I came into Frozen Synapse totally blind, and came away totally impressed. The story is about overthrowing various powers throughout a city. I'll not say more, and while the writing is a bit dry, the characters and wit are good. Some of the characters were great, but overall, I'd consider the story a secondary element at best. The game is really all about the game. I've been playing the campaign, because unfortunately the multi-player has some issues, mostly with sore losers. The devs were looking into this, apparently more for the sequel, but no amount of updating the game will make good sports of bad ones. The campaign is nice, often brutal, but satisfying none the less. The AI can be predictable at times, but still very challenging. Outside of story specific characters, every unit I've ever used served some kind of purpose. Shotguns were great for close quarters, machine gunners for covering wide areas, snipers for long range, rockets for breaching, grenades for clearing without demolishing. There is a surprising and enjoyable level of tactics involved. I recommend the tutorial, which isn't really that difficult, and once you get a sense of how the mechanics work, you might begin to appreciate this games depth. You have to really plan your strategy. Being ham-fisted will get your team wasted, and being too careful will get your team cornered and wasted. Stages have a turn limit, so you have to really learn to be aggressive, but also very strategic. The presentation here is refreshingly slick. On the surface it may look like an old-school vector game, but inside every unit is a spray of red pixels waiting to be liberated by a bullet or an explosion. The animations and style of this game really fit the motif, and I found both very enjoyable.
Once in a while a game will come along that not only manages to be great, but even pulls off being perfect. Bastion is easily this game. Perfect doesn't mean it does everything, at least not in my definition, but rather it does exactly what it sets out to do. In the game you assume the role as 'The Kid', the story itself narrated with pitch-perfect charm by Rucks. I won't touch the story, I wouldn't want to spoil a second of it, but I can safely say that like most everything else, it is compelling, elegant, and sublime. The only thing I will spoil are that along the way The Kid meets others, and they bring their own tales to the narrative that mange to enrich the story rather than make things feeling convoluted. The game play takes place in various areas where the stage actually spawns up around the player as you move. Combat is executed very well, the controls are tight and responsive. I used a game pad and found no issue moving, rolling, aiming, or deflecting. The game takes a small amount of getting used to, but once I had the hang of things I could readily see both my mistakes and areas where I could improve. In other words this is a game of skill, and practice really pays off. Not super hard by any stretch, but the game really gives as good as you play. If I lost I knew it was my fault, period. Visually this game is a stunner! The artists really poured a lot into bringing the world to life in vivid colors and stylized artwork that gives things a very hand painted look. I loved the monster designs; some of it was just odd but at the same time wondrous, even funny. Much of the artwork was just terrific to. The music in this game is beautiful! From twangy folk to rock beats, and Zia's dreamy ballad, this is one of the most unforgettable soundtracks I've ever heard, video game or otherwise. The sound effects were also suitably beefy, strange, punchy, and fantastical.
I went into this game after having read some reviews on how it mixed up the match 3 formula into something new and interesting. I expected this to be a good match 3 game with a flimsy 'dating sim' slapped onto it. What I got was a really interesting game full of really versatile strategy, and a pretty direct dating sim mechanic with characters that were actually pretty diverse, consistent, and had more personality that a lot of mainstream game characters. The idea is simple; meet girls, give them gifts (some will net you gifts in return), ask them on a date. You have a finite amount of moves to fill a bar which serves as a score. An example would be that you begin a date with a score of zero and the goal is to hit a score of 100 before you run out of moves. Various other modifiers allow you to boost the score for each match and these can be activated during the date with "Date Gifts" or before the dates by boosting your player stats with experience earned in the form of "Hunie". You get experience for conversing with the girls, asking about them or answering questions in a way they agree with, or by giving them gifts they enjoy with [b]"Munie"[/b] earned by winning dates. What they like and dislike in all of these categories are always available at a glance via a pretty simple user interface that resembles a smart phone (PDA), so there's really not too much guessing, just planning and strategy. The ability to mix up different reusable "Date Gifts" really added a layer of strategy and planning I had not anticipated, and I found myself really planning my games out according to the girl I was dating. There are some strategies that seem to win very easily. There is some sexy content, more of which can be restored easily via a patch. It's pretty graphic, but no explicit sex is depicted even if it is strongly implied. Even without the patch this is definitely not a game for the kiddos.
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is a platforming game where you play as a pair of characters that can switch on the fly, changing the environment, the enemies, and in a lot of parts the available collectible crystals. Crystal collecting and switching are at the core of this game, and not much else. Navigate levels by jumping and either spinning, which turns the character into a kind of cannon ball that can break walls or attack enemies; or twisting, which allows the character to descend slowly and with more control after a jump. The levels are long, boring, and not especially challenging, though a few will be tougher and longer. The switching mechanic adds to the challenge, but ultimately, like a lot of this game, can get tedious quickly. The ropey controls are part of the challenge. The controller support is good, I think that the problem is in the design. The directional pad or analogue sticks give the same responsiveness. The characters have a loose feeling to how they move, so things can feel a little imprecise. For a game that depends on tight controls it can become frustrating very fast. The camera tracking isn't great either, in spots showing little enough to navigate a jump or see an enemy you might unintentionally run into. Panning and tracking can be too iffy, and some of the deaths I encountered came from camera mischief. Dying in this game isn't strictly punished, though the scoring system is affected. The Scoring in this game is very strange, and in order to unlock further levels you will need to score stars. Stars are scored by finishing levels with a lot of crystals and few deaths. There are a LOT of crystals, and the more deaths you have the lower your stars will be by the end of the stage. This is where the game shows its greatest weakness. As a platformer it is mediocre, tedious, and the pace is grueling. Finishing a stage takes patience, not only with the camera and controls, but with the boredom.
An unexpected knockout game. I've clocked hundreds of hours on the DRM free version, so I have more experience with this game than I appear here. I've always loved space exploration games, and the idea of commanding a crew through mysterious systems sounds fun to me. FTL is a chance to have this experience and then some. The objective is simple; run, fight, and survive. If you do the first you will die. If you do the second you will die. If you manage, by luck, miracles, and some seriously fast thinking, you will be punished brutally and eventually probably die. The RNG(Random Number Generator) is at play here at all times. Every jump into a new sector is a new experience, every jump into a way-point may be your last. Think you're armed to the teeth and can take anything on? WRONG! You are always a boarding crew or rampant fire away from death. It is random, and fierce, but it is also incredibly exhilarating. You have a crew you can build a strategy with and it may work, but this is FTL, do not expect a one-size fits all method to save you when your mantis is suddenly being mind controlled and shreds your crew while a boarding drone punches a hole in your hull, lays waste to your shields, and beam weapons carve you to ribbons. And that's only if the game decides to play 'nice'. This game broke me time and again, and I was hooked from the start. Every failure was a learning experience, every success a matter of trial and error, planning, knowing when to run for my life, and a little good fortune from the RNG gods. This is one of those games I will come back to from time to time. It isn't perfect, but it gets a lot of things right. It is a game that leans a lot on the RNG, but that's about all it really promises. I have only a couple of minor gripes. The AI can be easily manipulated. This isn't much of a complaint, but on top of the RNG this game has a tenancy to behave very predictably. Another gripe is the lack of modes. Something more than the main game would be nice.
