Tales of Xillia (PS3): Familiar, yet Fantastic.

It's been a little over a year since I reviewed Tales of Graces f.  While it wasn't the glowing JRPG review I tend to give these games, in retrospect it was definitely one that I enjoyed. I recommended it to friends often and if I managed to get one person to convert, then I consider that a job well done. 

It was a slow year for JRPGs. Since that review, I played one old and one new Atelier game, two PS2 Persona games.. and.. ugh.... Mugen Souls. So after reading how this game was receive perfect scores in Japan, needless to say I was pretty eager to get my hands on it. Now after a little over a year, we sit down with....

TALES OF XILLIA:(PS3)

Our tale opens up with young Jude Mathis, a med student in the medical college of Fenmont, pursuing his medical degree. An accomplished doctor, he learns from his professor that he is already in line for a job. After covering for his professor's patients, he realizes the professor has gone missing after visiting a nearby military base. Jude is turned away at the base entrance, being told at the professor has already left. Jude is suspicious and starts to leave but as he does so, he spots a mysterious woman walking across the water trying to break into the facility.

The woman identifies herself as Milla Maxwell, and that she is here on mission. Jude follows her into the base and they discover that the military is running tortured experiments to drain the mana from people, including Jude's professor. After watching the professor die in a tube, Jude and Milla battle with a mysterious and psychopathic girl who seemingly is the cause of this. After dispatching her, Milla discovers a giant spyrix weapon called the Lance of Kresnik and tries to complete her mission to destroy it. She summons the 4 greater spirits which causes Jude to realize that she is none other than THE Maxwell, Lord of the Spirits.

However, things go sour as the psychopath returns and activates the weapon, which then beings to drain the mana from the room, and captures the 4 great spirits. Jude and Milla escape but then are pursued by the royal military. With the seemingly random help from a mercenary named Alivn, the three of them escape. With Milla now severely depowered without the four, she decided to return to her shrine to re-summon them so she can destroy the lance, and with Jude as a wanted fugitive he has no better course than to accompany her.

So, it might be a little difficult to give this game a lengthy review because many of the things I said about Tales of Graces f can easily be applied to Tales of Xillia. This franchise of games doesn't deviate much from the main formula but they do make a number of little tweaks to make it feel a bit different. So I will try to hit on changes more than the standards of the game which anyone who has played a Tales game should know by now.

For the first time that I can remember, Tales of Xillia features a dual hero system. Much like Star Ocean 2 back on the PS1, after the initial introduction sections you get to choose which of the two protagonists you wish to follow in Jude and Millia. My first thought was "Hey awesome, I get to see both perspectives." which was quickly followed by "Aww fuck. I'm gonna have to play this game twice in row now?!" RPGs never have short play times.

Although it was a bit of a premature assumption, since this rendition of Tales took me about 45+ hours to get through. Still a pretty meaty game length if you do the extra side quests or post game, but for JRPG and a Tales game specifically that is significantly shorter than I was expecting. perhaps to accommodate for the fact that it wants you to play it twice so you can do the missions with the opposing character's story path. Thanks to the return of the Tales of grade system, you get to customize your new game plus features in your second playthrough which drastically will cut down the playtime. Increased XP, damage, and level retention will make you fly through the game. 

There are two things I'd like to hit on with the story before we move on to the actual game. One? Its nice for once to have a Tales story that doesn't make me feel like a fucking idiot. Tales of games usually tend to have some pretty involving universes which force you to learn their lore and technology. With Vesperia's blastia cores and aer's, or Abyss's seventh phozons, or Legendia's merines, its enough to make you feel like you need an advanced degree in unintelligible rhetoric to follow along. 

Wouldn't be a Tales game without those weird animeish moments.

Thankfully, Xillia's tale is pretty cut and dry: Humans need spirits to cast artes to make life easier and spirits need mana from humans to survive, so they balance in harmony to suit mutual needs. But humans start making spyrix weapons that kill spirits for artes instead of giving them mana, so Millia is out to stop them before the balance is ruined and this influx of powerful weapons causes the nations to go to war. See that? Two sentences and I basically summarized the whole motivations. It is much easier to get immersed when I actually understand what the fuck is going on.

What I don't like however, is something I just noticed in this game. Almost every single Tales game I have played to this point, has had virtually the same story. Always a "Chosen one" and an "unlikely hero", Always two warring nations, always two worlds, always a younger character using a toy as weapon, always some horrible "power of friendship" moment, always some form of the world having its power drained. I might be glossing over these examples somewhat and they may not appear in all of them, but these are fairly common themes seen in nearly every Tales game to some degree. The locations and players change, but the story for the most part doesn't. This really sounds like a negative to be honest it never bothered me all that much. Same dressing on a different salad.

The Tales Of combat system is still one of the most engaging systems in JRPGS.

Now that I'm thinking about it, there are handful of very big jumps in the story that feel like it could have extended game play some. Without spoiling too much there is a part where your heroes split up again, and then in a cutscene it basically goes "hey all this shit happened and now you are here". It happens like 3 times in the game and I feel like it can be pretty jarring. Not enough to make me lost in the story, but enough to make me think "Wait what? When did that happen? Why didn't I play that?". Seems like you could have added a few more hours to the game to make that a bit more seamless. Playing both characters helps a bit, but not as much as I'd like. 

So, getting that out of the way lets get to the meat of the game. I am just gonna say it, the Tales of series has the hands down best core combat mechanic in a JRPG. It's a fast paced, multiplayer, action oriented, active battle system where your direct actions can sway the tide of battle. You can free run and linear move on locked on targets, where you swing your base attacks and use your artes to link up combos for big damage. At first glance it will feel like any of the 3d combat Tales of titles to come before it.

But how it's been altered I feel comes in the layout a bit. The huds are now laid out much like the D-pad instead of just along the bottom. This is intentional for its linking system where you can link up with another character, and they will run support and fight the same enemy with you, each character with their own unique ability such as punching through an enemy block, or recovering you as you deal damage to an enemy. While linked your dealt hits and artes fill a gauge which will allow you to perform a linked attack. Much like say in Chrono Trigger the right arte with the right character will cause them both to team into a big combination attack. Once this gauge maxes out, you can chain together all the linked artes you can execute for big damage.

Always a good idea to figure out who you like to link with, and pick your attacks accordingly
Or, find a partner who best matches up with the attacks you most often use. 

This layout also allows you to to easily switch from one character to another with a single button press. This is something some of the previous Tales games have had, but in this system it feels much simpler and more intuitive. Depending on enemy type or number of them, it was very easy to switch between Jude and Milla to unload the right combo moves to smash my enemies.

It also now includes what I call the "FFX factor." Much like in Final Fantasy X, your whole party moves as a group, so in the heat of battle your reserves are easily available. A quick click of R3 slows down time and allows you to pick who you want to swap out with your d-pad and then pick which of your reserves you want in. Seconds later the two trade places, this is handy if you need to bring in that extra healer, or switch up what magic user you have in the party. Tales games have had fairly similar combat systems in comparison to each other, but this is probably the one I liked the best. 

It's always marveled me how each of these games can have remarkably different sound tracks, yet all manage to sound exactly the same. This has always been a glaring weakness in this franchise in my opinion. Say what you will about some Final Fantasy games, they know how to produce an iconic and memorable soundtrack. I spend all day thinking about it and I probably couldn't hum more than one song from any of the Tales games. Two come to mind, one is a town theme from Tales of Legendia and the other was the theme to Tales of Abyss which isn't even really their song. It was a song called "Karma" by Bump of Chicken.

Graphically, and probably because it focuses a bit on the war between countries, this version of Tales seems to have that more realistic grainy style of graphic to it (as realistic as anime can look anyway), and I'm not entirely sure I care for it. I mean, its not the whole modern shooter pallet of grays and browns, as the game has plenty of colorful scenes and characters. But it feels like a bit of a departure from the cleaner looking and super saturated look that Tales of Graces f  had. Something about Milla's hair seemed off to me too. I don't wanna say the graphics seem dated.... but I don't know.. something just seems off about it.

Some of the characters Mystic Artes get a little out of hand. But so satisfying to land. 

This is also one of the first Tales of games that I can remember that had free camera angle on the world map. Like so many other games you can use the right analog to move the camera around the character, but most often it will be behind you. I didn't notice it at first, but now that I think about it, this is fairly unusual because most of the Tales series uses fixed camera angles that follow the player, usually to show off backgrounds of the locations you visit. Perhaps they went with this style of the costume collectibles you can find along the world map so they can hide them in various places, but I can't think of another Tales that's used it.

In my last Tales review, I made some complaints about the cast being one of the weaker ones in recent memory. This is not the case in Xillia. While there are a few anime sterotypes in this game, there aren't nearly as many as previous. Jude plays reluctant hero, but he's completely lacking in angst for the most part, so he's pretty likable from the word go. Milla plays the fish out of water character, so watching her try to learn how to be human is pretty funny in a lot of scenes. Really I think they only character I didn't like was one of the first villains you meet, Agria.  It's hard to play off the lunatic psychopath without having the voice acting sound hokey, but its usually in short bursts and are not often so its easy to forget.

In addition to the characters being likable, the majority of them are fun to play as well. All of the 4 melee types have lets of different moves that make it easy to pick up and start comboing away at enemies, and even the two magic users (there is technically 4, but two primary) have the right kind moves that make it fun to just hang back and start slinging spells around. This is good for if you are lucky enough to have a friend over, since technically the game can be broken up into 4 player multiplayer. So to have a friend running support with attack magic while you combo away can make fights a lot easier.

But more than anything, there really isn't a lot of angst to go around in this one. Unlike most Final Fantasy titles, the cast is enjoyable and easy to get along with. Aside from one major plot point where one of the leads starts beating people with the angsty stick (something that ends about as quick as it starts{and works in story context}) the majority of the cast is genuinely cheerful and upbeat about their involvement. They have fun little dialog skits like you've seen in previous tales games which flesh out the characters, and none of them come off as particularly grating (sans Teepo, the high pitched voice of the toy).

The traveling skits are back in full force, many of them entertaining.
Some of them, not so much... ugh. Elize's song...

Despite all the changes and additions to the game, it does somehow manage to feel like every other Tales of game that I've played. I suppose that can be seen as a negative, but from where I stand it's really not. I can't think of a Tales game I've played where I had any real negative feelings for. I might not have gotten into poorly translated rom hacks of the older ones, but any localized release I've pretty much fallen in love with.

I actually came up with a realization not to long ago. I grew up with the Final Fantasy franchise from #1 on. and while I found 6, 10, and then 4 to be the best of them, there were a lot more that were good to just ok. I keep faithfully waiting for Squenix to get it right and dish me out a new awesome Final Fantasy game. You know what series I'm not doing that with? Tales. Every one of these games has provided me a solid 60-80+ hours of play with minimal to no disappointment, a fairly frequent release schedule, and are consistently exceptional.

Which is why I've started to realize that I think the Tales of franchise has surpassed Final Fantasy. It feels weird to say because I've been such an avid follower of that series (and will continue to be), yet I see this series kind of get the brushoff because of is heavy anime influence, yet I can't think of another series that has provided me with such consistent satisfaction. If you are one of those people who feel that the Final Fantasy series has been letting you down for the past 12 years, then I invite you to give Tales of Xillia a try. It has been doing a fantastic job of scratching my JRPG itch and I think it will for you too.  Give it a shot, you'll be glad you did.

They still fucking rinse you on DLC costumes though...
5 bucks a head? Fuck you.

Saints Row 4 (XB360): Grand Theft Clone No More.

There are few games that surprised me as much as the Saints Row franchise did. I started with 2, and what I originally though to be just some cheap Grand Theft Auto knockoff, it actually provided me with a much more entertaining gun combat system, and had some really incredible moments. I felt kinda lukewarm towards 3 until the end when I realized how much fun I was actually having. Since then, I've been all in with this series, and the newest installment seems be even more ridiculous than the last..

SAINTS ROW IV: (XB360)

The legacy of the 3rd Street Saints picks up where we left off shortly after the events of Saints Row: The Third. After saving Shaundi and stopping S.T.A.G from wiping out the Saints, the military antagonist Cyrus has defected and acquired a nuke to attack the United States in the hope of wiping out the Saints so America could be rebuilt. After a very Call of Duty: Black Ops style infiltration, you thwart Cyrus and stop the missile. This wins you the favor of the American people which results in the leader of the Saints getting elected president. 

Although there is trouble in paradise as the administration isn't exactly doing well with staying in good favor with the American people. They are slipping in approval, and there is murmuring amongst the saints there might be an attack. As the President approaches a press conference, aliens called the Zin Empire led by their leader Zinyak attack earth, and kidnap the brightest minds the world has to offer. Naturally, the Saint leader responds as they always do, by unloading massive amounts of bullets on them.

The attack however, is a futile attempt as they are easily grounded. Now captured by Zinyak, the player is now trapped and tortured in a Zin simulation of the city of Steelport, and the leader has to fight his way out, save his crew, defeat Zinyak, and save the earth.

Well then. Nice of Saints Row 4 to give us a whole mission before going completely batshit crazy on us. For a minute there I thought it was going to try to pace itself. Silly me. Really though, this actually in a bizarre way kind of comes off as the next logical step for the franchise as a whole.

When Saints Row started, it was basically a clear cut Grand Theft Auto clone, through and through. Saints Row 2 mixed things up by still being clone, but started branch with crazy side missions that seemed bizarre but still within the realm of reality. Saints Row: The Third basically becomes completely unglued, as now your influence and assets allows you to create wanton destruction at whim, but still produced a fun experience.

So now we get to Saints Row 4. Pretty much every aspect of any realistic angle has been tapped, so how does the series push it self further into ludicrousness? You place them into a scenario where you are able to bend realism. By placing the player into a "simulation" this allows the characters basically it removes any limits the game might construct for you. We basically dive into the deep end of the comic spectrum.

This is done incredibly quickly too. Inside of 3 or 4 missions, you earn super speed. This basically does away with any need to ride in a vehicle, ever, at all. Not much long after that, you get a super jump which basically unlocks the entirety of the map for you. As you play through, you start to get extra powers such as Power stomp, freeze blast and others that makes taking down fodder enemies a snap. Game that has always kinda hinged on driving now no longer needs it.

Super Dash, Super Jump, Glide = Sandbox transportation perfection.

If I could best describe it, it plays similar to a Saints Row version of the matrix as far as story is concerned for the most part. And honestly? I am totally OK with that. I can see some people becoming detached with now the hard break with realism, but this is exactly what this game needed to break out of the rut of becoming just another sandbox clone. I've heard the comparison to Prototype or Infamous, and its a fair comparison.

But it actually is a bit more than that. Saint's Row has now come to completely embrace the notion that they are a parody of another game. More so than that now, as they go out of the way to parody a number of other games. As you play along the story, the game will break into missions where it changes the genre of game. Most of the time, its the same Saint's Row you know.

But out of the blue you will be making selections in a Text Adventure, or the aforementioned beginning which gives a very big call of duty vibe. Later in the game you have to go through mission that directly apes the Metal Gear Solid. One of the last ones is a side scrolling street brawler. As if it wasn't goofy enough, the characters actually address that these play out as video game parodies, kinda breaking the 4th wall a bit. I found it to be pretty entertaining.

Fun side note if you didn't catch it. If it wasn't exactly the same, this scene plays
a very similar rendition of the Metroid theme from back on the original nintendo.

There are a handful of shortcomings though. First off, fuck you Volition Games for getting rid of the metal music. Yeah you aren't in the car for very long in this game, but the fact that ALL the metal basically got dropped for dubstep and electronica bothers me. It used to cater to a wide palette of musical tastes. Now its just trying to cram dubstep down my throat. Fuck you. The music in this game I thought was not as good as previous installments, but I guess its a moot point since you will barely be in a vehicle.

It also somehow manages to feel like a copy paste job from Saints Row: The Third despite all the new mechanics. The graphics are pretty much unchanged, the location is basically the same sans a few sci-fi additions, and the most of the missions are retreads of the same missions we've done in the previous games, just with new ways to do them. Its not bad, its just kinda samey. You would figure if the idea in this one was to give you superpowers, you'd be motivated to rely more solely on them then to use them sparingly with the guns you've been using for 3 games.

Mayhem: The vehicle is different, yet at the same time nothing has changed. 

How the story is implemented is kinda bleh for me too. In the Grand Theft Auto style you go to a checkpoint on the screen and it triggers the story event for that moment. In previous Saints Row titles, you would make a call to start the story segment, move to the unlocked checkpoint and get your story cutscene. In Saints Row 4 now you just seem to do missions from a checklist with a minimal montage about it. It feels kinda cut down and I don't as much care for it.

The whole romancing aspect of the game is kinda pointlessly thrown in too. They give the idea like it gives you the option of dating characters, but it basically boils down to "Do you want to fuck: Yes or no." There is no story or build up, you can do it to pretty much any party member without repercussion, and really there is no point to doing it. the whole thing just feels thrown in.

Always liked Kinzie, but she hates vintage... That's a disappointment. 

But that's not to say the cutscenes you get are bad. Surprisingly, this game does a pretty good job of splicing together all the previous games stories into one lose end tying mash-up. It might be polarizing for some people, but personally I liked it a lot because it finally addressed some things with certain characters.

To spoil one bit (because fuck you) when you are doing your mission to rescue Shaundi from the simulation, at on point you replay a previous Shaundi rescue from Saints Row 2. In it, the simulation allows Shaundi to split into two halves and confront each other for how they turned out. While of course not at all in the realm of reality, I really liked getting a little bit of exposition for why she changed so much and watching the confrontation between the two personalities. Used different voice actors for each, which I thought was weird. You can find part of this mission in the video below.

A Shaundi of two worlds.

In addition to things like this, there are also a number of audio logs that can be found throughout the world map as collectibles that flesh out some of the other characters internal monologues that characterize all their motivations as they play 2nd fiddle to the player character. I like them, but honestly these could have been used to really flesh out the games story more, perhaps used in offshoot titles. This entire game really serves as a means to tie up the stories for the entire series, bringing in characters from each version of the game.

One other fun side story note, as per usual the Saints Row series offers a ridiculous amount of customization to your character, so it was naturally easy to reproduce the digital version of myself in game. They added a whole bunch of new costume and clothing selections in addition to a number of the Saints Row: The Third mainstays, but one change I noticed more than any was in the voice acting section.

Most of the voices from 3 return in 4 as just generic Male/Female 1, 2, and 3. But one is actually billed with their name: Nolan North. Yep, that Nolan North, Nathan Drake himself. Funny that he's in the same game as Troy Baker because I felt those two sound the same. But unlike the rest of the stock voice, Nolan has a large number of ad-libs that make him a different experience. Nolan actually plays the character as if he is playing as himself. This to me opened a reason for an alternate playthough because his dialogs are often different, and very entertaining.

So the real question here is, does the detachment form reality make Saints Row better? I think it does. All I could think while I was playing is that this game is so not a GTA clone anymore. After minutes of super jumping and gliding around, and running up the sides of buildings to skim from collectible to collectible, I quickly lost track of the hours as I continued to uber my character.

The Dubstep Gun. IE: The gun I won't use on principal.

The game wasn't exactly a pushover either, even with all these ridiculous new powers the waves and waves of fodder enemies took a bit of finesse to take down. I really think that Saints Row 3 and 4 have one of the best gun combat systems in a game, and the addition of the super powers adds a different level of fun to how they are used. It allowed me to come up with new strategies for taking down a big group of baddies.

There is gonna be a hard shift from the the people who liked the game for being grounded in realism. Well, as grounded in realism as Saint's Row can be. But in completely bulldozing that idea to shift completely over to a comic book style of game I feel is exactly what this game needed to continue to be relevant. While it does feel like a tad of an expansion of Saint's Row: The Third it does more than enough to give me another 30+ hours of entertainment.

And in addition to the new mechanics it brings, it also does a pretty good job of tying up some loose ends, explaining some back stories, and really kind of brings together all three games into one tightly packed adventure. I was very pleased with Saint's Row 4. I might actually venture to say that its the best in the series. Highly recommended, totally worth the 60 bucks.

Was a little disappointed the 50's outfits weren't unlockable, though.  

Dragon's Crown (PS3): Buxom, Bruising, Beautiful, Bad-ass.

If you'll remember (or probably don't) back in December I wrote a review of what I thought was the last great game in the PS2 in Vanillaware's Odin Sphere. After playing the ever loving shit out of both that and Muramasa: The Demon Blade I have been absolutely chomping at the bit for Vanillaware to produce a new title. I knew they had a PS3 one in the works, so I waited.

For 2 whole years. Delays, production issues, funding issues. Anything that could have gone wrong seemed to go wrong. Once things were finally underway the game managed to come under massive scrutiny because of the art style, but through all of it, it finally has been finished and released, and now I finally get to enjoy....

DRAGON'S CROWN:(PS3)

In the world of Dragon's Crown you play one of six adventurer's who arrive to the kingdom of Hydeland, a place where numerous labyrinths have been found and linked by magic in order to find the legendary Dragon's Crown. An item with the power to control dragons and possibly be a pivotal item in turning the tides of war to whoever can get their hands on it.

You arrive to town to seek your fortune by searching the labyrinths for treasure but find yourself getting caught up in the search for the Dragon's Crown for the kingdom's royalty in the hopes of preventing war and stopping an ancient dragon from awakening..

So that's it. That's the story for the most part. As you can see, not much to it but ultimately that's not a huge factor in this game for once. It does go with a fairly interesting storytelling mechanic that I haven't seen very much in games. I guess the best way to describe it is if the story was being told by a dungeon master. Since none of the playable characters actually have names, he refers to "you". He will also chime in through out the level to explain the setting or what is happening just as you would in a game of D&D. For a classic fantasy set piece like this one, it works pretty well.

As mentioned previously, you can pick from one of six adventure classes to start the game: The Fighter, who has high defense and strength, but slow speed. The Dwarf, who has high strength and can throw enemies into each other. The Amazon, who has high attack and agility, but low defense. The Elf, who is the melee/range hybrid and is the most balanced all around.  The Wizard who is the full blown glass cannon, huge damage but easily killed. And the Sorceress who uses attack/support magic, and has a massive rack.

The game pretty much tells you when you start who is good for new players and who is good if experienced players so if you think you wanna start off with a magic user, you might be in for a bit of a rough road. I went with the Amazon because after looking at another review she seemed like one of the classes that most fed into my desire to have endless combos.

If you looked at any of the screenshots, trailers, or videos on Dragon's Crown  then the gameplay should be pretty self explanatory. This game is a wonderful throw back to those fantastic arcade style side scrolling beat em up's a-la X-men Arcade, Simpsons the Arcade game, Crime Fighters, and so on. You could draw a comparison to console beat em ups like TMNT: Turtles in Time, or say Streets of Rage but I think the whole presentation of the game feels more acradey to me. Something I thoroughly enjoyed.

But its not just a plain ole walk right and mash attack game neither (well it is, but there's more). Each of the characters have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and they all have different abilities to unlock as you play through the game that caters to these unique strengths. For example, I'm currently using the Amazon and many of her abilities play into the ability to keep attacks coming. Her swings are slow and sluggish, but the more you land hits the faster they come and harder they hit. With the right additions to her jumping attack, combo extensions, and ability boosts, she can go from slow swings to a lighting fast axe cloud of death in a matter of seconds with enough enemies on the screen.

Also, in addition to the character specific skill trees there is also a series of common skills that all the characters can use. These are simpler but still effective things like increase vitality, get health from coin drops, carry more stuff and so forth. This is a game where you can power level the hell out of character and still probably not max out all of their skills. It leaves me with the paranoia of never wanting to use my skill points in the event I'm a level or 2 away from something better. 

Typically, for the main story portions the narrator will guide you along the town map to direct you where the next portion of the story will take place. For the first nine or so stages it does this to introduce you to the 9 levels where the majority of the game will take place. The majority of the levels are reasonably short, taking you through a few breaks of fighting before giving you a boss to fight (thank christ). Also during stages you can accept side objectives that you can claim for additional experience or skill points.

But after you complete these first nine or so levels, the game lets up on the reigns and really starts to knuckle down with you. It forces you to go through them again under the guise of searching for dragon talismans, but it gives you extended versions of the levels you have played and gives a new and more difficult bosses to fight. It also ramps up the difficulty of the monster level, gives more monsters on the screen, and provides a much faster paced experience over all.

When you have a full team banging on all cylinders, the screen can get kinda hectic.

Good thing too, because if you are like me, you might be started to get bored just before that point because until you hit that the game seems pretty easy and monotonous. Once the difficulty starts to ratchet up you will spend too much time trying to fight your way through waves of enemies to worry about being bored with the game play. 

You have to go this somewhat lengthily tutorial section before the game actually opens up the online play. Its annoying, but makes sense in a light because that means by the time everyone gets into online mode, you don't have to worry about anyone really being a new player. Everyone will be familiar with the game and the character they are using by that point. You can't match make in a lobby in specific rooms though. You can drop into random games or drop into a friends game, so at least you can probably organize so you and friends can all be in the same game.

Although its not an issue if you have local multiplayer, as on a single screen you have up to 4 people from the word go. Which is certainly helpful because the game can certainly get a bit hairy to play single player if you are going it solo. It also features a mechanic to where AI bots can take control of characters to fight along side you. As you go through the levels you will find discarded bones throughout the stages. These bones can be picked up so when you return to town you can revive them, and have them fight with you. You can also bury the bones in the hopes of getting a free item.

The bot mechanic can work one of two ways. When you are in town, you can go into the tavern and cherry pick which of the characters you revived to help in the next stage you choose. You will go through a number of these because they cannot gain experience, nor can their equipment be repaired. But as you find more bones their levels will increase as you do. Or should you chose to go it alone, unless you specifically locked the join feature, there is a chance a random character from your available pool will drop in sporadically to help you as you go. This is often how I will play unless a level starts to get too frustrating for me.

There are a small couple of headaches in this game though, as no game is perfect. One of my biggest irks is the support character that follows you around, Rannie. He's basically an NPC thief character who basically follows you around to collect the spoils that drop from the baddies you kill. He also unlocks the chests you find or the doors to advance the stage or hidden areas. If that were his sole mechanic, I'd be ok with that.

Unfortunately though, he is controlled via mouse click. This is annoying for the PS3 users because the mouse guider is used with right analog stick. Even with maximum sensitivity set it never seems to move fast enough for me to get him over to a door or chest. And it requires you to be fucking precise as shit when you click it. I can't think of how many times in the heat of combat, or really even after combat, I'd try to move my little hand to the door or chest I want him to open, just to have a dumb NPC get in the way or find myself clicking on wall next to what I wanted.

Fun trolling tip, you can steal other peoples food out of their pot.
(So don't be a jerk, stay with the pot in front of you.)

This is especially frustrating in the heat of boss fights, because this same mechanic is used to revive your teammates if they die one to many times. You have to move the mouse to the top and click their face, or name, or counter, or SOMETHING. I've yet to figure out what fucking spot I need to click to bring them back, and when I have a boss monster wailing down blows on me I don't have time to piss around trying to figure it out when I have 3 hero's to revive.

The other feature that uses this is the Rune Magic. Through the stages you will find runes scattered about the walls. if you click on them, they will glow. if you can come up with the right combinations with the runes you've collected with the ones on the walls, they can have various effects, again though, this is something that requires you to be precise, which means I'm not doing it in the heat of combat.

This might be something that is easier to do in 4 player mode, but by myself I usually have to wait till I've cleared the room only to unlock a spell that would have helped me in the fight prior.  Because I'm constantly struggling with remembering the runes, and take too much time guessing, a majority of the time I just don't even bother.

Speaking of the multiplayer, there are an handful of hiccups there too. First off, there are 6 character types. The PS can support up to 7 controllers. This seemed to be begging for a 6 player Co-op a-la X-men the Arcade game. But whatever, only 4. That's OK, its still fun. But as previously mentioned, the actual online multi-player is actually locked off for the first 9 levels. You can have bots join you, but not actually players. This seemed kind of strange to me but I guess it makes sense since the beginning functions as a tutorial before getting thrown into the main game.  You can still play it local though....

But there is problems with that too, actually. For some reason, unlike on the 360, the PS3 doesn't allow for multiple profiles on the same system to be logged in at the same time. So like in the case of one my guest writers (Big Sister) She had her game on her profile and so did her boyfriend on his, but they couldn't join those two characters because you can't log into two profiles in this game. So in order to play together, one of them had to start over. That's kinda stupid, and it goes by a game by game basis. You can log into multiples in Scott Pilgrim vs the World on the respective arcades. It's a bit of an oversight but I guess ultimately not a huge issue. Hopefully this gets patched.

Then of course, There is the "controversy". Most people know what I am talking about. Vanillaware founder and lead artist, George Kamitami came under quite a bit of scrutiny by a number of reviewers and video game community members from the over exaggerated endowments of some of the characters. Most specifically, the Sorceress character and her previously noted cartoonishly large breasts. He got into a bit of spat with a writer from Kotaku about the design, and this character has become the image of why all women are completely objectified in the game world. It eventually did bring out intelligent debate, but to me it was a pointless firestorm.

First off all, has nobody seen any fantasy? Nobody remembers Morrigan's half a shred of a shirt in Dragon Age? Nobody played God of War, a game based in mythology where clothing was pretty much optional? Soul Calibur, where Ivy basically fought in a chain mail open one piece? Or even his previous game Odin Sphere where Velvet basically wore a red hood that covered the naughty bits and her hair. All of these characters a presented in equally oversexualized ways and it didn't cause half the stink this game did. News flash, the image of the young "Witch" in fantasy is always been oversexualized and has been for years, does that make it OK? Probably not, but is it really something to complain about? Yes the Sorceress' chest is ridiculously large, but its not like they are bare. Do women get mad at other women for having large chests because its offensive? Who fucking cares? They are lumps of fat.... that are imaginary..

The sidequest rewards feature art from the various contributors from the game.
They are all incredible.

Secondly, Dragon's Crown is an equal opportunity objectifier. Every character is an overblown cartoon of itself. the Amazon's endowments are hulking half naked muscles, with a pair of legs I'm not entirely sure aren't just a pair of obtuse triangles. The is an old man you meet who is so withered and decrepit he could be a skeleton, but no seniors groups offended by that. The dwarf basically just rocks a helmet and loincloth and then we have Roland, one of the games barbarians. Who when he appears on the screen is about 8% background, 10% head, and about 82% rippling man chest (see video). Completely ridiculous and unattainable images of masculinity. Don't see any men's rights groups or reviewers complaining about how offensive that is. Know why? Cuz nobody gives a shit, and you shouldn't either.

Thirdly, if you fuckin laid off with the pseduo-pretentious crusades and actually looked at the visuals, you would see that this might be one of the most visually stunning games you'd get your hands on. Kamitami has this ability to take watercolors have them all blend and pop so complimentary that it produces this level of vividness that makes every little detail to everything shine through. Everything is beautifully animated to extensive levels of detail that you just don't see in games today. Its a wonderful break form this depressing age of video games where colors are shunned for palettes of brown, grey, and black grit. Honestly, in my opinion the characters all take a back seat to the spectacular monster designs. The fight with the Gazer is one of my favorites.

D'aww... so adorably deadly.

Even when you complete missions are you treated to rewards of still pictures of the quest you completed by the various artists in the game and every single one of them is impressive to behold, and this is coming from a guy who for the most part finds art museums to be a bore. If you seriously don't think this game is beautiful then throw on a dunce cap, go out and hold a stick like a gun, crouch in front of a brick wall, and stare at it for 60 hours. That's the majority of the games in the past 5 years right there, and if that's what you want? Fuck you, we need more games with spectacular art design like this.

Gimme a sec to get my blood pressure back down.....  OK. So if I had to say the game had a major flaw? it would be that it can sometimes be a repetitive and monotonous at times. Each time you start a new character you have to go through that 9 level tutorial again each time. And while having a strong leveled character is fun, building a new one from scratch can be a bit of a drag (especially if doing local multiplayer). It's also a bit of a grind, you're gonna be seeing the same levels a lot, but as the difficulty increases you get newer monsters to fight. And its a Looting game, so those Diablo types who like to continuously fight for marginally better equipment should be right at home here.

Guess it would make sense to have a dragon in the game, huh...

Typically when you find yourself waiting for an extended length of time for a game, you will find yourself disappointed because it just won't meet up to your expectations, (See Duke Nukem Syndrome). So far this summer, I'm 3 for 3. The Last of Us and Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational met up with all my expectations, and now Dragon's Crown has too. Its the first game in like fuckin' ever where I've actively texted folk to set up online and local games. Those games have been a blast, and for a simple arcade style game? I have like 45 hours and counting on it. that's pretty damn good replay value for game with about 9 stages.

I really don't know what else to say about it. I really like this game, a lot. Sure, it has some oversights and issues, but so far I haven't found a reason to put it down. Its a solid play and anyone who's begged their mom for a few quarters to play that arcade standup at the store will get that nostalgic feeling from this game. To use an awful, awful analogy that I swore I wasn't gonna use: Dragon's Crown is sweet as tits.

You may now write counter blogs about what a horrible sexist pig I am.
And I will respond with images of my middle finger. 

Deadpool (PS3): Breaks the Fourth Wall, but not much else.

So, full disclosure: Up until early 2011, I really had no idea who Deadpool was. I considered myself to be a comic fan, but really wasn't all that brushed up on anything that happened after the early 90's. Priorities changed, and me and comics just kinda drifted apart. Thankfully, I work in a library so I have been using its connections to catch back up with my favorite franchises.

But around February of 2011 came the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I remember when selling reserves of the game some of my coworkers and people picking it up were very excited about the appearance of this "Deadpool" character. I shrugged it off. But then at a fight night later that week, someone played against me with him, and I laughed my ass off as he yanked the lifebar off the screen and proceeded to smash me with it. From then on, I was hooked. I've been reading much of his back catalog, and now after a hilarious Comic-con announcement last year, Deadpool has his own game in.....

DEADPOOL: (PS3)

So the overall meta of the Deadpool game's story is that Deadpool is basically holding High Moon studios hostage after they rejected his initial video game pitch. After giving a much more "explosive" proposal, High Moon Studios sends over their script for the Deadpool game.  Deadpool is clearly not happy going off a script and starts cutting through it with a crayon without reading to make his changes. After arguing with his voices a bit and dicking around his apartment, we jump into the script...

Deadpool receives a contract to kill Chance White, a corrupt media mogul. Deadpool has no idea why he's accepted this contract because he didn't read the script. But none the less Deadpool cuts and shoots his way through White's armed guard in his headquarters to make his kill. In the wake of his destruction (and blowing the games budget in the process), White escapes with the help of Mister Sinister.

This irks Deadpool because he won't get paid if he doesn't actually kill White. Sinister makes his escape to the island of Genosha. While in pursuit of Sinister, Deadpool teams up with his old collegues with the X-Force in Wolverine, Rouge, Domino, and Psylocke and after a bit of an argument about who gets to fly the Blackbird, the group of them give pursuit to get revenge for robbing Pool of his pay (oh, and stop Sinister's scheme.)

So alright, the premise for the story is both completely fitting for the Deadpool character and at the same time feels slightly lacking. The biggest problem in the area of story is the lack of a really strong set of supporting characters. For the weeks approaching release they would tease and release images showing that Wolvie, Domino, Cable, and Rouge were all in the game. At the onset, I was pretty happy about that since these are characters I generally like and am familiar with.

But really, the only ones who gets any real extended screen time in the game are Cable and Death. They mainly serve to kinda push Deadpool along in the story, but he clearly has little interest in doing so. Its funny because those were pretty much the exact feelings I had as well. I found myself a couple of times wondering if this was meant to be something they did on purpose, or if the writing was particularly weak in that area. This really is a theme you might find yourself in for a number of the game's aspects.

Cable can be described as the game's Grumpy Dad.

The main antagonists, Mr. Sinister and his gaggle of D-list villains (Blockbuster, Vertigo, and Arclight) all feel kinda thrown in. Which again, seems like something that could be intentional or slapdash. You'd feel that that this is a Marvel licensed game they'd have the right to throw in characters from the entire universe. Then again because of the very nature of the Deadpool character, this allows him to completely trash how awful this cast is. It makes sense in that regard. 

But what sticks in my craw about it is if you are going to advertise that these more popular Marvel characters are going to be in the game, one would hope that its going to be more than just a lame token appearance which many of these characters seem to be. You get one small section where you "sort of" play as Rouge. I don't think Psylocke even gets a line of dialog. Wolverines contribution to the story is marginal at best. It's really kind of a letdown considering the history between characters like Deadpool and Wolvie/Domino.

Full disclosure: I thought Arclight, Vertigo, and Blockbuster were made up for this game.

I know that Deadpool for the most part of his series deals with some pretty off the wall main antagonists for the majority of his main stories, but he's clashed with almost every hero and villain in the Marvel universe a one point or another. There could have been an actual fight with Wolverine or Domino, any of the previous Weapon X products, no mention of Spider-man after one small reference at the start, none of the Avengers make and appearance. There isn't even people who are more commonly known to his own franchise in there (probably because a lot of them are dead, but still.)

Really, I think a lot of Deadpool's best story arcs are where he's a support character to a major player. Thor, Hulk, Spidey, and so on. I feel the game might have been better served as a series of disconnected missions with the other characters universes. Sadly that's not how it played out.

"Deadpool, we need to go off screen and be ineffectual to the plot for the next few levels, bub."

So the Deadpool game's combat system I guess can be considered pretty cookie cutter for those action adventure spectacle fighter kinda games we've seen. You got your light attack, heavy attack, jump, dodge, counter functions, you can use your shoulder buttons to go into the over the shoulder 3rd person shooter kind of control scheme with pistols, shotguns, and machine guns. If you have been playing video games at all for the past 10 to 15 years nothing about the game's control scheme is gonna throw you a wild curve ball. Its about as cut and dry as it gets.

However on the same token, sometimes it can feel a bit loose too. If you go into the menu for your unlocks and upgrades you will see that certain levels of weapons unlock different and more extended combos to use. But my mashing of the combos never seemed give me the inclination I was doing my combos properly. This is really an area where Deadpool can take a page from the God of War playbook. When I hit my specific button presses in that game, the combos on the screen look clearly different enough for me understand that those specific presses triggered that specific move.

Occasionally you will get the QTE button press to counter an enemy, but the window of it is small or sensitive to directional button presses, so I never seemed to be able to really rely on the ability to counter certain enemies, sans a few fights with Blockbuster where his counter is very highly telegraphed. Which makes that boss fight almost insultingly easy. Luckily for the most part if your counter doesn't work you will still teleport dodge away so you remain safe. A friend of mine thinks this was done intentionally, to make a mockery of bad gameplay, but I think that's a bit too subtle for the Deadpool universe. I think it just doesn't work well.

During the course of the game Deadpool will continue to break the fourth wall in cutscenes and a number of those deal a good amount of laughs. There was a concern that, much like recent Spider-Man games, Deadpool would overuse some of the pool of quips he has ad nauseum to the point of irritation. Depending on how long you play the game, this might be an issue or not. I for the most part didn't have much of a problem with this, but there was one line that I seemed to get much more than others: "Two extra slices for just 9.99."

It came up just enough times for me to find it irritating but not so much that it ruined the gameplay for me. What they really should have done here is give Nolan North the script, let him run through his lines, and then let him ad lib for like and hour and cram every bit of those you could fit onto the disc. This would made certain things come up a lot less frequently, or if anything allow them to play at random but no repeat until it cycles through the whole list. 

The game has a tendency to keep you bottled up in some pretty lame environments through the whole game. Buildings, Sewers, factories, or dilapidated buildings. I know there is only so much you can do with environments in a game like this but a couple splashes of color would have been nice. Genosha is an island in the middle of nowhere, a few stages could have taken place in the jungle or something with some wild animals to fight. 

Ultimately the game is pretty samey though and through. You'll find yourself running around hack and slashing your wear through faceless baddies until they start to shoot at you, which will be your cue to pull out your guns and fire back in kind. There is an occasional stealth element where you can sneak up on a guy and hack them to ribbons without being seen, but its so rare and so likely to go wrong you might as well keep powering through with your swords anyways.

Lastly the game also features a series of challenge maps that are kind of like horde modes. The more you beat the more you unlock further difficulties and if you manage to get a gold medal, you can get an alternate costume for Deadpool. The thing is, you can only use said costume on said challenge map, and only for its unlimited mode. So basically you only get the new costume for a section of the game you can't win or unlock more things for. Seems like a massive oversight, let me use them on the other challenges or in the story mode.

So did I like Deadpool? I have to say that I did for the most part. Its not a game that's going to break any molds or show you anything new, but for the most part its pretty functional and fun to play. The difficulty curve is a little ridiculous from time to time where in some stages you'll find yourself slashing things to bits like a red and black katana cloud of death, yet 5 minutes later you'll find yourself getting gunned down in the same section over and over again. It can be frustrating but not so much that'd you would stop playing.  I'd say the games biggest flaw is what I perceive to be a lack of replay value. 

The Deadpool game is made for those people who are clearly fans of Deadpool. I wouldn't say its a great introduction to the character for those who aren't exactly familiar with him, but he does make the transition from comic to game pretty well with his character intact (for those of you who saw the X-men Origins: Wolverine, that is not how Deadpool should be).

Ultimately though, it shows why it came out at a lower price. I think the game could probably get a sequel, but I suggest that they focus on really beefing up the story aspect of the game bring in more of the more notable Marvel universe. It's not the best game to ever come out, but not bad either. Its safe. You'll get your yucks, and its fun enough to see to the end, just don't expect to keep playing it to perfection. Here's hoping for a more polished sequel, because it has potential.

Even D-Pool appreciates "Yo Dawg". Love it.

The Last of Us (PS3): Pretty Little Hype Machine.

So lets be honest here: The Last of Us game play footage and trailers have been giving us a literal/metaphorical boner for the past 2 years now. The game looks awesome, the concept looks great and it was promising to be one of the biggest games of the year. Done by the folks at Naughty Dog, who make Uncharted, which is awesome. The only big fear I had was if there was too much hype going into a game would it not deliver? Now I finally got to see...

THE LAST OF US (PS3)

The Last of Us opens up in the Austin Texas home of Joel and his young daughter Sarah. After an exhausted Joel returns home almost at midnight, we share a moment between him and his daughter as she gives him a watch for his birthday. They flick on the TV, Sarah nods off, and Joel carriers her to bed.  Sarah wakes up later to some commotion outside, and you take control of her to search the house for your father to find him panicked racing back into the house. Apparently a sickness is spreading quickly, and is turning people feral. After gunning down his feral neighbor, Joel and Sarah hop in the car to get out of the city.

Unfortunately this leads with them getting stuck in the middle of the panic, and they get blindsided by a truck. With Sarah sustaining a broken leg, Joel carries her trying to escape the rioting in the streets and the feral infected. After eluding them and getting to the town outskirts they are stopped by a soldier who orders them to turn back and raises his gun on them. They turn to escape as he opens fire....

Technically, Sarah is the first playable characters in the game.

Flash 20 years later, Joel is in a heavily militarized Boston. The infection has greatly reduced the population, and Joel is currently running as a smuggler under this police state. Tensions are high between the police and the fireflies. Joel and his friend Tess go after a target who stole their cache of guns to find the injured leader of the fireflies. She bargains to give the guns back and more if they will transport a young girl named Ellie out of town and to their fellow fireflies outside the quarantined zone. 

I left a bit of the intro story out of my description because really what I describe is a good chunk of time in the game, but it needed to be explained to give the story a bit of context. What I didn't tell you though, is that intro is pretty fucking powerful, and it does something that really I don't recall seeing happen much in games. I have this friend who I don't want to give his identity (but for the sake of the story we'll call him JD). JD has made like 5 of my friends play the start of this game, just to get their reactions to it. Everyone's reactions were mainly jaw dropping. It's pretty strong stuff.

Tess is headstrong, tough as nails, and Ice Cold. But really feels like one of
the few characters who look at the bigger picture in the world around her. 

I did have a little bit of reservation about the game though when I first tried the demo. The demo starts from a pretty early mission which sort of mislead me to what the game was all about. It felt and played like post-apocalyptic Uncharted with not-quite-zombies. I only played the demo once because I felt it was just going to be another variant of their popular franchise and nothing more.

A bit premature it seems though, because there is a bit of subtleties that make The Last of Us a very different experience than the rest of Naughty Dog's flagship franchise. For one example, it slightly expands on the two gun slot system I usually hate, allowing for more readied weapons if you have the salvage to expand them, but ammo is always going to be scarce. So when firing your guns you are gonna want to pick to shots wisely and not miss.

Yeah, no game seems to escape cover based shooting these days..... sigh..

But should you run out, the melee is fairly simple. 95% of the time you can charge up to an enemy and just start mashing the square button for a quick combo. While there is zero complexity to the combat, it still feels good and fluid enough to make it a viable option and not boring.

What really sells it though is the final shot on an enemy is usually zoomed in and highlighted with a visceral finishing hit. Either bare handed or melee, all of them can be pretty rough to watch. Watching a big wind-up and haymaker to the throat is painful every time I see it. Make no mistake, there is nothing cartoony about this violence.

Between this game and Tomb Raider, I'm ready to become a pacifist.

Unfortunately though, there are a lot of enemies, and some of the special infected who cannot be take down with hand to hand melee. These enemies can one hit kill you, and even fighting with a weapon is risky. So the game forces a very good deal of stealth gameplay at you which is something I wasn't expecting. It's pretty well executed though.

There's no "wall molesting" button so its easy to crouch and move behind cover and the game has kind of a sonar mechanic where you can see enemy silhouettes through cover by how much noise they make. You can sneak up on them for silent choke outs, or for the cordyceps infected take them down with a shiv. As a fan of non military stealth games, this is pretty fun for me.

You wanna get Clickers quickly and quietly, because they will ruin your day if you miss em.

There is a problem with that too, though. Gear is super limited. Shivs break easily, you don't get a lot of bullets, and the game doesn't have regenerating health. So as you walk around each area, you really want to turn over every nook and cranny for parts and supplies so you can make more med packs, shivs, or grenades. This all takes place in real time so you'll want to do it in clear areas immediately or look in completely safe places.

You are gonna die in this game. You are gonna die a lot. Much like Uncharted before it, The Last of Us has a lot of trial and error game play to it. There are a number of scenes where you are going to have to wait and see where people patrol around and pick them off one at a time. If you get impatient and alert one they will all rain down on you. And trust me, one of those one hit kill infected will always be around to fuck your day when you are fighting with 3 others. You can count on it.

Naturally, because the game features a scavenging mechanic in order to build things, there is also a complimentary exploration aspect to the levels as you play. I guess I could best describe it to be most similar to the Tomb Raider remake that came out earlier this year. They provide relatively nice sized maps that from an objective standpoint are pretty linear. But because you need to scavenge for parts and ammo so you will often find yourself exploring every nook and cranny of each area to find cupboards, drawers, or lockers to find any spare parts you can.

The locations in this game are very well detailed, but perhaps a bit lacking in variety. I mean, you've seen one dilapidated building covered in foliage, and you've seen them all. Much of the game has you traveling in cities that are living in very slum like conditions, or out in the wastelands of a ruined America. Some of the settings get changed up as you play through the game over the course of different seasons, which is a nice way to show the passage of time but ultimately it does feel a little samey after a while.

So the combat is good, the stealth is fun, and the locations are alright.  But the real sticking point to this game is Naughty Dog's whole bread and butter, the superb story telling. This game is really good at keeping you engrossed as you play it. Right from the previously mentioned beginning, they wrap you up with the the first two characters you see, and make you play as both of them when the shit hits the fan. It invests you in with the characters so shit inevitably goes wrong, its that much more of an emotional punch.

And the game does a very good job of emphasizing that point through the length of the game. For a game called The Last of Us there is really one a handful of segments where you are left completely alone. You usually have an accomplice or two. Its very cool because there are a lot of these little unscripted characterizing moments that take place as you are walking around and exploring. These little back and forth dialogs that take place that really characterize that Joel has become jaded and lonely in the 20 years since the infection, that Ellie despite here maturity for her age is still just kid growing up in a post apocalyptic world. They are well paced, and they have a number of non story related conversations just dealing with the world they live in.

All the little side dialogs make the game worth playing through multiple times.
Things like Ellie asking about movies or coffee shops give this honest feeling that
she really is just a curious kid asking about a world she's only ever gotten to hear about.

What I hated however, and this is probably my biggest complaint is that my AI characters would sometimes get a sudden case of the retarded. There has been more than one time that I would be slinking along behind some cover, getting ready to pounce on my target to find one of my idiot cohorts would run right out into the open and run right to my cover and plunk down next to me, instead of following my safer path.

There have also been firefights where this happens too. I'm picking my shots and trying to advance on a thug so I can club them with a brick, only to watch my partner run right out into the open and firing their shots and getting themselves taken down because an infected pounces them, effectively blowing my plan right out of the window. It was always funny/annoying when I saw it happen, but it didn't seem to happen so much that I felt it was a major issue.

Lets be honest here though. The Last of Us is a zombie game. You might not think that from the trailers or what you know about the story. And the monsters aren't explicitly referred to as zombies, and if it was just a matter of a evolved fungus infecting people and controlling them like a cordyceps fungus does with bugs then that would be enough. But when they are able to transfer the infection by taking a bite out of you, causing youto turn over time? That's zombies. I love zombies as much as a the next guy, but the market is kinda super saturated with them. Still, interesting new take on them.

Lose the headwear and yep, its a zombie.

Usually when I play a game like this I expect to maybe be done with it in about 8 hours or so. Surprisingly, the game boasts 20 solid hours of gameplay, and the story manages to deliver though the entirety. There has been a bit of complaint about how the game ended. I'll admit the ending is a little underwhelming when compared to the length of it, but I wasn't overly upset about it. Its one of those things where you have to really take in the entire last section of the game as the ending, rather than just the last few cutscenes. I guess I could say that the ending overall has a very indie movie feel to it.

At the time of writing, I haven't played the multiplayer yet (because I've been playing SNES games on my ouya) but will probably to try to do so for an online video. From what I've heard from the RoosterTeeth Patch podcast, they've managed to find a way to put the tension of the single player mode into the multiplayer mode. If that is the case then that can only be a good thing for the multiplayer. Online multiplayer games are starting to get pretty homogenized so anything that makes it feel different is a plus in my book. I will have to give that a try before Sony starts charging for online play.

So really to drive to the crux of this article, how good was The Last of Us. Very. VERY good. There was a lot of hype before the game even got released that this is a potential game of the year candidate. Many people giving it perfect and near perfect scores. To be completely honest I would be pretty hard pressed to disagree with what a lot of people have said about the game.

But it's not flawless, not by any stretch. There are some occasionally glitchy moments, there are points where I felt the lighting could have been more clear, and the aforementioned AI issues come to mind immediately. Much like review of Bioshock Infinite, if I am able to come up with a number of flaws quickly and off the top of my head then it doesn't get a perfect score in my book.  But make no mistake about it, The Last of Us has generated a metric butt-ton of hype behind it, and it delivers on almost everything it's promised me. It stands an incredibly good chance of  taking game of the year and is absolutely worth your time.

Naughty Dog knows what their fuckin' doing.

Ellen Page, so one of the characters looks like you. Get over it. You should be flattered and you would have looked better than if you got all pissy about it. I'm no longer a fan of yours (even though I'm still getting Beyond).