honest love for what the developers are doing. Rayman Origins is such a game. It’s a shining example of true reverence for a character and a bygone style of video game. Starting out its life as a digital title and evolving into a much larger game, Rayman Origins is Rayman creator Michel Ancel’s masterpiece, a brilliant gem of careful loving development that commands a look in the crowded holiday rush.

Origins opens with Rayman and his close friends sleeping noisily at the top of the trees in the forest. This leads to an evil old lady that lives below releasing her legion of evil Darktoon creatures and imprisoning Rayman’s little friends, the Electoons (tiny pink ponytailed grinning things with high-pitched squeals of fear or glee), and it’s up to Rayman and his friends to free them. Along the way, Rayman must collect little sentient balls of energy called Lums which give him more Electoons and access to further environments, along with red teeth for their friend. The story line of the game isn’t exactly a huge deal, merely a means of casually explaining why Rayman and his friends are on their quest. It’s doesn’t even really matter once the game actually starts; at that point it’s all about collecting as many Lums and Electoons as possible.

The game encourages replaying levels as well.  This is rarely an issue as running through the cleverly designed stages (of which there are over 60) is always exciting and trying to get into a rhythm to run through as quickly and painlessly as possible is a fun and rewarding challenge. The variety of the levels is pretty great: there are the traditional platforming levels that might occasionally require a breakneck sprint in pursuit of or flight from something else (which frequently turns into the entire stage falling apart as you run through it and is extremely exciting), the small handful of massive boss battles, and several very entertaining flight sequences in which Rayman hitches a ride on a giant mosquito for an arcade-style shooting stage.

The stages are extremely varied and a pleasure to look at.

Designed with Ubisoft’s UbiArt Framework technology (which allows the designers of the game to draw characters and objects by hand and animate individual poses for the characters while the technology makes a seamless transition between the animations), the game is a joy to look at. It’s a lot like playing a big cartoon. Other cartoony-looking side-scrollers cannot touch the fidelity and quality of what’s on display here. I cannot easily put into words the gleefully expressive characters, exaggerated animations and truly, deeply joyful antics they display. If this game does not put a smile on your face, nothing will.

The amount of character put into the game world is astounding.  Typically unoriginal desert, ice, water, and fire environments are given a twist.  For example, the ice levels have a very distinct “food” theme, with bouncy limes and watermelon oceans. The desert environment is made up of hundreds of didgeridoos that create musical staffs in midair populated by birds. Everything in the lush landscapes is brimming with life, moving, pulsing, and reacting to your presence. The game’s environment is distinctive and for some reason puts a heavy emphasis on eyes. A great many things which should be inanimate are covered in eyes, and most of the enemies either have very large eyes or eyes that are floating above their head.  This stylistic choice is curious, but its effect is a considerably more lively and vibrant world.

The soundtrack of Rayman Origins is nothing short of incredible. The number of influences on the music in the game cannot be counted on a single hand. From the wonderfully inspired opening cinematic that sets the sound effects of Rayman and his pals’ sleeping habits to a peppy beatbox, to the irresistibly catchy high-pitched singing that kicks in whenever Rayman collects a King Lum, the music that springs up throughout the game is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a video game. It’s such a joy to hear a new tune popping up every few minutes, and I’ve had several of them stuck in my head for days. That’s not to mention the dialogue of the game, which, when it’s not incomprehensible mutters, grunts, and squeaks, is exclusively Pig Latin. Again, it’s baffling how fantastic the music is and the number of times I reacted to a new tune with a huge smile was countless.

Lighting is expertly managed, adding character to levels in unique ways.

The game’s difficulty should be noted. Gamers have been spoiled for a while with longer health bars and plenty of room for error. Rayman Origins is here to give us a swift disembodied kick to the genitals and a cold reminder of what platformers used to be. Here, it’s one hit, and you’re dead, unless you were lucky enough to get a heart, which gives you one extra hit before death. For most of the game, the difficulty level is rather pleasant. It’s a decent challenge, and requires quick planning a few seconds ahead, careful timing, a keen eye and sharp reaction time to incoming attacks. Nearly every death I had in the first several hours of the game were my own fault, and the generally forgiving checkpoint system ensures that not too much time is wasted on repeating long sections. I really loved the careful increase in difficulty as the game progressed.

As Rayman learns new abilities, the levels that follow will incorporate them so that Rayman will find himself doing relatively simple things such as shrinking down to barely dodge a crushing block, and later progressing to running up a wall to leap off, activate a button, collect a Lum bonus and use helicopter hair to glide past a moving ball of spikes. Eventually, the split-second planning and careful timing that’s required to pull off these maneuvers becomes second nature. It helps that the controls are incredibly tight and responsive: particularly the control stick, which is a godsend in some of the underwater levels that require pinpoint precision in dodging enemies.

There is a slight necessity of learning the patterns in the environment. One of the best examples of this is in the “fire world”, where you must run through the environment as pipes collapse. Ahead, jets of fire shoot into the sky. There are times where you have to time your jump as the fire is blasting, but you have to know that the fire will no longer be there once your feet touch the ground. Many times, the window is less than a second long, and landing the jump correctly or barely dodging a threat because you’ve memorized the pattern it takes are among the absolute most satisfying things in the game.

However, about two thirds of the way through the game there is an aggressive difficulty spike with several sections that are fairly frustrating and one or two that are almost infuriating. I enjoy a good controller-throwing rage now and then, but the final third of Rayman Origins is unforgiving, and not always in a good way. It’s not quite as bad as the soul-crushing cruelty that Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls have, but there are still segments that I just had to quit out of to go defuse somewhere else for a few minutes. That said there is an immense feeling of satisfaction in getting to the end of a particularly brutal level. Even in these frustrating areas, the game was rarely truly unfair, just considerably more demanding of the abilities it had been carefully training me in in the first six hours of the game.

I don't quite think it's fair to slap a man without arms.

As if a wonderful art style, delightful soundtrack and satisfying gameplay were not enough, Michel Ancel and friends went the extra mile and included four-player local cooperative gameplay (not online, unfortunately). And as much fun as the game is on single player, adding another player or three really kicks things up a notch. The game quickly goes from a fast-paced ride to a madcap, frantic opus punctuated with loud laughter, screams of gleeful non-frustration, and insults. Because, you see, as the players must work together for that cumulative Lum total that will net them more Electoons, they are also competing for the highest individual total. Every time a coin appears (which gives the player that grabs it a large Lum bonus), there is a frantic dash to be the first to grab it, filled with slapping and desperate leaps. Co-op play in Rayman Origins may very well be the most fun thing I’ve done all year in a video game.

It’s truly tragic that Rayman Origins was released in the middle of two of the biggest games of the year (Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3), with almost no fanfare. It’s easily one of the best games of the year, and certainly one of the best platformers of the generation. It’s such a completely satisfying and delightful package, packed with wonderful visuals, a generally satisfying challenge, and one of the best local co-op experiences I have had in years.  Even the occasionally frustrating bits toward the end of the game are easily overlooked in comparison to the astronomically high quality of the rest of the experience.  It’s a game that deserves every ounce of your attention, and cannot be ignored. Please, for the love of all things adorable and beautiful, pick up Rayman Origins and feast on a lost art and some of the best platforming action to be found in a game, classic or modern. Yes, it’s that good.

The past couple of years have shown that if you invest your money wisely, you can benefit beyond expectations. This is exactly the case with Polish video game development. In 2007 the door into the mainstream was opened by The Witcher and we’ve been enjoying Polish games ever since. 2011 was a particularly big year for the Central European devs, with many great games coming from the homeland of kielbasa. Hard Reset is one of them, and boy, it’s a real blast.

From the very beginning of the first level you can tell that this game as made by people who absolutely adore the old school of game design. Flying Wild Hog is the name of the studio responsible for Hard Reset, and they really seem to know their shooters. Playing Hard Reset is like taking a journey back to the times of classic first person shooters like Doom and Quake whilst being fully aware of current trends and technology. The amazing thing is that mostly when studios attempt a title that’s supposed to give you a feeling of nostalgia and play like a modern game they fail and the end product is rarely better than mediocre. Fortunately, the Flying Wild Hog people found a way.

There’s not much to say about the Hard Reset’s story as it is not the main focus of the game. It is present, but don’t expect to become obsessed with it. Storywise the game can be compared to Bulletstorm: it’s there but it doesn’t really matter. The game is about shooting, everything that happens in between is just an addition presented in the form of motion comic cutscenes with some very decent voice acting and a pleasant art style. The game was advertised as cyberpunk, which it is, but not the way you’d expect it to be. It doesn’t make you want to kill yourself and you don’t really start thinking about what this world is coming to. It’s more of a colorful cyberpunk with crazy little bloodthirsty robots and mad scientists. Honestly this tone fits the ridiculous shooting very well. Also you shouldn’t be alarmed that the game doesn’t treat itself too seriously. There is a strange Blade Runner vibe coming off the setting. The city feels cold and uninviting , and the machines are certainly hostile. It’s proof how skilled and experienced  the development team is: it must be very hard to make a colorful and, from the lack of a better word, crazy environment feel menacing.  As Hard Reset’s example shows it can certainly be done.

The Blade Runner vibe is ever-present.

There are two core components to Hard Reset’s awesomeness. The first one is definitely the gameplay. The premise is simple, just like it was back in the days when Quake ruled supreme: you have a gun and an objective, now go on and shoot stuff. Shoot a lot of stuff. Levels in Hard Reset are designed in a way that gives plenty of room for that: usually what you have to do is find a generator that powers a force field that’s blocking your progress. On your way to it you will encounter spots where all the shooting happens. Enemies come in waves, however you have to trigger them. It’s very rare to just find a group of enemies hanging out waiting to engage. Usually they appear right after you do something needed to proceed towards the end of the level, be it blow something up or flip a switch. What’s interesting is that they always come in groups, regardless of what type they are. You will be swarmed by tiny robots with buzzsaws, jumped by robotic “tickers” and assaulted by giant armored mechs.

How you choose to fight them is up to you, but Hard Reset seems to have two basic ideas of how you should. The first one is circle strafing: being on the move at all times and circling around opponents while shooting them seems to get the job done. There is a more efficient and satisfying way to kill in this game, however. Environmental kills are the real star of Hard Reset. In every level there is a lot of stuff to shoot: power generators, explosive barrels, cars, fuel tanks and so on. Each of these objects explodes in a different way, which give you a chance to strategize before you go into a fight, as you usually have some time and can figure out is flipping a switch will trigger a wave of enemies. The perfect environmental kill sequence would look something like this: wait for the enemies to get in position , shoot the gas container to launch it as a power generator. The generator will explode, sending arcs of electricity all around, shocking nearby explosives and enemies alike. If there is a fan or air conditioner on the wall it will explode, and the car parked underneath it will too. Chain reaction is key to becoming the master of Hard Reset, which is why physics plays such an important part in the game. Fortunately the execution is flawless and surprisingly, if you know where to shoot, things almost always happen the way you expect them to. I cannot stress this enough, the physics in the game are great – something we should probably have the chance to see more often.

At the beginning you might think you only have two weapons at your disposal: a rifle and an energy gun. That is true until you unlock upgrades for both of them. These are transforming weapons: you unlock additional firing modes, so your rifle is also a shotgun and a grenade launcher. There’s quite a lot of upgrades to buy and all of them are actually useful, which is refreshing. It can be really annoying when games force you to buy a bunch of worthless upgrades before you advance up the upgrade tree enough to get the vital ones. Hard Reset doesn’t have this problem and getting new powers is very rewarding and satisfying.

Hard Reset plays very well because of its execution and the love put in the development, but I feel like I must warn you: it is a very difficult game. It’s downright hardcore, just like they don’t make them anymore. You have to be ready to die a lot, especially on the harder difficulty levels. You’ll also need a lot of practice and skill to complete the achievement challenges. Achievements are actually the reason to play on harder difficulties, because if you beat a challenge on Hard you’ll also unlock the achievement for Easy and Normal.  Even though the game can be punishing and extreme, it’s never frustrating. If you end up stuck just walk around the environment for a moment and find everything you can use to make that environmental kill chain longer. I promise that if you do that you will win the upcoming battle. It’s really great how the game forces you to think for a second before you just start shooting.

One of the bigger enemies from the beginning of the game.

It’s safe to say that Hard Reset plays extremely good and is crazy satisfying. Though it’s a huge part of it, it’s not the only thing that makes the game stand out. It also looks and sounds great, as it should. It would seem that establishing new standards in PC graphics is the Polish thing now. Hard Reset doesn’t disappoint in this respect either. The graphics are sharp, colorful and dynamic. There is a whole lot of detail on everything, especially on the enemies. It’s hard to see because of how fast the action is, but they’re animated really well and have a lot of features that make them believable as robots. The physics-powered explosions and electrical discharges also look absolutely fantastic. Another thing that’s definitely a merit is that the framerate is always smooth, no matter how much chaos is happening on the screen. All of this makes for a great visual experience, but that is to be expected in this day and age. PC exclusive games are supposed to run smoothly and have jaw dropping graphics. I consider them unfinished products if they don’t. However, Hard Reset goes beyond even that. It’s amazing how much some additional animation can improve a game. Whenever you switch firing modes in Hard Reset you’re treated to a crazy transformation animation. It’s a small thing, but it just goes to show how much love was put in this game. Really makes you appreciate the work the developers did.

The back-to-the-basics gameplay and outstanding visual design are what makes Hard Reset well worth the asking price. It’s a very affordable product by comparison, most full price games don’t offer as much as it does. If you enjoy first person shooters but aren’t really satisfied with what’s out there at the moment, Hard Reset is for you. I guarantee you will regain faith in the genre. Flying Wild Hog’s first title is of superb quality and will provide you with many hours of top notch entertainment. Don’t be surprised if it helps you unwind as well.  It’s probably the best value product in years. Go get it now!

Another review from Satoru! Not only am I excited that my last sentence rhymed, but I’m also happy to see our latest contributor post two reviews in a single week. Let him know what you think of his take on this Polish PC title in the comments, and stay tuned to Reaction Time for more content!

2011 certainly was a great year for Polish game developers. Thanks to recognition from major publishers, we had the chance to be immersed in the worlds of some really amazing titles, such as The Witcher 2, Bulletstorm, Hard Reset, and Dead Island. These games, all very well received, promise a brilliant future for the Polish school of development and for the players as well. Knowing all this and still remembering the Polish games very fondly, I had high expectations when I picked up the PC version of Afterfall: Insanity.

Afterfall is, in short, a post-apocalyptic survival horror game. The setting is actually very unique, as it takes place in a futuristic Poland, or at least what’s left of it after the nuclear explosions of World War 3. The inhabitants survived Armageddon thanks to underground shelters, which were conveniently placed here and there. When you start the game, you’re lead to believe that your home shelter is the only one that survived the apocalypse. As it turns out, this might not be true.

The story is not that complex. You play as Dr. Albert, a psychiatrist (you know, one of those psychiatrists who knows how to dismember people with a shovel or pickaxe very well). Apparently being the shelter’s top shrink is a lucrative position, because everybody seems to be suffering from a mental illness called the “locked-in syndrome.” This means that people go crazy because of being unable to go outside, and supposedly submarine sailors were the first to ever experience it. Mental illness plays a major part in the game, as you often can’t tell whether what you’re doing at the moment is real or just a dream/vision. It’s definitely a nice touch.

Yep, it's pretty brown.

The game looks fine, even though it’s nothing special compared to other Polish productions like The Witcher, or Hard Reset. These are the new standard-setters – Afterfall, however, is not. The game is very brown. It makes sense because of the apocalypse and all, but after a while, even white starts to look brownish, which is really disheartening. In addition to the dated graphics, there’s a significant lack of facial animations in Afterfall. The characters do not seem to have any emotions whatsoever and the dialog and interaction is awfully stiff. Also, the voice acting is so ridiculously bad it’s hard to believe it passed any quality check. This is surprising because the protagonist is voiced by Michal Zebrowski, one of Poland’s top actors.

The overall tone of the game is very serious. So serious, in fact, that it’s almost unbearable at times. I mean, the game couldn’t possibly have more pathos in it. It’s also filled with Polish national symbols, which makes sense as the shelter is in Poland and the people inhabiting it are Poles. I understand that, but it’s very overwhelming. Perhaps this game is some sort of a nationalist statement, or the developers are just crazy – I don’t know. What I do know is that the brown color pallet, the bleakness and the crazy mustached Stalin-clone Colonel (the dictator in charge of the shelter) make Afterfall very hard to play. The story also isn’t all that compelling. The only reaction I had after the first six or so hours was “meh, whatever.” No emotional connection to the story at all.

Another thing I should mention is that AfterFall plays very much like Dead Space. Actually, it’s like a Dead Space clone; even the control scheme is exactly the same. I feel like this isn’t a standalone product, almost like I just installed a mod for Dead Space 2. This may sound like a good thing, but actually, it’s really not. Let me put it this way: it’s nice when they try being like the best, but it’s not when they think they have a better idea. Intoxicate Studios seems to have thought it was a great idea to take the Dead Space formula and slow it down. It wasn’t.

The apocalypse has had some seriously negative effects on civilization.

The game also tries to utilize the analog melee combat system, pretty much the same as we’ve seen in Dead Island. There it worked very well, but in Afterfall we can see that this system was not developed with third-person perspective games in mind. It just doesn’t do its job. The shooting, on the other hand, is good and the weapons are pretty standard. The actual feel of the shooting is probably one of the best parts of the game.

All of the above in mind, the worst thing about Afterfall is very small, but it can certainly break the entire experience. You never know where you’re supposed to go, because there’s no waypoint and all the indoor environments look the same. It’s so frustrating that it made me feel like giving up every single time I sat down to play the game.

I have to be fair. Afterfall: Insanity is not a bad game. It’s mediocre, but certainly not horrible. You can see that the young developers from Intoxicate are ambitious and have a future in the industry. However, they still need to mature. More money for their project wouldn’t hurt either. So, what is Afterfall in the end? It’s a promise of sorts. It’s an investment – buying this title will encourage the development team to improve their skills and make better products in the future. Afterfall is a good start. Only time can tell if they really have what it takes to make it in this business. From what I’ve seen in Afterfall, I can say yes, but they have a really long road ahead of them.

Batman Arkham Asylum was a great game. Being developed as the first title of a studio, Arkham Asylum was homage to multiple Batman storylines and comic books while retaining its own, unique story. It brought back Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, two voice actors beloved by the Batman fanbase, and created an unparalleled atmosphere. Best of all, the combat and exploration elements were very well done and refined, with only a few flaws when it came to boss fights dragging the game down. Arkham Asylum was one of the most enjoyable titles of 2009, and remains one of my favorite games of this generation. Two years later, Batman Arkham City has been released, promising to be even more Batman than the last Batman. Running off of Arkham Asylum’s engine, Arkham City touts an expanded world to explore, more villains, more Batman, more gadgets, more Batman, more playable characters, and more Batman. However, Arkham City ends up getting off on a bit of a wrong foot, and the overload of Batman ends up being its own undoing.

Arkham City picks up one year after the events of Arkham Asylum. Dr. Hugo Strange, a psychiatrist mentioned in one of the hidden notes of Arkham Asylum and second fiddle to Scarecrow when it comes to evil doctors in the Batman universe, has rounded up all of Batman’s rogues gallery and anyone else he doesn’t really like into one blocked-off part of Gotham City. Instead of holding a tea party and discussing their various terrible conditions, the psychopaths and mobsters of Gotham decide to have an all-out territory war, because that’s what you do when you’re bored and crazy. Bruce Wayne, not wanting to get left out on the ‘has nothing better to do’ party, starts protesting Dr. Strange and gets arrested for his troubles. Then he becomes Batman and does Batman things while visiting as many villains as possible before taking Strange’s corrupt and ineffective form of imprisonment down.

Arkham City’s story is… well, calling it ‘a mess’ is putting it rather nicely. Rocksteady wanted to give proper homage to as many Batman villains as possible, and to their credit, they do a nice job of it. Two-Face, Joker, Penguin, and even lesser villains like Mr. Freeze, the Mad Hatter, and Deadshot all get a bit of time in the sun, with their appearances remaining very faithful to their various interpretations (mostly Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, which seems to be Rocksteady’s favorite Batman comic, but other comics are strewn in there as well). However, how they go about presenting all of these villains becomes a chore, dragging Batman from one side of the city to the other repeatedly to get to each villain and exchange witty banter. The game tries to highlight as many villains as it possibly can, and the entire plot ends up as a congested mess of villains trying to one-up each other in just how evil they can be.

The worst part is, with resources being spread so thin, every villain (with one notable exception, to be discussed later) ends up getting the short end of the stick. For being the main villain of the game, Hugo Strange appears in only about one-sixth of it, appearing at the beginning and the end of the game, while occasionally saying ‘oh Batman my evil plan is going to happen later kthx’ to remind players that he didn’t just take a nap in between his appearances. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue if Arkham Asylum didn’t already have proof positive on how to atmospherically create a main villain with The Joker’s intercom calls. Arkham Asylum was able to create a driving narrative, despite being incredibly silly, by having The Joker seem to be one step ahead of Batman at all times, able to control the other villains to lure Batman into traps while mocking him all the while. Dr. Strange lacks this, kind of just sitting in the corner until the other villains remember that he’s there and let him be evil after they’ve had their fun, making the narrative feel awkwardly patched together at best and horribly disjointed at worst. Worse yet, even the villains who do get screen time, due to so many other baddies and characters trying to take the spotlight away, end up getting very little screen time. By my count, the characters of Harley Quinn, Two-Face, and Poison Ivy have less than fifteen minutes of screen time COMBINED. Robin appears in exactly one scene of the game and then becomes completely irrelevant to the plot. I wouldn’t mind so much if these were lesser characters, but these were characters that Rocksteady gave a good deal of time showing off in trailers and who are very important to the Batman mythos, who are just thrown to the wayside due to an inconsistent story.

Take a good look, boys. You won't be seeing them again until a cameo in 10 hours.

Gameplay is essentially unchanged from Arkham Asylum. Batman is still Batman, and he does the typical Batman routine of having an awesome cape that he can glide around with, throwing batarangs at people, having that weird explodey gel that he can only spray in the shape of a bat due to a sudden artistic desire every time he uses it, and punching people in the face with a kind of stoic glee. Combat in Arkham Asylum was excellent, and Arkham City makes a few tweaks to improve it and make it overall more streamlined. While punching people in the face, Batman can now counter two mooks who are trying to punch him back at once, as opposed to countering one and nicely letting the other one try to give him a concussion. The combo system throws in a ‘timed hits’ type of system known as ‘critical strikes’, where if Batman throws a punch immediately after his last attack, it’ll do more damage, which speeds up combat nicely. Of course, combat still has its flaws from Arkham Asylum – Batman can apparently jump ten meters in any given direction if he’s really pumped up by combat but can only punch a guy directly in front of him if he’s not in the middle of a combo or it ends – but these issues are negligible at best. Stealth and takedowns, similarly, remain unchanged, and it’s still just as fun to go behind a well-armed guard, punch him in the face, steal his gun with a batclaw, flash him with your cape, and then beat him mercilessly while gliding to nearby cover as his buddies panic as it was in the last game. Or simply silently taking him down, but where is the fun in that?

Batman’s gadgets, on the other hand, are a little sporadic. The Batarang is essentially rendered useless not even a fifth of the way into the game by Batman’s new electric stun paintball weapon, which essentially fulfills the same purpose, but stuns enemies for longer. The Batclaw and Line Launcher, similarly, return and are used for about one room before becoming outclassed by other weapons in Batman’s arsenal. By the end of the game, I found myself using only the electric shock paintball gun, a device that shuts down any two guns in the area, and a late game weapon that really makes every other gadget pale in comparison, due to being able to stun multiple enemies for a prolonged period of time. Rocksteady might have been going for a power creep with Batman’s weapons, giving him stronger toys as he goes deeper into the game, but the ability to upgrade his weapons and the fact that things like the Batarang are given ultimately pointless upgrades later in the story make me apprehensive. Most gadgets seem to only fulfill the purpose of finding secrets hidden in Arkham City and solving optional puzzles, but this is only because ‘oh the Batclaw and Electric Paintball don’t create as much impact as a batarang, so only it can push this switch.’ The few unique properties the weapons have end up becoming negligible at best, and it just feels like a lot of good intentions went into the design of the weapons, but none of them were fully realized.

Also Detective Mode is still crazy good and broken. There’s no reason to ever turn it off, aside from the fact that it makes things kind ofugly. Being able to see through multiple walls at a time, see exactly what kind of weapon an enemy is armed with from afar, and see noise sources is just as incredibly good as it was in Arkham Asylum, and nothing in Arkham City has changed to make it less crazy good.

Pictured: How you're going to see combat through 90% of the game.

The largest change of Arkham City is a touted ‘open world,’ expanding on the comparatively meager hub of Arkham Asylum. Arkham City is covered with rooftops for Batman to run across, jump through, glide across, and be Batman on top of, and the buildings serve their purpose of being buildings very well. Unfortunately, with so many buildings, the auto-select function of the Bat Grapple becomes a bit overwhelmed. Batman’s grapple hook automatically homes in on the sides of buildings and pretty much any ledge that Batman could pull himself up, so getting Batman to aim exactly where you want is a bit finicky at best.  The exact range for the grapple is not well defined, and much like combat, Batman will be able to shoot his hook incredible heights one moment and then won’t be able to grapple to a building he’s facing the next, or he’ll shoot to a different building that he’s not facing because it happens to be slightly closer despite the targeting reticule not being on-screen.  For the most part, the open world is nicely designed, capturing a lot of details and landmarks from Batman comics of the past, having nice variations in the heights and designs of buildings that Batman can throw people off of, and just generally being fun to swing around on.

It’s a shame, then, that this comes at the expense of the excellently designed linear sections of the game. Arkham Asylum excelled at placing Batman in enclosed environments with groups of thugs, requiring Batman to either solve a puzzle or carefully pick off enemies one by one in order to advance. In Arkham City, these sections return, but are not as well-designed as their predecessor. Certain buildings, like the Gotham City Police Department and The Joker’s Steel Mill, have intricate, multi-level designs to their rooms where enemies can be picked off. However, the flaw in this is in how the rooms are designed; based on how the walkways are positioned, it’s very easy for Batman to be spotted by an enemy, and very difficult to lure enemies into a position where they can be picked off. Compare this to, say, the Intensive Care Ward of Asylum, where large walls and stairwells were able to separate sides of the room, and the flaw is clear. In an environment where Batman is not able to safely pick off thugs and baddies, being able to strategically strike them down becomes less interesting, often making Batman rely on gadgets that disable enemies for a long while in order to take out groups of three or so at once. Arkham City’s weapon layout combined with its room layout ends up creating a more brute force-type gameplay that ruins the dynamic of Batman being vengeance and the night and the terrifying bat who makes grown men weep and all that jazz.

Arkham City is, however, able to improve greatly on boss fights. Whereas Asylum had ‘three or four big guys who charged at you and then you shot them in the back with stuff and also the plant lady’ plus the occasional boss who just threw mooks at you, Arkham City has legitimate and interesting boss fights. Each fight is with a villain from the Batman mythos, with each fight having its own dynamic and unique pattern. In a battle with Solomon Grundy, for instance, Batman has to disable the electrical sources of an ever-regenerating zombie while dodging multiple electric attacks. In a fight with Mr. Freeze, however, Batman must deal with an AI that learns from each attack that Batman uses, attacking from out of his range of sight to deal another blow. Even The Joker, who essentially just swarms Batman with mooks of all shapes and sizes, varies things by having roller coaster cars and giant, burly Russian men with hammers thrown at Batman in the middle of a brawl, just for the sake of variation. Each fight was clearly given a lot of time and effort to make it as successful and engaging as possible, and Rocksteady certainly succeeded in this effort.

A boss fight that isn't embarrassing? Oh Grundy, you shouldn't have!

In addition, there is one stretch of the game where Arkham City is absolutely perfect: the Iceberg Lounge. Upon gaining access to it (which requires an incredibly tedious fetch quest that was only made to pad the game), Batman is thrown into sprawling rooms set up so that he can use different gadgets to distract enemies. Each enemy has their own unique patrol route, and spread out in different ways. Cover can be used in order to hide from and escape enemies, or to safely pick them off from. The Penguin is a constant threat in this area, always holding hostages in order to put Batman into dangerous positions, as well as putting up the corpses of villains that he killed and providing commentary as Batman passes them. Penguin makes reference to the other villains in the city, explaining how his stake in a territory war is just so he can humiliate and kill the other villains, and illustrates his points both humorously and terrifyingly. There’s even a bit of camp references to the ridiculousness that would be the 1960′s Batman series thrown in there. Finally, the area ends with the game’s first, and excellent, boss fight against The Penguin and a briefly-foreshadowed Solomon Grundy. The Iceberg Lounge is an absolutely perfect area, letting the player be immersed in a villain and their psychology while providing multiple opportunities to allow the player to utilize all of Batman’s tools and skills. There are well-designed and well thought-out areas to pick off enemies in, there’s mook fistfights to let Batman freely flow into his combos in an enclosed environment, and there’s an excellent boss fight that proves as a fine way to end Penguin’s arc in the game. Rocksteady hit the ball out of the park on this one, and proves that a lot of excellent ideas and design went into this area.

Of all the villains in the Batman mythos, the deformed British guy is the best in the game. Think about that.

Bonus missions and villains outside of the main plot are hit-or-miss at best. The Riddler is back to provide most of the extra content, hiding trophies and giving Batman simple puzzles that relate to the Batman universe. Collecting enough unlocks a Riddler side challenge where Batman has to go through some admittedly very clever puzzles and death traps in order to save hostages. These Riddler areas are very well designed, and The Riddler’s incredibly smug demeanor is an absolute delight to hear. Unfortunately, it does require collecting Riddler trophies to unlock these areas. There are over four hundred Riddler trophies in the game, and very few Riddler areas by comparrison, requiring massive amounts of trophies in order to get from one Riddler area to the next. The trophies, and the puzzles required to solve them, are scattered all throughout the city, and most serve more as a waste of time than a legitimate challenge. Several merely end up as ‘okay hit this giant glowing green question mark when it turns bright’ or ‘hey this wall with a green question mark spray painted on it looks like you can blow it up wink wink nudge nudge’, making for more of a dull collection process. The building design of Arkham City doesn’t help either; Arkham Island could hide trophies in little alcoves or in the unique architecture of one of the asylum buildings, while City places them merely on difficult-to-access rooftops, since most of the buildings are pretty simple and rectangular in shape.

Other side-quests are hosted by characters like the Mad Hatter, Victor Zsasz, Bane, and Deadshot, though these mostly result in finding a specific telephone/dead body/container of drugs and then either analyzing it or fighting some people who are around it. Zsasz provides some absolutely stirring characterization and fantastic voice acting, and the Hatter is trippy as can be expected from someone inspired by Alice In Wonderland, but these side missions tend to be finding-a-needle-in-a-haystack type of affairs, or otherwise just getting from Point A to Point B. They serve as distractions, but don’t offer anything new and unique, just another thing to do or collect. There are also additional combat-based missions as there were in the first title, which are a fine expansion, but do little that Arkham Asylum didn’t already explore.

Catwoman is playable in this title, with her very well-rendered catsuit in full glory. Unfortunately, she seems to have been an afterthought insofar as game design went. There are a total of four Catwoman missions in Arkham City, and as she spends 80% of the game basically ‘in a completely heterosexual vine coat at Poison Ivy’s hideout’, they add very little to the story. Only two areas are uniquely designed specifically for Catwoman, and of them, only one is larger than a single room. Rather than glide gracefully, Catwoman whips onto buildings before faceplanting into the side and then jumping up them in a rather pointless mini-game about timing her jumps. Otherwise, combat with Catwoman is essentially the same as with Batman, other than the fact that her takedown moves have much longer animations for her to take down an enemy in the most sexually entertaining way possible. As can be expected, this ruins the flow of combat just a bit and makes it much easier to be hit as Catwoman. On the plus side, her ‘Thief Vision’ isn’t nearly as good as Batman’s detective vision, leaving her more having to use her wits rather than Batman’s “I-have-something-for-every-situation-also-my-parents-are-dead” utility belt. This makes getting into fights and picking off mooks with Catwoman a lot more fun, but actually moving around and fighting with her feel like a bit of a chore. Catwoman also has her own Riddler challenges, but these feel especially lazy, most of them ending up as “okay go to this area with this puzzle Batman already finished BUT WITH CATWOMAN”, or leaving them on top of random buildings. With how little of her is in the game, her presence doesn’t really add much other than sex appeal, and while I’m vain and stupid enough to appreciate that, she feels like something completely unnecessary and thrown in just to make the game feel larger.

Voice acting in this game is very well done, but feels strangely lifeless. Kevin Conroy returns as Batman, but his tone remains at an odd, threatening low. Conroy has proven in his other works that he can use the Batman voice to express a wide array of emotions, but here he sounds very annoyed or a bit constipated through the entire game. Mark Hamill, likewise, takes until the tail end of the game to really hit his stride as The Joker, taking a more subdued approach with the character (well, as subdued as The Joker can be). Considering that The Joker is badly beaten and ill during most of this game, it’s understandable, but the character is supposed to be very grandiose through any circumstance, as supplementary material has proven, so to portray The Joker as weakened feels very odd to me. Seeing as Mark Hamill had to be convinced to reprise this role due to “wanting to leave <his role as The Joker> on a high note”, I can see this as more of an editorial problem than a flaw with Hamill’s performance. Other characters, such as Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, The Penguin, and especially The Riddler and Victor Zsasz have excellent lines and performances. In addition, whoever wrote the script for the individual mooks deserves a reward, as never have I experienced more expressive and outright entertaining minions in a game, almost feeling guilty for punching them in the face from how much they made me laugh making fun of the game’s plot. However, the star of the show is, undoubtedly, Corey Burton as Dr. Hugo Strange, who is able to deliver an absolutely stunning and piercing voice. For as little time as Dr. Strange is relevant, when he is on the screen, there is such a calm, yet superior tone to his voice, almost the opposite of The Riddler’s showboating in a way. The way Burton is able to give the character anger while still giving the character an aura of superiority is just magnificent to see, and I sincerely hope he is given greater roles after this performance.

Tell me how it feels, Batman, to know that my voice might just be a bit more erotic than your own.

Graphically the game is fine – it fits the motif it’s going for and sticks with it. It’s a bit basic and has a bit of a dull color palette, but I understand the tone the team was going for and it hits it. However, there are a few glitches, including one time where Batman clipped into a building after throwing a weapon and I wasn’t able to move for a good minute. The worst glitch I encountered was when I attempted to go up an air vent, but the next area refused to load since I had gotten to it in an unorthodox way (I made clever use of the grapple gun to go around a gate as opposed to unlocking with a gadget). The entire next area refused to load, ending with Batman floating in the air before finally getting his face stuck in a tower, unable to move. I had to reset the game in order to continue, which was a bit worrying, seeing as I technically didn’t use a glitch to progress. The grapple tends to also clip onto buildings occasionally, having Batman get stuck there for a second before hurtling him forward.

I leave Batman Arkham City with a strange, empty feeling. When the game excelled, it was able to provide some absolutely gripping gameplay, atmosphere, and characterization. However, for a huge majority of the game, the plot is filled with holes, level design is weak compared to the original, and most of the content just feels like a massive amount of filler. A sandbox game should be fun to explore and littered with secrets and fun activities to do. Instead, Arkham City is merely Batman running around different points trying to get his next objective while occasionally playing a variation of The Riddler’s version of Simon. Arkham City is still a fun game; the core gameplay mechanics that made Arkham Asylum a fun title are still present and enjoyable. However, there are just so many factors getting in Arkham City’s way, I can’t honestly say it improved on the original in any significant manner. In fact, I can’t go so far as to recommend Arkham City; Arkham Asylum was a much better and more well-designed game, and deserves to be played over this. Rocksteady, you have proven that you are huge fans of Batman and have put more Batman in this Batman than any other Batman. Now please, try to trim the fat a little and make a very engaging Batman that is less Batman than this Batman but is still very Batman, thus being a better Batman.

We have ourselves a new contributor! Say hello to Satoru Kojima – a fine writer and new friend of mine who happens to love the video game industry almost as much as I do. He’s written a few reviews in the past for other sites and now  plans on bringing his expertise to Reaction Time. Let him know what you think in the comments below, and keep posted for more of his work!

At first, I was very sceptical about spending money on the new addition to the Saint’s Row franchise. THQ did a solid amount of advertising, however putting out the Initiation Station, a character creator, about a month before the game’s release wasn’t enough to convince me I should play it. Then a couple of days after the official release I saw a youtube video. My mind was made up: I had to at least try this game, try it for the tremendous opportunity. The opportunity to beat someone to death with a rubber dick. How can anyone in their right mind say no that? Thus began one of the craziest rides I ever gone on.

Yup.

Saints Row represents the style of gaming I haven’t seen anywhere for a long time. The formula is nothing new for the franchise, as the game is open-world, with both story missions and side activities to engage in at any time. This is pretty standard in construction. The execution, however, is anything but. So, what do you get to do in the game that’s so crazy?

First of all you have the very well-written story, which focuses on you, the leader of the Third Street Saints, as you and your homies take on three rival gangs in the battle to take over the city of Steelport. Seems really cliché, right? Maybe it is, but how you do it really isn’t. Regularly a game of this type w

All of the vehicles handle very nicely.

Luche Libre is not nearly as crazy as this game gets.

I know this is what you came for.

I’m going to start off the review with this little controversial tidbit right here – if you’re not playing Battlefield 3 on PC, then you’re playing an obsolete version of the game. There, I said it; and yes, I have played the game on a different platform. The PlayStation 3, to be specific – and though it was a perfectly competent console shooter, the game simply isn’t the true sequel to Battlefield 2 without its sixty-four player multiplayer. Then again, Battlefield 3 insists on adding a lesser single-player campaign into the mix as well as a half-decent cooperative mode on the side, further adding to the idea of Battlefield 3 being something different. However, I can happily say that even though the game does feature some poor additions to its name, the multiplayer is still the best you can find in the shooter market. It looks damn fine while doing it, too.

While any other game review would probably commence with talk about said game’s single-player component, it only makes sense to start the other way around for a Battlefield title; so here it goes. The Battlefield formula has hardly changed, for a start. The four classes established in the Bad Company games make a return, with tweaks applied making some of the classes work a little differently this time around. One example is the Assault class which, like in Battlefield 2142, is a cross between a medic and frontline combatant due to the choice each player has to make between a defibrillator and a grenade launcher. Engineers remain almost unchanged, with their primary weapons being the only change as they are now carbines as opposed to sub-machine guns or shotguns like in previous Battlefield games. Support is still your ammo dispensing friend with a machine gun, only this time they have access to thrown C4 explosives and deployable mortars. The final class, Recon, is still your typical sniper and, like it or not, that is still his only real purpose other than deploying a mobile spawn point for his squad.

This about sums up just how awesome, and beautiful, Battlefield 3 is.

Though some of these changes may seem questionable, such issues are now tackled with the return of non-class-specific firearms such as shotguns, personal defence weapons, and semi-automatic rifles. All weapons are customisable too, meaning that any class can be tweaked to fill a slightly different role or tuned to be combat effective at certain ranges. Though the Engineer’s carbines are effective at close to medium range, some maps may require him to shoot at longer ranges, which isn’t a problem thanks to the quick addition of an ACOG scope and heavy barrel attachment. Most weapons are capable of having silencers equipped too, meaning that any class has the potential of becoming that rifle wielding ninja we all fear.

It isn’t just the infantry combat that has customisation, though, with the inclusion of vehicle type specific upgrades that enable jets to drop flares, tanks to fire a coaxial machine gun, and scout helicopters to fire missiles. There are only three upgrade slots per vehicle as with the weapons, however, so after unlocking a good chunk of the upgrades, you’ll have to pick which fit your playstyle more. This is a little problematic, as if you’re a new jet pilot up against seasoned veterans, they’ll have lock-on missiles and you have no flares or any other countermeasures to stop the imminent missile impact. That’s some incredibly shaky game balance right there, though I hear that DICE are currently working on an update to the game that should fix this issue along with a few other changes. You may have heard of the tactical light attachment being the most blinding thing ever, and that would be correct – it needs toning down just a little.

Quick, guys! Let's all huddle up in one corner to defend this objective! We couldn't possibly get taken out all at once.

Something the Battlefeld series has always been good at is great map design, and with all the little changes Battlefield 3 has done to the franchise’s formula, you’d hope that the quality of the maps has stayed the same. Luckily for us, it has indeed. None of the maps offend me in any particular way, with the exception of perhaps Damavand Peak on Rush or Tehran Highway on Large Conquest. Damavand suffers from what I sometimes call ‘extreme either or’ syndrome, with the map either being impossible to defend or impossible to attack. Tehran Highway is simply not designed to fit sixty-four players in it on Large Conquest, which is a problem with another one or two maps in the game. This is related to the lead platform being consoles (originally PC). Of course, this is combated by the degree of control all admins have when choosing map rotations on their servers. That doesn’t fix the problem, obviously, but it’s something.

The environments in these maps are varied, with Caspian Border being one of the prettiest maps thanks to its forests, mountains, and sheer scale. You’ll also fight in desert environments (probably in some unnamed Middle East locale), in the city streets of Paris, and on a large shipping and receiving dock. Though some of the maps are a little small, as I said, due to the lead platform being console, the majority are perfect for the PC-exclusive Large Conquest mode. This is where Battlefield 3 truely shines, with the maps being big enough to fit the sixty-four players on foot or in vehicles while players in jets or helicopters get to explore further reaches of the map. It really is amazing how far you can actually fly away from the established combat region, only to turn back around and reign explosive death from above at a great distance.

Not only are there jets, but they're a blast to fly. Especially when you're blasting away the enemy. Ha.

If you’re a Battlefield 2 veteran, you may recall the jets and helicopters being…well, unbalanced. Jets not only had air superiority, they could also drop bombs on the ground which decimated both infantry and ground vehicles alike. A good pilot could turn the game around for their team, with helicopter pilots being just as effective at annihilating all opposition at control points in mere seconds. Battlefield 3 no longer has this problem, with bombs being completely stripped from jets and both vehicle types receiving a notable damage downgrade. Scout helicopters now exist alongside the typical attack and transport types, which are armed with gatling guns that are effective at taking out infantry and light vehicles while the attack helicopter focuses its strengths on taking down light and heavy tanks as well as other gunships.

I really hate puns. It doesn’t matter who says the “joke” or how it’s delivered – puns are always cringe-inducing failures. You know what? I’d go as far as to say that a funny pun is an oxymoron. And while I’m on my soapbox, I’d like to announce that I rarely play a puzzle game if the challenge is too great. If I’m sitting around, spending more than twenty minutes on a single riddle, I’ll probably just find a more productive thing to do with my time – like play more video games. Is this the game’s fault? Probably not. My frustration may stem from an unclear puzzle, but more often than not, my progress is stubbed by my inadequacy in the genre. You remember that kid in daycare who tried with all of his might to stuff that square block into the triangular hole? Yeah, that was me.

Now, where was I going with this again? Oh yeah, purple goats. Escape Goat, a new puzzler from developer MagicalTimeBean, seemingly has everything I hate. Challenging puzzles, an ever-increasing level of difficulty and puns. The title is a pun. It’s like the developer dug into the darkest corners of my mind, discovered my weaknesses and crafted a game around them. Well, you maniacal villain, here’s my chance to strike back. After playing a game meant to be my kryptonite and completing every last puzzle, I’m proud to say that I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. Wait, what? That’s right – even with all of my reservations, I came away from Escape Goat just wanting more. Every puzzle felt unique, and even when my goat met the jagged blades of a saw a dozen or so times, my only impulse was to persevere.  Most of all, I like the title. Mostly. Okay, whatever – Escape Goat is a great name. MigicalTimeBean has taken what I thought to be two negatives and created one big positive. It’s a joy throughout, and a great reason to keep an eye on the XNA service.

This is just not the time to be sleeping.

You’re trapped. A purple goat is found inside the Prison of Agnus, where the gates remain closed as long as the sheep slumber. It seems like a hopeless situation, but you can never tell a goat the odds. The prison is segmented into over 50 challenge rooms – with a sheep waiting to be awoken at the end of each set of six. Instead of just succumbing to what seems like a cruel fate, the goat finds the courage to press on and tackle each puzzle. He can’t do it alone, though, as tiny a red mouse with a desire to flee the prison’s clutches joins the goat early on.

These two quickly become a dynamic duo, and this partnership greatly factors into the puzzle mechanics. Escape goat is a fast-paced, clever puzzle platformer that continues to heap on the challenge as more rooms are conquered. Your primary goal is to collect keys to unlock a door and find a safe way to that exit, but the manner by which you do so is never quite the same. There are switches to be pressed, blocks to be pushed and serrated saw blades to avoid. Some levels may be about precise timing and the perfectly performed double jump, while others focus on the use of the little mouse. At any time, you can drop the mouse and watch him scurry forward – walking up walls and pressing switches along the way. You’ll often leave him on a specific button or send him on his own little mission, but once he puts on the magic hat, it’s all about teamwork. Specific levels require the magic hat pickup – a piece of apparel that allows the goat and the mouse to switch places with a single press of the X-button.  This can be useful for getting to locations in the level that could once only be reached by the mouse or teleporting out of a very sticky situation (even though it can be heartbreaking to watch your little buddy suffer what should have been your cruel fate). There may not be any actual dialogue between the goat and mouse, but there’s a silent bond that obviously begins to form.

Things can get pretty hectic.

The concepts and mechanics are simple, but it’s the way in which they’re presented that makes the game so interesting. Enemies that were once nothing more than a nuisance can be used to light explosive barrels on fire in later levels, and the mouse goes from being a helping hand to a lifesaver in an instant due to intelligent level design. It also helps that the platforming just feels right. You can only jump, double jump and do a small dash forward, but in a game like this, simplicity is key. Not once did I feel slighted by the controls or their responsiveness, removing any possible frustration and allowing for a greater focus on the puzzles themselves. Each room is fair and focused, but if you’re really itching to play something unrelentingly difficult, you can just make it yourself. Escape Goat includes a simple, accessible level editor that includes all the assets from the story mode. I may not be the most creative spirit myself, but it’s a welcome addition for those who can’t get enough of that purple goat.

If you also can’t get enough low-resolution pixel art, then you’ll love Escape Goat’s style. This is the same developer of the Soulcaster games, and a mastery of the retro vibe is once again displayed throughout each riddle. It’s charming in its simplicity, and the soundtrack is difficult to pry from your subconscious after just a few minutes of play. If you love old-school NES tunes, you’re in luck – the entire soundtrack from Escape Goat is available on Ian Stocker’s BandCamp site. Escape Goat is a treat for both eyes and ears, even without the nostalgia factor.

Escape Goat has managed to do what I once thought was impossible – make me enjoy a puzzle game built on a pun. It’s a strange concept headlined by a peculiar pair, but it just all comes together beautifully. The ride may only last for about two hours, but at only 240 MSP, it’s tough to complain. Drop your Call of Duty, step off of the Battlefield and give Skyrim a quick rest. Give Escape Goat two hours of your time during this packed fall season. I guarantee you’ll walk away satisfied.