The Walking Dead Review

Adventure games have been seeing a big return in the last few years.  With the rise of the downloadable market, many developers have saw a great opportunity to fund these games on their own as most publishers in this day and age will not fork out the money needed to make these games.   One of the developers at the forefront of this big adventure game renaissance has been Telltale Games.  This California-based studio has built a reputation among the game critics and hardcore gamers for creating quality episodic adventure games such as the Tales of Monkey Island and Back to the Future games.  While successful, Telltale never had the breakout success they were looking for.  That was until The Walking Dead, which has been their biggest commercial and critical success to date.  With The Walking Dead, Telltale takes adventure games in new ways by adding more interactivity during cut scenes and making every choice you made matter.

The Walking Dead is set in yet another zombie apocalypse, something that has become a tired trope in many forms of media by now.  What sets The Walking Dead apart from most other games set in a zombie apocalypse is the focus on the survivors.  While the zombies or walkers as they are known in The Walking Dead are the main threat, they are not the only threat.  The Walking Dead makes a point of showing how living people can be as or more dangerous than the dead walking amongst them.  You play as Lee Everett, a convicted murderer before the apocalypse, as you work together with a young girl named Clementine and a group of survivors in order to survive.  From Macon to Savannah, Lee and the group travel across Georgia to find a safe haven.  The journey is never easy as the group faces some incredibly tough and sorrowful decisions; decisions that reverberate throughout all the episodes of The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is an incredibly tense game.  From simple conversations to big gunfights, everything you do in the game feels important and effects the way people feel about you and interact with you.  It really makes you feel that Lee is an extension of yourself.  There are no black and white decisions in The Walking Dead, only shades of grey.  Each decision you make in conversations or at big set moments will always have some sort of consequence, sadly not all turn out for the best.  While the storytelling and decision-making are the stars of the show, Telltale also adds some great ways of immersing you into cut scenes and other set pieces.   From shooting down waves of walkers to mashing buttons to fight off enemies, you are always immersed in the game as it is the difference the life and death in The Walking Dead. 

While an incredible game, The Walking Dead is not perfect.  Like most Telltale adventure games, The Walking Dead suffers from the occasional lip syncing and slow down issue.  Nothing too serious, but it can get a little annoying after a while.  Another little nitpick with The Walking Dead is how simplistic the puzzles in the game are.  It does keep the game going at a great pace and keep gamers from getting frustrated with obtuse puzzles, but eliminates much of the challenge of The Walking Dead.  Much of the difficulty I personally had with The Walking Dead came when the cursor would stick and take forever to move.  This issue happened more times than I would have liked and really took me out of the game as I fought with the controls.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead is easily the benchmark for modern adventure games.  It can easily be enjoyed by fans of the series or people who could care less about the TV show and comic like yours truly.  The Walking Dead is an experience like no other in this medium.  You will laugh, cry, get scared, and be disgusted, shocked, surprised, intrigued and every emotion in between.  When everything is said and done, you will be amazed at how much you care about each and every character you meet and interact with in the game and contemplate on what could have been if you did things differently.  The Walking Dead is an excellent game that should be experienced by all gamers mature enough to play it.

Year in Review 2012: Game of the Year

When I thought of doing this set of Year in Review articles, I did not think it would have taken me this long to complete it all.  It seems work, school and life just gets in the way.  One great result from this set of articles taking so long has been that I have gotten back into the swing of things.  It has gotten to the point that I have deemed Sunday evenings as my time to sit back and just write.  So I am hoping posts will be much more frequent this school term.  Hopefully once a week, but things might change middle to late February when I start my annual Road to WrestleMania series of posts on my wrestling blog.

Some may have noticed that while I did list my Top Games of 2012 last week, there was no game specified as Game of the Year.  Was there no games in 2012 that were worthy enough to garner this prestigious award?  Did I just missed out on what could have easily been my favourite game of 2012?  If you have been following this blog for a while now, you know the answers to both of these questions, which is no.  Out of all the great games I have listed over the past few articles, there is one game that made 2012 for yours truly.  The one game that I booked the day off work to play when it launched, the one game that I could not stop talking about for the first few months of 2012, the one game that I dedicated an entire week of blog posts to.  My Game of the Year for 2012 is none other than Mass Effect 3.

In Mass Effect 3, your main goal is to amass an intergalactic army to take on the Reapers and take back Earth.  With the stakes set incredibly high, you take your Commander Shepard (either new or imported from the previous games) through easily the strongest story in the entire trilogy.  The story twists and turns as you make some of the toughest choices in the series.  Choices so immense that they can determine the fate of entire civilizations.  Mass Effect 3's story you make you think, reflect, laugh, cry, smile and hate.  It is very easy to get emotionally attached to these characters and thinking about all the possible outcomes of your one decision will circle in your head for days.  The entire Mass Effect trilogy has been an experience like no other in the video game industry.  Seeing my Shepard evolve and my decisions reverberate throughout the annals of these games has been spectacular.  Mass Effect 3 serves as an excellent finale to this grand trilogy of games.

No matter all the supposed controversy with the ending that many jaded gamers got so hung up (an ending that I had no problem with), Mass Effect 3 is the one game that I had the most fun with in 2012. Be it spending 30+ hours completing all the side and story missions, slaying waves of enemies in multi-player in order to boost my Galactic Readiness Rating or continuing the story through some of the DLC released later in the year, BioWare's finale to their epic space opera was the only game that captivated me this much.  In my opinion, Mass Effect is my favourite game of 2012 bar none.  Agree or disagree with me, I hope you all enjoyed these Year in Review articles and would like to hear your favourite games of 2012.

Year in Review 2012: The Games

While there were quite a few games that I did not get around to in 2012, there were plenty of games that yours truly got to spend some quality time playing.  Some games on this list I played to completion before the end of 2012, some I did not.  Those games on this list that I did not complete, I still got quite a ways through them.  Enough so that they deserve to be mentioned in my top games of 2012.  Due to how busy I was in late 2012, my top games of 2012 will not be organized in a list of ten games in ascending order.  The games will be listed by the order of their release.  Each person is different so my top games of 2012 will most likely differ from your top games so I hope everybody will enjoy my opinion and feel free to share some games that I may have overlooked.

Run Roo Run
There is no other iOS game that I have found released this year that is better than Run Roo Run.  Charming graphics, simplistic yet intuitive controls, satisfying gameplay and a plethora of levels that test both your mind and reflexes, Run Roo Run is the complete package for only one or two dollars depending whether you get it for the iPhone or iPad respectively.  5th Cell's first game for iOS is a game that no iDevice owner should miss.

Journey
Journey is easily one of the most unique experiences I had playing a game this year.  There are no tutorials, no real instructions.  You are just dropped into a seemingly baren desert with this profile of a mountain in the distance.  The controls are simple yet incredibly intuitive, the graphics and art are just jaw dropping, the music is beautiful and the puzzles, while simple, are very charming and engaging.  Journey is a soothing and relaxing experience that can easily be finished in one sitting, which makes the game easy to sit down and play again.  I cannot stress enough how great of an experience Journey is.  If there is one game on this list that I highly recommend every gamer go out of their way to play, it is Journey.

Kid Icarus:  Uprising 
Nintendo may have took 20 years to release a new Kid Icarus game, but Uprising makes the time fans waited well worth it.  Kid Icarus: Uprising is a labour of love from Masahiro Sakurai and Project Sora that brings Pit to the 21st century in style.  While the controls can get in the way from time to time, the fast-paced action, witty fourth wall breaking banter, exciting story and fun multi-player experience sure make up for it.  Kid Icarus: Uprising is easily the best 3DS game of 2012 and one 3DS owners should not miss.

Xenoblade Chronicles
One of the last great games for the Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles is a grand RPG adventure from Nintendo and Monolith Soft.  Xenoblade Chronicles has an incredibly gripping story, fun real-time combat and an enormous world to explore with a huge amount of side quests to keep you occupied.  I have played over 30 hours of Xenoblade and I barely scratched the surface of all the content in this Wii RPG.  For a system that has been starving for RPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles stands tall as the pinnacle of RPGs on the Wii and for Japanese RPGs in this console generation.

The Last Story
The Last Story was the Wii's last story, pun intended.  From the mind of the most recognizable name in Japanese RPGs, Hironobu Sakaguichi, The Last Story looks to take the Japanese RPG in new and innovative directions.  The Last Story's biggest strength is its innovative real-time battle system that has you controlling the protagonist Zael while commanding the rest of your party to set up big combos of magic and physical attacks.  Along with Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story is another great RPG for a system that sure has needs it.

Darksiders II
Originally coming out for the Xbox 360 and PS3 in August, I did not get to try this excellent amalgamation of genres until I bought my Wii U in November.  The combat of great action games like God of War and Devil May Cry, the loot system from classic dungeon crawlers like Diablo, the massive over world of an action adventure game like The Legend of Zelda, the parkour-like platforming of a Prince of Persia and the classic leveling and skill system of a classic RPG can all be found in Darksiders II, but Vigil Games takes all these elements and makes it their own.  Vigil's effort has created a game that you can easily get lost in for hours at a time.  While a few glitches may pop up from time-to-time, Darksiders II is an incredible game that no gamer should pass on.

Transformers:  Fall of Cybertron
Not many licensed games are worth playing; fewer are praised both by critics and fans.  High Moon Studios' Transformers: Fall of Cybertron falls under those select few, no pun intended.  Taking the great framework set by War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron takes players through an incredibly focused and diverse campaign that explores the Transformers' final days on their dying homeworld.  Fall of Cybertron does justice to the Transformers like no other piece of media (TV show, comic or movie) has done for the franchise in the last number of years.  Also it has one of the finest final levels I personally played all year.

New Super Mario Bros. U
Another year, another side-scrolling Mario.  Many gamers, myself included, can remember a time when it was rare to see Gaming's Number One Plumber star in a brand new side-scrolling game.  While Mario platformers are some of the finest games around, it is a little hard to get excited when it seems like one comes out every year.  Seriously, we got two Mario platformers in 2012 alone.  While I was not really excited for New Super Mario Bros. U, I still picked it up for my Wii U at launch.  After putting the game in my brand new system, I learned once again to never doubt Nintendo.  New Super Mario Bros. U is easily the best game in the New Super Mario Bros. subseries and can stand among Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 as one of the best Mario platformers of all-time.  The levels are expertly designed, the difficulty ramps up at the perfect pace (making use of all those lives you accumulate in earlier levels), there are a great number of secrets to find and plenty of modes like Challenges and multi-player that will keep you coming back for more Mario.  The one game that all Wii U owners should pick up when they buy their brand new console and one of my personal favourite games of 2012.

Year in Review 2012: Games I Missed

2012 was a very busy year in the video game industry.  So busy in fact that it has been very hard to keep up with all the incredible games that were released this past year.  Many of the games I have personally been most looking forward to play, I have not gotten much time to play between school, work and having a life.  Instead of a more traditional list of my top games of 2012, I want to write a few articles on my look back at 2012.  Each article will look at a different set of games.  First up will be the games I missed out on during 2012, but hope to spend plenty of time with in 2013.  The second article will be about my favourite games that I actually got to play this year and the final article will be all about my Game of the Year.  So without any further ado, let us get on with this Year in Review.

Dishonored
Before Dishonored came out, I was cautiously optimistic.  While what I had seen and read about the game was very promising, you have to be careful with new IPs.  They do bring about innovation and change in the video game industry, but sometimes they can completely flop.  Personally, I did not want to get my hopes up only to be disappointed in the end.  So I was very happy to see all the positive reviews for the game and see that it is among one of the best games of the year as it is up for many Game of the Year awards.  Dishonored looks like a great blend of the stealth of a game like Thief and the open world choices of a game like BioShock or Deus Ex.  While I have heard that you can easily run through the game if you do not care for the side missions, the charm of a game like Dishonored is the freedom to experiment with your powers and abilities.  Can easily see myself putting a lot of time into this game trying different tactics and approaches to the missions in the game.

Pokemon White Version 2
I am a huge sucker for the Pokemon RPGs.  Pokemon Black and White 2 came out at the beginning of October and I was busy with school and saving my money for the Wii U, so there was no time or reason to pick up this game right at launch.  With more free time this semester, I have enough time to plug away at White 2 (the version I picked up a few weeks ago).  While not much has changed since Black and White released back in March of 2011, White 2 looks to offer enough new additions to keep this Pokemon fan playing for another 40 or 60 hours.

The Walking Dead
Never been a fan of The Walking Dead comic and TV show and when the game was first announced by Telltale Games, I was not that interested.  What really got me and I think many others to take notice of The Walking Dead was all the reviews praising each episode of the game.  Also playing the demo really helped win me over.  With The Walking Dead, Telltale Games has single-handedly revitalized the adventure genre in the eyes of many gamers who have not touched an adventure game in years.  Personally, I have been a fan of Telltale Games for a couple years now from playing their other great adventure games (Back to the Future and Tales of Monkey Island) and I am excited to play what has been their most successful game both commercially and critically.

X-Com:  Enemy Unknown
Another genre that has gotten little love on this generation of consoles has been the turn-based strategy genre.  Other than Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii (a great game that every Wii should own), there has not been anything to scratch that hardcore strategy itch on the consoles.  That was until 2K Games and Firaxis released X-Com: Enemy Unknown, a true sequel to the PC classic in October.  Enemy Unknown is not for the feint at heart and that is what gets me excited and terrified to play it at the same time.  You need to be very careful with each turn you take because one move can be the difference between life or death for one of your squad mates.  I cannot wait to spend countless hours becoming a great commander and protecting the Earth from all of it's alien threats.

Wii U Impressions

                         

Just over a month ago, Nintendo released their newest home console, the Wii U.  The first console to be released out the eighth generation of home video game consoles, Nintendo looks to kick start the next generation with some innovative new ideas that will create a lot of great new experiences for gamers.  Being the first of the gate, Nintendo will definitely have an uphill battle when Sony and Microsoft drop their upcoming next generation consoles in the next few years.  While gamers can be very skeptical at times, people should have learned by now to never count Nintendo out.  The Wii U has the potential to be a very dangerous competitor in the next stage of the never-ending console wars.

The Wii U comes in two sets, the Basic Set, which gets you a white 8 GB Wii U console, a Wii U Gamepad and all the necessities, and the Deluxe Set, which gets you a black 32 GB Wii U, a Wii U Gamepad, Nintendo Land, a cradle and stand for the Gamepad, the Digital Deluxe Promotion and everything included in the Basic Set.  I picked up the Deluxe Set as it is the better deal out of the two sets.  For 50 dollars more, you get a ton of extra content, a good amount of memory to store game saves and downloadable eShop games and Nintendo Land, which costs 60 dollars on its own.

Out of the box, the Wii U is a beautiful system.  It has a sleek and durable design.  All the accessories, component cables and sensor bars from the original Wii work with the Wii U, so making setting up the system a breeze for Wii owners.  The Wii U even comes with an HDMI cable so those with HDTVs do not have the shell out another 20 dollars to properly hook up the Wii U to their stunning TV.  Once you boot up the console it, the initial setup can be a bit of slog since you need to download a big update to gain access to the system’s online features like Miiverse and the Wii U eShop, backward compatibility and the Wii U Chat.  Also setting up your Nintendo ID, which is needed to play online, can be another long process.  Once everything is up and running, the Wii U very well built piece of hardware that has a few hiccups here and there, which I will get to in a bit.

The biggest feature of the Wii U is the system’s controller, the Wii U Gamepad.  The Gamepad is the main controller for the Wii U.  It has all the standard controls from dual analog sticks to the familiar A, B, X, Y face buttons to shoulder and trigger buttons.  The Gamepad’s standout feature is the touch screen in the centre of the controller.  Much like the touch screen on the DS and 3DS, the Wii U Gamepad’s touch screen is single-touch that takes input from your finger or the stylus provided with Gamepad.  The touch screen works like a charm as your inputs on the touch screen instantaneously affect what is going on the TV from switching weapons in Darksiders II or creating blocks to save your friend from falling in a pit in New Super Mario Bros. U or swiping to navigate your Mii in the Balloon Trip Breeze attraction in Nintendo Land.  The screen on t he Gamepad can also be used as a second screen for the game offering new information or providing a different perspective of the game or even just to play the game on the smaller screen.  If anybody wants to watch their favourite show there is no need to turn off your game as most games allow you to play the entire game on the screen on the Wii U Gamepad.  Funny enough for such a large controller, the Wii U Gamepad fits so well in your hand and all the buttons feel great.  My only knock against the Wii U Gamepad is its abysmal battery life.  Yes, there is a lot of powerful stuff packed into this one controller, but Nintendo could have squeezed out some more life out of this thing than only three to four hour battery life.  It is very easy for me to burn through the battery during a few sessions playing Darksiders II. 

Personally, I enjoy the Wii U and see that there is a lot of good to say about this system, but I do not have all day.  So I have to move on to some of the negatives or hiccups that I mentioned earlier.  No system is perfect; there are always things to improve, many of which come with the stability of the console and the operating system.  At launch, the load times between running different apps and games were a little longer than gamers have gotten use to, taking close to 40 seconds to load.  Also I ran into a few times when my Wii U froze and I had to hard reset the system.  While I did found the reason behind the last two times, which was a smudge on my Darksiders II disc, my friend has had that happen to him 10 times.  Nintendo has made a few updates to available to solve these problems with more coming in the next couple of weeks, but it is still a knock against this system.  It is a bit weird to have to boot up the Wii menu inside the Wii U’s main menu in order to play Wii games.  My final thing that needs improvement is the Wii U eShop.  The main page is nice, but Nintendo needs to make the interface much easier to navigate in order find what you are looking for.  Much like the 3DS eShop has all the Virtual Console and DSiWare along with all the new 3DS downloadable titles and apps, Nintendo needs to properly integrate the Wii Shop Channel with the new Wii U eShop along with a brand new Virtual Console that includes Gamecube titles to download.

Overall, the Wii U is a great system with a whole lot of potential.  The Wii U Gamepad is the centerpiece of this entire system as it offers new opportunities to interact with the games we play without pausing the action happening on screen and to interact with others by playing games asynchronously on the TV and the Wii U Gamepad.  While the launch has been pretty good in my opinion (no console launch is that stellar anyway), the Wii U is still looking for its killer app that one game that you have to own a Wii U to experience.  Even without a killer app, I recommend the Wii U to anybody who owns a Wii that is looking to upgrade to new HD console experience or those who are not to rush out to buy Sony or Microsoft’s next generation console whenever they release, but are still looking to move on from this generation of consoles.

Bit by Bit: December 9-15

I'm back!!!  It has been a long time and no blog.  Way back in September I was very hopeful that university would not consume my whole life and I would have time to write, but I was wrong.  These last few months have been one big emotional roller coaster for me and not in a good way.  Now that I am finished with my first and now final term in Mathematics (moving onto a new major), I am hoping that things get back to normal and I will be able to dedicate some time to blog once or twice a week.

Even with all the crazy stress that came with school, I still managed to dedicate some time to playing games in order to relax and keep me sane.  While I dedicated some serious time to the 3DS, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360, there is one system that has basically sucked a lot of gaming time this past month.  I am talking about the Wii U.  Yes, I am one the lucky people who managed to pick up a Wii U on launch day and, apart from a little puzzle game that I will talk about in a bit, I have been spending a ton of time with this new Nintendo console.  I will talk much more about the Wii U in the coming weeks as I want to do a post on my full impressions on this new machine and hopefully get a review or two up once I finish either Darksiders II or New Super Mario Bros. U.  Without any further ado, let us rundown the bests of the week.

Game of the Week
I have picked up many games for free through Club Nintendo these last few months, but there is only one I have put over 10 hours into.  That game is the classic Game Boy puzzler, Mario's Picross.  Mario's Picross has hundreds of puzzles on varying sizes of grids with the max being 15 by 15.  Picross has players mark boxes on the grid according to numbers that appear on the side and top of the grid.  You get 30 seconds to solve the puzzle and your reward for solving said puzzle is a picture.  What starts out as a fairly straightforward task gets very challenging pretty quick.  The difficulty in Mario's Picross ramps up pretty quick and it might take quite a few puzzles to adjust to the difficulty, but once things click Mario's Picross becomes one excellent brainteaser that keeps your brain keen as you find patterns, look for symmetry and figure out other tricks to help solve these puzzles.  Mario's Picross is perfect for the handheld as it is enjoyable both in short bursts and long stretches.  While there are a few puzzles that can be quite frustrating, Mario's Picross is very rewarding as completing a puzzle feels like an incredible accomplishment.

Most Anticipated Game of the Week
Mega Man.  Street Fighter.  Classic 8-bit graphics and gameplay.  Free.  Enough said.  Now enjoy this video and download it for the PC starting tomorrow.



Video of the Week
This past Tuesday saw the final issue of Nintendo Power hit newsstands across North America.  Being a subscriber to this incredible magazine for the past 11 years of my life, feelings were mixed when I received the final issue in the mail a few weeks ago.  Apart of me felt so nostalgic and happy seeing the cover and looking through the issue, which is an incredible celebration of this monumental magazine.  Another part me felt said that this issue would be the last new issue of Nintendo Power I would ever hold in my hands.  Like it says on the final page of Issue 285 of Nintendo Power, it is truly Game Over for Nintendo Power.  Now let me share Screwattack's Top 10 Reasons They Love Nintendo Power as a final sendoff for this incredible magazine.  Rest in peace, Nintendo Power.  You will never be forgotten.

ScrewAttack's Top Ten

The Future of Silver Bit

Well this post has taken longer to get to than I initially thought.  Last week was a lot more busier than I originally perceived.  Next week marks my first week of school at the University of Waterloo and that means a change in priorities.  A lot of the time that I would normally dedicate to writing my blog posts will have to go to school work and studying.  It is just the nature of the beast.  That does not mean I will  not be writing any more blog posts because I love writing and getting my opinions out there.  It means I will no longer be writing six blog posts a week as I do not have the time.  My blog posts will become a lot more sporadic and spaced out.  I would love to give you guys a defined schedule, but I do not know  how busy I will be every week between school and work.  I am not promising anything, but I will try to put up at least one blog post a month.  Thanks to everybody that has helped support Silver Bit in any way from reading one blog post to following every blog post for almost a year now.  I hope everybody continues to support Silver Bit through these big changes in my life.