Dark Void is an ambitious game with new ideas and mechanics to the 3rd person genre, but can the game be that good?

Presentation:

As Will you start off with a crash of your plane right into the Bermuda Triangle. What you are going to face along with your partner and formerly lover Ava will bring true meaning to a lost planet; with new breeds of life-form and never seen enemies on Earth.

The game has a very slow beginning, especially regarding the more in-depth story encounters and elements. While the vibe is there at the beginning, the characters, factions and the actual story is not that interesting and I found the dialogue between Ava and Will, and between most of the other human characters, boring. Also the past between the two have nothing to add to the story or even the feel of the characters. Some of the cut-scenes look really impressive and epic; while others look oddly low-res. The main gameplay and story parts do use the jet-pack, and it works well for the most part.

Visuals:

The inconsistency within the visuals is really visible! Some of the environments looks really inspired and detailed with fantastic scale, but most areas look really bland and boring. The character and enemy design is visually fitting, being very sci-fi mixed with an alien idea that works really well. The enemy vehicles, weapons and the miscellaneous bosses look good as well.

Sound:

Overall the voice-overs are decent, some characters sounds fit while some are not. My main dislike is in the two main characters Will and Ava. The characterization and personality of Will is not to my liking and Ava could have been even more extreme with the direction the game is portraying her. Weapons and vehicles sounds really good, even if there is not that much of a variety.

Gameplay:

The game is a 3rd person shooter combined with aerial sections using enemy’s saucer like vehicles and your own jet-pack. While on-foot Dark Void is a cover based action game and added in is some vertical platforming to maneuver the environments to pick journals, technical points (EXP) and enemy weapons.
Dark Void is mainly linear with its missions, but at points there is some freedom; especially when the game is focusing its missions on the more shooting oriented missions, where its driving you to use your jet-pack in different areas while most of the enemies are on the ground, and its also vice versa at later levels when some enemies can fly as well, and that’s where the game is really open for your decisions and game style. 

Dark Void does give technical points for its basic experience system. These you can use to upgrade your jet-pack and the weapons that are in the game and you usually get points from killing enemies or in the open world areas you will have points to get as well; but the actual upgrades really don’t make that much of an impact to the weapons.

While the game has a good pace and direction, all the mechanics are really wonky. The on-foot shooting feels really bad, the weapons feel weak and not accurate (if the sniper feels the best weapon in an action game, you know there’s a problem) and also the shooting with the jet-pack feels weak, even if you are upgrading it, it’s just not there. The platforming animations looks really weird and out of place, same for the melee animations in the on-foot sections, but the biggest problem is the aerial mechanics with the saucer or the jet-pack. Camera issues and just overall really weird mechanics just do not work, big sections with flying can be a very frustrating because of this.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Fun and satisfying AA\turret sequences. Actually they were the only fun part in the game.

Really cool enemies, with their vehicles and weapons.

Pretty good variety to the environments.

Cons:

The story and the entire narrative is not intriguing as it may seem and most of the characters are not fascinating to talk to.

A very glitchy game. I had at least four or five game-braking glitches with enemies missing from the world but still in the radar. Also the game has inconsistent frame rate issues at points.

All the mechanics in the game has problems. Whether its technical or animation problems I don’t know but then lead to a very frustrating game to experience.

Conclusion:

Dark Void had some really good ideas improving and innovating the genre, especially with the aerial mechanics, but sadly, the entire narrative and set of characters are boring.

Scoring:

Presentation:

5.5 Boring characters with annoying personalities along with a non-interesting story and narrative to be in, the good part is the enemies that give something good to the entire game.

Visuals:

7 Inconsistency is the key word, some great areas but some are really blend, also the design for Will is really unappealing.

Sound:

7.5 Weapons, enemies and vehicles all sound great, voice overs are only decent at best.

Gameplay:

4.5 Some fantastic ideas that are not done well sadly, since it seems that the game had some good set pieces, but its just not good on the actual gameplay, also the technical issues are not helping.

Replay Value:

6.5 Around 8-10 hours for the campaign, some minor exploration for picking journals and extra technical points can help the length a bit.

Final Score:

6 Dark Void could have been a great game to experience, sadly everything about it is not there, boring story and characters, technical problems and bad mechanics to almost everything in the game.

Phoenix Wright eat your heart out. Guybrush is back in courtroom drama that is Tales of Monkey Island: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood. So, the story takes place right after episode 3 with Guybrush being taken back to Flotsam Island by Morgan LeFlay. When they arrive, Guybrush is taken by a mob of pirates to a courtroom where he is being charged with 5 ridiculous charges that all end with Guybrush’s death. So now he has to find a way to clear his name by becoming his own lawyer and finding evidence that will prove his innocence.

All kidding aside, this episode really does feel a little like a watered down version of a Phoenix Wright game. You’ll have to easily escape your jail cell to talk to your witnesses and gather evidence. Then it’s off to trial.

Once again, gameplay is very simple: choosing dialog choices, navigating the area, and using items with people or other items in order to solve puzzles. The gameplay parts felt somewhat shorter than last episode. Episode 4 is very cut scene heavy with a lot of dialog thrown in. Not to say that’s a bad thing, it’s not, because the comedy returns as well. Voice acting is top notch as always. Everything you’ve come to know and expect is all here.

The only thing that I would have to say is the fact that because it is coming close to the end of this series, you can tell that they’re trying to wrap a few things up which, in turn, make the gameplay feel a little short-lived. I finished this episode in around 5 hours which is a substantially shorter time than the last episode’s length. Still, you’ll have a ball playing this episode and if you’ve played the last few, you’ll more than likely going to want to see how this rollercoaster ends. Let me just say, this episode will MAKE you want to pick up the final episode coming next month. There’s major cliffhangers toward the end of this episode.

The Good: Great, simple gameplay; Still has the comedy, Nice animations, Terrific story

The Bad: Feels shorter than the last episodes, Puzzles feel just a little too easy this time around.

Bottom Line: If you have played the last episodes, you’ll need to pick this one up. If you’re reading about this series for the fist time, go pick up episode 1 and I’ll see you after you finish all the others. Honestly, I can’t suggest this episodic game series enough. Although there are a few shortcomings in this episode, you’ll still have a great time playing though.

Final Grade: 8.8

Editor’s note: I know the episode has been out for almost a week. I hope you’ll excuse me, I had technical difficulties with my gaming PC over the last week and that, in turn, delayed this review.

So, first off, yes, I know. I am not the same person who reviewed the last two episodes. Unfortunately, our other reviewer, Cory was unavailable to review this episode. With that said, I need to stress; I have never played a Monkey Island game before. I know what you’re thinking, “But, you won’t understand the story.” And you may have been right, but, there is this awesome thing called Wikipedia that recaps everything I need to know about Monkey Island, so I’ve got that covered.

Now, let’s get right down to it. In this episode, Guybrush Threepwood and his crew gets swallowed whole by a giant manatee just as he was about to be captured by the sassy bounty hunter, Morgan LeFlay. Now, Guybrush must find a way to escape the stomach of the manatee by sweet talking, lying, and conning the others who had also been swallowed up by the monster.

The game play is simple point-and-click. You can use the arrow keys to move or the mouse. I personally found it easier to use the keys and just click on what I wanted to interact with. The game breaks down into puzzles that require you to either say the correct thing or use the correct item at a certain time. I never ran into anything that was too difficult, but they still kept me on my toes.

I’ve always heard about the comedy in the Money Island games, but never experienced it. I have to say, the game is rather funny, and I’m not talking about just slapstick. I’m talking about intelligent, thought out dialog and comedic situations. For me, a game like this is few and far between. Speaking of dialog, the writing is fantastic. The amount of detail in the spoken words is as great as the voice acting which is also superb, by the way. The music and sounds are nice and fit well with the environment

The graphics are cartoony, but have a more mature look to them than your average Pixar film. The animations are detailed and match up with what’s going on and what is being said. It feels very polished.

For the first time playing through a Monkey Island game, I have to say I’m impressed. Looks like I’m going to have to go back and play the previous titles. If you have played the first two episodes, you’ll more than likely pick this one up. If you have never played this series before, let me just say, playing this episode has sold me on play the others. Simple as that.

Let me just stress one last time, this game is legitimately funny. That is very difficult to do in a video game, and I have to commend Telltale Games for this. They really did do a terrific job.

The Good: Nice graphics, Good music and sound, Fantastic voice acting and presentation, Challenging but simple puzzles, Actually funny.
The Bad: I really can’t think of anything other than the controls feel just a little slow, but that’s it.

Bottom line: If you like adventure games, and you have about 3 to 4 hours to spare and you like to laugh, BUY THIS GAME! In fact, you really need to check out the other episodes as well. I know I am.

Final Grade: 9.5

Tales of Monkey Island: the Siege of Spinner Cay
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Platform: PC
Modes: Single player
Format: Downloadable
ESRB: E10+

Telltale Games has reignited the series Monkey Island with their remake series called Tales of Monkey Island. In the remakes, you play as the hero Guybrush Threepwood, and go on brand new quests. The writing is witty and the jokes and humor are very well fit to the series. Chapter two, the Siege of Spinner Cay, has taken all of this and made it better.

In episode two, you are still playing as Guybrush. Within the first couple minutes of the game, Guybrush’s magical hand is cut off by a pirate hunter, and you are in a sword fight with a female pirate. In the game, you are continuing your search for Guybrush’s wife, Elane, who was captured by the evil LeChuck, which takes you to the namesake location Spinner Cay. You find Elane within ten or so minutes, and she convinces Guybrush to team up with LeChuck.

The locations in this game are amazing, and are varied in a good way. Besides Spinner Cay, you can travel to a town inhabited by mermaids and mermen, and various islands. With this new chapter comes new puzzles, which are very complex and deep. The humor and writing of the game is top notch and well developed, and even came off as suprising with how great it is. The writing also makes throwbacks to the previous Monkey Island games, which personally made me laugh. The game really does feel like a new chapter in the series, and feel seperate from the first one, while using the first game as a great base.

Overall, I whole heartedly recommend Spinner Cay. It takes the first chapter and greatly expands on it. The puzzles are amazing. The writing and dislogue is some of the wittiest and best in recent video games. This game shows great promise for the future of the Tales of Monkey Island series.

GOOD: Great writing, puzzles, gameplay.
BAD: May need to play chapter one to understand plot.
SCORE: 9.5/10

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks/ZeniMax Media
Platform: Xbox 360, PC
Modes: Single Player
Format: Downloadable
ESRB: M
Price: $10/800 MS

Fallout 3 has a very expansive and immersive world, which has expanded more so with the previous expansions, which took players to snowy Alaska, demolished Pittsburgh, the swamps of Point Lookout, Maryland. With the final expansion, Mothership Zeta, players get to go to infinity and beyond, and finally go to space.

In Mothership Zeta, you respond to a distress radio call on your PipBoy, and get abducted upon arriving there to the area. From there, you must find the captain of the alien ship, and get back to the wasteland. Along the way, you’ll meet various other humans who were abducted as well, including a young girl, a cowboy, and a Chinese speaking samuari. You must also fight many aliens, robots, and encounter alien weapons and healing techniques.

Much like Operation: Anchorage, the main focus of this expansion is combat. There are even parts where you must fight waves of aliens, much like Horde Mode in Gears of War 2. There is also an emphasis on exploring, but it is made complicated due to the fact that the ship is small and cramped. Also, I found myself getting lost, which led to frustration and slowed down the pace of the expansion. However, there was a part in which you have to go on a space walk, and it was amazing, and probably the high point of the entire Fallout 3 expansions, and very much reminded me of the game Dead Space.

Besides the whole getting lost thing, the other things that I didn’t like was that the expansion seemed to lack imagination. The whole abduction and escape is very straight forward. Plus, this is the shortest of all of the expansions, and there is not much to do. Besides finding the extra alien recordings, once you are done with the three quest missions, you are done with Mothership Zeta for good.

OVERALL: Mothership Zeta is a fun expansion, but is bogged down by intense combat and bland surroundings. The setting and missions are great, but it is not the greatest of the expansions for the game.
GOOD: Great missions, story, characters, weapons.
BAD: Too much combat, bland surroundings, short.
SCORE: 8/10.

Bookworm Adventures 2
Developer: PopCap Games
Publisher: PopCap Games
Platforms: PC
Modes: Single player
Format: CD, online download
ESRB: E10+

Bookworm Adventures 2 is the sequel to the 2007 PopCap game. In the game, you play as a worm named Lex who gets transported into various books, and must fight his way to the Queen at the end of the 10th level, along the way fighting various characters from beloved stories such as Alice in Wonderland, Mother Goose rhymes, and other children’s tales.

You fight by spelling out words in tiles on the screen. The longer the word, the more powerful the attack. I like to think of it as a Scrabble RPG of sorts. In the first Bookworm game, you could only spell with tiles that were near each other, but in this one you can use any tile on the screen. This makes the game somewhat easier, but doesn’t disrupt the fun.

This game is fun for both kids and adults. Children can even use it as an educational game for spelling, and it isn’t violent. The humor is kind of cheesy and cute, and the music is amazing. The art style is reminicent of Paper Mario, which fits with the whole books/reading motif. And like nearly all of PopCap’s other titles, the game can be played for a couple minutes, or even hours.

The only real downside to this game is that it can be a bit slow at times, and there are only ten levels, not including mini-games. You may want to go back and replay this game, but after the ten levels, there isn’t much new to do.

OVERALL: PopCap is one of the most inventive and consistent game developers out there. Bookworm 2 is an amazing puzzle/RPG which anyone can pick up and enjoy.
GOOD: Puzzle/RPG elements, fun, can be played and enjoyed by any kind of gamer, great educational tool, music, art.
BAD: Slowness, only ten levels.
SCORE: 9/10.

Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Platforms: PC, Wii
Modes: Single player
Format: Downloadable, Steam, disc
ESRB: E10+

Point and click adventure games aren’t as popular as they were in the 80s and 90s. One of the most popular point and click adventure games was the Secret of Monkey Island. Now, a remake of the game has been released in five episodes, the first one being Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the screaming Narwhal.

In the game, you play as Guybrush Threepwood, from the original games, trying to save his wife from the evil pirate LeChuck. While trying to save her, Threepwood gets a pox from LeChuck, and thus has to spend this episode saving the wife, conquering the bad guy, getting off the island, and curing yourself.

One of the biggest additions to the series is the graphics and art style. The game is now in 3D, as opposed to the 2D side scrolling that the original one had, and really does great in the game, making it easier to find things in the game, which is needed in a point and click. The art makes the game seem much bigger than the original, as well. The controls have also been spruced up as well. You can now move with the mouse or WASD, and there is a great inventory system that makes solving puzzles seem smooth.

The writing and humor in the game is really good as well, and is one of the highlights of the game. The game is fun, the puzzles are challenging, and is a solid first episode for this episodic game, and took me about five hours to beat.

However, the game does have some problems. The new art style and graphics are really heavy, and may bog down your PC. I have a pretty decent laptop, and had to lower the quality so my game would not lag. There is also no real replayability value with this game. When you beat it, you are done until the next episode comes out.

OVERALL: This is a great game for those who are nostalgic for point and click adventures, or those who want to get into the genre.
GOOD: Feels much like the old game in terms of gameplay and original voice acting. Very funny storytelling. Great puzzles
BAD: Pretty graphically intense; may not run well on older PCs. No replayability value.
OVERALL: 8.5/10

Fallout 3: Point Lookout
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks/ZeniMax Media
Platform: Xbox 360, PC
Modes: Single Player
Format: Downloadable
ESRB: M
Price: $10/800 MS

Bethesda has been keeping their triple A title, Fallout 3, alive through DLC. This DLC pack, called Point Lookout, is a great way of how Bethesda and the Fallout devs combine intense gameplay with wonderful and inventive story telling.

In Point Lookout, you are taken to a swamp like environment via steamboat that is infested with radiation as well as inbred hillbillies. The environment is also murky and filled with mystery. You first start out the DLC by going to the marker and a woman asks you to go to Point Lookout to find her daughter. You go there, and more things start unfolding.

Point Lookout is an awesome place for exploration. The map is pretty big, and is definitely bigger than the maps of the previous DLCs. The terrain varies from mountains, to ocean, to swamps. The inhabitants are mostly inbred hillbillies who want to attack you. There are also references to the Civil War, since Point Lookout in actuality was a Civil War landmark in Maryland.

In terms of gameplay, the main quest in Point Lookout has about three missions than encompass it. The missions aren’t very long, but in terms of story, they are some of the best missions that Fallout 3 has to offer. In one of the missions, you get poisoned by some seeds, and end up tripping out while walking through the forest, and it is an amazing feat in terms of story and imagery. When done with the main quest, there are about five side quests to take part in, and they make up for the shortness of the main quest. Plus, exploring and just walking around is also great in this DLC. In fact, I was just exploring and came up on a lighthouse with a broken bulb, and brought it back to life.

While this DLC is amazing, it does have a few drawbacks. The enemies are somewhat tough, and players should be leveled up to go forth with this DLC. Also, like I mentioned, the main quests are short. I also had problems with the framerate, but it was fixed by saving and reloading the game.

OVERALL: This DLC is my favorite of the Fallout 3 DLC that has been released. It combines excellent gameplay with intricate storytelling. While the missions are short, there is still a ton of stuff to do. Players will not be disappointed with this DLC.
GOOD: Amazing gameplay, story, perks. Lots to do.
BAD: Short missions.
OVERALL: 9/10.

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Velvet Assassin
Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive
Developer: Replay Studios
Platforms: Xbox 360, PC
Modes: Single player
ESRB: M

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