Anna Review

Game: Anna: Extended Edition
Year (s): 2012
Company: dev. Dreampainters
pub. Kalypso Media
Engine: Unity Engine
Type: Horror, Puzzle adventure
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 55
My Score: 65


Price (as of May 9, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): not available


My Game Time: 7 hours with walkthrough


Obligatory Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jmY7sR_wck






Plot


Anna begins with notebook entries by the protagonist. He found a box of photos that give him a bad feeling. They depict himself at a creepy-ass sawmill. He has no memory of this, and, being off work due to migraines, sets off to investigate the sawmill and find out what he has forgotten.


The story is really the motivation to keep playing, and it ends up not answering much. There are multiple endings. Though I played along with an online walkthrough, I got one of the, “bad,” endings. I've looked up the others, and there seems to be uncertainty, and an unhappy conclusion, no matter what ending you get.






Engine


I hadn't heard of the Unity engine. It turns out it's been used in several dozen games from a variety of genres. I've heard of some of the other games using the engine (most of it indie) but haven't played said games.


Graphically, it's one of those that could have come out five years ago. Or ten, just about. It works and looks realistic but, like most games, isn't on the hardware-intense cutting edge.


I didn't run into any bugs with this. It was somewhat obnoxious to register online and login to play the game, and go through no less than three launchers each time before playing.






Save System


Manual Save? Yes
Quick Save? No
Area Load Save? No
Checkpoint Save? No




Gameplay


Maniac Mansion. Myst. Shadowgate. *insert newer games*. Do you like picking things up to add to your inventory? Do you like using every item you have on every other item, and on every named object in a room? That's the kind of game Anna is.


There are clues, in the form of books, that can help. There's also an in-game hint option. Anna came up when I searched for games like Dear Esther, and (to no surprise) was something quite different.


About the only strong similarity is that you can't die. At least, not during the course of events, as near as I can tell.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels


White Heavens, set in a haunted hotel, is set in the same universe and also developed by Dreampainters.






Final Thoughts


Anna is creepy. That was my favorite aspect of the game.


If you're looking for a pretty cheap, pretty short game, this fits the bill. I'm not crazy about the game type, I didn't love the endings, and it wasn't really what I was looking for. Personally, I'm not wild about this one.

Nonetheless, Anna leads a player on a dark quasi-immersive tale that is a good show for the first game by a developer.  

Blake Stone Review

Game: Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Year (s): 1993
Company: dev. JAM Productions
pub. Apogee Software
Engine: Wolfenstein Engine
Type: Shooter, Maze Runner
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: This predates Metacritic.
My Score: An alternative game for fans of Wolfenstein 3D


Price (as of April 20, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $9.99 for the Apogee Throwback Bundle
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): Come on now. You don't have a floppy drive.






Plot
The evil geneticist Pyrus Goldfire, with his numerous installations, has amassed a mutant army and intends to conquer the galaxy. Only you, British special agent Blake Stone, can stop him. Pursue him through each installation, but be careful! On the 9^th floor, there is a boss.


JAM and Apogee
If you haven't heard of JAM, don't feel bad. They made Blake Stone, and the Blake Stone expansion game, and that was it. They are no longer around, though one of their three programmers went on to work with other game companies including TKO, Ion Storm, and id Software.


Apogee published Wolfenstein 3D, and was both a developer and a publisher of games. In the mid-nineties, Apogee decided to create separate brands for the different types of games it created. 3D Realms was used for all 3D games, such as Duke Nukem 3D. Another brand was created for pinball games, of which they made only one. Two-dimensional side-scrollers dropped in popularity during the nineties, so while Apogee was legally still Apogee, fans of their games knew them as 3D Realms.


Apogee/3D Realms was influential in the nineties, but then spent over a decade failing to deliver a sequel for Duke Nukem 3D. The company eventually went bankrupt.




Save System


Manual Save? Yes
Quick Save? No
Area Load Save? No
Checkpoint Save? No




Engine and Gameplay
Blake Stone runs on the Wolfenstein engine, and gameplay is nearly identical. You run around, shoot guys, collects keycards, shove the wall to find secrets, and move to the next level. There's a point system and high scores. Levels can be tediously maze-like.


There are a few small improvements. If you were in a room and didn't notice a key, it'll show up on your map. The initial weapon is silent, leading to a possible stealth approach that, while not a focus of the game, was ahead of its time. Friendly NPCs were also ahead of the game, as many scientists were, “informants,” and would not attack you. Allowing them to live only affected the score.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels
Blake Stone: Planetary Strike had another 20 levels, as well as a few secret levels. This added some re-skinned enemies (some were invisible-ish), a new weapon, and a slightly different aim to end a level. I got about halfway through this, but after the 54 standard levels of the original game, plus two or three secret levels I'd found, I had lost my interest in the maze-run, “where's the stupid key?” gameplay.




Final Thoughts
Blake Stone was meant to compete with Wolfenstein 3D, an immensely popular game at the time. In that regard, it succeeded. It used the same engine in a different setting, changing a few minor things, and offered a ton of levels for gamers growing bored.
Unfortunately, Doom was released one week after the debut of Blake Stone. It had stairs, elevators, light sources... Blake could not compete. I played the shareware of Blake Stone, so I got a tickle of nostalgia from it. I've never heard anyone else mention the game, shareware or otherwise.

Confusion in the Ranks Deck

Confusion in the Ranks: 5 mana red enchantment that reads, "Whenever an artifact, creature, or enchantment enters the battlefield, its controller chooses target permanent another player controls that shares a card type with it. Exchange control of those permanents."  

Six or eight years ago, I learned of this card and got four of them, and slapped together the rest of a 40 card deck from whatever I had.  40 card decks were legal at the time, or, if they weren't, we didn't know.  

I've remade this to be a legal 60-card deck.  This meant that I needed to either have tutors or lots of card drawing (in order to ensure Confusion in the Ranks gets out), and I chose to go with black for tutors (white has enchantment tutors, but offered nothing otherwise interesting). 

This hasn't been played yet, so it might get mixed up.  Measure of Wickedness seems perfect, but I feared it would lead to instant, vicious retaliation.  Cards with huge drawbacks, like Cosmic Horror, are tempting but have a high mana cost that did not justify replacing existing cards.  

So, here's the remake:


4 Confusion in the Ranks
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Diabolic Tutor

4 Glitterfang
3 Viashino Sandscout
1 Norin the Wary
4 Sleeper Agent

4 Dark Ritual
4 Wild Cantor

3 Lurking Jackals
3 Nyxborn Rollicker

3 Steel Golem
3 Bronze Bombshell

1 Kher Keep
Mountains
Swamps
Multicolor Lands 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein Review

Game: Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Year (s): 2001
Company: dev. Gray Matter Studios
pub. id Software
Engine: id Tech 3
Type: Shooter
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 88
My Score: A solid modernization of graphics and gameplay that would, in turn, become dated.


Price (as of March 30, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $30




Obligatory Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJGNUb5RnE


Plot


You're B.J. Blazkowicz, the same silent protagonist from the original game. You start by escaping Castle Wolfenstein. After that, you're sent on a bunch of missions to abort Nazi rockets launches, steal prototype technology and weapons, perform covert operations, and so on. Ultimately, you end up heading back to Castle Wolfenstein to stop the resurrection of an unstoppable evil knight from the dark ages.




Save System


Manual Save? Yes
Quick Save? Yes
Area Load Save? Yes
Checkpoint Save? I think so, but am not sure.




Combat and Gameplay
This game has all the key features of the time: ladders, crawling in ducts, pre-rendered death animations (3D, no sprites), water, use of WADS-based controls, some destructible scenery, walk-over healing kits, cutscenes, and somewhat blocky-looking people,
The combat is generally straight-forward with little to mention. However, some levels must be completed without signaling any alarms, so there is a minor stealth element.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels
Four Wolfenstein titles have followed Return. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (it sounds like Quake 3 but with Return to Castle Wolfenstein weapons) and Wolfenstein RPG (a short game for mobile devices) both came out under the radar.
Wolfenstein (2009) is a sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and was developed by Raven Software. It has a metascore of 74.
Woflenstein: The New Order is due out in May of this year. This one takes place in the 1960's, in an alternate timeline in which the Nazi won. This will be the first Wolfenstein game that does not incolve id Software, though it will utilize id Tech 5 for the engine.




Final Thoughts
If I'd gotten this in 2001, I'd have played the hell out of it. As it was, I played through a few levels, having fun until I came to a level with acrobatic enemies. The first small room had several bad guys. I only had thirty health, and I was out of ammo except for the sniper rifle. That being said, I turned on godmode and merrily progressed through the rest of the game.
Play it for nostalgia if you can, or just play it for kicks. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a pretty good game for its era, and still runs fine on modern hardware and software.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Review

Game: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Year (s): 2012
Company: dev. Valve Software, Hidden Path Entertainment
pub. Valve Software
Engine: Source
Type: Online Multiplayer Shooter
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 83
My Score: 83


Price (as of March 19, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $14.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $8




Obligatory Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnZ8uj0kuXI


The trailer might be a joke, but it's fairly accurate (and much shorter) than other trailers.






Combat and Gameplay
Originally a port of Counter-Strike for Xbox Live Arcade, Global Offensive added a couple new deathmatch modes for a broader gaming experience.


Gameplay is Red Vs. Blue format, with a strong emphasis on headshots. In my brief game time, I'd basically get shot in the head any time I went around a corner. In some cases, players were deliberately camping out and waiting for someone to walk into view.


Half of the game modes have objectives, these being to detonate/defuse an explosive, or to keep/rescue the hostages. In my brief experience these objectives were ignored and the game ended after one team slaughtered the other.


Players can buy different weapons and equipment at the beginning of rounds. This system wasn't explained; I think I was assumed to be familiar with it from playing other Counter-Strike games. For non-deathmatch modes, players do not respawn until the next round, leading to very short rounds.


I would like to note that, with 167 available achievements, this one can keep a completionist busy for a long, long time.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels


Global Offensive is the most recent in a series with a handful of titles overall. There are no official DLC, but Project Phoenix (and other stuff) can be purchased in-game.


Final Thoughts
The Counter-Strike franchise has been around for fifteen years and is both well-known and well-liked. I feel like I missed the boat here. If I had been playing games like this with my friends for years and years, I'd love it. Someone, most of my friends and I missed out on the Counter-Strike heyday, and I felt a little lost jumping right in on the newest one. Rampantly getting shot in the head was frustrating, as I tend to favor shotguns, explosives, and other non-sniping combat approaches that are, in this game, quite ineffective.



If you are a capable video game sniper looking for a challenge against real people, this one's for you. Personally, I prefer something like Team Fortress 2, with a variety of viable ways to play.

Prodigal Sorcerer (Tim) Deck

I hadn't planned to build a deck around Prodigal Sorcerer and his buddies (they used to be called, "Tim")
I was putting away cards from Born of the Gods (a set I was not particularly impressed by) when I came across Horseshoe Crab.
In high school, I had a crappy deck that turned Horseshoe Crab into a reusable fireball by using enchant creature spells like Fire Whip or Psionic Gift.
I did a search for similar creatures, but was kind of let down.  Soliton, a 3/4 artifact creature for 5, was the only creature with the exact same untap cost.
Blizzard Elemental and others cost significantly more mana to untap, making repetition less likely.

My search brought up other cards, notably Charisma, Sigil of Sleep, and Curiosity.
I've used two of those, and saw how well they all paired with Tims.
My failed attempt at a Horseshoe Crab deck also showed me Freed from the Real and Pemmin's Aura, both giving an ability of Pay one blue: untap enchanted creature.
I ended up with something I hadn't been planning, but it looks like it could be a fine annoying casual blue deck.
Another benefit?  A card from Homelands!  ...And I already have pretty much everything I plan to use.

The tap this creature: deal one damage mechanic has shifted to Red.  The last blue creature with this ability was in Time Spiral.

This is the end result.  I hope to try it out this weekend.

Prodigal Sorcerer (Tim) Deck
60-Card Format
Blue

The Tims

4 Prodigal Sorcerer
4 Thornwind Faeries
4 Suq'ata Firewalker
1 Reveka, Wizard Savant
1 Zuran Spellcaster

The Untap for One Blue Auras

4 Freed from the Real
4 Pemmin's Aura

The Annoyance

4 Charisma
4 Curiosity
4 Sigil of Sleep

The Keeps me Alive Guys

3 Shape Stealer
3 Fog Bank

LANDS
22 Islands

State of Decay Review

Game: State of Decay
Year (s): 2013
Company: dev. Undead Labs
pub. Microsoft Studios
Engine: Cry Engine 3
Type: Sandbox Zombie Survival
Viewpoint: Third-Person
Metacritic Score: 79
My Score: 70


Price (as of February 23, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $19.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): Not Available


My Game Time: 20 hours, first time, on normal


Obligatory Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edVYXynxzio






Plot


This game essentially has no plot. Zombies happened, and you help the survivors stay stocked with ammo, food, and medical supplies.


Engine

Cry Engine 3 is one of the most realistic, and most demanding, graphics engines that exist. State of Decay underutilized its capabilites to wind up with a generic looking game that could have been anything released for Xbox 360, Playstaion 3, and PC in the last six years.


I hit a few bugs with this game. It crashed a few times, and goals would sometimes fail to appear or resolve.






Save System


Manual Save? No
Quick Save? No
Area Load Save? No
Checkpoint Save? Yes




Combat and Gameplay


Generally, you're doing fetch quests to help the fortified groups of survivors. While there are guns, it's largely a skull-bashing pursuit. As your character progresses, they gain bonuses in fighting, cardio, weapon classes, and, “influence.” Influence is money.


Zombies are much worse at night, and you are certain to die at some point. While you usually have a couple of chances to recover, at least one enemy can tear you in half. If you die, the game carries on with you playing as a different survivor.


State of Decay has a text-heavy help section that explains how to play. There isn't anything in-game. I don't read so well, so it took me eight hours and a google search to learn how to build things. I never figured out how to set up an outpost, though I was constanly prompted to do so.






Expansions / DLC / Sequels


In State of Decay, there are a finite amount of resources and you will at some point have to complete missions that end with escaping the vally. In the Breakdown DLC, gameplay is endless, though it gets harder and harder.


A second DLC, Life Line, is in development with few details.






Final Thoughts


I'm not a zombie expert. I haven't seen all of the Romero movies, I haven't played any Resident Evil, and I'm fine with that. State of Decay does a very good job of being a sandbox game, but the absolute lack of plot made the gameplay, for me, rather mindless.


If you just want something to do with your time, this might be a more difficult option for those tired with Skyrim. While not a bad game, and a good first show from Undead Labs, this isn't one I'd highly recommend.