Action-Adventure Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

The Guardians of the Galaxy, long a niche comic team, gained a large following after being adapted into films. Because of this, it is only fitting that it would get video game adaptations. The Eidos-Montréal version of Guardians of the Galaxy was a high-budget game that is based on the same crew made famous by the James Gunn Marvel Cinematic Universe trilogy. 

It was released after Guardians of the Galaxy: A Telltale Series, but is set before it, in 2014. The Telltale game also followed the characters from the films, with elements mixed in from the surprisingly even weirder Marvel Comics version of the characters. That meant that the game had a tough act to follow, especially following the promotional material that made this take on the Guardians highly anticipated.

This action-adventure adaptation has a lot going for it. Unsurprisingly, it features the characters from the film trilogy, which have become the most loved version of this group of anti-heroes. However, it also pulls from the comics, giving the team's leader, Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, his half-Spartax background and featuring the genetically-engineered Adam Warlock two years before he was featured in the third Guardians of the Galaxy film.

The characters all have abilities that are gained and expanded upon as the game progresses. Star-Lord uses a laser gun and jet boots, Gamora, a stoic green female uses her skills of fighting with a knife and scaling rocky surfaces, Rocket, a sarcastic genetically-engineered racoon, uses his expertise in explosives and demolitions, Groot, a living tree who can only talk using his name with various inflections, uses his roots to lift the team upwards and make wooden bridges for the team to cross, and Drax the Destroyer uses his vast strength to fight and to pick up and throw objects.

The characters are all well portrayed, and it is a treat to watch them go from misfits thrown together to a fully-developed team that truly care for each other. It also features a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy that has yet to appear in the films, Nikki Gold. She has been reimagined as the daughter of Peter's former love interest, a Kree Nova Corps member named Ko-Rel.

However, this game falls into the same traps that befell countless Marvel Comics video game adaptations in the past. The gameplay is decent enough, featuring the shooting mechanics expected by a character such as Star-Lord mixed with a time-limited command system to allow the powers of the rest of the team a chance to shine as artificial intelligence-controlled backup characters. However, the stage layouts aren't varied enough to mitigate the simplistic gameplay, making going through the game feel like a chore after a while.

The story was interesting enough to get me to continue the game, however, and the fact that the voice acting was fantastic helped as well. There are a lot of 20th century hit songs in the game as well, which can be played on the Guardians ship, the Milano, or as a boost to morale while in battle. I enjoyed the use of pop hits in the first two films, so it was a lot of fun to see that atmosphere continue here.

Guardians of the Galaxy isn't a perfect game. It has gameplay that can get repetitive after a while, but the story, voice acting, and music makes up for it. It isn't a must play by any means, but if you are willing to go through stages, especially in the middle of the game, that can feel a bit generic, it could be worth playing through once just to experience the story.

Final Verdict:
3 out of 5

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Choices-and-Consequences Game Review: Life Is Strange Episode 3

The third episode of Life Is Strange, Chaos Theory, lives up to its name with a chapter that really shakes the formula up.

The school is reeling from the events of the end of the last chapter. Max and Chloe are determined to get to the bottom of the corruption in the town, so they decide to conduct their own investigation. This leads to some revelations, some character building moments, and then chaos comes into play, spinning their entire world on its head.

There are some fetch quests and inventory puzzles here, which is to be expected in an investigation. Naturally, Max's powers to rewind time also come in play, allowing Max and Chloe to to be more devious in their investigations than they would without them.  The rewind power is also actually used as a puzzle itself in this chapter, where Max must use stealth and her powers in order to avoid being caught.  It's a fantastic twist on the usual mechanic of this game, and it is implemented quite well.

The story is simply fantastic in this chapter, and the awkward slang has been successfully lamp shaded.  It's attributed as a quirk of one of the more outlandish characters, and, in that light, strangely, in retrospect (awkward as it still is) it sort of works.  The voice acting continues be top notch, working well in tandem with the fantastic script, and the understated music once again complements the voice acting.  The new locations are all interesting, as are the new characters.

This ended up being a short review, but don't take that as a sign of a lack of quality.  It's actually far from it, as the review is brief as to spoil as little about the episode as possible.  This episode simply needs to be played, as everything about it, from the story, to the voice acting and music, and to the characters and locations are excellent.  The game's finale is the crowning achievement of the episode, and of the series so far.  It's worth playing just for that portion of the game alone.

Final verdict:
 
5 out of 5

Choices-and-Consequences Game: Life Is Strange Episode 2

The second episode of Life Is Strange, Out of Time, finds Max discovering the limitations of her powers, making the choices she makes in this episode matter much more than ever.

The episode begins where the last left off, with Max finding a confidant in Chloe.  The two decide to test Max's powers, at which point Max discovers that her powers have more limitations than she had previously thought.  To save more lives of the people she cares about, Max must push her powers past their boundaries.  In doing so, however, she'll have to use her own natural powers of persuasion, as she finds that she can't always rely on her new-found abilities.

The limitations present a different feel in this chapter than before, as, while most of the decision making is leisurely, once her powers reach their limits, Max will have to make decisions on the spur of the moment without the ability to rewind.  Luckily, the decisions aren't quite as spur of the moment as those in Telltale's games, as there isn't a timer forcing Max to think quickly.  The decisions can still be made at a slower pace, however, once they're made, they're set in stone.  This adds a much more emotional impact to those decisions that can't be changed, as they seem much more real now that the ability to change them on the fly isn't present.  There are also puzzles in this game, although some are a bit tedious, as they revolve around recovering a specific number of items.

The dialog still has some awkward moments of slang usage, but, like the first chapter, the rest of the story is excellent.  The voice acting continues to be supurb as well, with the actors getting a chance to really show a range of emotions here.  The music, once again, is subtle, but helps to set the tone of the game excellently.  There are quite a few new locations in this chapter as well, and they are all interesting, and fit within the art style of the rest of the game.  The new characters we meet in these new locations are equally as interesting, and are all voiced as well as the returning characters.  There are invisible barriers in this chapter, but they are handled much more realistically than simply restricting the character's movements.  They're reminiscent of those in the L.A. Noire crime scenes, as the player character in both games will comment that they don't want to leave that area, for reasons that fit in both games.  It's a simple solution to the invisible barrier problem, but it works well.

The second episode of Life Is Strange has given the series a bit of a shakeup, with limitations to Max's powers that make some of her choices much more finite, and thus seemingly more meaningful, than those in the previous episode.  The occasional moments of awkward slang in the dialog reappear here, and some of the game's puzzles are tedious, but the rest of the game makes up for it.  Max's choices are beginning to have visible consequences, the voice acting is excellent, and the music still remains a wonderfully paired with the vocal performances. The story of the second episode ends on an exciting conclusion, making this episode feel fulfilling on its own.  However, one can't help but wonder how the next episode unfurls.

Final Verdict:
 
4 out of 5

Choices-and-Consequences Review: Life Is Strange Episode 1

Dontnod Entertainment advances the choice and consequences formula made popular by Telltale Games, with an interesting time rewinding mechanic, set around an interesting story about power, corruption, bullies, and a mystery surrounding an impending disaster.

The first chapter of Life Is Strange takes place at a private high school named Blackwell, where an art student named Max discovers that she has the power to rewind time when she witnesses a confrontation in the girl's bathroom.  This is the crux of the story, but things delve deeper when she discovers that the incident was only the tip of the iceberg, and violence is a common occurrence at Blackwell.  However, she finds that due to the corruption of the school and the town, it's hard to make any permanent changes with her newfound powers.  Some of the dialogue is a bit weak, especially the forced use of teen slang which is quite awkward, both in the written form and when spoken by the voice actors.  However, the story itself is fantastically written, and the violent atmosphere surrounding the school feels all too real, which definitely offsets the few moments of awkwardness in some of the dialog.

The real shining gem of this series is definitely the rewind mechanic, which is put to good use here. Max can rewind time at any point, to do anything from catching bits of background activity that she might have missed to making a new choice in a major decision that is presented to her.  The choice and consequences system is laid out much like Telltale's games.  Max has been presented with a variety of options in a situation, and she must make her choice.  The choices affect events later in the episode, as well as in episodes that happen later down the road.  The Telltale influence extends into the user interface as well, as gamers are informed via a graphic that their choices will have consequences.  The rewind mechanism makes things a little more relaxed than in Telltale's offerings, however, as choices don't have to be made on the spot as mandated by a timer.  If the gamer wants to have Max make a different decision, the decision can be rewound in the episode itself, rather than having to be done later via the menu, which also means that the remainder of the episode doesn't need to be replayed if the choice has been changed.  However, once Max leaves that location, her powers can no longer extend to that choice, and any choice made will be set in stone.  The game also deviates from the most recent of Telltale's games in that it contains environment puzzles.  The puzzles aren't any more difficult than those found in The Walking Dead, but like that game, they work well within the game's world, and work well with the rest of the game mechanics, as opposed to feeling tacked on for the sake of the genre.

The voice acting is excellent, and the voice actors do a great job showing the seedy underbelly of Blackwell at work.  As mentioned before, some of the dialogue is clunky, and the voice actors can't overcome this, however, the awkward slang is pretty sparse, and every other line delivery by the voice actors is top-notch.  The music works as well.  While it's not memorable, it sets the tone of the game and frames the voice performances quite nicely.

Chrysalis is an excellent start to an intriguing entry into the choices and consequences genre.  There are some environment puzzles, although they aren't very challenging.  However, the rewind mechanic far overcomes any qualms about easy puzzles.  It's a great addition to the genre and works well with the choices and consequences mechanic.  The story is intriguing and well written, with the exception of some clunky slang that feels forced.  The voice acting and the music are also top-notch. Overall, the first chapter is a great start and is well worth playing.

Final Verdict:
 
4 out of 5

Life is Strange: Episode 2 Review

Life Is Strange Episode 2 Is Out Now

Life is Strange, the cinematic choices and consequences adventure game created by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix, received the second of its five episodes on Tuesday.

The game follows Maxine Caufield, a student who, after witnessing a devastating event, finds that she has the ability to rewind time and can now change the course of events.  The choices made will alter and affect the story with long and short term consequences.

The Evolution of Adventure Games Part III: Visual Novels

Adventure games were popular in the early days of the computer industry in North America and Europe, but they didn't immediately catch on in Japan.  There were a few produced in that region, but the early releases didn't catch on with the gaming public.

ASCII released the first text adventures produced in Japan, Omotesando Adventure in 1982 and Minami Aoyama Adventure, in 1983. These adventure games had limited popularity, and ASCII wouldn't produce another entry in the adventure game genre for several years.  However, when the adventure game genre evolved into the visual novel and became popular with Japanese gaming fans, ASCII continued producing adventure games in this format into the 2000's. ASCII as a separate entity ceased to exist in 2008 when they were absorbed by Media Works, forming ASCII Media Works.  ASCII Media Works has continued to produce visual novels, and still does so today.

The obscurity of adventure games in Japan was fated to be changed after Yuji Horii created The Portopia Serial Murder Case, which was released by Enix in 1983.  It was a hit, especially the 1985 Famicom version which had a point and click menu based interface (which was similar to a three part episodic adventure series released from 1983 to 1984 by T&E Soft titled Legend of Star Arthur). It's success inspired other developers to create similar games. Enix continued to release adventure games and as the genre evolved to visual novels, they continued releasing them. In 2003, Enix merged with Square to become Square Enix.  Square Enix continues to develop visual novels today.

While we're on the subject of Square, it should be mentioned that they also created influential early adventure games. Their first game was a text adventure with static graphics, The Death Trap.  It was released in 1984, before Square was founded as a legal entity.  The 1985 sequel, Will: The Death Trap II, was one of the first animated computer games.  As the genre evolved to visual novels, they continued releasing them. As stated above, in 2003, Square became Square Enix, and continues to release visual novels to this day.

The success of The Portopia Serial Murder Case led to the creation of games which would become known as visual novels.  Although they both started from the same style of text adventures, adventure games evolved differently in Japan as opposed to the adventure games in the west.

Whereas adventures in the west focused on puzzles, in Japan, adventures evolved based on the narrative of text adventures, sharing the choose your own adventure aspect of these games, where the narrative is laid out to the player, and the player interacts with the game to keep the narrative flowing. These types of games became known as visual novels. One of the first influential developers of this new visual novel style of adventure was Hideo Kojima at Konami.  Inspired by The Portopia Serial Murder Case, he created Snatcher, which was released in 1988.  Konami continued releasing visual novels, including Hideo Kojima's own Policenauts in 1994.  They still continue to release visual novels today.

Visual novels are still popular in Japan, and their popularity has increased in the west as well.  One of the companies responsible for the increase of western localizations for visual novels is Capcom.  Although they have been developing visual novels since 1986, it was the Ace Attorney series that was responsible for this spike in western popularity.  The series began in 2001, but when the Nintendo DS remakes were released in 2006, they received an official English translation.  The games proved to be more popular in the west than expected, which led to more official translations.

The amount of translations of visual novels into English has dropped in recent years, but they still continue to be a driving force in Japan, still claiming the majority of sales in the home computer market.  After the 1990's Western adventure games wouldn't share in that popularity, but they also evolved from their text adventure roots to the adventures that are still developed today, although in a much different style than their Japanese counterparts.

Back to Part II

On To Part IV