The Soul Calibur series is known as a positively criticized fighting game. Its focus on weapon-based combat and fighting arenas set in a 3D plane lends itself to epic bouts. The newest entry in the series, Soul Calibur V, looks to retain its status as a great fighting game. It’s safe to say Soul Calibur V does not fail to reach that high quality standard.

Soul Calibur V is easy to grasp for new players, while veterans will feel right at home in the first match. There are many combos for each player to learn and master, leaving the veteran Soul Calibur players to commit hours upon hours into the new installment. However, new players, like me, are not left out in the cold. A tutorial mode eases players into the combat while allowing free reign to try out the harder combos. Smaller two-hit and three-hit combos are easy to land with little practice. I can’t recommend a good starting character for players because each character in the roster is designed for pickup and play for all level of players.

The game excels in the battle arena with fast paced combat set against gorgeous environments. I easily bought into the melodramatic announcer between rounds and the cheesy one-liners between characters. The overly-dramatic music is the icing on the cake for the epic bouts in Soul Calibur V. The game sets a great atmosphere and never let me down in that regard.

It’s easy to navigate the arena whether you’re playing with a tank character or a smaller agile character. As I said before, each character is comfortable to play as. Given enough time, players will find a suitable fighting style that he or she could stick with, regardless of that player’s skill.

The new “Critical Gauge” adds a new dynamic to the game.It fills up based on player actions and damage received. Once the gauge is filled up, an easily executed attack called “Critical Edge” can shake up a fight in a split second. The gauge is also useful when only half filled; “Brave Edge” and “Guard Impact” are just as easy to execute and require fewer points in the “Critical Gauge” to use.

Not all of the action is balanced, however. I found it easy to get trapped in an onslaught of attacks without any chance of countering. There’re evasive moves such as rolling after getting knocked on the ground; but even rolls prove useless against sweeping ground attacks. “Ring Out” adds to some of the unfair and cheap moments that plagued a few of my matches. Some of my bouts in SC V ended far too quickly thanks to “Ring Out”. I understand it’s meant to add an extra dynamic to each fight, but it only left me frustrated, especially when the CPU landed a single blow to send me off the ledge.

The story campaign is disappointingly short and did not leave any impact on me. I found myself quickly running through the campaign to get back into the offline and online content. For those interested however, the cut scenes are beautifully done, but don’t exactly flesh out the story to its full potential. Soul Calibur V also ditches the individual story lines for each character, instead only focusing on a few characters and their connection with the Soul Swords. In short, I do recommend playing through the story solely to rank up and unlock new characters. I recognize some players will have a stronger connection to some of the characters presented in the story; however there is not enough there in the story campaign to justify the seemingly short and abrupt end.

Offline and online is where players will spend a majority of their time. Arcade mode and quick battle allow a quick way to rank up and earn new rewards. The more dedicated Soul Calibur players can check out “Legendary Souls”. I recommend new players stay clear of “Legendary Souls” until they feel comfortable taking on extremely tough AI.

Online, players will find enough opportunities to rank against gamers around the world. SC V also offers a couple modes to build a strong community online. “Global Colosseo” offers large rooms for players to gather and either communicate or randomly match up for quick bouts. The rooms are divided into several regions, including some of the major cities in the world. SC V’s online mode I feel will grow the increasingly large Soul Calibur community thanks to “Global Colesseo”.

Players will rank up and earn points in all game modes offered in Soul Calibur V, except of course in tutorial mode. Ranking earns new titles for your player card, which is your ID in SC V, and unlocks items for creation mode. Creation mode is more robust compared to the previous installments in the series, offering you more tools for shaping your character. I spent a lot of time in the creation mode, constructing a ridiculous character honorably named, ShoomyZoomy. The amount of customization offers a lot of depth for creating serious fighting machines and less serious fighting machines like ShoomyZoomy.

The Final Word: Soul Calibur V offers a lot of depth for returning players and new players alike. Sprinkle in overly-dramatic music and dialogue filled with one-liners, and you have yourself one hell of a fighting game. Some bouts lead to a one-sided beating and the story mode is disappointing to say the least; but don’t let Soul Calibur V’s missteps turn you away. There is a lot to dive into, and very little to grow tired of. Don’t forget Enzio Auditore from Assassin’s Creed makes a guest appearance, so there’s that too.

- MonsterVine Rating: 4 – Good

If you’re not familiar with Scarygirl then you probably haven’t read the graphic novel the game is based on. Nathan Jurevicius is the man behind the curtains controlling the brand and while I’ve always been a fan of his work I was never that big into the comic itself. SquareEnix decided to give this guy his own game based off his comic and that’s how the Scarygirl game got started.

Once you start the game you’re introduced to Scarygirl who is an abandoned girl who was found by Blister, a giant intelligent octopus. Scarygirl begins to have nightmares about a mysterious bearded man and the only person who can give her any advise on it is a mystical kung-fu rabbit called Bunniguru. He tells you the man can be found in a far off city, so Scarygirl sets off to discover the truth behind her nightmares. You’ll travel through gorgeous envrionments that vary from sewers, lush forests, ice caves, a bouncing club, and more all done in Jurevicius’ signature style.

Scarygirl offers some neat level design with some interesting perspective changes that keep things a little fresh while you venture through the 21 different levels. Each environment has its own set of environmental hazards, unique enemies, and visual flair. Some levels also feature multiple paths that you can take with some paths focusing on platforming and others on combat. You don’t necessarily need to think too hard on which path you want to take since they both reach the same destination so you can just go back to the other path once you finish the other. Once you finish a level you’ll be scored on your performance based on deaths, enemy kills, gems collected and more. It’s not that difficult to get a perfect score, you’ll just have to take care to pick everything up in a level and make sure not to die of course. Gems can be collected to purchase new moves, weapons, and ‘trophies’ of defeated enemies from Cthulhu an Octopus monster thing. Everything seems decently priced so you’ll be able to buy what you want when you get to a store with most levels netting you at least 200 gems, but the main issue is that the store only shows up a few times throughout the game with no way to get to it except replaying a level. By the time I got close to the final stages I had only encountered the store *maybe* 4 times in the 21 stages. I went quite a few levels with hundreds of gems in my wallet before I found a store, it’s really surprising that they wouldn’t at least put a store in the interactive main menu so that we didn’t have to replay stages to find it.

As with any platformer there’s some combat to be had in it and while Scarygirl looks cute swatting enemies with her tentacle arm, the combat just isn’t that fun. You have a light and heavy attack; the light is your faster/spammable move and your heavy is really your juggle move that you’ll use to knock enemies into the air. Once enemies have been hit enough you’ll notice a purple aura around them indicating that they’ve been stunned and can be grabbed. Once you grab an enemy you can use their body to slam them into things, throw them, siphon their health into yourself, or use one of the various moves you can buy in the shop such as using them as a pogo stick. There is a block button and you counter perform counter attacks on any enemy with ranged attacks which will send their projectile right back at them. Scarygirl has a rage meter that slowly fills up each time you attack an enemy and once activated allows you to perform devastating attacks for a few seconds. The effects when you use this are neat, but it felt ultimately useless since even with the rage upgrade it still fills up a bit too slow to be worth using. Since bosses have phases that means once you activate it you only get to pull off one hit (since it does 10x the damage your regular attacks do) which sends the boss to their next phase. It’s never really feels useful since what you do in 1 attack can be done in 4 or 5 with your regular whip and you always have enough to time attack the boss enough to take out the required amount of health to go to the next phase of the battle.

There are around half a dozen different weapons you can purchase from totally not Cthulhu that affect how you play, but only 3 of them will see any use. You’ve got your 3 combat modifiers: an anchor for slower but more powerful attacks (instead of the regular 5 it does 10), a fan for faster but weaker attacks (I think it does 1-3), and a whip that just increases the amount of rage you get. Since the combat itself is ass there really was no reason at all to use anything other than the anchor since it still hits fast enough to kill your enemies quickly. The other whips are more environment modifiers: a leaf to increase the duration of your glide, a magnet that draws gems towards you, and a fish that increases your speed underwater. The leaf and fish are definitely what you want to focus on getting early on since, besides being cheap, they’ll really help you out with the platforming later in the game. The magnet is nice, but I never had any issue with getting the gems, so I’d just recommend to somebody who’s incredibly lazy. Weapons can be switched quickly with the directional buttons.

The Final Word
A gorgeous art style with neat level design hides a very basic and average platformer. With its 4+ hour campaign and re-playability to collect all the vinyls or perfect their scores, Scarygirl will last you quite a while for your money. I will have to say I find it hard to recommend this to some people though; it’s a decent platformer but it does nothing interesting to warrant a purchase to anyone but fans of the graphic novel or platformer enthusiasts.

- MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average

In similar fashion to Orcs Must Die (I’m only comparing since I played it recently) Dungeon Defenders introduces you to a gang of mischievous students who suddenly find themselves under attack by an endless army of your typical bad dudes who want to smash your crystal. While in Orcs Must Die your teacher was embarrassingly killed off, here your teachers have decided to just fuck off and leave a few kids in charge of a giant castle.

The gameplay is almost exact to OMD to anyone familiar to that title. It plays like a tower defense game with a variety of ‘traps’ you can place around the map and you also control your character who can attack the enemies head-on. The similarities end there since this game has a major RPG emphasis on the gameplay. You can level up your character, spend points on various stats, and collect different types of loot. Let me stress for a moment when I say that Dungeon Defenders is not made for solo play. The numerous doors enemies pour through, each with multiple paths to your crystal, make tackling a level alone a daunting task. Playing with 2 or 3 players is fine, but you really get a better sense of how the game is really meant to be played when you have a full room of 4 people. You can either roll with your buddy in some local co-op or jump online.

Before you start your goblin slaughter you’ll have to create your character first. There are 4 classes you’ll be able to play as: the knight, the huntress, the mage, and the monk. You’re really going to want to practice a bit with each character to figure out which play-style you’re going to want to go with since each class has their own specific set of abilities and traps. For example the mage can build skeletal arms that fire magical bolts at your enemies while the knight can build traps such as spike barricades. You can even tweak the colors of the class you select and even change the tint of your crystal. It’s nothing amazing, but it was nice of them to include it.

As you’d expect in an RPG game there’s tons of loot to, well… loot. You’ll find pieces of armor or weapons in chests scattered around the stages that respawn with new items after each wave. Items can either be instantly equipped or sent to your item chest if you want a better look at it (or to sell). The game offers a very simple pop-up on items with a green thumbs up signifying an improvement over your currently equipped gear and a red thumbs down if you shouldn’t bother with it. Once a wave is cleared (or when you head to your tavern) you can view your item chest to check up on anything you sent there. You can sell it for mana which is used to upgrade your gear and buying items in the shop (it’s also used to construct your traps during matches). One disappointing thing about the gear is that while the weapons you equip all look pretty cool, the armor you equip will never change the look of your character. It’s a bit disheartening when you spend the time to upgrade a set of armor and you end up with no visual pleasure to accompany it.

Each match starts you out in the ‘build’ phase. It’s here where you’ll have the time to study the map to learn where the chests are, the best choke points, where the enemies are going to coming from, and all the paths they can take to your crystal. The game helpfully places a magical line that shows you all the potential paths that an enemy will traverse. Once you finish a wave you’ll be thrown back into the build phase where you can open up any chests you forgot about, build new traps, repair any damaged ones, and the mana from killed enemies won’t disappear so there’s no reason to rush. The next wave will commence when you’re ready and activate it on your crystal. Another thing to mention is that you don’t lose anything you gained if you fail a level. Any gear you picked up or levels gained will stay even if you die which is nice.

One thing I particularly like about the game is that it will show you what enemies will come out of each door and how many of them there will be. A door could only hold 2 trolls while the other could have half a dozen goblins with a handful of dark elf arches. There are just over half a dozen different enemies with a few bosses thrown in the mix every so often. These enemies will vary from flying wyverns, evil wizards, goblins, and a few other typical fantasy monsters. Every so often you’ll see a few elemental enemies in the mix. These guys will have status effects such as fire damage which makes them top priorities to take down.

The Final Word
If you like the thought of a tower defense game thrown into a blender with some RPG elements and hack/slash gameplay then Dungeon Defenders should be exactly what you’re looking for. It also has a pretty damn charming art style.

- MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair

TNT Racers ‘tracks & tricks’ subtitle seems a bit misleading once you play the game. I came in expecting a kart game mixed in with some race tracks and tricks to pull off in these tracks. All I got were race tracks with the occasional ramp to do a small jump off of. I don’t mean to start off in such a negative light, but I just thought that was worth noting to anyone considering to 2 friends I brought over to play it thought it was going to be a Joe Danger-ish kart racer when they saw it. TNT Racers is actually a pretty solid (albeit simple and content lacking) kart racer that hits most things you’d expect in the genre in the right ways.

When you start up the game you’ll be given a tournament mode (regular campaign mode), a time trial mode, and a custom race that lets you tweak a few options to customize a race to your preference. The tournament mode has around a dozen races separated into normal, fast, and turbo difficulties. I did like how each race tries to change up the variety, but most of them are just ‘get the most amount of points in the time limit/lap limit’. You’ll encounter your basic time trial challenges where you need to complete a certain amount of laps before time runs out, a variety of score challenges, knock-out mode, and special unique races. The score challenges task you with reaching the point requirement before your opponents and this is done by collecting coins scattered around the track, doing jumps, hitting a turbo when the race starts, or blowing up your opposition. In knock-outs you have to reach a kill quota by either blowing up the other racers or if they fall behind. I don’t particularly like how all the racers have to stick together and if you fall behind you’re instantly killed. I suppose it works for this game, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The unique challenges throw in objectives like smashing 60 cacti or completing a certain amount of laps in a track full of landmines. They’re nothing amazing, but they do keep things a bit fresh.

A neat thing about the races is that if you’re killed and the other racers are still around you become a ‘shadow’ racer. You can’t be hurt (unless you fall off the track) or targeted by the opponent and you get a special set of power-ups available only to shadow racers. Your job is to fuck with the remaining racers as much as possible and mess with them before they can score anymore points. This way everyone can continue to participate in the race which keeps the pace up. It’s a pretty cool feature that I hope future kart racers take note of.

As any kart racer, you’ll find a slew of wacky weapons to use as you fight for first place. There are whirlwinds that send racers flying into the air, giant hammers, missiles, shields, smoke machines to blind the screen, oil to spill, an over sized gun, anvils you can attach with a plunger to slow down other cars, and a few others. These all work fairly well and it’s nice how you can drop a weapon if you don’t want it. You’ll find close to a dozen different cars you can use and change the color of. The ones you have to work for to unlock are pretty neat like the UFO kart, but there’s nothing much else to mention about them since they all handle the same. There are also 9 tracks that are also reversible, so 18 total tracks. They come in your basic desert, forest, arctic, and mountainous stages with each environment getting 2 or 3 areas. They’re nothing special but the tracks that take place in the same environment are different enough to excuse using the same setting. The game sports local and online multiplayer, but I’ve been checking multiple times each day since release and haven’t been able to get into an online match with more than a single person. This doesn’t really bode well for the long-term online ‘community’ if I can only find a single person to play with in the first week of release.

The graphics (as you can see) aren’t exactly top notch, but the game has an endearing style that fits together well enough. The music has a nice ‘pop’ to it that adds to TNT Racer’s lighthearted tone. I will mention that the over-the-top view of the action is a bit disorienting since it’s a bit too close to the cars. This makes it hard to drive on a track that you’re not used to and you’ll have to rely on where the AI seems to be turning or the camera turning to realize which way you’re supposed to turn. It really would’ve helped if they put in a camera that’s maybe a bit higher up or angled in a way so you could see what was coming in front of you.

The Final Word
TNT Racers really feels like Keen Games are reaching into your pocket and snatching $5 more than it should be worth. Only a few days after release and there is NOBODY online which makes me think barely anyone cared enough to either buy the game or waste their time playing online. It’s really a shame since the game is solid. It’s got your basic kart racing mechanics in it, there are a half dozen decent stages, the weapons are fun to use, and it controls well enough. The issue here is that I can’t really recommend buying this at $10 since the content the game offers doesn’t reach something you’d expect to spend $10 on. I could definitely see this game doing much better at a lower ($5) price range. If you dig kart racing games (there’s a demo by the way) and don’t mind dropping the extra dosh go for it, but if you don’t then I’d turn the other way from this title.

- MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average

Skyrim is a slow game. It rewards curiosity and exploration with valuable enchanted weapons/armor or with a quest that will have you starting out in a drinking game at the local inn, then waking up halfway across Skyrim and having to retrace your steps in similar fashion to the movie The Hangover. Players who simply speed though the main story and call it a day simply aren’t getting the full enjoyment you’re supposed to out of an Elder Scrolls game. When I noticed I had clocked in 35 hours into the game in just 3 or 4 days I had realized that I hadn’t even finished a quarter of the main story quests (I had done maybe 3 out of the 15+ quests that make up the main story). Each time you tell yourself that you’re going to do a certain quest or finish that dungeon you forgot to clear, there will always be something miniscule to distract you that might range from a dragon fight to simply noticing something in the distance and wanting to see what it is. Hell, there are even things you won’t even find in your playthrough until a friend mentions it to you. My friend has double the playtime I do right now (he’s pushing just over 100 hours) and I consider him a bigger expert on the game than I since having more playtime surely means he has to have seen most of everything that I haven’t. It took me to mention how to reach Blackreach, a Dwemer ruin/city, to him for me to realize that even he (with his double playtime) missed out on a massive quest and one of the most gorgeous dungeons I’ve ever had to pleasure of killing stuff in. Although I suppose nothing gets better than entering a town, witnessing one of the many random dragon encounters and joining the city guard in showing it that it shouldn’t fuck with regular folk.

Skyrim opens up in traditional Elder Scrolls fashion with you as a prisoner solemnly waiting for your turn on the executioners axe. Conveniently, a dragon shows up to ruin the party. After a short ‘tutorial’ on the controls you’re basically thrown out into Skyrim, Fallout 3 style. I didn’t really feel awe when I was thrown into the wasteland like some of my friends were in Fallout 3, but when I took my first steps into Skyrim all I could think about was how gorgeous the landscape looked. After finding your way to the first town you’ll soon find out you’re a Dragonborn, a human with the soul of a dragon. You’re special because not only can you absorb the souls of dragons you kill, but you can also learn their language in the form of shouts. Shouts give you various effects such as weakening enemies, turning you invincible, freezing enemies, breathing fire, summoning thunderstorms, or even calling your own dragon to help you out. Each shout has 3 words that make up the full shout and you use the souls of dragons you kill to unlock each word. Bethesda decided that since Skyrim is a pretty big place they’ll just leave all 20 shouts (60 separate words to actually find) scattered around the world on “Word Walls”. If you happen to come across one of these word walls you’ll be able to instantly acquire that word and keep it if you can either kill the dragon guarding it or run away (note: you just get the word, you still need to unlock it with a soul). Once you gain the second or third word in a shout you can hold down the button on the controller/keyboard to do a more powerful shout. A quick tap simply does the first word, hold that sucker down and you’ll let off a fearsome bellow with the rest of the words. I recommend finishing the main quest up until you need to acquire a horn for the mountain men since that gets you the fully unlocked ‘Fus Ro Dah’ shout from the original Skyrim trailer. The first two words simply stun enemies, but that third word will send them flying. You having troll problems? Fus Ro Dah his ass off a mountain. Got a giant problem? Lead him up a mountain and Fus Ro Dah his ass off. Got a pile of cheese wheels in your house that are too neatly stacked? Fus Ro Dah that cheese all over your room. Even though Skyrim is a bit smaller than Oblivion (map), the game just feels larger. While Oblivion had dull quests with a few spotlights, copy/pasted dungeons, and dull NPC’s Skyrim throws you into a world ravaged by dragons, a civil war is dividing families, you’ll help the Dark Brotherhood rise back up to glory, the thieves guild actually feels like a thieves guild, and you’ll help a guild of werewolves fight against their longtime enemy.

Now of course there’s some combat to be done in this game so let’s get into that. If you played Oblivion you know what to expect with the melee combat in Skyrim and the magic system. Things feel a little more refined though, but it’s ultimately the same hack/slash system as before. The biggest addition is being able to dual wield two different weapons (unfortunately not two shields), which means you can roll with two axes, a shield+mace, two spells, or a spell in one hand and a sword in the other. You can mix up whatever you want (even staffs) besides the 2 handed weapons of course. Spells have a fantastic Bioshock look to your hands by having a unique effect for most spells appear in your hand while you’re just standing around. The spells have also gotten an upgrade in effect when you use them from Oblivion and are much more exciting to use this time around. There’s even a skill you can later gain that allows you to perform a more powerful version of a spell if you dual wield the same one and cast them together. You don’t know how awesome it felt to walk into a room full of enemies with the Mace of Molag Bal in one hand and an upgraded flamethrower spell in the other. It was like a symphony of violence. You can also randomly pull off brutal kill animations similar to the slow-motion kills of Fallout. There are two or three different animations for each weapon type, more if you add in the decapitation skill so you shouldn’t get tired of seeing them anytime soon. Exploring for a while can get you pretty annoyed with wolves after a while, so when you watch your character pick up a wolf by the neck them crush its skull with your mace it leaves a big smile your face. You’ll notice that you do have less armor pieces that you’re able to equip, but that change is pretty hit-or-miss with Elder Scrolls fans (personally, I don’t mind it). You’ll come across your basic hide, iron, or steel gear and then enter manhood when you deck your character out in ebony or dwarven gear. All the weapons and armor pieces are beautifully modeled and it’ll make people such as myself want to view them all (and by view them all I mean leave them in a pile in my cheese pile room).

People might have thrown a little hissy fit when Bethesda revealed the removal of attributes, birth-signs, and major/minor skills but you’ve got to trust me when I say they didn’t really remove them. Birth-signs have been replaced with the guardian stones that are found around Skyrim and each one gives a blessing similar to how the birth-signs behaved. The difference here is that you can change what stone you want whenever you want. Bethesda has taken their perk system from Fallout and implemented into the skills. Instead of selecting your major skills and those half dozen skills being the ones that level you up, all skills equally level you. You’ll notice you level faster this time around than in previous games since every skill you use is contributing to your level. With each level you’ll be able to pick whether you want to increase your magic, health, or stamina and given one perk. These perks are then spent on skills within each skill tree like increased 1-handed damage (in the 1h skill tree) or improved sneaking. The removal of attributes does feel like a kick in the RPG balls, but instead of putting points into strength you’re spending perks on skills in the 1h or 2h weapon tree to improve your damage. Bethesda has removed the attributes screen and blended it into the skills without it feeling weird. The game caps your level at 50, but all that affects is that you won’t gain anymore perks for any levels you gain past that. You’re still free to keep leveling your skills after you hit 50. The other fantastic thing is that you aren’t forced to spend your perk the moment you level. You can just horde a couple points if you can’t decide what you want to spend them on and them cash them into skills whenever you feel like it. It does feel a bit disappointing that I can’t make an overpowered character like I did in Oblivion, but this forces you to make choices about how you want to play this game like most RPG’s do. You’ll also be able to find skill books like in Fallout that raise your skills up a level once read.

Some of the newer minor additions to the game are companions that can follow you around. Don’t expect these characters to be brimming with personality like Fallout’s companions, but it is nice that you don’t have to trek through those dark dungeons alone. Marriage is a new addition and you can have your husband/wife cook you food, give you items, or even set them up with a job so they can bring in some extra gold. There’s more of a feeling of being a part of the world with the addition of jobs as well. You can help cut wood, mine, or mill which can help put a little weight in that gold purse of yours. One small thing added to the quest journal is the separation of small quests with the bigger ones. Smaller quests that can be done in half an hour are grouped into the miscellaneous folder which really helps keep your already large quest list a bit smaller. The UI is also really slick and quick/easy to navigate which is a welcome addition. Houses now have usable weapon racks and mannequins for your armor so you can proudly display your hard earned loot without having to sit there for an hour fighting with the shoddy ‘pick up’ button trying to put your items on display like in previous games. I’d say my favorite house addition are the bookshelves that can be ‘activated’ which opens up your inventory and you can select what books to place on the shelf. The best part is that you can still read the book while they’re on the shelf without putting it into your inventory or messing anything up. I’m sure I’m not alone when I used to spend ages sitting there trying to neatly put books on shelves.

Skyrim of course isn’t late to Bethesda’s bug party, but bugs in a Bethesda game is pretty much expected. I had my game freeze twice on me, once in Helgen during the tutorial when you have to jump on the inn roof and right before the end of the tutorial when you exit the cave into Skyrim. Ever since then in my 50+ hours I haven’t encountered a single problem which I’m going to thank the gaming gods for. I suppose this is a blessing I’ve been given after the punishment I supposedly deserved when I played Fallout 3 and had constant freezes, framerate drops, or losing save files. There is a pretty big bug going around on the Playstation 3 version when your save file gets over 6MB. Players are saying their games have become unplayable with severe framerate drops and not being able to turn in quests. My file is getting close to 8MB and haven’t had any sort of issue yet, but I felt it was necessary to mention this. Hopefully Bethesda fixes this instead of ignoring it like a certain vampire quest glitch in Oblivion.

Everything in Skyrim has gotten an obvious bump in quality from Fallout 3 and Oblivion. Characters actually have some detail to them, proportions are correct, you can actually make a pretty good looking character, and even though most textures are all flat you barely notice it when the game is in motion. I know many people will still criticize the game for looking a bit dated, but considering the massive world Bethesda has created I’m pretty impressed with how it all looks. The biggest improvement is obviously in the armor and weapon detail. They’ve added a zoom option in the menu so you can rotate/zoom into whatever piece of armor or weapon you want. It doesn’t stop there though, since you can now look at the dozens of different food, ingredients, miscellaneous objects, or even read books. I can’t imagine the sleepless nights fun the art team had doing all this.

I’ve always considered The Elder Scrolls series to have a great soundtrack, but Skyrim’s thundering music is probably my favorite of the series. The feeling you get when you walk into a town to pick up something from the blacksmith, hear the roar of a dragon and the panic of the villagers, then pull out your mace (any other weapon is for babies, except maybe warhammers) as the dragon fighting music starts playing is one I’ll never get tired of. Bethesda did bump up the quality of their voice actors by hiring more than triple the amount they had in Oblivion (pretty sure they had less than 20 guys doing voices in Oblivion). Everything feels more natural and stopping by to listen to the NPC chatter actually feels like chatter you’d hear in real life, unlike the forced dialog Oblivion suffered from.

The Final Word
Is Skyrim a perfect game? Far from it, but it is one hell of an excellent entry into a franchise and easily one of the best games put out this generation. This is something that will keep you itching to finish one more quest or clear that last dungeon to score some fat loot that no game out this quarter will be able to satisfy. I’m a huge Batman nerd/fanboy, and since I got my PS3 fixed I haven’t been able to actually sit down and finish Arkham City because I’ve got a case of the Skyrim fever. Just go buy this game. Or go steal it, but if the police ask why you did it tell them Will sent you you didn’t get any ideas from me.

- MonsterVine Rating: 5 out of 5 – Excellent

There has been a lot of loud trumpeting about the superiority of FPS’ this year and it’s easy to see why with so many hitting shelves this holiday season. Battlefield 3 is Electronic Arts’ golden boy entry into the fray who has had much resting on its shoulders. With the addition of single-player and coop campaigns as well as a brand new engine, Frostbyte 2, DICE and EA look to champion the market this holiday season. Does the latest iteration of the Battlefield franchise have what it takes to beat out the best? Or are there crosshairs already focused on this latest FPS?

Battlefield 3 splits itself into three separate experiences, the single player campaign, the coop campaign and the much-touted multiplayer. The single player seats you behind marine Sgt. Blackburn as he’s interrogated for information regarding a possible terrorist threat in New York. Utilizing a series of flashbacks, you play mainly through the eyes of Blackburn but also out of several other varying perspectives. It’s nothing original these days but it does have a lot of parts that are truly engaging, especially when you play in the heat of battle or drive a tank. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the campaign ends before you know it, especially when it feels like things are just picking up momentum.

More importantly, the short campaign ends up feeling more like a glorified tech demo which, while impressive, feels like it could have been so much more. I was disappointed that there were some moments that felt set up for awesomeness and then didn’t end up paying off, such as an early level where you enter the cockpit of a fighter jet but rather than pilot it you instead sit backseat and focus on firing off flares and shooting down other enemy fighters. In retrospect, it probably gives you more opportunity to view the world that DICE’s Frostbyte 2 engine created but that only adds to the tech demo feeling. Don’t get me wrong: Battlefield 3’s single player campaign is by no means bad but it feels if there was a bit more effort put into it along with a more unique story, it could have been something truly special.

The coop campaign takes select missions from or inspired by the single player mode and adapts them for two players. Missions can vary from defending a specific area to providing air support via helicopter to ground patrols. Overall, coop doesn’t feel forced and it’s nice if you have a friend you can play with but the experience is little more than just that: campaign with a friend. While the coop mode also boasts multiplayer weapon unlocks, it takes a substantial amount of points to do so – so dedication is a must.

Finally we get to the multiplayer which, as far as anyone else is concerned, is the real meat of the game — as it throws no punches. Even on consoles, while maps and player limits have been down-sized, maps feel spacious and combat feels delightfully strategic while retaining the fast-paced action. Maps support up to 12 on 12 with five game modes available at launch: Conquest, Rush, Squad Rush, Squad Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. Conquest acts as a variant of Capture the Flag, whereby teams each have a number of lives and you capture flags to set spawn points across the map. Squad and regular versions of Battlefield’s signature Rush mode sees one team playing the offensive while the other is on defense. Those on the offensive try to capture strategic locations that open up more of the map eventually leading in the capture of the enemy team’s HQ. Squad and Team Deathmatch remain self-explanatory.

Multiplayer loadouts are grouped into four classes: the Assault, the Support, the Engineer and the Recon. The Assault class is now a hybrid of the Assault and Medic classes from Battlefield: Bad Company 2, given a position of killing power but also the ability to deploy medkits and defibrillate dead players back to life. The Support class starts with machine guns, can give out ammo, and is the most effective at a new mechanic called ‘suppressive fire’, which blurs enemy vision and stops their health regeneration when firing in their general direction, even if you don’t hit them. The Engineer class remains largely unchanged from Bad Company 2, can repair vehicles and also take them out with a variety of explosive weaponry. Finally, the Recon class returns as the sniper of the group but now requires players to hold their breath with a click of the thumbstick in order to achieve optimum accuracy.

Each class gains experience as you use them, catering more to players that stick to their style, however your overall rank accumulates with XP you gain from all the classes cumulatively. Individually, as you can imagine, leveling up a specific class gives you access to their specific gadgets like the defibrillator for the Assault class and also gives you access to more of your factions weapons. This allows you to experiment a bit with your styles of play and the weapons you prefer. This meta-system of ranking has become commonplace in multiplayer games but DICE does it well here, rewarding XP for many of the actions you do, like offering suppressing fire or healing teammates. While the top players will still level up fast, this at least means that newer players to the series will still be able to level up at decent pace.

When it comes to presentation, Battlefield 3 is no pushover as the graphics are spot on, bringing a lush variety of colour and light to the warzone that really helps set the atmosphere. I can tell you that even on the console editions, the game looks gorgeous. While it’s easy to see that our modern consoles are showing their age (can I get a bit of anti-aliasing please?), there is something to be said about the way light shines through windows or the resulting smoke and dust from leveling a building. It’s impressive to see a breath of fresh air coming from these machines. Character animations are realistic and detailed during multiplayer and rarely glitch as much as they did in DICE’s beta. Guns each sound and feel unique and the voice work does a good job of selling you the campaign. It begs mentioning how cool the user interface looks, with its glowing blue HUD wrapped around your screen – nothing new, but definitely sleek. All and all, presentation is great here aside from a few texture pop-in hiccups every so often.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

It feels like it’s been a long time coming but Battlefield 3 is finally here. Months of previews detailing the game’s new shiny visuals and multiplayer have not disappointed those who awaited it. DICE’s offering to the FPS market this season is a solid game with fast-paced yet strategic combat and wide-open 12 on 12 player combat. Multiplayer is fun and rewarding with a deep upgrade system that tries to remain accessible to everyone. It is unfortunate that the game stumbles a bit on it’s single-player but there are truly some good moments to be had, and it’s a great way to get a taste of the online action. Be it on console or PC, this is one fight you won’t wanna miss.

MonsterVine Ranking: 4 out of 5

I’m not a huge fan of movie tie-in games or games based off an existing character since they’re usually terrible, or in Superman 64′s case it’s so terrible you’d rather participate in a village stoning of a child than play it. The Batman games have always had a ‘meh’ feel to them, which is better than terrible, but there was never that game that truly made you feel like the Batman until Rocksteady came with Arkham Asylum. You can understand most people’s doubts when we heard Rocksteady was making a Batman game, it went something like “Who? The guys who made that mediocre game Urban Chaos: Riot Response? What the hell is Urban Chaos: Roll Call?”. You can probably understand our surprise when Arkham Asylum turned out to be the best Batman game ever made and it went something like “HELL YEA I LOVE ROCKSTEADY, BUT I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT URBAN CHAOS: ZERO TOLERANCE IS!”. Now they’ve pumped out Arkham City after 2 years and it’s fantastic.

I’m not going to spoil the game, but Quincy Sharp from Arkham Asylum has become mayor of Gotham and has decided to close off a section of the city and turn it into a big fun-house for all the criminals in Arkham. Batman deduces that something is awry (it always is) and finds a way to get into the prison which is where you start out the game. It’s at this point that you have free reigns to travel around the small city full of goons to beat up. I’d compare the size of the map to the Bohan district of Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto (it’s that small island north). Now Arkham City isn’t exactly as ‘open world’ as I was expecting it to be, but I suppose that’s more to blame on myself for hyping myself up. I imagined Batman in a San Andreas style city, but instead of fighting bustas with my homies I got an open world that’s more metroidvania, kinda like Zelda or Darksiders. You have the whole of Arkham City to explore, but there isn’t much to it besides the side missions and Riddler trophies to scavenge, while you’ll enter buildings that is where most of the main story missions will take place. If anything I’d go as far to say that if you ignore the outside stuff it feels like Arkham Asylum, just with a much bigger outside area with more stuff to do. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, AA is one of my favorite games (with AC replacing it), but don’t go in expecting a sandbox experience.

Players of Arkham Asylum will feel right at home with the controls not only being untouched, but refined to give more satisfaction to the combat. Everything moves even smoother than before with Batman performing brutal counters and fluidly evading enemies. All the gadgets have also been fine tuned to work better in combat with new techniques such as laying down quick bombs or using the batclaw to quickly disarm a gun-wielding goon. With the inclusion of double takedowns you do have to be a bit more tactical as you decide whether to continue hitting on a guy, go ahead with the counter, wait instead for a double counter, or evade the fight entirely. Rocksteady gave us double the options to use in combat from AA, and they somehow got it all to fit perfectly without feeling overcomplicated or cumbersome. Now you have two ways of moving around the city. You could be boring and use the grapple hook and jump between buildings, or your could be the goddamn Batman and fucking glide everywhere. Firing your grappling hook on any location and letting go will prompt Batman to open up his cape and perform a glide. You can basically keep going as far as you want since your speed is determined by diving then arcing right back up. The controls did feel a bit awkward at first, but after a bit of playing around you’ll be on the ground, grappling to buildings, and launching yourself into the air with a finesse even Batman would be mildly impressed at (but he’d never say it). You can also do an amazing dive attack on unsuspecting enemies while you’re in the air which is great for slamming yourself right in the middle of a group and disorienting them all.

Once you finish the game you have the option of continuing to play around Arkham City to finish up any side missions or Riddler trophies, but you can also start up New Game+. One of the developers said it best in an interview when he said NG+ forces you to become the Batman because the difficulty is ramped up this time. Enemies will behave more intelligently, the groups you encounter will be different than your first run in the game with more variety in the encounters, and most importantly your precious counter indicators are gone which means you’ll have to read enemy movements the old fashioned way. Sure, you could argue that I could just play hard mode if I wanted that stuff, but fuck you I don’t want to die in a couple hits like a bitch. I like enjoying my games on normal before I go to Broken Controller difficulty. NG+ also brings over all of your gadgets/upgrades, Riddler progress, and is kept on it’s own save file in case you wanted to keep a pre-NG+ save which is nice since I actually did want that.

There are around a dozen or so gadgets with a few extra upgrades to existing and new ones. Thankfully you start with your gadgets from Arkham Asylum so there’s a nice balance of variety when you get the new toys and some freshness when your old ones get some nice upgrades. The new gadgets might not be great for offensive combat, but they’re a godsend for playing tactically. The disruptor can basically deactivate guns causing thugs to humorously express shock when their guns aren’t working, the smoke bomb is great for sneaking away or pulling off some quick silent takedowns, and the freeze bomb is great for freezing some thugs allowing you to focus on bigger threats. An upgrade your trusty batarang gets later in the story is absolutely phenomenal though; it’s the reverse batarang and when you toss it at an enemy it will tap them behind their head instead of on the face. This helped so much (especially during some challenge rooms) since because it hit them on the back of their head they think it came from that direction and will walk off inspecting in that area. It really helps with moving a guy away from a place he’s guarding or just to get him to turn around to perform a silent takedown.

Challenge Rooms return as Riddler’s Revenge with 24 stages. 6 for combat rooms, another 6 for stealth rooms, and then both rooms get another 6 of the same maps in a higher difficulty (extreme). These are basically the same as the ones in Arkham Asylum with you trying to reach a certain score (combat rooms) or fulfill the three objectives (stealth rooms) to gain bronze, silver, or gold trophies. The neat thing is that you can play as Catwoman, Nightwing, and soon Robin with their own move-sets and unique gadgets. You can also equip the different skins such as The Dark Knight skin on Batman or some skins Catwoman, Nightwing, and Robin have.

The graphics didn’t seem to get much of a bump from Arkham Asylum, but that’s not to say they’re terrible to look at. Arkham City might be on the Unreal Engine, but it’s one of the few games on that engine that actually has a fantastic art style to differentiate itself from others on the engine. From the gloomy streets of Arkham City to the diversity of each villain’s hideout, there’s tons of eye-candy to view in this game with a haunting soundtrack to accompany you.

The Final Word
Batman: Arkham City pulled an Assassin’s Creed 2 in that it took the formula of the previous game and pumped it full of steroids. If you enjoyed Arkham Asylum you’re going to love AC and if you still haven’t played AA then this would be a suitable place to jump in since the back-story is explained. With a sizable campaign, NG+, side-missions, Riddler trophies, Catwoman specific trophies, and challenge rooms AC is looking to get quite a bit of playtime out of you. I should note that I didn’t get to play the Catwoman content due to my PS3 being broken and having to play the game at a friend’s house.

- MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great

It’s 1 in the morning and I’m firmly settled in front of my television, hands tight around the controller. On screen, I’m circling a heavily armored knight that’s wielding to be an enormous dragon tooth. The air is still as I wait for an opening. The knight pulls out his shield – I flinch and roll out of the way of… nothing. I’m back on my feet but it’s too late to roll again as the massive tooth knocks me flat. I let out a gasp as my avatar’s body fades into sparkles and dust — the knight only had a sliver of life left.

Rejuvenated at a nearby bonfire, I arm myself with the new knowledge of my mistakes and journey on once more to hopefully conquer this powerful foe.

This was more than a rare occurrence. Many times during my play-through of Dark Souls was I so captivated by the game’s combat and thirst for victory that I fell into the trap of “Just one more Try”. Perhaps I could be described as a glutton for punishment, but just like its predecessor, Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls will torture you mercilessly and then reward you just enough to make you come back for more.

You are Undead and find yourself locked away in an asylum to await the end of your days. In Dark Souls the Undead do not lose their minds immediately after death – instead the process is called Hollowing, in which they slowly degrade to become the mind-numbing creatures we all know and love. What eventually follows is your escape from the asylum and a journey to break the curse of the Undead to prevent the loss of your own sanity. The game’s tale is less about providing you a clear story and more about creating a world where NPCs are just going about their own business, however cryptic it may be.

I’ll be totally honest: I did not complete Dark Souls but I feel like I’ve waged enough battles and explored enough caverns to be confident in this review. This game is huge, spanning anywhere from 60 – 100 hours on a single play-through, with New Game+ for re-playability.

As much as Dark Souls isn’t meant to be a sequel to Demon’s Souls, many of the systems introduced previously, like combat, upgrading and coop, remain mostly the same. So does the premise: fight through hordes of undead and demons to get to the boss, defeat him and gain souls (the game’s currency) along the way to buy equipment and level up. If you die, you leave your souls where you died and start from your last spawn point with all the enemies respawned. Only if you manage to reach your body again can you get your souls back. For more coverage of these systems, check out our Demon’s Souls review as I will be mostly focusing on the new ideas brought forth from Dark Souls.

The first is the bonfire system: bonfires litter Dark Souls’ sprawling world of Lordran, acting as checkpoints for would-be adventurers who light them. Instead of worlds that are segmented into several pieces, Dark Souls offers you an entire seamless environment without loading screens. Instead of a central hub that you return to, bonfires act as your respawn points, refilling your health and health potions, allowing you to spend your collected souls on levels and even allowing you to repair and upgrade your equipment once unlocked. Be wary though, for if you sit down at a bonfire all of the foes you vanquished (excluding bosses and mini-bosses) will pop back into existence. In this way, using a bonfire becomes a strategic decision: do I rest here in case I die or do I try to push a little further?

Another consequence of this system and the game’s large world is that there are no limits on where you can go. Instead, areas have varying degrees of difficulty that try to shape your path. Never does the game explicitly say ‘no’, however, and those of higher skill will enjoy the freedom to go where they please, even at lower levels. For the inexperienced or for the stubborn, this could potentially prove frustrating at times—in fact, one of the first areas of the game consists of two separate paths: one which is intended route to foes appropriate for your level and another that leads to graveyard full of skeletons that will gut you mercilessly. Dark Souls never closes paths for the player as there is generally always another route should the current one be too difficult.

The second new system is the Humanity system. Gone is the need to bring yourself back to human form by defeating a boss and there are now items called ‘Humanity’ that can be found, bought or won from assisting others in coop play. Humanity has a variety of uses, the foremost being the ability to turn you back to a human. Spending one at a bonfire will see you regain your living form, at which you can spend another Humanity to kindle the bonfire, giving you more health potions to take with you on your perilous journey. Finding and keeping your Humanity is heavily encouraged as the more Humanity you have, the higher your item drop-rate becomes. It’s a system that works well and encourages you to play more as a human character but also provides another item for you to lose, for if you die you leave your Humanity with your souls at your bloodstain.

Dark Souls’ online environment has also seen some changes under the hood, compared to its predecessor, one of the most notable being the use of Peer-to-Peer servers. Rather than the world servers that were formerly hosted (with the looming threat of shutting down constantly overhead), coop players and invaders alike use the host’s console as a support server for online play. The benefits of this are a system that players won’t need to worry about shutting down but unfortunately this P2P system can also make it very hard to find other players at times and even affect world latency, as it is all dependent on the host’s internet connection. While Dark Souls’ unique coop system of summoning players and using summon signs remains a focal point for the series, it’s quite discouraging when it seems like you can never find anyone to play with.

You’re going to want to find all the coop partners you can, as Dark Souls brings back its trademark difficulty which the developers claim is even more difficult that Demon’s Souls. Based on my experiences, it seemed more or less the same but I can understand some areas that could be comparatively more difficult for newer players. Barely any information is given to the player other than the controls and at times there is little leeway for mistakes. It’s a game that relies on trial and error but it can be upsetting that you can potentially make your game much harder with a simple mistake you didn’t know you were making. That being said, From Software has done a great job at making sure you can still complete the game even should you decide to mis-use items or randomly kill NPCs. It just becomes a great deal harder.

Also back is the extremely tight and well-designed combat which, side by side with the hard difficulty of the game, makes every encounter thrilling. Combat remains fun and exciting and changes up as you use different weaponry, each with their own attack styles and animations. More weapons have been thrown into the mix this time, such as whips that are effective against armor-less enemies. Virtually every weapon and armor piece you collect can also be upgraded at blacksmiths using a material called Titanite. With enough upgrades (and the right materials), you can eventually give your weapons varying properties, such as the powerful lightning enchantment. In short, this is Demon’s Souls combat in all its glory.

Lordron is a grim place to be in Dark Souls, as demons and the hollowed undead lurk around almost every corner. Along with the dark overtones of this fantasy the design put into this world is absolutely gorgeous, featuring a haunting palette and texture. The attention to detail is amazing, from all the little nooks in the armor sets to the feathers on a giant crow. Boss design in particular is both unique and a sight to behold when you first encounter one, thinking to yourself: “What have I gotten myself into this time?” There are some areas in the game that force you to wander in the dark can be potentially frightening to some, considering the enemies that lurk in the depths. The atmosphere in this game is truly absorbing.

There were some unfortunate niggling issues that seemed to show the game’s engine was creaking under its own weight. A few areas caused the framerate to slow to a crawl and while not completely detrimental to the experience, it may throw more than a few people off while they’re engaged in combat. One other thing I noticed was sometimes there would be a control delay between the time I hit a shoulder button to swing my sword and the time the animation played. This issue was much more severe but fortunately only happened rarely and never got me killed. It’s unfortunate that these flaws are so glaring because of how well the rest of the game plays.

Too Long; Didn’t Read
Dark Souls, like its predecessor is a viciously addicting game that will literally have your heart beating as you narrowly escape death time and time again. Even in the times that you don’t, your death will provide you with knowledge you never had before. Bosses and enemies alike are varied, extremely well designed and terribly difficult. Yet despite everything, rarely does Dark Souls ever feel unfair – if you pay attention to your surroundings, learn how to use the environment and the game’s huge variety of equipment you will eventually prosper. This is key because while it may take you several attempts, the payoff is so sweet in the end. Ultimately, Dark Souls gives you an amazing sense of satisfaction each time you accomplish something. While there are few story elements, the game commits to fleshing out a bleak world inhabited by demons and the undead while letting you weave your own tale. If you’re not afraid of learning and are looking for one of the best action RPGs of his season, Dark Souls awaits you.

Monstervine Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Ace Combat is a game about jets; you fly jets and blow up other jets. Let’s forget the intro and just jump straight into the review. The fake countries in a near future setting from the previous Ace Combat games have been replaced by a current day setting with the plot written by New York Times bestselling author, Jim DeFelice. I heard he’s a great writer so I’ll just take their word for it, but the story here isn’t anything new. You’ll mainly play as Colonel Bishop who’s your typical protagonist, but you’ll also get to play as a few other equally boring pilots in other vehicles. You start the story in Africa fighting off a rebel force when some Russian mercenaries decide to keep the status quo of being the villains. To keep things short (I’m just joking, this is the whole plot) they have bombs and are going to use them to blow people up. I suppose story takes second place to a game about jet combat, but I was under the impression that a capable author was writing this.

I was never a fan of the Ace Combat games because I couldn’t get into the controls, I preferred to watch my uncle play them instead. Project Aces decided they wanted more people to play their game and have added another control scheme called Optimal. With this setting on the planes control with a very arcade-like feel and everything just feels really smooth. The original controls are still there for Ace Combat veterans (labeled as Original) but the game has Optimal set as default. Everything else feels great and after a few minutes I felt like a pro piloting the jet in massive dogfights and pulling off aerial moves easily. You’ll also be able to select from a good amount of jets with different stats before each mission and what missile types you want.

The major difference to the series is the Dogfight Mode. When you get close enough to an enemy you’ll be able to tap both trigger buttons to initiate DFM where you’ll get an over-the-shoulder view of your jet while it goes into autopilot and follows your target. What you do now is control the targeting circle to shoot down the other guy with your machine gun or rockets in what basically becomes an on-rails moment. It’s cinematic and some moments will have your jet soaring in-between city buildings while everything is exploding around you which feels amazing. Some players will scoff at this ‘casualizing’ the gameplay a bit but there are still many things you have to be aware of while in DFM. You’ll need to be quick to stay in range of your target by making sharp turns or speeding up and the target can feel like the game is having a mini-seizure with it jittering all around the place. You’re also not safe since the guy you’re following can pull a fast one on you and slip behind you and activating DFM against you. Here you’ll have the option of just outrunning him or slowing down enough to let him pass you so you can continue fire on him. If you manage to be near another enemy when you kill somebody in DFM you’ll instantly start DFM against them which starts an assault chain. There’s also a bombing DFM moment where you’ll be put on a set path while you target ground structures such as tanks, missile turrets, towers, etc. These part always felt terrible since I could never tell what my missiles could target or not since I’d have something locked on yet the missile will fly off somewhere else. I found it much easier to just manually fly into the area and blast your machine gun since it’s got a wide-area affect. Kills during DFM feel satisfying with the game slowing down for a moment to show the jet exploding in oily parts and in some cases the pilot hilariously falling out. Oh and let’s not forget that the screen gets covered with the FPS traditional “BLOODY SCREEN” but this time it’s what I assume to be oil from the opposing jet. It makes no sense when this happens, but it does look cool.

Assault Horizon takes things a little differently from previous Ace Combat games in that at times you’ll pilot vehicles other than a jet. You’ll be able to get behind the gunner seat in a helicopter, pilot the chopper yourself, and get your Modern Warfare on in the AC130. It did feel like a nice change of pace from the jet levels and the missions themselves are enjoyable, especially the chopper gunner ones, but these were probably some of the most frustrating with hordes of enemies bum-rushing you in the AC130 mission with no clear objective or enemies popping up on the map magically. The helicopter missions were a little iffy too, but nothing frustrating while the chopper gunner missions were actually a blast to play besides the annoyance of being unable to dodge enemy rockets. You’ve basically got to be aware of where it’s coming from and shoot the rocket before it hits you. The only variety in these missions is that you get to pilot something other than a jet, but after a while in these missions I would start to miss soaring in the air and wishing for the mission to end so I could return to my jet.

Multiplayer is back with competitive and co-op modes. Co-op takes 8 missions from the campaign and reworks them for cooperative play for up to 3 players. The enemies here are much tougher due to the increase in human players and even have new enemies showing up. These missions have a bit of strategy put into them when you and your partners decide what jets you want to take into the battle. Maybe have one guy bring a jet focused on taking out ground forces while your allies keep the skies clear, or everyone can bring the same type of jet and fly together.

The competitive modes include Deathmatch, Domination, and Capital Conquest. Deathmatch is basically a 16 player free for all in a hectic battle as players vie for victory with the most kills. Domination puts you into teams competing for control over various bases around the map. Your team will gain points as time goes on for each base you have. Now Capital Conquest is the highlight of all the modes with players split into two teams with the task of destroying the other team’s capital before time runs out. You’ll be able to pilot a jet, attack chopper, or even a bomber to lay waste to the enemy capital.

The graphics are a bit of a disappointment to me since I came in expecting current gen graphics but got aliasing (jagged edges) all over the place and sub-par textures. The jets themselves look good (besides the edges) but the environments are such ass with flat textures or boring looking environments. The cities are fun to fly in, but most of the time those missions will tell you to go kill the bandits who are away from the city so you don’t spend a lot of time dog-fighting there. I also take back all the jokes I made about Gears of War/Modern Warfare being brown shooters because Assault Horizon has won the crown. Each level is either completely brown or white/blue to the point that if the developers told me the game took place in a playground sandbox I’d believe them. The soundtrack is full of orchestral tracks and rock riffs that fit amazingly well with the action, but feel a lot better during the chopper gunner segments, which are scripted of course, but scripted moments are always easier for developers to organize the soundtrack to it’s full potential.

The Final Word
I’m not sure if Ace Combat veterans will welcome the new changes, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a solid game with a sizable single-player and multiplayer despite suffering from the Call of Duty syndrome. The campaign does have some variety with the different vehicles, but those missions aren’t different enough with objectives still being “blow those guys up but now with different guns”. New players to the series who’ve been turned off before might want to take another shot with Assault Horizon if they’ve been curious about the series.

- MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average

I still remember the glorious year of tears when RE fans moaned and bitched about the action approach of RE4 (wonder how they felt about RE5) but RE4 managed to capture just as much of the same horror vibe as its predecessors with a new control scheme that worked fantastically. Well Capcom has finally decided to bring RE4 to the downloadable battlefield in what they say is an HD update (it’s not). Honestly, if you’re going to shell out the $20 (seriously Capcom?) for this it’s because you haven’t played it before, or you seriously loved RE4.

Resident Evil 4 follows the pun filled adventures of Leon Kennedy, one of the survivors of the Raccoon City incident which got him promoted from first day cop to bodyguard of the president’s daughter. He travels to most likely Spain a wonderful Hispanic village full of charming folks. Somebody in that place kidnapped the president’s daughter on your first day of your new job (Leon just doesn’t get a break) and he needs to rescue her before he gets fired. You’ll go from fighting regular farmers to sea monsters, weird worm/larva, a Gigante (giant), and learning why your friend told you to fear the Regenerator. RE4 really is one of those memorable games with fantastic pacing, great gameplay, and a brilliant cast of characters that you just can’t help but smirk when Leon pulls out his cheesy one-liners.

If you have been living under a rock haven’t played this game before then you’ll probably be quick on the controls if you played Resident Evil 5 or Dead Space since RE4 was the game that basically popularized that control scheme. I still think Dead Space perfected the controls of that tank control, but I had no problem sinking back into RE4 especially since it offers multiple control schemes if you don’t like one of them. You’ll still go from area to area shooting (or running) from the hordes of villagers and scavenging for ammo while you’re trying to decide whether the enemies endlessly respawn or if there are just a ton of them. Every so often you’ll come across one of the memorable boss battles and the environments vary from a peasant village, mountainside village, an ominous castle, and a couple more to keep things surprisingly fresh yet still creepy. You’ll occasionally find a puzzle that varies from insultingly easy or somewhat clever and there are tons of weapons you’ll be able to purchase from everyone’s favorite weapon dealer with upgrades to reload speed, strength, capacity, etc. Here’s a tip: Don’t buy the second shotgun you find or upgrade the starting one, you’ll quickly find the third (and I think final) shotgun quite quickly and it’s worth the wait. Also, the grenade launcher is shit, fuck your opinion.

This release contains all the extras from the previous versions which is of course expected, but Capcom could’ve been a dick and not included them. This means you’ll get the Assignment Ada where you play the game through her point of view while Leon was busy flipping his hair and coming up with puns. Mercenaries is of course back which has you play as Leon, Ada, HUNK, Wesker, or Krauser as you kill as many Ganados to hit that highscore before the timer ends. There’s also New Game+, new costumes to unlock, the bottlecap minigame, and an infinite rocket launcher to go through.

The “HD” part of this port seems a bit exaggerated. The game looks like it was just up-scaled into HD with no textures redone or anything. If Capcom had said they were just releasing RE4 just for shits and giggles, it’d be fine. The fact that they’re advertising this as an HD port seems like a slap to the face when you play the game and see just how ugly everything still looks. When I play an HD game, I expect it to look better than the original like the God of War or Sly Cooper collections. There are only a few parts where a friend mentioned “Well the character hands look a little smoother” to which I would reply with “Yea man, glad I spent $20 for smoother fingers”.

The Final Word
All in all if you haven’t played RE4 before or want to relive some nostalgia then this seems like a good buy, but $20 seems a bit much for a game that’s obviously not an HD update and has no gameplay updates either. Also, first I hear that MH3G isn’t coming to America and now you give the 360 version of RE4 a full 1000GS but the PS3 doesn’t get a platinum? That’s fucked up Capcom.

- MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good