DIW Saturday Spotlight (11/16/12)

Written by Claire Carmichael

On 11/16/12, the world was introduced to the greatest thing to happen to professional wrestling since H.L.A.  Dynamic Impact Wrestling was born and its inaugural show left fans amazed, bewildered, angered and hungry for more!

The show kicked off with the introduction of the federation’s commissioner, Fat Jesus as he presided in front of his soon to be loyal fans and introduced the world to this new cutting-edge wrestling company.  The bearded leader spoke with vigor as he put the entire wrestling world on notice.  Dynamic Impact Wrestling is here and the world of professional wrestling will never be the same.  Friday Night Face-Off will be the new go-to show for high octane excitement!

 The first match of this upstart company was a crowd and eye pleaser as the top four women in the company wiped their boots on the mat and tore into each other.  Starzeh, Claire The Hare, Kristy and Angie scratched and clawed at each other for the honor of becoming the first DIW Women’s Champion ever.  The match was highlighted by a death defying leap of angelic proportions by Angie from the ring and through the announcer’s table as Kristy just barely managed to slip out of the way.  This led to her slamming Angie’s head hard on the mat for her Tombstone and the 1-2-3.  The Demon Diva is now on top of the DIW Women’s division with the championship.

 Immediately following the match, a distraught Claire The Hare was confronted by Aaron Sullivan; notorious scum bag.  He foolishly tried to hit on Claire as she tried to recover from her hard fought match.  Luckily, Christian Antonio of UFC fame showed up to scare Aaron away.  Gentlemen do still exist.

The TV Championship was up for grabs in the next match in a fatal-four-way table match.  Diamond Daryl, Day Day Jones, Awoozl and Gabriel showed no regard for anyone’s well-being as they crashed through table after table just to be crowned the first ever TV Champion.  In a shocking upset and very controversial finish, Day Day Jones managed to leap from the top rope and seemingly put Gabriel through the table.  Day Day will come into next week’s Friday Night Face-Off with the TV Title, but he’ll have to prove he isn’t a fluke or transitional champion.

The feud between Christian Antonio and Aaron Sullivan came to a boiling point as the two brawled in the parking lot.  The fight ended when Christian slammed a car hood hard down on the thick skull of Sullivan’s as he laid unconscious on the concrete floor and Christian put the entire DIW on notice.  DO. NOT. FUCK. WITH. HIM.  Coming off his high of making Aaron Sullivan his bitch, Christian proceeded to ask out Claire The Hare.  A new power couple forming perhaps?

 DIW’s first ever tag-team bout came next as Team Canada (Professor DX Canada and Captain Canuck) took out The North South Connection of Harugeki and Magic Macho.  The table tornado battle proved to be the match of the night.  The budget for DIW’s table allowance sky rocketed as counter after counter occurred with each combatant feeling splinters dig into their skin.  Blood was spilt and the crowd was sent into a frenzy ultimately leading to Team Canada barely managing to capture the Tag Team Championship in an epic 20 minute showdown.  Team Canada has the titles for now, but it’s safe to say that this won’t be the last time these two teams face-off.

 In what we can only assume to be a vicious hate crime.  Tommy James brutally attacked Diamond Daryl as he went to leave the venue.  Daryl and his beautiful afro were sent crashing through a car window as Tommy left the fans wondering what his motives were!

The main event was next and a huge swerve left the DIW world shaken to its core.  Michael Ryne and Reaper were all set to face-off in a TLC match for the DIW Championship when suddenly the commissioner Fat Jesus inserted himself into the match!  A travesty of justice if there has ever been one.  The crowd was firmly behind Michael Ryne as he showed that he would walk through fire for his fans.  Reaper, the pimp that we all love to hate seemed to have his confidence set at an all-time high.  The crowd sat uneasily as Fat Jesus pranced to the ring.  The match ended quicker than Rebecca Black’s 15 minutes of fame in what was supposed to cap off the first ever Friday Night Face-Off in epic fashion.  Reaper and Michael Ryne’s heated rivalry could not be contained as the two laid into each other and Fat Jesus slimed his way up the ladder and grabbed the DIW Championship for his own.  The night ended as the crowd watched in horror at the sight of a man taking his brand new promotion by the neck and proving that he’ll do whatever the hell he wants.

If you missed the show, be sure to check out the archives here!

Death Rally Review

 

Yet another good old game has made its return in the form of a remake. This time the developer responsible for this is Finland’s own Remedy Entertainment. The same company responsible for Max Payne and Alan Wake has decided to rerelease one of their old kick ass games from 1996, Death Rally. How will this nostalgia filled release fare against the original?

The original Death Rally from 1996.

The original Death Rally was a very simple, fast, arcadey, easy to learn, fun and addicting game. You drove to win, to get money, to get a better car, improve that car, and so on and so forth until you got to face off against the Adversary who apparently was the craziest motherfucker behind the wheel that you could ever meet. What made the game different from the rest of the racing games of its time was the awesome addition of a machine gun, spiked bumper and mines. You could win a race simply by blowing everyone else up.

This was all to be expected from the remake of the game. Not knowing a thing about the remake, I decided to get it while extremely high on a nostalgia trip. Starting the game, you aren’t given much choice on what to do, as you are immediately asked to name your new career. Once you’ve named your career the game begins with the first insert to the story. I’m still not sure why they decided to add a story to the game this time around.

The remake does look slightly different than the original.

You play a guy who enjoys reckless driving and therefore has attracted the attention of the authorities. As the game begins, you are hunted down by a mean cigar-smoking hard-ass of the law enforcement, who decides to not lock you up for all your crimes against humanity because he happens to have another use for you: that’s right, hunt down the Adversary. You need to drive around enough to attract his attention then beat him.

There are two game modes: race and story. Races are just races, as you might imagine. The difficulty level of the races advances as you get further in the game but you can still race in the previous difficulties. These races will be you main source for pimpin’ your car. The story mode has seven events in total, some of which add a little more to the plot with a Max Payne-style cartoony slide show. You can switch between these modes on the fly.

The story being told.

The game itself consists of… racing! Each regular race takes about one to two minutes.  In addition to the regular races, you have different challenges to choose from like single lap races, head to head races and a marathon race. There’s also a Death Match challenge, where you face off against the cigar-smoking hard-ass and four other drivers for three minutes in a demolition derby sort of event. Each race/challenge has up to six drivers, one of which is always a “boss” driver. The boss is just another driver who has a portrait hovering above his/her car. Should you go against them using the same car as they are, they will always go faster than you. Guess that’s their way of adding more challenge to the game.

The main screen..Here you see all the cars, weapons and races available

After each race, you are rewarded with money that you can use to upgrade your car and weapons. The amount of money you make is naturally decided by how well you’ve done in the race. Destroying the opponents’ and boss’ car adds to the cash flow. There are a total of 6 weapons and 8 cars in the game. Unlocking each of these is done by picking up parts for them from the cars you’ve destroyed in the races. Each car has a different amount of base stats (speed, handling and armor) that you can upgrade. Spiked bumpers, mines and laser sights are unlockable as well. You are also required to repair your car after each race.

Race statistics screen. You will see this after every race.

None of the money you win from the races gets stored after you complete a race. Any excess money you might have left after you’re done upgrading your car will vanish. You can only use the money to upgrade the car/equipment you were using on that current race. This way, you are forced to drive a shittier car than you already have available so you can eventually pimp the new shitty car enough to make it better than that one car that is better that you already have. Reading that explanation of the system should make as little sense as the system itself.

Pimp my ride.

Even though there is still stuff to do after you beat the game, (the game never actually ends) it’s really hard to find any enjoyment out of it after all the time you’ve already put into it. There remains a fame system in the game that gives you achievements for every new level you achieve. You get fame from each race and that pretty much becomes the only thing to strive for once you’ve accomplished the main content. Honestly, the game just gets way too boring at that point. I was hoping for a closure on the game once you beat the “story.”

And that´s all there is to the game. The controls work well and the cars act just as you want them to, which makes the driving a lot of fun. The pimping aspect and slow progression towards the better cars keeps you going for that one more race continuously.

That said, it took me about 7 hours to unlock and upgrade everything in the game as well as take out the Adversary. Even before that, the game started getting really repetitive and somewhat boring to me. Unlocking new stuff seemed to happen all the time which ate away from the thought of gaining something of value. The whole progression of the game just seemed way too fast.

The Death Match.

Overall, the remake fails to do the original justice. The original Death Rally had a much better progression system and sense of true success, not just a forced storyline for the sake of having one. The remake has better graphics and slightly better controls. Still, the races were way too short and the entire game felt rushed. If you can, get the original over the remake.

Trine 2 Review

A little over a month ago, on this blog I reviewed a little game called Trine. It was a fun platforming game infused with beautiful scenery and music to fit the atmosphere. Now, it’s time to take a look at the sequel of the said game. Will Trine 2 match or even improve that what was Trine?

Trine 2 starts off a few years after where Trine stopped.  This time, however, instead of being locked up inside the Trine, our heroes are being lead by it, in a way. They come across a flower that asks them to help find her sister.  Later, it’s revealed that the flower was actually a princess called Isabel who wants you to find her sister, princess Rosabel. Thus the hunt for the princess sisters begins – saving them is your quest in this game. Naturally, there are some plot twists to the story which shall remain unrevealed.

The purple just never gets old.

The first thing you notice when you start up the game is how AMOOZING it looks.  They upped the graphics from the first game and somehow made everything seem even more vivid. There is a lot more interaction with the background, things popping up, camera zooming in, lots of wowiezowies. They also added new objects to work with such as tree saplings you need to water, leaves that you can jump on but that give in when weight is applied and jellowy mushroomies that go bouncy bounce.

The game handles pretty much exactly the same as the first one. You still control the same characters: Zoya the thief, Amadeus the Harry Potter and Pontius the obese knight. They added a bunch of new skills for each character and along with that changed the whole leveling up system at the same time. The characters now have a shared pool of experience, so you can only pretty much assign a skill point to one character at a time per each level.

Orc Smash!

The game itself works pretty much exactly like its predecessor. Controls are easy and fluent, the characters respond nicely and the main skills of the characters have remained the same. It’s really easy to just jump in a start playing the game which is always a nice thing.

On my Trine review, I hinted that the game could have been more challenging. To fix that, the developers added a Hardcore mode, which basically means your characters are revived only once at each checkpoint. Turning this mode off will make being revived much simpler as you can do so an infinite amount of times.

They also added a multiplayer feature to the game, which is something I unfortunately didn’t get to try out before writing this review. Based on a few Youtube videos it seems that the multiplayer is like singleplayer, only with two players (who both have all three characters at their disposal) who are pretty much ghosts to each other. Meaning they can’t hit each other or bump into one another.

Game of Thrones!

Sadly, every silver lining has a dark cloud inside of it. Out of the new things and improvements they added to Trine 2 in comparison to Trine – most don’t really impress me. Let’s begin with the new camera angle! As I mentioned earlier, the game is a lot more detailed than Trine. I think it’s because of the detail that the developers decided to zoom the camera in a lot when compared to the original Trine. This limits your view of the surroundings drastically. Nothing is more annoying than getting shot by a bad guy – one you can’t even see.

The extended skills seem unnecessary to me. I was able to beat the game using only the same basic skills that were available already in Trine. I couldn’t find any use for the invisibility skill on the thief or the frozen shield skill for the knight. I feel like the only reason they decided to go this way was to power down the insanely awesome thief and add a few gadgets for the sake of achievements. I didn’t unlock all of the skills. About halfway through the game I was struggling to even pick them as none of the available ones seemed either useful or interesting.

Yes, you need to enter that mouth.

Battles are really repetitive. It seems that every time you face a monster you’re fighting the exact same fight over and over again. Trine 2 has even less monster variety than Trine. There are some boss battle kind of enemies again as there were in Trine, but fighting the same “boss” over and over again is still boring.

If you liked Trine you’re most likely gonna like Trine 2 as well. If you’re hoping Trine 2 to be hugely improved over Trine you’re most likely going be disappointed. As a summary, Trine 2 is basically a graphically improved expansion to Trine with some additions that feel somewhat like a forced effort. Unlike Trine, I didn’t 100% Trine 2 and probably never will. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

(Note: The screenshots are taken from Steam.)

Pokemon Black and White Version 2 [A Fat Jesus Video Game Review]

I opened my Pokemon Black and White review by saying that "Pokemon has grown up." I was in awe at how big the game was. From the story to the design to the Pokemon itself, it all felt bigger and more real than ever. I started seeing those teaser trailers for Black and White 2 and was immediately excited. From rumors that the colors of the numbers were related to Ruby and Sapphire incorporation to it's release earlier this month. This game is Pokemon's biggest release ever.

Like the first games you are welcomed to the world of Pokemon by Professor Juniper. She tells you about what Pokemon are, asks if you're a boy or girl, name and the usual. There's a pull in to your new starting town, Aspertia Town, where you're living with your mother. It's been two years since the events of the first games. She asks if you want a Pokemon, Pokedex and to go on your very own adventure. She proceeds to tell you that Bianca is waiting for you in town to give you your first Pokemon. When you step outside you meet your best friend and rival, and his little sister. We find out that Team Plasma, who is now disbanded, took her Purrloin and he swears to get it back. He sends her sister home and accompanies you to get you first Pokemon from Bianca. He will always have "raised" the opposite type than what you picked. Once Bianca is done giving you your Pokemon and Pokedex she shows you around and explains what the Pokemon Center is. Afterward you meet up with your mother and friends sister one last time before setting off on your grand adventure in the Unova region!

As I said in the intro, that the first installments of these games were huge and expansive. Rightfully so as they were the biggest Pokemon games EVER. Well that was until Black and White 2. Everything is somehow bigger and more grandiose than in their predecessors. The cities and landscapes from the first game are still impressive, but they've managed to find a way to almost fully utilize the DS's power in a Pokemon game for the first time here. The cut scenes are new, more complex and amazing. Also the camera pull backs when you're on a huge bridge or city are still there. Mind you this is not a 3DS game. The Unova region is bigger and filled with five new cities and at least six new caves and areas upon the existing ones in the region. Also every gym has been redone. The gyms in the Black and White blew my mind and these just improved upon them in such a good way. Each gym is different, interactive, imaginative and expansive. There are three new gym leaders in the region as well as a new Pokemon League Champion.

You can also catch non-fifth generation Pokemon almost from the get go. While with Pokemon Black and White I liked that you could only start off with new Pokemon, I'm fine with being able to start with any Pokemon in Black and White 2. My reasoning here is, I've played Black and White, I'm familiar with gen five Pokemon. Don't limit my choices in the second addition to the Unova region, and they didn't. The battling and animations are still spot on, I don't think they changed any sprites or anything. That doesn't bother me as nothing really needed to be done. Everything, including the attack animations in battle look fantastic. Triple and rotation battles are a little more prominent as well, which can be fun or frustrating depending on if you like those types of battles or not. 

The story is still great in this second part of the Unova region franchise. There's a familiar face as the "bad guys" in Team Plasma. But it's more like a renegade group of pissed off Team Plasma members still living in the past. The dialogue makes it feel that the RPG game its always been, the character development is still great and bringing back characters from the first game or changing their identities of established ones for this story was a great touch as well. The Pokemon Dream World is still in full force too. You can send your Pokemon to Dream World (on Pokemon-gl.com) where it collects berries, items and makes friends with Pokemon so that you can catch them in-game and put them on your team. The Entralink is still around too and you can still get stat-boosts and other effects for your in-game character after completing multi-player and single player challenges.

One of the first new places you're introduced to in the new Unova region is PokeStar Studios. Owned by Mr. Stu Dee-Oh, it's Unova's premiere destination for anything move related. Think of it as the Hollywood of the Pokemon world. It's a huge area that has a filming studio, theater with multiple screens and an area for hair and make-up. You can become a movie star if you visit this place and make movies, most all of them will be made with former gym leader Brycen. Movies are shot in the form of a battle with the likes of actions in scenes being the Pokemon attacks in a battle. There's different genres and difficulties depending on the movie you choose to do as well. The more movies you do, the more recognized (as an actor) you'll become.

Another great addition to the game is the medals. You complete various tasks in the game such as saving money, or buying a lot of things at the store and get medals for doing things. I think of this as the first time Nintendo has implemented something like an achievement system, like Microsoft and Sony have, and I really like it. As I keep playing it'll force my inner collector to want get all the medals as I already (try to) do on my PS3 and Steam games.

There's other things such as after story events, the new Dream Radar, the Battle subway being brought back, the new legendary Pokemon you can see (and form). As well as little things like keys to unlock different game modes, but I want to leave you with some things to discover on your own. I do want to highlight one more thing. That's the Pokemon World Tournament aka the PWT. Clay made this massive facility in Driftveil City where the Cold Stoage used to be. Here you can participate in various tournaments (single, double, triple battles, etc) to obtain battle points or BP to exchange for items, or get on win streaks to get medals. The cool thing about these tourney's though is that no one is off-limits once they're unlocked. You could run into Lance the Dragon Master, maybe some one like Cynthia, or any one of the gym leaders, world leaders, or champions from the previous games and regions. With so many fights and awesome leaders and champions to face this tournament is the most expansive ever in a Pokemon game.

After Pokemon Black and White I wasn't sure what was left for Pokemon to do. I had assumed that nothing more could be done or added without it feeling forced or out of place. Boy was I wrong and I can't find a single bad thing to say about Pokemon Black and White 2. Maybe this is my Pokemon fan boy talking, but these games are the best Pokemon games EVER released. From the updated graphics, the "big feel" of new Unova, the shiny new cut scenes (we've come a long way from SS Anne undocking in Vermilion), the brand new story, the extra bells and whistles added to the Pokemon and battling, these games are immense. I stated at the end of my Pokemon Black and White review that the game felt "complete." I'm not going to say that about this game, but not because it isn't. With the next installment they're going to find a way to either one up these two games or take a step back in production. This is the peak of Pokemon on the DS and handhelds in general. For now I'm just going to enjoy what is already hands down the best Pokemon game ever.

Link to OP

Trine Review

Indie games have become rapidly popular thanks to their low price, simple game mechanics and easy access through a little something called Steam. Trine (2009) is the third release in this genre by a Finnish gaming company called Frozenbyte. Their first game Shadowgrounds (2005) and its sequel Shadowgrounds Survivor (2007) received a fairly good reception despite their difficulty and repetitive nature. Let’s see how Trine fairs, hmm?

You’re a wizard, Harry! And a thief…and also a knight. Trine is a puzzling platforming game where you control three characters. These three heroes happened to touch a magical doohickey called Trine at the same time which caused all souls to be bound to it. Trine is a nasty lil’ thing and will only let one of the characters out to play while trapping the other two inside.

The full cast of the game.

The game is set in an old ruined kingdom far far away that fell to shit after its king died. Lacking a proper ruler, the kingdom’s local magic started slowly turning to the dark side and began bringing the dead back to life driving the land’s inhabitants away from the realm. You must fix this! To do this, you must avoid many gaps and spikes, kill even more skeletons and solve a few less puzzles than you had to kill skeletons.

The controls are pretty simple. You have your basic AWSD for moving your characters around as well as a skill on both of the mouse buttons. Numbers 1-3 switch your characters around. The thief, Zoya, can shoot her arrows and use a grappling hook on wooden surfaces. The knight, Pontius, can swing a sword, a mallet and block with his shield aaand the wizard, Amadeus, can make cute little boxes, triangles and planks as well as levitate various objects in the game. All the characters handle great and are easy to use for their designated tasks.

The scenery in the game is just beautiful. The outdoor levels are filled with many green, purple and red shiny things along with mushrooms and trees and other classical fantasy elements. There are also dungeon and castle levels, which are mostly filled with rocks, spikes and lava. Very appropriate. The gameplay between the level types stays pretty much the same throughout the game, though some of the enemies and obstacles vary.

Skeletons will fuck you up, even in mushroom kingdom.

The music ties the atmosphere together. Lovely, calming and slightly mystical music makes you wish you were in a magic mushroom forest fighting skeletons and struggling to get by with three separate bodies at your disposal. While that image may not be the healthiest one out there, it goes along nicely with the game.

One of downsides to the game, in my opinion is its repetitiveness. While the level scenery does vary, you can’t help but think you’re doing the same things over and over again. The enemies have very little variety besides how many hits they take throughout the game, excluding a few boss-like monsters.

I also wish there was a bit more to the plot. The narrator had a nice Gandalfy swag going for him during the cutscenes and loading screens, but still, most of what he said didn’t really grab my attention. Then again, this is a platforming game. There’s only so much of a plot you can include to your quest to make it up and to the right.

His breath must smell wonderful.

While I think it’s great that so many of the levels could be passed with almost any character you wanted, it kinda made the characters less equal. Why would you build a tower of boxes when you can just grapple your way up? Why would you want to risk getting hit at close range when you can just shoot the enemy from a safe distance? Yeah, you got it. The thief is simply the best character to use in the game while the wizard is close to being useless. I found myself using the wizard only for making a triangle for the thief to grapple to. The warrior was only used when the thief was close to death or dead and I had to break some bones of my enemies.

All things considered, Trine is a short but fun game. It took me about six hours to beat on the hard difficulty - on my first playthrough, so don’t expect a Donkey Kong Country kind of experience in platforming. I didn’t notice any difference between hard and very hard difficulty levels either. STILL, I’d say this is a nice casual game for anyone who likes the genre. It looks, sounds and plays amazing and it’s a cheap and great choice for speedrunning, should you be into that sorta thing.

Sam & Max - Telltale Series Review

Point and click adventure games is a genre that had its golden age in the 90’s. Usually very puzzle oriented, these games varied from hilarious world saving predicaments to space adventures.  Don’t forget the always entertaining attempts of getting a pathetic guy laid. You could say there was something for everyone. The games were very story or character based and included more or less realistic logics for solving whatever the task was at hand. Sadly, as computers got more powerful and games went 3D, the genre started slowly fading away.

Some of the series, like Monkey Island and Broken Sword, tried to keep up with the new trend and transformed their games into a weird mix of running around in a 3D world and clicking on things every now and then. I, as an old school point and click fan, always felt like the developers ruined the series with these new “better looking” games. Personally I’ve always preferred the 2D cartoony feel.

Naturally, I was horrified when I found out that Telltales had decided to adopt a classic game, Sam & Max: Hit the Road, and make something new out of its heroes. Though, I had not tried the original, I had seen it played and knew that it was very much like all the other point and click pearls of its age; filled with mostly stupidly amazing jokes and very unlikely puzzle solving logics. Did Telltales manage to keep the spirit of the 90’s in the game genre that was pretty much the only good thing that happened during that decade?

Sam is a dog.

For a short introduction, Sam & Max are a freelance police detective duo consisting of a dog in a suit (Sam) and a sadistic bunny with razor sharp teeth (Max). They share their office with a pet fish named Mr. Spatula and a rat called Jimmy Two-Teeth. The office is located on the same street as Bosco’s Incovenience convenience store and Sybil’s office for…well, a lot of things. The whole series is pretty much based around this particular street, even though you get to visit other places such as the North Pole, Hell and even the Moon.

Max is a bunny.

Let’s see what Telltales is made out of and get our first impressions out of the way. Holy Hercule Poirot in a blood-soaked bathtub with a full set of dental records and a mud-caked work boot with two missing treads! If you like detectives, the intro song alone is enough to leave parts of your body moist. You get no start up menu, no options screen, no nothing but the intro song and the gameplay starting right after with our two heroes getting their assignment for the episode at hand. I like this.

IT’S A POINT AND CLICK! I’m amazed! Even though the graphics of the game are fully in 3D, you still only need your mouse hand to play this, leaving your left hand free to scratch whatever place needs it the most at any given time. Moving your mouse around the office, you’ll notice that as you hover over an object you can interact with some text that appears on the screen telling you what it is you’re currently pointing at. Very classic, just the way I like it. I can’t help but share the view of my teeth with the flies in my room as I grin in pleasure at the mere first feel of the game.

One of the very rare times you see this doggie get upset.

Moving on to the content! It’s really hard to tell much about the game(s) and not spoil anything. There are a total of three seasons, each containing 5-6 episodes, each episode being a separate game. All the episodes inside a season are connected to each other from mutual characters and the final plot twists of the season finales. Season one and two are also heavily linked to each other whereas the third is more of a complete separate story.

The characters and storylines are fantastically written. The dialogue between characters is filled with jokes, puns and references to celebrities, music and movies. Nothing, not even Santa, is sacred. If it fits the bill it will be made fun of. Even when Sam and Max are at the verge of death you will hear their stupidly hilarious puns that make you chuckle and cover your face in shame at the same time. You will also hear jokes so bad that even the characters notice it. Awkward silence will follow.

The animations are fluent. Even in 3D Telltales has managed to keep the characters’ cartoony feel. You don’t know what dancing is till you’ve seen Sam boogie down with some zombies in a vampire’s mansion!

These are not the dance moves mentioned above.

The controls are all point and click for the first two seasons. You get some hot keys for things like the menu and inventory screen, but that’s about it. You can also use a controller to play the game, which is something I didn’t even try. The third season changes the controls a lot though. It turns the game into what Monkey Island and Broken Sword did to their series. The new controls take some time getting used to but they work well enough. Still would have preferred the option to move by clicking though.

The music and voice acting in the games are fantastic. Big band music blasting in the background as you steer you mighty car, Desoto, over bagpipes on the streets of….whatever this city is. New York? The characters’ voice actors are not only good but the way they sound also fits really well to the mugs that they’re portrayed by.

Mustache makes everything better.

As fantastic as the games are, I still have some issues with them. The audio is impossible to balance out nicely. The level of the music varies so much that with the same settings it will go from barely audible to loud enough that you can barely hear the character speaking under it. Constantly fiddling around in the audio options is not fun. Also, the controls on the third season had me disappointed. Even at the last episode of the season, I still wasn’t comfortable with them. I guess the reason they did that was to make the game more appealing to console users, as gamepad controls were also included. The controls were obviously meant to be used on a controller, which made the keyboard and mouse combo feel very unfitting. Real shame.

Overall though, Telltale did a fantastic job with this. The control issues can easily be forgiven because as I said in the beginning of this review, these kinda games are very story and character based. I can highly recommend these games for anyone and everyone. If you like cartoons, jokes, puns, good music, detectives, dogs, bunnies, aliens or even Satan then this game is for you. Go get it and have some fun!

Donkey Kong Country Returns [A Fat Jesus Video Game Review]

Oh man, Donkey Kong Country Returns. If you know me, you know I love the original trilogy and that DKC and DKC2 are two of my all-time favorite games. This is one of those games that I've wanted to play since I heard about it's inception and then release on the Wii back in 2010. Unfortunately I didn't have a Wii until about this time last year and this game was (and still is) pretty expensive to buy. Like most newer Nintendo franchise games they never go down in price. But this griping is for another time. One of my best friends got me this for my birthday about a month ago now. Can't thank her enough. Being a fairly avid Donkey Kong Country player (on and off my cast) I knew I had to platform my way through this. For the most part, this barrage of newness of DK and Diddy on a modern console was a pleasure to go through.

We open Donkey Kong Country Returns on Donkey Kong Island. After a volcanic explosion the Tiki Tak Tribe, an evil group of tikis, arrive on the island and hypnotize all the animals to make them help steal all of DK and Diddy Kong's bananas. Since DK and Diddy are impervious to the hypnotic effects of the tiki's it's up to them to trek through the eight worlds on the island. They must defeat the Tiki Tak Tribe's leaders and reclaim the bananas (and island) that is rightfully theirs.

I was impressed with this game from the get-go. Controls we easy enough to get a hang of and even in the early part of the game you could tell there was gonna be a learning curve and this would be a challenging game. If you're playing one-player (which I kinda had to) you control DK and when you have Diddy with you he is perched on your back. When jumping with Diddy, he allows DK to float (with his jet-pack) for a period of time. I always thought of it as being kinda like Dixie Kong in DKC2 and DKC3. Without Diddy this game could be hell mode and with Diddy the levels were a bit easier, hard still in the end. 

Like every other good DKC platformer the levels looked great and they were challenging to boot. Maybe I'm just a newb at the game, but even something a simple as vine swinging (and even just jumping gaps) took me a bit to get used to. Still having to collect "KONG"  in each level was a nice touch as well. There are also a varying number of hidden puzzle pieces in each level you can collect for design bonuses and extras like that.  

Speaking of levels and worlds, there are a ton in this game. I would always be disappointed at the originals because the games felt short to me. Not this one. There's eight worlds and with at least five stages per world, it makes this game plenty long. If you're nuts like me there's "after the story levels" you can only unlock by collecting KONG in each level of a world. These levels, at least the ones I've done, are pure platforming and pure hard. I love it and it makes me wanna get better at the game and 200% it. Yes that's right, you can 200% this game. 

Can we touch on the art style as well? We can? Okay good. I loved the look of this game. Felt like updated Nintendo but still kept the old-school DK charm and feel. The colors are vibrant and visual appealing. The jungle levels really looked like their old school counter-parts while getting the ole once-over. Levels like the mine cart ones were the most fun to me. While they kept the same look and gameplay, they added enough into them make them new and different. Even the "LIMBO"-esque stages sprinkled in had me in awe because they did such a good job with them. Finally the music in this game is perfect. I love the original soundtracks for the original games. I think they're some of the best ever composed. This game uses THAT music, and only tweaks it enough to make me go, "Wow I like this cause it sounds like the original, but is updated for the Wii."

With the good comes the bad though. I would describe myself as a VERY easy to please gamer and by no means do I like to nitpick over minute details, glitches, etc. One minor thing, to me, was not having Kremlins or a "Krool" to look forward. It was a bit of a letdown, but probably for the best since Rare is dead (on Ninteno). But there were a couple of bigger things that had me frustrated beyond words that I want to write in this article.

First off in the one player mode, while I like having Diddy for the jet-pack usage (it can really save your ass in levels), not being able to switch between characters could be very annoying. There are some side scrolling and faster paced stages where I'd have loved to be Diddy and just tear through them. But nope, I have to be slow, clunky ole DK. I had a few people come in and say (I streamed my play-through of this live) that this was a pretty easy game. Then proceed to follow up with, "I did it on two-player with a buddy." Well I'm glad you had an easier time, but this game is hella hard with the monkey (literally) stuck to my back. This could be the nostalgia talking, but I kinda missed being able to switch between two characters. Not a huge deal once I got used to it all, but it just felt like the option in one player could've been included.

The other gripe I have with this game, and this is my big one, is the rocket levels. To me they serve no purpose in this game. You don't use the Wii motion in these levels, all you do it tap the a button to jet upwards or let up to drop. On top-down levels, you tap a to speed up via boosts. The problem with these levels is that the boosting is limited and can be sporadic. Only having one hit on these levels can be quite annoying as well when you're blowing lives and seemingly getting nowhere. Also the level leading to the final boss is one of these levels. A super hard sporadic top down rocket level. Leading to one of the hardest and most precise final bosses ever. While I don't have a problem with the boss, if you game over, then you have to do the level again and again. I just think this final level is bad design and that rocket levels in this game are pointless.

Aside from the gripes this is an amazing game. As I've already gushed about throughout this I love the original series and I really do think this game lives up to the original games that Rare put out on the SNES. DK and Diddy have been updated, but are still who I grew up with. The island is still the DK island I've grown to love (and at times curse to hell). The music and design are impeccable and look good on an HD screen. Finally the platforming is nuts and once you've gotten though the toughest parts you feel a fantastic sense of accomplishment. Donkey Kong Country Returns lives up to the name that it's predecessors set and hopefully sets up for more Donkey Kong games in the future!

Link to OP
http://matthewmday.blogspot.com/2012/09/donkey-kong-country-returns-fat-jesus.html