Outlast (PS4): NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

Hoooo boy. Ok, so as you should all know if you've followed this blog for any specific length of time, I've got a bone stuck in my craw about the state of horror video games. A lot of the big mainstays like Silent Hill, Dead Space, and Resident Evil have lost their edge. Some can startle, but they don't really scare. Many of them seem to be falling prey to the monster that makes them all bland and homogeneous 3rd person shooters that takes no risks and pushes no boundaries. 

And then I played Slender. That game gave me a lot of hope that out there, hidden beneath mountain of triple-A game development lies a bed of developers who understand. Who GET it. People who know what it is that makes a game scary and by proxy, fun. Before, indie games seemed to really thrive more on the PC, and that's really where horror games have found their home, but the PS4 has been striving to bring indie to their console, and now their PS+ freebie for February I get to sit down with a trailer that I've been pretty stoked about.

OUTLAST

The story as I understand it here. You play freelance journalist Miles Upshur, who receives an anonymous tip that there is something seriously not right happening at Mount Massive, an asylum owned and run by the Murkoff corporation (A company with a bit of a history of shady background as is). So night vision camcorder in hand, Miles pulls up to the asylum to see if he can blow this case wide open. Upon breaking into the asylum, shit immediately gets upended as he greeted by blood splatter, scattered gore and limbs, and bodies of the staff and security littering the floors.

While exploring one of the first rooms, Miles comes across the body of what appears to be a SWAT officer who is spit through chest on a large stake. He rattles to life just long enough to gurgle that Miles needs to get the fuck out of there, and now. Advice that should have been heeded, because shortly after Miles leaves that room, he's attacked by an ogre of an inmate and flung out the window into the atrium of the asylum.

This is one of those games that has rather unclear narrative. Not in the regard that it has bad storytelling, but one that when you pick up files and paper, you really want to read it. Each one of them give context to the seedy underbelly of the asylum. Each little note and scratch paper you find gives a creepy backstory about how things happen at Mount Massive. They don't appear necessary to continue along with the game, but they paint a very interesting picture if you follow along with them.

In addition to that, The main character also takes notes in a journal as you play through the game to sort of keep a backtrack of the events that are taken place. But these are written from the perspective of the character, so naturally as you progress along and more and more shit goes wrong, the writing in the journal gets much more panicked and aggressive. It even uses the occasional *gasp* naughty word.

This is one of those games a-la Slender or Amnesia: The Dark Descent where your only defense is to hightail your ass from danger. When you are being pursued, hiding spots are scarce and darkness is your ally (but you merely adopt the dark). So when somethings on you, the music will crescendo and you will need to hoof it out of wherever you are. You will want to find a dark spot, and duck behind something, get in a locker, or get under a bed.

Light is very scarce in this game, so you will need to bring up your camcorder for a lot of portions of the map. You can record things as normal, but I don't really see a point to it without using the night vision. The night vision lens is almost mandatory to navigate a large section of areas, many of them completely pitch black otherwise sans a scant glimmer of light in one part of the room. You also have a limited battery life for your camera, so you'll want to keep an eye out for when you need to replace the battery. So far the only thing that happens when it runs out is you lose range on the night vision, but every inch helps so make sure you grab batteries when you see them.

I have yet to figure out if having the camera up alerts enemies to your presence, so I am constantly picking up and dropping it to avoid detection. This leads to enemies just popping up in my field of view out of nowhere and scaring the absolute shit out of me. In hindsight the batteries appear to be for the light on the camera, because if they run out the night vision still works, you just can't see as far. So its probably just safer to assume that you can be seen if you have your camera up in the dark.

And the enemies... Ohhhhh the enemies..  Grotesquely deformed insane asylum inmates running free, screaming crazy, groaning in agony, and attacking at random. I haven't played far enough to see why everyone is so fucked up looking, and quite frankly I don't care. I can't take it. Everything about this setting is horrifying. There will be moments you walk through and area and inmates will just be walking around, groaning, crying, asking to go home, asking to be killed, screaming unintelligible nonsense, or in some cases even talk normal to you. It's fucking frightening.

Reminds me of a particularly bad Raspberry jam incident I had once.
..... I don't like to talk about it.

But what makes it even worse is 80% of the time, you don't really know who is a threat and who isn't until its far too late. Some of them keep to themselves as you walk by, some of them will lash out of the cell at you, some will spot you and flip their shit and come at you with a pipe or a knife and then the chase is on. To make matters worse many of them you can't even see, so you have to bring up the night vision in the camera which causes all their eyes to glow white over a grim, darkened, and deformed looking face. NOPE, I'm good.

Even the really obvious scares still manage to fucking get me. There is a scene early on where you pass a guy in a wheel chair. He's clearly not dead and whimpering. If you crouch in front of him and then zoom the camera in close, you will see that his eye sockets are completely covered in seamless skin. He is loosely restrained to the chair. I see this and think "this fucker is going to jump at me". So I approach it and tread closely and nothing, I try to antagonize and nothing.  So I move past and complete what I need to in the next room.

Now I know that asshole is going to jump at me. I know he is. But he hasn't twice before so I just barrel through and sure enough, this douche screams and lunges at me, getting in my face and screaming crazy. I was playing it live on twitch.tv, so my friend got a priceless reaction of me jumping like a 5 year old girl and smashing my knuckle into the dual shock controller. Fuck this game.

Dr. Satan here (Trager) is easily one of the most terrifying.
Not because of his looks, but what he says.

This is a type of game that doesn't really have a musical score to it. Actually, now that I am thinking about it I am fairly sure this game doesn't have music at all. It uses the horror movie mechanic like you would see in a game like the original Silent Hill where instead of music you have horrible droning noise, that will gradually increase as moments start to get more tense. Or when they aren't tense. Or just whenever at all. It really does a good job of keeping you on your toes.

Is the game perfect? No, of course not. I'd say one of my biggest hang-ups is one that is pretty common for games like this, and that is that the movement speed is practically a crawl. If you are being chased by some hideously grotesque sub-human with the intent to murder you, the relaxed jog you seem to go on would not be the speed you would use. You would be blasting full sprint until your heart.

If you catch sight of Walker, its time to Leave..... And FAST.

Another thing is what is the point of the batteries? If the whole camera went down when the batteries died, that would leave you with potential situations to be completely screwed by the environment. It would force you to explore more carefully, and use your camera more sparingly.  Instead, all it does is slightly reduce the range you can see in the dark, which just makes it a momentary annoyance than an actual handicap. I suppose this stops you from being completely fucked in a dark room, but I think that the batteries should have more impact than they do.

And seriously, tons of people in this game are wielding a knife, or a hammer, or something. There are sticks, boards, and rocks all over the place. I'm not saying throw in a combat mechanic, but you could at least give some momentary way to stun a pursuer for you to run and hide in safety.  The game has a real shitty habit of putting the game's most dangerous enemy in a position where have virtually nowhere to run if he spots you.  it has left me frustrated and constantly dying in more than one situation throughout the course of the game.

This guy.... This FUCK'N guy....

It's pretty short too. If you are not anal retentive about exploring every nook and cranny of the asylum, and are fairly good at this type of game you can probably rip through the thing within a few hours if you really committed to doing it. I played it at a fairly causal pace (as casual as terror will allow, mind you) and I was able to complete the entire game in about three or four sessions total. I got it on PS+ for free, but its only 15 bucks, so I suppose for the value its set at, that's probably an appropriate length.

I also have a minor issue with the ending of the game as well. I don't want to say that the end of the game is predictable, but I certainly wasn't shocking. It could have gone any number of ways at the end, and I don't think any of them really would have shocked me. Like a number of horror games, it kinda loses steam after the first few stages. So when it got the big finish of the game and the credits started roll, it left me with a resounding "Eh... yeah that happened."

All that being said, it absolutely delivered on what it was supposed to. I played the game in the dark, effectively had the shit scared out of me on a number of occasions, and managed to keep a tense and oppressive atmosphere and real sense that I was in danger the entire time.  Its not going to redefine the horror genre, and some of the subtly goes the wayside in the back half. But in comparison to a number of horror franchises that have been released in the past 10 years or so, this provides an excellent example of how to do a horror game properly. Definitely worth a sit through. 

Disgaea D2 (PS3): An Unnecessary, But Fulfilling Experience.

So a little over two years ago I did a review about Disgaea 4. I was very pleased with it and felt it was a return to form after a bit of a falter in the less than stellar Disgaea 3. But in its intro, I talked about what made the first Disgaea game so great, mainly the primary characters. They were everyone's favorite and regardless of who came after, fans would piss and moan about how they weren't as good as the originals.

The main cast have always poked around other Nippon Ichi titles as bonus characters or side chapters, but otherwise have not really been a part of the main fold. Now, almost ten years after the first Disgaea title Laharl, Etna, and Flonne finally return in a brand new adventure. The question is, can it possibly live up to ten years of expectation?

DISGAEA D2: A BRIGHTER DARKNESS(PS3)

Our story picks up not shortly after the events of the first Disgaea game. Following the canon of the good ending where Laharl opts not to kill Seraph Lamington, and Flonne gets reincarnated as a fallen angel (10 year old spoiler alert). While Laharl has claimed himself to be the undisputed overlord of the Netherworld, there is a great degree of civil unrest about his acquisition of the throne, and ploys and plots to remove him from power.

Specifically from a group of people calling themselves the Krichevskoy Group, an entourage of the the late kings former vassals, who are striving to find a more suitable leader to take the throne, as they feel Laharl isn't nearly mature enough to rule over the Netherworld properly.

The problems are also being compounded by an encroaching infestation of Yuie flowers, which are indigenous to Celestia and cannot grow in the Netherworld. Yet they continue to expand in vast numbers and their presence is starting to affect the Netherworld's atmopshere and thus it's demons in strange ways, and causing the civil unrest to exacerbate. Through it all, Laharl is out to solve these issues and prove that he is the undisputed overlord.

You'll find that NIS's ability for cheeky dialog is as sharp as ever.

So the whole presentation for Disgaea D2 doesn't feel like it's been changed very much from the previous incarnations. The sprites are clean and look very good, but they went back to the to the still frame conversations for the major cutscenes. It was kind of a disappointment because despite all the flaws in Mugen Souls, their conversation cutscene animations were the one good idea that game had, and I would have loved to see it implemented here.

The game follows a pretty similar formula to its predecessors: Chapter start, opening cutscene, shop at castle, gatekeeper to new world, 5 or so stages, end chapter, hilarious Etna preview to next chapter. While it's a tried and true formula, I would have liked to see the dynamics changed up a little bit. It's been the first time we've seen this cast in like 10 years, shoulda came in with a bang.

Tried and True, but improvements to this style of storytelling would have been nice.

There are a couple little subtle changes to the mechanics though. For example, the most brilliant idea was the inclusion of the cheat shop. Basically what this is allows you to make adjustments to the game. Most specifically the difficulty of the monsters. Now grinding has been made simple because you don't need to waste an hour trying to petition the monster council to keep raising the difficulty. Now you can boost it up, grind, bring it back down with easy.

Tower stacking is back in this game and thank god, because there isn't a great number of places to grind for levels. It was exceptionally helpful in bringing the rest of the team up to speed with Laharl, as he will naturally start to out level the rest of the team as you play through the story missions. This also helps with throwing your tower as you can throw at angles instead of in lines.

Another feature that I loved is the ability to promote my existing team without having to transmigrate them. So when I level up my Shogun girl to the point where the new level of her class unlocks, I don't have to transmigrate her to level one or make a whole new character. I can just promote her for 100 mana points. Transmigration is still a good alternative for boosting your characters overall stats, but I didn't devote as much time to this installment than I usually do so promotion was a great option.

Instead of Magi-changing your monster teammates into weapons, you can now mount the monster characters with your humanoids. I'm not overly sure how effective this was since my team generally consists of the humanoids. On few occasions I would mount a character onto one of my Nekomatas, but it basically felt like I was giving up an attack so I wouldn't do it all that often. But for those wondering, yes, you can ride prinnies now. And if you look at the video below, you can see with the right grinding it can be pretty powerful.

Sadly, Etna and Flonne don't have their original voice actresses from the original games but they've had a couple of different ones as the Disgaea franchise has moved along. Thankfully though, Laharl is the same voice we have been getting since the first one, and that is the important voice to have.

I suppose if I had one really big issue with the game, it's with the one thing that shouldn't have an issue: The story. It's been almost 10 years since we last go to see these characters in a starring role, so I have to say I feel a bit let down that the story for the most part really hasn't changed at all. It's still Laharl trying to be the overlord, it's still Etna dealing with her lost memories, it's still Flonne promoting the power of love, and now we have a new Angel Sicily also throwing her name in the hat for the overlord title. While the whole game is brand new, it feels like I've been here before.

Another thing that kinda bugs me is the aforementioned lack of a grinding spot. Usually in this series, the game always has one level that you can repeatedly play over and over that provides the best possible experience output for leveling up your characters. Either story quests or in the cave or ordeals. In D2 the only spot I really had any success with that is 3-4 (see my video), and there is really no great way to do it aside from tower stacking and just raising the difficulty. I've heard Cave of ordeals 6 is the best place to grind, but chances are you won't make it there until after you beat the game. Which is fine I guess but a bit of an aggravation.

Geo Panels are every bit as frustrating as you will remember them. 

And this is a another game where I'm starting to get annoyed with the shift to DLC content. Don't get me wrong, there is a good degree of unlockables as you play through the game. That's one of the best parts of this series is that all the characters from previous titles get little cameos in bonus stages of the games, and a good number of them make appearances here.

But even more of them appear as part of DLC content packs. While (I don't think) these are on disc, it now forces me to shill additional money if I want to unlock Priere from La Pucelle Tactics for my Disgaea D2 team. I hate this. Gone are the days where you are rewarded for putting in excessive effort into a title. Now you have to give even more of your hard earned money for these rewards. It sucks (although I'll probably cave there, because I love Priere.)

Please stop nickle and diming me, NIS. Save that shit for EA and Capcom.
Just charge me the full 60 for the game and put all the extras in it already.

I didn't think any of the new characters were really all that fantastic either. Sicily brings an interesting charm to the game but with Flonne already there, she is kind of redundant. The Archer is now a named character (who I don't even remember) who you get by completing the story. There is a Demon Hunter named Barbara who you fight a few times, but by the time you get he she's grossly under leveled. After the stellar lineup of characters in Disgaea 4 (except for Emizel of course, he was terrible) the team this time around is just a little disappointing. You still get the big 3 but that's all you really get.

So here is thing, Disgaea suffers from that awkward situation that Portal now suffers through. And that's the fact that the first installment just knocked it so far out of the park, every installment to come out after it just fails to meet the same standards that people have set for it, even when the game is good.

It's kinda an unspoken rule that the first Prinny my friends and I make will always be named Jerrod.

Disgaea 2 was a prime example of this. I thought the Adell and Rozalin team were a good double act. They were funny, they had charm, and their story was fun to go through and had a satisfying conclusion. But because they weren't Laharl, Etna, and Flonne people didn't really give them a fair shot. It's a shame because I felt Disagea 2 was really good, but because it wasn't a direct sequel people didn't care for it as much.

But now we have that direct sequel that people have been clamoring for, and it feels like it falls a little short. Don't get me wrong, Disgaea D2 was a lot of fun and I saw it through to the end, and when I have slower gaming moments I will certainly go back to the grind there. But you would think that with a 10 year break between the first game and this one, the story would have a bit more to offer than what we get here. It was a fun experience, it just didn't seem necessary.

The charm is there, and some of the gags are funny. It just felt like we were
 reminiscing the old jokes we knew instead of hearing new ones. 

And that is pretty much where I stand on my review with this game as a whole. From a completely objective and technical standpoint, Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness does exactly what it needs to. It's the right length, has lots of fun extras, brings back that nostalgic charm from the first game, gives you tons of replay value, and gives you another spell with characters from so long ago. But yet on the other hand, it feels like it doesn't really need to exist, and it was released simply because people demanded it.

Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness was a good time, and the story did get better as it went on. So I would say that if you are a fan of the series as whole, it was worth the 50 bucks. You'll get a good number of hours out of the game and probably have fun playing it, just don't expect it to capture that same magic the first game had, because that was something special.

Now if they'd just make a La Pucelle sequel, I can be truly content.

Guest Review: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies(3DS): A return to all that is Wright

Hey everyone. I'm taking a back seat this time because this is game I really wanted to play and review, but sadly I do not own a 3DS. Thankfully a friend of Rage Quitter, the lovely and talented GoatMaiden, was more than willing to step up for this one. -- CannonMan

___________________________________________________________________________

The phrase “Familiar yet Fantastic” was used on this very blog by Rage Quitter’s own CannonMan to describe the 13th entry in the “Tales” game series (Tales of Xillia.) I can think of no better way to describe the most recent Ace Attorney game (which would be #5 if you don’t count Investigations.)

Here we are once again, settling in with old friends and ready to experience the predictable-yet-twisted world of Phoenix Wright: art student-turned lawyer turned-bum-turned-adopted father-turned lawyer again. Get ready for more spunky sidekicks, more accusations scrawled in blood, more torturous childhood memories and questionable law tactics… I say, bring it on!

ACE ATTORNEY: DUAL DESTINIES(3DS) 

This is the box art you won’t see here *

“HOLD IT!” - FOR THOSE NEW TO THE SERIES

This long-running saga debuted back in 2001 in Japan with the Game Boy Advance game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (released for the DS in North American in 2005) and followed through Ace Attorney: Justice for All, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The first three games were eventually ported to the 3DS, phones, WiiWare etc. (everything except for Android devices it seems.) 

In the first game, spiky-haired rookie attorney Phoenix Wright (age 25), mentored by the buxom Mia Fey, heads into the courtroom to defend his first client. Phoenix takes on Mia’s little sister Maya, a spirit medium in training, as his assistant while battling the “demon prosecutor” and his ultimate Great Rival, Miles Edgeworth. Set in a parallel, slightly futuristic, vaguely Japanese universe, the games follow their own rules about 80% of the time (i.e. statutes of limitations are all over the place.)

Original "8-bit excuse for an attorney" Phoenix in Trials and Tribulations

(screen shot from http://www.gamesradar.com/ )

In all but Apollo Justice, where budding lawyer Apollo takes over as Wright’s protegee, Phoenix must investigate crime scenes, collect and examine evidence, interrogate witnesses, and gather character information from those around him to present his case before the unbiased if scatterbrained Judge. It’s Lawyer Sim meets point-and-click adventuring with a distinctly quirky twist. You’re not driving a car (Phoenix doesn’t even have a drivers license), shooting targets, jumping from floating platforms or finding your way through mazes in Ace Attorney games. You’re battling your inner doubts, talking to characters with names like Will Powers and Wendy Oldbag, stylus tapping your way to the ultimate truth, and eventually using various other-worldly tools such as the Magatama--a necklace Phoenix receives from Maya-- to determine if characters are hiding information.

This is a talky game, bordering on a visual novel amount of text. A goofy game to be sure, even when dealing with gruesome murders and the people who work to cover up their crimes (the dialog is hilarious for any number of reasons, from puns to odd translations to reflexive narrative), but one that relies on a player to pay attention to and care about the characters involved.

Phoenix, who you control most of the time, is, like many 20-somethings, sarcastic but unsure of himself. When you screw something up, it is he who takes the punishment, and to make this an effective deterrent, you gotta kinda side with the guy and want him to succeed. Also, so many characters reoccur in following games that it would be a wasted effort if you didn’t have some sort of emotional connection to them. 

There are two other games included in the series: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth released in 2010 and a second Investigations game released only in Japan in 2011. These two games differ from the previous in that 1.) Miles Edgeworth is the main character and 2.) the character sprites are at times shown from a third person full-length perspective, as when you are investigating a crime scene. Investigations 1 was much shorter and did not sell as well as the former four games, and thus the second Investigation game was never released in North America.

“NOT SO FAST!” – THE LEAD UP TO GAME 5

I have been an aficionado of all the Ace Attorney crew for years. I have hung on every rumor of new games coming to the US. I even signed the petition for Investigations 2 to be translated, even though the first one struck me as overly easy (yet still enjoyable since I heart Miles Edgeworth.) I bought the soundtracks. I played all the Professor Layton puzzle games after hearing that a Phoenix Wright crossover, with the original developer of the Ace Attorney games Shu Takumi heavily involved, was in the works.

However, Takumi made clear he was not planning on being involved with any 5th game in the series since he felt the original series had gone to the point he wanted it to, story-wise.

Like hell. Without giving too much away, this is how Phoenix Wright appears in Apollo Justice:

Really Takumi-san, how can you leave us with THIS as our final parting image of

the hitherto venerated Comeback King?!

So when, two years ago, I heard that Ace Attorney 5 was in development for the 3DS, with an actual playable demo at the Tokyo Game Show, shit got real.

That Christmas I got a 3DS.

After that, game news developed fairly quickly (well, relative to the five years between the original notion that a 5th game might be a possibility and the actual announcement.) The first promo art showed Wright back in a suit thank god, and made it clear he would be a central if not the main character. It didn’t show any other characters from past games, but instead a girl in yellow appeared to be a new associate.

Ga. Where’s Maya?

“Another chick sidekick?” I thought. Beyond Maya, there’s been Pearl-Maya’s cousin, Trucy-Phoenix’s adopted daughter, Ema-a burgeoning forensics expert (who appeared at different ages through a number of games) and Kay (who only appears in the Investigations games).

Still, last October, I decided to give her a try and downloaded Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies.

Cute little chibi Apollo and Athena only appear on the start up screen (photo by Sarah B.)

“TAKE THAT!” – PLAY THROUGH

Okay, so what is it actually like to play the freakin’ game?

Even with the addition of 3D, not a lot has changed. Phoenix returns as a playable character, older, a little wiser, and brings on new recruit Athena. Being set only a year time-wise from the last game, Apollo isn’t all that different. He has a quarter-life crisis in this game and gets pretty banged up along the way, which he deals with astonishingly well.

The point of the game is to bring about an end to Dark Age of the Law, a loosy-goosy term implying that false testimony and forged evidence have become commonplace. The public no longer trusts the legal system, and it’s up to you and your merry band of lawyers to change that (whether you do or not is still debatable.)  

The character designs are attractive and the graphics are top notch. This is the first PW game where I don’t think anyone annoyed me so much I couldn’t wait for them to die, and I chalk that up to the graphics on the 3DS. I actually played with the 3D on for a while (a much longer discussion into Nintendo’s technological tactics may be in order, but now is not the time nor place.)

A plus for me has always been the Japanese-style artwork where not everyone is or looks twelve years old. New Prosecutor Blackquill’s hawk Taka is particularly striking. Blackquill’s animations are fantastic too, but I felt he lacked personality for a guy on death row.

While the limited voice acting is pretty “meh” (Phoenix and Apollo sound almost identical) there are a bunch of anime cut scenes that really do fit seamlessly and smoothly into the overall gameplay (although most of them end with someone screaming.)

Athena really endeared herself to me. Despite some childhood traumas that are a bit of a rehash, she’s not just a clone and ends up holding her own as a member of the team. Yes, she’s young and spunky like all of Phoenix’s “girls” (as he refers to them in the game) but she speaks several languages and uses her own Mood Matrix truth-finding device instead of handing it off to Phoenix. Another reviewer noted that she makes some faces that one does not expect a heroine to make.

Are there too many gimmicks? Yeah, I think so. None of them are hard to figure out, especially if you played all the other games. But between the Magatama, Apollo’s bracelet which lets him know a witness is lying, and the Mood Matrix, we are not allowed to play with them long enough to really get to know them.

Can you like this game if you haven’t played any other PW games? You can, but I think you get so much more by knowing the back story (like where did Apollo get his bracelet, who is Pearls, etc.) 

The game is not difficult. The addition of a text backscroll, the ability to save before important moments, and the fact that guessing on the Mood Matrix isn’t punished made getting stuck almost impossible. It’s great for playing 30 minutes here or there, so in that way, it is the epitome of a casual game. To use the visual novel as an illustration again, it’s like reading a book (though I challenge anyone to name an example in literature that is as unique and humorous.) It definitely slaked my thirst for the time being. According to a report, both Takumi and the team from Dual Destinies are working on new releases so we shall see what news comes in 2014.

Phoenix returns (photo from http://cubed3.com )

OBJECTION! (JUST A FEW*, AND THEY’RE MINOR)

Note that the game is only available as a digital download and cost $29.99 (there is a DLC case available for $5.99 which is money well spent.) I would’ve much rather had a physical copy, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I didn’t miss it, but reviewers have pointed out that the Jurist System introduced in Apollo Justice isn’t present in Dual Destinies. Apparently the attempt to bring jury trials back failed.

I was excited that the composer of “Gyakuten Meets Orchestra” and “Turnabout Jazz Soul”, two of my favorite soundtracks inspired by the games, was onboard for Dual Destinies, but none of the songs on initial playthrough were that memorable. The noise the Mood Matrix makes is really annoying.

Odd to me, the game is rated M for mature. I failed to see any more “blood, violence, suggestive themes or language” in this game over the others, which have been rated T. Perhaps because I’ve also been playing Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward which has more shocking deaths and over the top swearing, the fact that Phoenix isn’t dropping F-bombs everywhere struck me as quaint. There’s a scene of violence involving a child, and another scene has a woman demanding that she wanted more than a professional relationship with another woman she worked with (not by far the first such overtone in the series.) Others lament that Capcom just wants Ace Attorney to fail in the US, and that an M rating is the kiss of death for a game like this. I haven’t been able to find any statistics on North American downloads so I guess the jury is still out on this one (hur hur).  

By Sarah B.

(images from http://aceattorney.wikia.com/ unless otherwise noted)

For more work from GoatMaiden, you can read about her adventures at her two blogs http://bellethecat.blogspot.com/ and http://goatmaiden.blogspot.com/.

Don't Starve "Console Edition" (PS4): A Rabid Reacquaintance.

I've mentioned this one before. Not much of a huge review, but I did mention it in one of my Omniderp videos. I gave it a quick toss of of the general jist of the game but I didn't really go into any kind of elaborate detail about it. 

Although, the PS4 has been highly touting how much they love indie games and how they are making a push to give indie games a much bigger platform. Since I already owned and already played it, I wasn't going to give it much of a second thought. But Sony has been offering new releases to PSN as their free titles for the month, and this was one of them. Since I actually have a PS+ account (thank you black friday), might as well take another spin with.....

DON'T STARVE: CONSOLE EDITION:(PS4)

Another game without a very big story element: Wilson is a Gentleman Scientist who seems to be hitting a rough patch in his research. He looks tired and clearly is struggling. A voice on his radio tells him that he can be given forbidden knowledge, if he assists in building the voice a machine. Wilson accepts and has a surge of brilliance. His experiments are working, and begins to build the device.

Wilson hesitates before throwing the switch, and voice on the radio insists he do it. Throwing the switch though reveals that it was a trap by a demon of sorts by the name of Maxwell (who just looks like a tall gentleman). The device rips open a gate and pulls Wilson inside. As he lies unconscious, Maxwell appears to him and tells him he shouldn't starve while he's out here. He disappears, leaving Wilson to come too in the harsh unknown wilderness. And this is where the game begins.

This was originally one of those kind of point and click adventure/survival games when I gave it a sit down, Its controls for the most part were simple: Click here to move, click here to chop, click here to pick up, etc, etc. Pretty much anything you needed to do could be done with the mouse. it was functionally, but somewhat irritating when you knew you were going to be walking for extended lengths.

The console edition of this basically takes the main functions of the game an assigns them to hotkeys. Movement is now done with the analog stick, which honestly I preferred better than the mouse. The mouse might have worked better if I was able to zoom out and see more of the map, but Don't Starve doesn't have the ability to do that, presumably to make you actually walk and explore the map yourself. I suppose in the context of a survival game it makes sense.

The whole game is done in this somewhat noir paper art style I guess I would call it, everything in the game is washed over with sepia tones, and everything about the game moves and feels flat, much like you might expect from something like the Paper Mario series. When I played it on PC I didn't much have any feelings about it, but now that I have it blown up on my TV and I'm not hunched over my keyboard, I have the time to actually sit back and appreciate the art work.

There is one really notable song for the theme, but for the most part the game is pretty much completely devoid of music. I suppose this can be seen as a positive or negative. Most of the time when music starts to play is when something significant is happening. One tune plays to signify you a new day has passed, another will indicate that a hostile enemy has engaged you, one for the dangers of nightfall, and so forth. Its not bad, but its dying for some soft score playing the background to kill some of the more dead moments. None of it is particularly catchy though.

Surviving your first winter is one of the most difficult parts of the games endless mode.
You want to make sure you have a sustainable food supply.

As previously mentioned, there are hotkeys now. The bumpers allow you to spin the camera angle around (something I don't remember being able to do in the PC version), and the triggers open up your inventory menu or building menu respectively. Your inventory you can also access all game with your right analog stick so you can make changes on the move, but if you want to sort things around or only use one respective item, hitting the inventory hotkey will freeze the game play (but not the building menu).

Otherwise the rest of the keys in the game are fairly self explanatory. This is a situation where I feel the console controls work better because Its a game where I feel I can make changes on the move or if I am being chased. When I would play the game on PC I would have plan my changes ahead and when I would need to make them in split decisions it would usually end up with me dying. Perhaps its because I've never been a great PC gamer, but its still something that handicapped me.

Actually, since time of writing I went back and shot a PC lets play, and it couldn't have gone more poorly because I felt I had a much better sense of control on the Dualshock 4. Quite possibly one of my worst Don't Starve runs ever.

So when I first played this game, it was really just an endless survival mode with just one map. I didn't sit down and play it much because unless I get super engrossed in what I'm doing, I can't play a game at my PC for that long, (I think one binge session of Neverwinter was the longest I've been able to go). In any case, because of the static nature of the map, each subsequent play though of the game I could do a little better, or get a little farther.

The game now however has a a random world building element, and the game has permadeath. So when you fuck up, everything you lose goes with it and now much to my chagrin, you have a whole new world to explore too. This actually increased the challenge of every new game I start because now I am forced to go out and explore with each new restart. Typically what you want to do first is get twigs, grass, and flint so you can build an axe, pick axe, and torch.  You'll then want to move to wood, rocks, and gold so you can get your first campsite started and build your first science (and in my case alchemy) machines. With the static map, after a few plays you know exactly where you walk to first to get those supplies.

Wolfgang Sucks. His strength is proportional to how full his stomach is,
and he loses sanity in the dark or when fighting pretty much anything. 

However, now with the randomized world it is entirely possible you can just get a really bad draw that could be leaving you short of one of those critical supplies. Typically, it will be having a lack of rocks or gold. You need gold to make your science machine which allows you to make more complex items, and you need your alchemy machine to make better items for camp to ensure your survival.

Obviously, as stated by the games title, one of the primary goals in the game is not to starve. This is not as easy as it sounds. This is one of those games where pretty much anything with the courage to attack you back will be able to fuck your shit up in some way, so running around with your wood cutting axe is not going to get you a steak. More than likely, you are going to spend your first few days eating berries and carrots, and if you are lucky a morsel of meat from a rabbit.

Worse though, is there can be negative reactions to eating. The meat from monsters may fill your hunger, but it can also seriously damage your health and sanity. You can find various mushrooms growing in the wild as well, but eating any of them on your own can also be damaging to your health. You will find that it is generally safer to try and cook things in your camp fire first before you eat them, even something and minuscule as berries are improved by cooking them first.

The sufficient players will have an excellent base of operations for their survival,
I don't really understand the need for 3 tents though. That seems odd.

Some beginning tips for survival of your first few days: 1.) Berries are you best friend. They grow everywhere and the give a pretty significant boost to your hunger. If you cook them first, they also restore a bit of health. Plus, they are a great filler in a crock pot. So be sure to know where they grow in bunches.

2.) Don't ignore flowers. This is a mistake I made early and often. When you first fire up the game its a good idea to collect flowers. 12 of them can make a garland to wear and that will help retain your sanity until you get the supplies to allow you to sleep, and eating them raw gives you a small health boost, so having a large stash of them may be wiped out quickly, but anything to restore your health early on is a good move.

Haven't used Woodie much yet. Seems very tricky to use.

3.) Do not fight things until you are sure you are ready. Tangoing with anything you are unfamiliar with can get out of hand in a real hurry. Nearly every single monster that fights back fights back in a group, so be prepared to stick and move because if you just stand there and wail on something, you are going to get killed by the rest. I personally don't make a move on trying to fight anything that fights back without at least having a spear and log suit for protection.

4.) Monster meat CAN be edible. Another thing I learned much too late. If you cook monster meat, it still damages your health and sanity, but not nearly as much as eating it raw. But if you take the time to build and use a Crock pot, one monster meat and 3 small items (berries, carrots, etc) will make meatballs. They have a long shelf life, health 50% of your hunger, and have no adverse effects. You should plan to make these often.

There have been some updates to the game since I've last played it. Before it used to be just a game where you survive as long as you can. Now there is a little bit of narrative and if you can explore long enough, You will find the machine Wilson built that will give you your end game. It will take you through a series of levels with increasingly difficult challenges, but if you can complete them, the game will come it its ending. I have not tried this yet. I've only found the gate once and died making a very stupid mistake before entering it.

You gain experience proportional to the number of days you managed to survive without dying. Every character you gain after Wilson has some kind unique ability that can affect how you approach the game. I tend to use Willow a lot because she doesn't take fire damage and also has a lighter, which is useful because nearly everything is flammable, and if you don't have a torch her lighter throws just enough light for you not to get mauled. She does randomly start fires when she panics though, which can cause massive forest fires and loss of important supplies (like berry bushes). There a myriad of other characters which can change up your strategy so be sure to play around with each.

Of the available characters, I like Willow best because fire never harms you
and you can never be caught in the dark. But man, when things go wrong....(see video)

This is the type of game who like it when a game doesn't hold your hand. Each time you play it will offer you a new experience, and every time you think you are starting to get the hang of it, it will throw you a new curve ball. I was having one really solid run where I was starting to push into the 30 day mark, and I was getting my ass kicked by the winter. I had to constantly light things on fire just to try to stay warm, and the night was falling much faster and lasting much longer, I ended up getting back to my camp but not having the supplies to replenish my weapons and armor. My camp was raided at night and I was put down.

I've always enjoyed games like this where natural survival is key. It's probably why I was such a fan of Lost In Blue on the DS. The game is currently free for PS+ users but otherwise its 15 dollars regularly on the PS4 (and I assume also on steam). There doesn't really appear to be much functional difference in the game from PC to console aside from control layout a bit.

I have not found one of these yet, and I will shit my pants when I do.
I can barely stay alive from regular wild animals.

But I would say the game is easily worth the 15 bucks they are charging for it. Its a game that provides quite the adequate challenge and provides real sense of accomplishment when you really start to maintain yourself efficiently. The extra characters throw some interesting curves on how you can play the game, if you are determined, you can try to carry on a game indefinitely. It really is the kind of game where you have to build your own narrative as you play it.

I've got maybe about 30-40 hours plunked down on this game overall, and even with the addition of the randomly generated maps, I manage to get a little father every time. So far my record is 33 days with Willow, and I've almost barely made it out of my first winter. I now know how to find the end game so hopefully I'll start to the get the knack on how to jump start my quests. Don't Starve might not be the most overly intense or exciting of titles, but its one with a good character motivation, and it doesn't baby you like so many other games. If you are a PS+ or steam user, I would suggest giving it a try.