South Park: Stick of Truth

Genre: RPG
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Released: 4. March 2014

Who doesn't know South Park? Well finally the videogame came out! It is hilarious, it is epic, and it is South Park!

Year Walk

Genre: Adventure, Point and click

Developer: Simogo

Released: 6. March 2014

In the old days man tried to catch a glimpse of the future in the strangest of ways. Enter the world of the horrifying Swedish folklore world in this great indie game.

Elder Scrolls Online Beta Weekend

Genre: MMORPG

Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios

Release Date:  April 4, 2014

I had the opportunity to try out the Elder Scrolls Online Beta this weekend. It was amazing, I was always a fan of Elder Scrolls games since I first played Morrowind, and although I am not a huge fan of MMO, this will be a great game.

The Yawhg

 

Genre: RPG, Adventure

Developer: Damian Sommer, Emily Carroll

The good:

- beautiful artwork and soundtrack

- replayable

- many varieties in the adventures and outcomes

 

The bad:

- short

 

The mysterious Yawhg is coming. Your chosen heroes have 6 weeks to prepare for the arrival. Can you save the town?

This is a one-to-four player game. There are several locations in the city, where your heroes can do activities, like chopping wood in the forest, or tending the sick in the hospital.While doing these activities, they gain skill points, magic for meditating, persistency for fighting in the arena, etc. Plus every time you make an activity, a special scenario appears, and if you choose well your character gains additional points, or if you make the wrong decision you lose points. All your decisions are influencing the final outcome, the fate of your characters and the town. Although don't expect a 100% happy ending even if you think you did everything right.

It is a fairly short game, but can be replayed many times. One playthrough is around 10 minutes, even if you read everything carefully. The scenarios that come up are varied, and even if the same one comes up multiple times, the outcome depends on your already gathered skill points. When I finished first, I wanted more and more. I replayed many times, tried many variants of the activities, and every time I was surprised and excited about the ending. It can be played as a single player, or multiplayer. Both types can give a great experience, but with more people the game is more convincing, and you can imagine you are really there waiting in tension for the unknown.

The game is like a beautiful drawing, and you get involved in the fantastical town's life, choose leader for talking rats, become a werewolf, or if you are lucky dance through the night with a druid. Emily Carroll did a great job with the artwork. The soundtrack is gorgeous, after I stopped playing I couldn't stop listening to Halina Heron's song.

 
All together, the music, the illustrations give a special, fantastical mood, which just draws in the player into this magical world.

Final Score:

9/10

Thief

Genre: Stealth

Developer: Eidos Studios 

Finally I got to play this game. I've been waiting since I finished Thief: Deadly Shadows in 2004. For me the Thief series are the top in stealth games, so I kind of have a soft spot for this game.

The good:

- the stealth system

- the environment, and the mood

- Focus Points, new skills and items

- can save whenever I want

The bad:

- loading screen between city parts

 

Our hero, well we can't exactly speak of a hero, he is a thief,  but he has his moral code, Garrett. He returns to the City after a while, and soon gets a new mission. Meets Errin, complications arise, and he finds out that he was passed out a whole year after the incident. He gets a new mission, and troughout the game starts to put together what happened to him. I liked the characters, Garrett brings his shadows, and I just adored his messenger crow. Spy in brothels, crawl through underground caves, it has a huge variety in levels.

The game is made out of chapters, and inbetween them the player can take on side missions, go exploring the city, collect loot, and buy new equipment. I like this structure, it's not too frustrating, the only thing I didn't like is that the city is split into regions, and it loads them separately. I was happy to see that I can save whenever I want, and there is no autosave function, like in most games nowadays, I like to have control when I want to save my game. You can choose your playstyle, whether you want to stealth trough, or bump every enemiy in the head, the game counts the choices you made and after every chapter gives you a statistic about it.

The player can choose from multiple paths, maybe slide under the city to get to the next goal, or use shadows to knock out the guards. All in all the accent is on the stealthy gameplay, with not many variants for melee combat, and that's another huge plus for me. I have played enough other games where I have to kill hundreds of enemies just to get to the next goal and that gets boring quickly.  There are many other elements that are much more interesting than just shooting or fighting, like distracting enemies, swooping through lit areas into the shadows, new tools and arrows, and there are the Focus Points. Focus Points are used to get special abilites, like seeing where the loots are in a room.

The game's middle difficulty is just perfect, but if somebody wants a big challange he can have it. The game can be played quickly, or take your time, explore everything, collect every document and loot, make all the challanges, etc. The levels are well designed, you can't go lost in a house, but you have enough side rooms and streets to not get bored by a too linear gameplay.

In the graphics I can see the old Thief games style, and that's great. Many games can't bring back their prequels's mood or style, but Eidos did a great job. Plus there are all the little details on the streets, in every room, like flyers on street walls, and little glass shards on floor.

This is a great game, worthy of the title, once you begin to play it you can never get bored of it. It can be replayed, depending on how you want to play it, maybe for collecting everything and completing every challange.

Final Score:

10/10

Plague Inc.: Evolved (Early Access)

 

Genre: Strategy, simulation

Developer: Ndemic Creations

Release Date: 20. Feb. 2014

EXTERMINATE!!!EXTERMINATE!!!EXTERMINATE!!!

Who wouldn't dream about destroying humanity? Who isn't affraid that someday a new virus appears that wipes us out? Well in this game you can create your own pathogen, mutate it and spread it so it kills everyone on Earth.

This game was developed from the earlier mobile game, Plague Inc, and adds a couple new features. Create a pandemic that started from a single little bacteria or fungus or virus, choose whatever you would like and mutate it into a serial killer. One person doesn't wash hands, next one already infected and so on. It's a simple simulation, if not played on harder difficulties it's not too challangeing.
WARNING! The games content is not full, still early access, but it is stable, and they are planning in the next weeks to add multiplayer.

The overall look is beautiful and detailed, 3D models of the viruses, pretty pictures of cities, many diagrams ad graphs, nice color scheme. So name your epidemic and the apocalypse can begin.

There are three ways you can customize it, collecting evolution points and using them to mutate symptoms, resistances and other aspects which help you make it spread faster, make it more lethal and slow down the cure. Yor only "enemy" is the CDC, where they are developing the cure. It is your job to be faster than them if you don't want any nasty remaining humans to survive.Spread it continentally, through water and air, infect those rats and flies.

I think it will be worth to wait for all the components, just hope a Unicorn virus doesn't attack us till then.

Final Score:

6/10

Reaper - A Tale of a Pale Swordsman

Genre: Platformer, RPG, hack and slash

Platform: IOS, PC

Developer: Hexage

Release Date: 9. Sept. 2013

 

 

The good:

- artistic style

- story

The bad:

- choosing a side is not that important

- battles get boring

- the sound

I have to tell, I'm not a fan of IOS games to play on PC, or a version of them for PC, and this is not an exception. They are either too short, or too repetitive, or interesting but not challangeing enough, so I get bored, and there are so many game that are soo similar, it's not even worth it after the third Temple Run copy. I know it's hard for a game to come up with something original, and for mobile games are even less options, but still there are some original games, so it's not impossible. I have to admit, this game has some original mix of elements.

At first I only tried it because it looked cute. I don't know how it plays on a phone, but for a PC game it's a little dull. It's a simple game, with a mix of RPG elements (leveling, choices, inventory and equipment, XP), combined with action, hack and slash (couple of combinations for battles). Although this is not too innovative. The enemies come in waves or attack you by walking near, and they get harder to kill as you level up. At first it's is nicely balanced, but later on it gets boring that too much XP is needed for the next level, and after a couple of levels you can't buy much many new stuff and you loose interesting, since there is not enough reward. 

Every level you get to shoose a new skill, you have to choose from several cards, but it gets annoying that in one level-up you get two cards you want, in the next neither is good for you and you can't go back to choose from the last cards. All in all it's a pretty casual game, and I don't think it needed a PC release.

The best thing in the game is the artistic style, and the story is kind of interesting, that's the only thing that kept me playing. A lone pale little cutie knight (although everybody in the game notices how sickly and ghostly he looks) gets caught in a war between the local tribes of the Wilderness, the magic users, and the soldiers who want to take their land and oily thing (oh the irony). You can take sides, choose who to be friends with, although not always, and if you want to level you have to make quests for each sides, plus there is your friend, Old Grey Beard, who helps you the whole time. 

The graphics are nice, there are a variety of enemies, everything looks in place, the colors as well. The levels are varied, they have diversified backgrounds and matching enemies, so they did a nice job with that. The only thing that bothered me was the music. I don't think that's the music you choose for a game like this. But that's only my opinion.

I don't recommend buying this game for PC, although for phone it's acceptable, and it's better than the other games I have recently played, or unless you like simplier little RPG games, maybe for a little relaxing to turn your brain off.

Final Score:

5/10

Journal

Genre: interactive adventure game

Developer: Locked Door Puzzle

Release Date: 17. Feb 2014

This isn't a game for masses, not a first person shooter with high quality graphics. It isn't a whole world of role-playing with monsters, weapons and magic. This isn't a strategy game with huge armies to control. If you only play games because of these, then back away slowly from this game. This is just a simple story about a young girl, and how she struggles with some events in her life.

With all the Telltale Games (Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us) interactive stories are becoming more and more and more popular. This game is not that great neither with story, neither with gameplay, neither with graphics, but it crawls into your heart. In it's 1-2 hour gameplay, you control a girl and have to rebuild her somehow-erased journal, walking through the sketchy, but beautiful hand-drawn pages of the journal. I have to admit the surroundings and 3D elements could have been made better, but the journal parts were weird in a lovely way and the narrating circus parts were just magnificent.

I think indie game maker, Richard Perrin, did a great job with this game's story. You are in a fog the whole game, you don't know the most important thing, and it is seldomly mentioned. The game focuses on speaking to other character, and deciding how the girl should behave. There are a couple of bigger decisions, but you can't change the major storyline. Because you are a little girl nobody wants to tell you anything, your parents don't want to tell you why they separated, plus you have troubles at school, struggling with anxiety, and depending on how you behave with your friends will decide how they treat you in the end. Just like in real life. The story deals with these things, which might seem difficult even for an adult, but how these things are even more difficult for a child. Meanwhile there is another storyline with shadow figurines, which at first might seem like it has nothing to do with our young girl, but in the end integrates slowly into her life.

I highly recommend this game, although as I mentioned it before, not for anyone who can't appreciate a simple but makes-you-think story.

Final Score:

8/10

Big Bad Wolf Among Us

Genre: point-and-click graphic adventure game

Developer: Telltale Games

Release Date:11.oct 2013 episode 1

                      14.febr 2014 episode 2

Telltale Games's new hit after award-winning Walking Dead series. We get the usual Telltale game mechanics. This exciting story  introduces us to Fabletown's exiled fairytale characters' struggle with the mundane life. For now there are two episodes released, and 3 more planned. Prepare for a lot of smoking and fighting!

World of Fables

 The story is based on Bill Willingham's Fables comics, Vertigo, actually a prequel to it. The game can be played without any knowledge about the story, anyway you get info while the story unfolds, in the Book of Fables. The exiled fables set up Fabletown, they have their own little government, with huge hidden caves and everything. In order for a fable to stay there, they need a human form, or to be able to buy glamour, a spell which transforms them into human (this is very expensive so they sometimes do stuff to get it), or if they can't afford it the are deported to the Farm. The government itself has serious workforce and money problems, their only sheriff is Bigby Wolf (the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs)

He is the main character of our story, ironic how the big bad wolf now has to protect the fables. There are many more famous fable characters, Snow White now working for the governor, Ichabod Crane, the problematic marriage between Beauty and Beast, the now thugs Tweedle Dee and Dum, bartender trolls, and many more surreal situations. This gives a certain humour to the game, Bigby's occasional roommate, Colin the pig, who says he owes him because he destroyed the three little pigs house, and my personal favorite, Bufkin, flying monkey from Oz, drunkard librarian. I loved this new, more mature and violent approach to fairy tales, everybody knows that originally they were more gory and horroristic, and I always wondered about those versions. Another interesting aspect, that these fairy tales are connected, they have the same wolf for example. Bigby has a hard time, even after the general amnesty the other characters look at him the same, they are afraid, and this is why his moral decisions are so hard to make.

The graphic style is typical Telltale game, little cartoony, much contour. It's like we enter of of those detective novels with a noir mood, but with really vivid colors mixed with darkness. Although the animations could be smoother the overall aspect is great, and with the music and sound effects perfectly match it. Taken the characters and fairy tales, we would expect a charming story, but in fact it is a violent, mature thriller. One of the three little pigs crushing on Bigby's couch, while smoking and drinking his booze, this gives a great style of humour. This lightens up a mood a little, Bigby standing in front of a soda machine giving us his idea of healthy lifestyle: "This shit will kill you", while he is lighting a cigarette every 2 minutes.

The basic game mechanics are similar to the Walking Dead game, three basic parts: point and click for object and puzzles, but less than in the Walking Dead, fighting scenes, where you have to react quickly, and the talking, with choices. Bigby's moral code is far from perfect, so the player will have a couple of hard choices. These affect the game, even in later episodes. You are faced with decisions to choose who will die and live, even if you don't realize it at the moment of decision. The game itself is very short, 2-3 hour per episode, so you have to wait long before the next part.

Final verdict

This game shows you how not even the fairytale life isn't just magic, and princes, and happy endings, and you can't get comfortable before something bad happens. It is a mature detective noir game, in spotlight with big bad wolf's difficult morale choices. I highly recommend playing it, like every other Telltale Game it's a hit.

Score: 10/10

Jazzpunk - We are everywhere and underwear

Genre: first-person adventure

Developer: Necrophone Games

Release Date: Feb. 7

Cold War World. Agent Polyblank goes to take up his next mission in a wornout trailer. Oh I forgot to mention the psychedelic intro. Sits down, fart chushion, laugh. This introduction is as clear as the game itself.
This is the weirdest game I have played. Well at least this year's weirdest, but it is in the top 3.  This weirdness is mixed with a little old-fashioned humour, robot secret agents and high-tech gadgets, and surprisingly it gives a not-that-bad-as-we-would-expect result. It's not a long game, max 3 hours to play.

The Good:

- the jokes (if you are into this kind of humour, but seriously who wouldn't laugh, or a little chuckle at least, for sitting on a whoopie cushion?)
- the artistic, cartoony style
- not like any other games I have played

The Bad

- too many minigames in the end

Retro Cyberpunk Futuristic Jazz

The game's mood is an interesting mix of a noir detective pulp-fiction + James Bond styled secret agent + there was an episode in Tom and Jerry, where Jerry had a funky jazz band playing and Tom (poor Tom) was tortured by their loud artsy music + a handful of simple puns and jokes.

Wedding Qake and Edward Scissorhands making NSFW hedge statues

One of the many things I liked about this game, the many small easter eggs hidden, which all make part of some kind of joke. There are the floating texts, (plus a couple of other things) which reminded me of The Stanley Parable, Polyblank arriving in a "guitar" case, like in the gangster movies the guns, Edward Scissirhands' hands, etc... (plus who knows how many I didn't even get).

Also there are countless minigames, mostly parodies of existing games, for example a bridal edition of Quake. After a while you will notice that it even makes fun of the player itself.

To get the full experience out of this game you have to explore every single object laying around, and find the many puns good jokes. This humour is the cohesion of the game, beside the simple story of going to meet you boss, having you to make a couple of top secret missions, and trying to defeat the Antagonist (yes that's what it says on his business card). Although near the end it gets frustrating that there is not even a decent story, and too many minigames. But it is hard to maintain the fun from the beginning, once you do things too many times it looses it's humour.

You travel through a wide variety of scenes, from japanese sushi restaurants (take your shoes off, robot!) to futuristic spacy apartments. There are lots of details, like a playbot magazine while you are waiting with your bosses secretary.

The game has a unique art style, well a unique style in everything, which is very brave but in a good way. For many gamers it is a must for a game to have high quality graphics, but there are so many games which don't need that, have their unique art style and I appreciate that (of course there are some games which require high graphics). It creates a stronger mood, and a better experience.

The End

It is an interesting, great indie game. If you decide to play it be prepared for a weird, but comical experience, with cartoony humour.

Final Score:

6/10

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Genre: Third-person puzzle, adventure

Platform: PC/MAC/Linux, PS4

Developer: Young Horses

Release Date: 30. Jan. 2014

The Good:

-interesting movement and physiques
-relaxing gameplay in the first half of the game

The Bad

-short
-destroys the calm game mood with too many unnnecesarey stealth seqences

Take a simple octopus, turn him into a husband, add physics, and you get a humouros indie game, which makes enjoyable even the simplest mundane tasks. It seems pretty simple, the story is simple, the characters are simple the tasks are simple, and then comes the hard part: controlling the octopus husband. Sequel to the Octodad indie game, this takes us through a day of an aquaanimaldad, who has problems with even the smallest everyday tasks, thanks to his sticky tentacles. Can a simple octopus hide his real identity even from his wife and kids?

4 limbs, 1 mouse

The game mechanics are pretty simple, physique-based movement, solving puzzles while trying to hide your true species. You can select to control him with the mouse, keyboard and gamepad. (I prefer the keyboard, it's like you are really moving them and not just pushing some buttons up and down). Using the middle mouse button the player switches from controlling the arms or the legs and vice-versa. After a couple of minutes you can easily get comfortable with controlling Octodad. Actually the moving of the limbs reminds me of Surgeon Simulator, and I think this kind of movement control has a whole new light on movement in videogames, and it should be more thoroughly explored.
In the second half of the game they add some elements, like boss fights, in my opinion they should hav stayed away from stealth, it just takes away that simple gameplay that was in the first half. Althoug in the second part in the aquarium there a some minigames you can play, and those are a nice plus to the game experience, besides sticking your tentacles on everything take a break playing air hockey!

Octodad's tale

You begin the game on your wedding day (actually Octodad's but we could say he is just our squsihy mannequin). We could say wedding are ceremonial, elegant events, but not this one. Octodad's clumsy, his tentacles get stuck to everything, but that makes him adorable, and this gives the game a unique humour, and comical situations. The we jump in time to an everyday morning, like you see in the movies. The dad wakes up, makes breakfast while the wife keeps nagging to him about how many chores he still has to do, the kids happily eating their delicious breakfast... (I always wanted my mornings to be like this, but I'm just not a morning person) This gives the game a nice, relaxing start.

He has to master these simple tasks, but to him these seem like a real struggle, even making a hamburger. But then comes the conflict. The wife (a journalist) wants to go the the local aquarium, where is full of biologists who can spot that Octodad in fact is an OCTOPUS! (yes, beacuse there is needed special biology studies to notice the difference between a human and an octopus... but this is what gives the game a nice comic, cartoony style and mood). Then the game's special mood is destroyed. The new scene is not that catchy, there are too many stealthy places and it just looses it's previous magic. I wish they had continued that simple adventure of housechores and grocery shopping.

There is a reappearing boss, the Chef (of course who else could be the deadly enemey of an octopus?)
For those who like multiplayer there is co-op mode, max 4 players, everyone gets one limb. Sounds like fun and it gives more challange to the game.

Can a cephalopod talk?

No, not even in this game, but somehow with growling and bubbling he gets through his point. The sounds are not bad, and it has a catchy theme song written by Ian McKinney, which goes nice with the cartoony, stylized art of the game. The comments from the family make this game even more enjoyable, and the wife and even the kids are strongly built characters.

Shopping for Easter Eggs

The game is full of cleverly hidden Easter Eggs, I found most of them in the grocery store (a pie named Pewdie Pie, a Stanley ((the parable)) bowl o' cereal, Minecraft reference, etc...), most of them referring to indie games, gamers, stuff. I love this small things in games, they give you a smile every time you find a reference to something you already know and like. Apart from Easter Eggs, some ties are hidden in the levels and they can be put on dad.

The game itself is so short, when you get to enjoy it it's almost over. You can play it under 2-3 hour. Besides these minor bad aspects, it's an enjoyable game, with a heartwarming story and loveable characters. And since it started out as a student indie game project I think I can safely say that it's worth buying it, support the developers, at least they had an original idea.

Final score:

7/10 

Craft The World - Just another Minecraft and Terraria mix clone?

Genre: 2D Sandbox strategy game, with tower defense elements

Platform: PC

Developer: Dekovir

Release Date: Early Access 19. Nov. 2013

In the past couple years we've seen so many Minecraft and Terraria copies, clones, almost same games but with other names, in 2D and in 3D as well... So what's the difference between all these games and Craft The World? You have you're Worms style dwarves, a world like Terraria, crafting and tasks like Minecraft, but all these together fit so well in this game, and it has a certain unique style in it's graphics, that I think it deserves to be raised on higher ranks from all those games (except of course Minecraft... come on that's the founder of the genre).

The game is not too famous, the ads are not full with it, and there is only an early access release date on Steam, which was last year. It's still full of bugs, but once it will be finished I think it will be an entertaining game.

Game Mechanics

The player begins the game with a dwarf worker, and has to assign to him what to do next. The dwarves need shelter, food, comfort, defenses, and many other things. At night enemies spawn, and attack the shelter, castle, house, whatever the you decide to build, and you gain experience from it. Every level you get one new dwarf, who can help further expand your territories.

You have every resource you need on the map, maybe on the surface, maybe deep into the ground, and you have a crafting system similar to Minecraft (placing the ingredients in the craft zone). You get tasks to complete, which is mainly guide you through the tech tree, plus a couple other like building a shelter or cutting down 20 trees, etc. And there is the ither problem, exploring the deeps, buidling undergound mines, tunnels, maybe even houses, exploring secret places and treasures, and finding the portal to the next world.

Besides assigning duties, you can take control of individual dwarves, and work with them faster. There are some things for you have to pay attention to, like always having enough food and beds, the waves of enemies that come every 50 minutes, and some randomly appearing goblin camps. Besides this, it is a relaxing, gathering game. There are a variety of enemies and bossess, and the waves get more and more challanging while you level up. The magic part of the game adds a nice plus to the game experience, and sometimes the spells can be a huge help.

It has the an interesting combination of gameplay elements from Minecraft, Terraria and Dungeon Keeper, all in 2D, a sandbox, platformer, strategy, rpg, tower defense mix.

The perks of being a sandbox gamer

A great advantage in sandbox games like this, is that you have to begin out of nothing. You chop down your first tree, you catch your first fish, you mine your first dirt... All these lead to start building a dirt shelter to keep you away from the dangers of the night, and slowly build it into a huge castle. And the variety of things you can craft and explore makes this game a very long and exciting game. Another great aspect of sandbox games, that they offer hours of fun with lengthy gameplay.

Sounds of the night and colors of the sky

The graphics are pretty simple, but still look way more better than in Minecraft (with no texture packs and other mods), and not to talk about Terraria (which has awful graphics, even for a 8bit game in my opinion). Although they could have made some more variety in the dwarves appearances and their equipments, that's just a very small minus. When the night falls, we can see the sky turn into darkness, and if we are underground a menacing sound warns us.

All in all...

This game is enjoyable, and you can cach yourself playing it for hours, taking care of your little dwarves, and building your castle. It is worth buying the early access and supporting the developer, but keep in mind that it still has many bugs, so if you are easily fired up beacuse of this you better wait till the game is properly released.

Final Score:

7/10 (Great game for an early access)

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Platform: Nintendo DS

Genre: Adventure, Point and click

Developer: Capcom

I've been hearing about this game so many good reviews, but only now I got to play it. I needed a DS emulator for PC, (which you can download for free from the net) but it was worth it. This is my first game in this genre, and it was a great surprise. You take the role of Phoenix Wright, a defense attorney, and have to solve some cases. Although if you are a fan of skipping cutscenes and not paying attention to the story don't even bother to start this game. It is a Capcom game, and I am a fan of Capcom so I had high hopes.

The Good:
- The cases are interesting and you have to think ho wot solve them
- The side characters are lovable and you get to know them
- The game always introduces new elements and is not repetitive
- The story
- Cute anime style characters

The Bad
I liked everything in this game.

The game mechanics

It is  point and click game, you don't even have to use your keyboard. (If you need later to use a microphone and don't have one you can set the emulator to use a key instead). You have a couple of tehniques in your hand as an attorney. The game mainly consists of trials and investigations. On the trials part you are in the courtroom, and you have to cross-examine the witnesses. You have to press their testimonies, find the contradiction and lies they are hiding, using logic, and presenting evidence. The investigation part is a little more free, you can move around, talk to people, examine scenes, later do scientific investigation, etc. Despite that the storline is linear, (if you don't follow the script you lose) it is a pretty interesting game, I wasn't bored at all playing this game.

The story, the cases

The game consists out of 5 cases, which have to be solved by our rookie defense attorney, with the help of his cute assistants. The first case is kind of a tutorial, guided by Mia Fey, your mentor. The cases are interesting, full of surprises and objections. And there is no better feeling when you have all the little pieces of the puzzle in the end and you point out who the murderer is, and saving the innocent. Be warned that this game is full of anime-humor (which I really like), for example the geeky director in a later case.

The characters

Another great part of the game are the characters. There are a couple of important characters other than the main charcter, who constantly appear in the game, and slowly you get to know them, and get to love them. There is your mentors, little sister, a spirit medium who will use her powers to help you, Maya Fey. She is one of the most adorable characters in the game. Then there is the antagonist, Miles Edgeworth. Don't let be fooled by his serious face, once you get to know him you will love him as well. Then there is this bubbling detective, Detective Gumshoe, who is always committed to solving the crime, just not celver enough, but sometimes he can be really helpful and he gets into your heart. There are other reappearing and fun charcters as well, bu I don't want to spoil the game.

Verdict

All in all I havne't had this fun and wasn't concerned about the characters as much as in this game for a very long time. Despite that this is not a high graphics modern game, I could really imagine I was sitting in the courtroom, investigating the cases. So if you are looking for a nice little puzzle game, or enjoy playing visual novel, point and click or text based games, this is a must. Plus there are a couple of sequels to the game, so you will have a lots of fun.

Final Score:

10/10

Rayman Legends

Genre: 2D Platformer

Released by: Ubisoft

I always loved Rayman games, may it be 2D or 3D. This one is the best. You have so many things in this game, and a huge variety of levels. This is definately the best platformer of the year, after I played all those stupid remakes.

The game has the main levels, and then if you were good enough you can unlock the Origins levels. Plus you have the challanges, and you can play Kung Foot with your friends (or alone but that's not too fun).

The Good:
- fun, non-repetitive elements and gameplay
- many enjoyable levels
- can play any hero you have unlocked
- collectables
- beautiful design

The Bad:
- nothing

Rayman and the Dark Teensies

This game is not exactly about stories, but there you have to defeat the five Dark Teensies who kidnapped some pretty teensies. You will literally kick theri ass, flying them to an astoriod, and creating kind of a little concert by stabbing their asses.

All the paintings...

In the main gallery you can access the levels and other things from jumping into paintings.You have a painting for every main level, which you have to unlock. You have to collect teensies to unlock new levels, and Lums for unlocking new heroes. Plus you get some nice trophies and a huge celebration if you can collect ecery teensie and 600 Lums on a level (there are 10 teensies to rescue on every level). Rescueing all the teensies can be a little chalangeing, you have to look for them in secret places, maybe not even visible at first, and don't forget to always check if there is anything above your line of sight. The king and queen teensies can be found behind secret doors, and there you have to face another challange to rescue them. But it's worth it cause you get a sweet kiss and a heart from them afterwards. Also if you collect enough Lums you get a Lotto ticket on every level, which can be scrapped off and you can won creatures, Lums, teensies, and new levels on Origin.

Toasts, robots and balloons

You can collect all these kinds of creatures, plus a couple more. They are pretty cute, but they are also useful. (They reminded of me old Kinder Surprize prizes, when you had to collect ex. 10 kinds of a lion...) They give you daily rewards after being collected.

Being a hero

If you collect enough Lums, you unlock new heroes, and you can choose to play with them. There are dark Globoxes, and cosplaying Teensies to choose from, also a cool; knight version of Rayman. Plus you have some girls, like Elysia. (One of them reminded me of Braveheart, wonder why...)

What type of level is this?

There are the main levels, you have to collect 10 teensies and 600 Lums. Then there are some rescue levels, which are special levels for ex. you have to fly through the level or dive, or jump on moving down objects, maybe beat the timer... On these levels you only have to find 3 teensies and you are rewarded with female heroes. Then there are invaded levels, after finishing some main levels. These weren't my favs, because there was a timer, and I like to take my time, but they were fun as well. Then at the end of every pack of level there is a challanging boss fight, and a level where you catch the dark teensie. Plus there is a musical level in the end of every theme. They were absolutely my favs. Rock Castle and Mariachi Madness were the best I loved those songs. It was very interesting to hear the Eye of the Tiger in a mariachi version. The music is perfectly fit to the level and to the obstacles. Also there is a painting at the far right end, which you can unlock by collecting 400 teensies, and there is a new music level (yaaaay), plus the 8-bit version of the other music levels. These are a little bit harder than the originals, because they are distorted in some ways (the pixels are getting less and less, so you have to figure out for yourself where to jump with your single blue pixeled Rayman).

Now in the water, now in the air

I really liked that Rayman can swim. I hate those games where you touch the water and instantly die. We have a variety of themed levels: there are underwater levels, fiesta de los muertos (where they transform you into a duck), and many other levels. Sometimes you have to fly, sometimes you have to run upside down, but all the levels are are fun (and they have cool reference names like How to Shoot Your Dragon), with new elements on almost every level, a huge variety of obstacles, enemies and secrets to find (watch out for little plants in the ground tere can be teensies!). Of course, the levels are getting harder and harded, as shown by the skulls under the paintings. Also watc out for purple lums, and chains of purple lums, they are worth more than simple yellow lums.

Rayman's little helpers

You have some old moves, like charging your hands, and flying or gliding when there is wind. You have Rayman's little helpers, like Murphy, who can push out obstcles in front of you, or rotate stuff, move platforms for you, etc. and sometimes a wizard gives you a hand which you can throw far far away. You have cool moves, like jumping wall to wall (so badass like in Prince of Persia), and sometimes you have a nice relaxing level flying on a mosquitos back. Also it's a great plus that if you die you can continue from that segment of the level you aer in, and don't lose any lifes, you can't run out of them.

Fun in every little corner

Not just you can get whole new level of awesomness (by collecting trophies), but even the loading screen is fun. You can move with Rayman, and at some level's loading screen you can get an extra heart if your are quick enough. Also great that once you watched a cutscene you can skip it. Hmmm it's like the creators of this game really LISTENED to the gamers opinions, and put enough time and effort into this game. Even the end credit is a little game, where you can collect Lums, but if you are bored you can skip it.

Beautiful, beautiful Ubi art

Every aspect of the game is beautifully made, with great colors. Every theme is perfectly made, with fitting environment, enemies, color scheme, and music. It is loyal to the other Rayman game art.

Final Verdict

This game just sucks you in and doesn't let you out until you don't rescue the last teensie, don't collect tha last trophy. Even then you still have new challanges every day. So it's the best platform game of the year in my opinion (maybe the best platform game ever)

Final Score

10/10