Much like previous episodes, The Oracle relies in the smart use of Erica’s cognitive powers, like regression, which allows her to tap into another person’s memories, or being able to see into the past by finding particular items. The puzzle difficulty got a sizable increase for this episode. Her visions now take place in various planes and timelines, shedding light on the backstory of Cordelia Smith, who is now revealed to also have powers of her own. Much of the game takes place in a single environment, as you switch back and forth from Erica to Cordelia in order to acquire new pieces of information that are then used in conversations and puzzles.

Reed briefly met Cordelia earlier on in the season, now her brother’s death’s mystery is exposed.

As mentioned before, thanks to the bigger gap between epísode releases, it seems that Phoenix Online Studios took the opportunity to add more complexity to the story. The Oracle delivers a lot in terms of narrative, and the twists and turns albeit sometimes predictable, are enjoyable nonetheless, delivered through the same style of motion comics panels as in previous chapters.

While the motion comic format works extremely well in delivering the story, the rest of Cognition’s presentation is still rather stiff – character models animate rather weirdly and the voice acting tends to be all over the place in terms of quality. Erica’s actress is by far the best voice in the game, while some of the new characters introduced in this chapter fail to convey much of what’s being read.

The noose is tightening. Will the killer be caught in time?

Regardless of some of the overall presentation issues, Cognition‘s script and mature approach to storytelling is to be commended. Even though there’s a pretty thorough hint system that can be used at any time during the game, the puzzle design is done rather well and hardly ever throws you for an illogical loop, which tends to be the case for a lot of point and click adventure games.

Now it’s only a matter of closing off the story and seeing through this case ’til the end. A tall task that up until now, Phoenix Studios Online has shown to be pretty capable of delivering in spades. The chills and thrills of this episode are evidence enough to put any doubts to rest. Will the killer be caught?

EVO’s main man, organizer Joey “MrWizard” Cuellar started off the speculation train by teasing a big announcement for a few days over Twitter. Earlier tonight he finally revealed what many had already guessed and were hoping for.

Fighting fans and competitors, you have 2 months to learn this game! And for the first time ever, Entertainium will be covering EVO – Christian Cain and I will be at Las Vegas’ Paris Hotel gigantic event complex in July, braving the crowds!

GET HYPE!

Source: shoryuken.com

The combat and flight mechanics are mostly unchanged since the original game, which is to say they are both still incredible. Flying around as a fighter has good sense of speed and weight to it. In combat, destroying enemy ships and taking damage builds up flux, and when you have enough flux, you can transform your fighter into a mech that has significantly more firepower. Each shot you take in strike mode uses up flux to balance how often you can use it, because while in strike mode you can easily turn a dozen enemy fighters into debris floating in space in mere moments.

There are three different playable ships to choose from, the Strike Suit from the original game returns and is the most all round ship with a good mix of speed and armour. The Marauder and Raptor are unlocked after getting through some of the later waves. The former is a slower bulkier ship and the latter is significantly faster but also more fragile. In fighter mode, all have access to the same guns and missiles, but in strike mode, their differences are much more apparent. The Raptor uses its speed to get in close to unleash maximum damage with its shotgun, the Strike Suit has swarm missiles capable of wiping out crowds of enemy fighters, and the Marauder has a long range sniper cannon that can obliterate smaller ships in a single blast.

Space can be awfully pretty when you stop shooting at things and take in the sights.

Morphing between strike mode and normally flying around as a fighter makes the combat frantic and exciting. There’s no shortage of adversaries trying to kill you and there’s enough enemy variety doled out over the course of the game’s eighteen waves. Interceptors and fighters make up the majority of foes, but you also get a chance to fight larger capital ships that have weak points allowing you to deal enormous damage. Trying to destroy them with conventional firepower takes a long time. They often retreat from battle long before you can land a killing blow. They’re worth the danger of taking on something several times your size, however, as destroying them rewards you with bonus credits.

After completing a wave you’re given credits that can be spent to help you in the next wave. You can buy your own assisting fighters and bombers or, with enough, can add some capital ships of your own. As you progress, the waves become harder and harder. The first couple are manageable flying solo, but it becomes all but impossible in later waves. This adds some strategy into how you spend credits and when they should be saved and spent. Using credits gets you some support for that wave, but only for that wave, the money spent on support gone. If your allies survive the wave you get some of that cash back, but it forces you into thinking about how much you’re going to spend and on which waves. A couple allies might help you out to get a higher score on one wave, but make the next that much harder to get through, but having that assistance could also allow you to destroy a couple enemy cruisers giving your credit pool a much needed boost.

The game does fail in some ways as a high score game, at least for the first few attempts. During the waves there are secondary bonus freighters that can be destroyed, which unlocks various items. When you first start the game, you only have access to the Strike Suit and only a handful of weapons. While the weapons themselves are well-balanced, they give you a lot more options to play with and can affect your approach. There are also just pure upgrades to be unlocked that give you additional shields, armour, and speed. Once applied, these persist for all future rounds, but as they just make your ship more powerful it doesn’t matter how skillful a pilot you are; your first play-through won’t be your best score.

Hold on, we’re going in!

Points are gained through destroying enemies, more powerful enemies like heavy fighters or corvettes are worth more points. Smaller ships, however, are easier to combo together to increase your multiplier. That multiplier will drain over time, but you can maintain it by destroying the weak points on capital ships and dodging missiles. That might mean saving the harder enemies till later in the fight and destroying them while your multiplier is high is a valuable strategy to get more points, but those enemies are also quite a bit more deadly, so leaving them alive to harass both you and your allied ships can only make things more difficult.

There is a conspicuous lack of a save system in Strike Suit Infinity. Normally for a pure high score game this wouldn’t be an issue, but Infinity has natural stopping points between waves and sessions can last several hours. It’s inconvenient. While understandable in that it stops people from loading mid game saves in order to maximise the score potential of a run, the game itself lasts far too long for this to be a reasonable concession.

Strike Suit Infinity takes the strongest parts of their larger game and puts it into a condensed package. It’s a smaller game that offers some great space combat, it doesn’t fit the high score format in many ways and there isn’t any narrative holding it together, but at $8 there’s plenty of good space action to be had here.

Poker Night 2 once again takes place at The Inventory club, Telltale Games’ backroom alley gambling bar where characters from video games and popular media hang out when they’re not in their respective franchises. In a great introduction video, you become acquainted with who you’re up against: Brock Samson, a bodyguard from the Venture Bros. cartoon series; Claptrap, the robot everyone loves to hate from Borderlands; Ash Williams, the one-man-deadite-killing machine from The Evil Dead; and Sam, a crime-fighting, suit-wearing canine from the hilarious Sam & Max series. The mixture of characters from inside and outside of video games is interesting if a bit strange, since I personally had never heard of Brock Samson or Ash Williams before playing Poker Night 2. This necessitated a quick trip to Wikipedia to look up their backstories and to understand some of the references. All are voiced by their original actors save for Ash Williams, as evidently Telltale couldn’t afford Bruce Campbell. Your compère is once again Reginald van Winslow (from Tales of Monkey Island), who introduces the game and occasionally offers advice. Dealing the cards this time, however, is none other than the world’s second most evil supercomputer, GLaDOS from the Portal games. GLaDOS keeps an eye on the blinds, announces the results, and banters with the characters, most notably with Claptrap who seems to be rather infatuated with her.

Winning GLaDOS’ special item may prove to be fatal.

The poker is a choice between two games: Texas hold ‘em or Omaha. Since Omaha only has minor variations to Texas hold ‘em, switching modes between tournaments is a good way to mix things up. Each player does have their own recognizable style of play that you’ll spot if you play long enough. Ash tends to bluff heavily, whilst Sam is more conservative and only goes in if he has a good hand to begin with. A new feature is the idea of buying drinks for your competitors (delivered to the table by a gratifyingly mute Mad Moxxi from Borderlands), which will weaken their ability and prompt them to show tells more often. I was disappointed that the idea of getting the characters drunk wasn’t taken further (it would be hilarious to see Sam drunkenly slurring his words, for example), but it’s a neat addition in any case. It is also good that you are minorly rewarded even if you don’t win a tournament, so that you are granted some tokens based on the number of players knocked out. These can then be used to purchase new decks, baizes, and themes for the Inventory. Likewise, winning tournaments and completing randomly assigned challenges unlocks the ability to win one of the tie-in rewards, which can then be redeemed in Team Fortress 2 and Borderlands 2.

Jokes and dialogue for the most part are great, with many cross-promotional interludes that elicit a good chuckle. I enjoyed hearing Claptrap trying to coax everyone into travelling to Pandora to take on missions and fight the native wildlife, GLaDOS goading me for folding, or Sam asking for a Claptrap action figure. That’s not to say there aren’t misses: there is, for example, a reference from Claptrap to the song “Call Me Maybe,” which was utterly cringe-inducing. As with the first game, dialogue starts to repeat quickly. I can’t count the number of times I heard Sam exclaim “Great day in the morning!” when you go all in, or seeing Max fall of his chair in the background for the 19th time. This will hamper your long-term enjoyment of Poker Night 2, as it did in the original, as once you’ve got all the unlockables there’s little point in hanging around.

It’s a weird gathering of characters, that’s for sure.

The major issue with the game, though, besides the eventual repetitious chatter, is the crazy poker AI. As soon as you begin the game, the opening blinds are $400/$800, which immediately feels way too high and means the game progresses at breakneck speed. Characters will routinely raise by crazy amounts, go all-in for no particular reason, or fold suddenly if you re-raise on them. It’s fine that each character has their own betting personality, but there’s zero reason for them to make ludicrous bets that don’t stand up.

Because of GLaDOS being the dealer, my mind invariably has been wondering: Is the AI cheating? In the first game I always assumed that the AI was playing by the rules, but in this game I can’t escape the feeling that GLaDOS is passing notes to Claptrap and the others, or dealing them better cards than me. It’s difficult to pin down, but often it certainly feels like they’re cheating. When you’re dealt a 2/7 and every other player gets Ace/King, it feels a little dodgy. Likewise when Ash bets big with a poor hand before the flop comes down and only gets a straight or a flush on the river. Perhaps this is all in my head and GLaDOS is just toying with me (seems likely), but it is a disconcerting issue nonetheless.

Still, Poker Night 2 is good fun for the half dozen or so hours it lasts. The characters are funny and their conversations are very fluid and true-to-life. If the poker game develops so that it interrupts a story, they will often come back to where they left off by saying “As I was saying…” or “Anyway…”, which provide good natural segues. At its budget price, the issues regarding the poor AI and repeating dialogue are understandable and forgivable. Poker Night 2 is a good sequel on the whole, but at the end of the day you’ll be left wishing for something with a little more imagination, variation and inventiveness.

Metal Gear Rising is Platinum Games’ answer to what a Metal Gear game would be like if it didn’t rely on stealth mechanics and instead focused on just being plain crazy. Platinum already had a sizeable list of bat shit insane games that includes and is not limited to Bayonetta, so I’m not particularly surprised that Revengeance turned out so well.

Guns of the Patriots had already completely remolded Raiden into what was expected to appease fans who hated him in Metal Gear Solid 2, although they never got to experience things from his perspective in that particular game. But patience, as they say, is a virtue.

If you thought that cutting a handful of soldiers in half during Metal Gear Solid 4 was already pushing it into the silly zone, you’ll be in for a treat in Revengeance. Set four years after ‘Patriots, Revengeance weaves a shallow (albeit absolutely fitting to Metal Gear-style of mad) tale of political intrigue, as a new corporation rises to power and with it, the world is once again in peril.

This situation calls for a more volatile approach.

Much like the latest Deus Ex, the subject of cybernetics is in the spotlight in Metal Gear Rising. Not nearly as heavily delivered, although ever present, the far-flung technology from an not at all future serves as the reason to why everyone’s going crazy, including Raiden, and gives a perfect excuse to be as gory and violent as possible – after all, the things you’re cutting are barely human, right?

Cutting is a huge part of Revenegeance. Playing much like an even faster paced Ninja Gaiden game, ‘Rising adds a new gimmick to the formula in the form of freely cutting up enemies in many, many pieces, at the press of a button. Early on in the story, Raiden receives an implant that’s powered by absorbing nanomachines that are contained inside cyborgs.

This cutting in slow motion mechanic is easily one of the most entertaining parts of Revengeance, mostly due to how elaborate some of the combat animations can get before the actual cutting comes into play, and how unpredictable the Havok engine powered physics can be after slicing and dicing.

As they say, nothing can get between a man and his meal.

Combat is a lot like the list of usual suspects in the character action genre. It’s very quick and combo heavy and relies heavily on parrying enemy attacks and countering. Countering and parrying aren’t assigned to a dedicated button, though. Instead, it relies on enemies’ tells and your timely pushing the analog stick towards them and pressing the attack button, which basically means you’re always on the offensive throughout the game.

Smartly enough, the further you progress in Revengeance not only do more upgrades become available, in the form of new moves and stronger stats, but also new weapons to include within combos, adding more depth to the combat, without slowing it down. In fact, the further you get into the upgrade tree, the quicker and more fluid it becomes, which is something to commend Platinum for, because enemies don’t slow down in comparison as you evolve.

Your foes come in a variety of shape and sizes. Those weird mooing bipedal robots from Metal Gear Solid 4 make a comeback, as well as new variations to their formula, in the form of razorback apes, raptors and even smaller variations to the Metal Gear REX design. Speaking of Metal Gear, some new versions of the series’ hallmark turn up as bosses that are peppered throughout the game.

A cyber dog armed with a chainsaw truly is a man’s best friend.

Keeping with tradition, Revengeance‘s boss fights are just as singular to the rest of the game as the classic fights from earlier Metal Gear and Solid‘s. Although some of the later fights rely a little too heavily on quick time events – quick reflex button prompts that appear on screen – instead of actual gameplay, they prove to be quite a challenge, especially on later difficulties.

Revengeance is a game tailored for multiple playthroughs, on various difficulty settings. Proved true by its relatively short story mode, you’re given the option to replay the entire thing again with a more powerful, upgraded version of Raiden in order to improve combat scores and find collectibles, which in turn unlock bonus equipment and achievements/trophies.

For the ones that only play a game through once and shelf it, ‘Rising is fairly robust, mostly due to its inherent difficulty. Most of its true replayability will rely on you wanting to get better at it and get beat on on harder settings. Some of its bigger faults might make you want to stop and take a deep breath in between levels.

The most serious and arguably annoyingest issue is the camera, a foe known to so many games of Revengeance‘s ilk. Relegated to the right analog stick, it goes all over the place at times, except where you want it to be – on the action – while you’re getting hit, leaving you without a chance to block or counter attack. For a game that relies on reading enemy tells, this is a serious issue. Even though it’s not as common as in other games, it’s still frustrating.

While not the smartest or the most concise of games, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance works extremely well. Regardless of some of its problems, it’s one of the best examples of crossing genres within a well-spent franchise. And even though Metal Gear - in whatever state it’s in, solid, liquid or whatever - is no stranger to experimenting and dipping its toes into different pools, Revengeance can be considered the best variation outside of stealth action. It’s a game worth cutting into, pun most certainly intended.

Once more: Spoilers, proceed with caution, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill.

Part III: Let’s move on to morality. How did you like Infinite’s approach to it? Did you steal right away? What was your first choice at the fairgrounds?

Callum: I threw the ball at the announcer. No way was I going to attack an innocent couple. Only wish the ball made contact…

Tried to avoid stealing. Already drew the ire of the entire city’s military. Didn’t need the locals getting on my back for being a thief. Lost out on a fusion jar (or whatever they are) and some gear, but no big deal. Better that than being forced to waste ammo on civilians. There was one strange instance, however, where I was suddenly attacked on the grounds of theft when I didn’t do anything.

It was in the slums. I was moving toward the tavern since Elizabeth mentioned it. Started down the stairs when, out of nowhere, a few folks ambushed me. Kept crying thief, but I hadn’t stolen anything. It was really weird.

Andrew: I didn’t throw the ball at all, I just waited. As Booker I was trying to lie low but at the same time not be a despicable monster so it felt like the option to go with. As for stealing I meta-gamed it. The problem is that up until the slums, all the places where you could steal looked like combat arenas. So why steal when you would go through it later and just pick it up then without the stealing penalty. When you get to the slums though those two guys outside the bar try to mug you which is why they attack you, or that’s what I took from it anyway. Either way, it can quickly escalate to more fighting in that area for some reason so yeah, I suppose I technically chose to not steal but not really.

Actually the thing that made me almost stop taking everything around was how Elizabeth was framed. Of course she’s new to the world, but I probably shouldn’t walk up next to these three kids playing on the beach and take these $3 next to them. But then like 20 seconds after I have that thought, Elizabeth says “Hey, I found this money”, which thematically would mean that she was also kind of pilfering anything that wasn’t bolted to the table.

I believe the pendant thing is purely cosmetic. I actually didn’t mind there not really being any explicit moral choices in the game, because then the choice was more about you the player than it was you did X so Y happens. Like with choosing to spare or kill Slate. That was a really good moment because if you spare him, something way worse ends up happening to him. Even finding him again in that prison I didn’t shoot him, it might have been a mercy killing but I still didn’t/couldn’t do it.

Eduardo: Me neither, I didn’t shoot him either, at any point. I did yell at the guy at the ticket booth and retried, since Elizabeth ran away… but she does it anyway even when you get your hand stabbed. Disappointing!

Callum: That’s because she sees you murder a bunch of people. Difficult to reconcile when you’ve been locked up for most of your life.

I didn’t kill Slate, either. Started regretting it after I saw him in the prison. Didn’t have any sympathy for the guy during the museum level. But felt bad about not being more merciful later.

Eduardo: No, no, I didn’t mean seeing her run away, but both of the things you do have the same outcome. I was expecting to see something different, other than have everyone turn on you right away. I guess that left me a little disappointed. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to show off different outcomes that rely on your decisions.

Gareth: Stealing is inconsequential. At the boardwalk on my second playthrough I stole everything and actually that worked out better than not, because you can get more Silver Eagles. Keeping the peace seems to be more Booker’s character, but I need the money! I can also tell you from my second playthrough that if you try to throw the ball at the couple, the police still interrupt you but then they don’t appear in Battleship Bay and offer you a bit of gear. Also from starting a second playthrough there is no “New Game Plus”; you start from scratch with nothing again and have to find all the gear from the beginning.

Deeper morality themes, I’m still very unsure what the game is saying about religion. Comstock is a born-again Christian, but he’s also completely evil and insane. Is the game trying to say that blind devotion to a higher being ignores the evil which exists on Earth? Comstock getting baptized was supposed to absolve him of his sins at Wounded Knee, but evidently this led him to a far more evil, bitter and racist viewpoint than if he wasn’t baptized. I don’t think it’s outright saying “religion is bad”, it’s a lot more nuanced than that.

Also something I just discovered: It is explained where Elizabeth C (returning to my universe numbering) is when Booker and Elizabeth go to the Vox revolution universe. There’s a Voxaphone where Booker C (Hero of the Vox, who is dead) explains that he went to Monument Island to get her but she wasn’t there, and has been moved to “Comstock’s fortress” due to the revolution. Booker C is fighting with the Vox in order to remove Comstock and install Fitzroy, who had agreed to give Elizabeth to him afterwards.

I agree that finding Voxaphones seems pretty critical to properly understanding the plot, probably too critical.

Callum: It’s one of the downfalls of working with audio-logs. Made more sense in the original, in part, because the society of Rapture already fell. Learning what happened through them made more sense there than it did in Infinite.

I don’t think Infinite is trying to say anything about religion. More likely, it’s using it as a thematic element because the story called for it. Being reborn via baptism makes more sense than, say, Booker just randomly becoming the madman he was as Comstock.

Andrew: I’m becoming increasingly annoyed by their usage in just games in general. Audio logs, you had a good run there, but I think the industry needs to move past them as a narrative crutch. Some of them make sense in world and add texture to the narrative, other times not so much, like how they’re just left kind of everywhere regardless of if it makes sense for them to be where they are in the world. It’s a gamey collectable with the added carrot of story. This isn’t really a criticism of BioShock Infinite specifically, but more the trend in games. I’ve heard a bit too much of ‘If you had found this Voxophone in where ever that was totally explained’, it rings slightly hollow and hand wavy. I would be curious to know what it would be like to go through the game and hear the Voxophones only on the critical path and how that frames the story.

I agree with it not really being about religion. It’s far more about Nationalism and it’s dangers more than anything. Baptism, however, is interesting, because I think it does raise the question of if it did have the quality of being able to wash you of your sins, should it. Those sins are an integral part to who Booker is and shapes who he is and his world view. Comstock on the other hand isn’t just a rebirth, in many ways the utter and complete destruction of Booker into a different person. A death that comes around again with the end of the game when he’s just killed but not given the rebirth.

CLOSING PERSONAL THOUGHTS

Callum: What impresses me most about BioShock Infinite is how effortlessly it executes story and gameplay. Too often it seems like you can only have one or the other: superb gameplay, but a merely passable narrative; strong narrative, but merely okay or passive gameplay. Infinite delivers both at no cost of the other. And that’s awesome.

Any game that can spark – no, demand – such extensive discussion and analysis is definitely something special. Doubly so for being a big-budget game, which often stray away from tackling deeply serious subjects.

Andrew: For me, the thing that makes Bioshock Infinite so compelling is the world that it creates and the people that inhabit it. Yes that world is flawed in its creation, but it still draws you in and gets you to question and think about what goes on in it and how the people in it came to be. The fact that it does spark such discussion speaks volumes about what Infinite was trying to do. There are a lot of great parts to the game and there are plenty of parts where it falls flat, but it’s still one of the most interesting game worlds to spend some time in.

Gareth: I feel BioShock Infinite is, in very simple terms, a great sequel to the original BioShock. Indeed, Infinite feels genuinely more like a sequel than BioShock 2 ever did. More than that, it creates a fascinating world, populates it with emotive characters and delivers an interesting (if confusing) story. To top it off, it is able to finish with a highly memorable and original ending, the ins and outs of which will be debated for many months to come. It is certainly one of the most thought-provoking and detailed games I’ve ever played, which is able to create a unique sense of place and style, coupled with a gorgeous soundtrack. Irrational also made a number of important improvements to gameplay, allowing Infinite to feel more fully-rounded than its predecessor. I hope that they refrain from making anymore BioShock games, because Infinite serves as an ideal epilogue to the series that shouldn’t be spoiled. Whilst BioShock original still holds more weight and will probably last longer in the pantheon of game history, Infinite can be more than proud to float away over its shoulders into the sky.

They should still have called it SkyShock, though.

Eduardo: Honestly, I think there shouldn’t be any more Bioshock games after Infinite. It closes off the universe beautifully, proclaiming in its now quotable line “There’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man, there’s always a city”. Anything coming after this will feel off to me. Obviously, there’s always the issue of money and having to profit from making games, keeping studios going in the process. So there probably will be more games in the future and they’ll be conveniently written into continuity or something.

I just thought the ending to Infinite perfectly encapsulates – in a rather gigantic capsule, if you take the word literally – what the entire series is all about, which ironically ties this game with Super Mario Galaxy. Galaxy ended by basically telling us that Mario’s world is trapped in a cycle and that he’ll always be saving the princess and defeating Bowser, one way or the other. It was a weird and surprisingly dark and depressing note to end such a cheerful game on that somehow made perfect sense.

Granted, Bioshock has about ten miles of top to bottom pages in terms of story since the beginning, with gameplay to support it, unlike Mario, the plumber/carpenter/referee/doctor/midwife combo of a cartoon character, who fits in wherever he is put, no questions asked.

Regardless of how we feel about how it handles shooting and actual gameplay, or how many plot gaps there are here and there in any of their games, we gotta hand it to Irrational Games – they know how to make amazing experiences. And Bioshock Infinite is no different, most definitely.

As with any group work, we have to know when to call it quits! Do you have any thoughts about Bioshock Infinite that you would like to share? Then drop by our comments or reach us at Twitter! Our handles are @c_rakestraw, @EduardoReb, @lim_ak, and @gbrading.

Thanks for joining us. See you at the other side of this weird trans dimensional portal thing, folks!

It’s a charming, wonderful, and surprisingly poignant story. Witty dialog and amusing narration deliver and push it forward splendidly, whilst warm and melancholic beats invoke the sense of loneliness and camaraderie that Thomas struggles with. Danny Wallace provides the voiceover, reading his lines wistfully and excitedly as the situation requires. Text scrawls kick off each new zone, containing allusions toward the effects of the AIs’ awakening from former employees of a software company, lending background to the story and hinting at what’s to come.

For being but a bunch of shapes, Thomas Was Alone humanizes them incredibly well. They all have their problems and insecurities (like an inflated ego, superiority complex, or fear of being rejected for being “different”), which serves to make you care about them as they grow. It takes what would normally be a really sappy, and perhaps childish story, and makes it truly heartwarming. It’s a fun journey to partake in.

Thomas’ observations often ring true about the world – both his and ours.

Thomas and company move through the high-contrast cyberspace by running and jumping about. It’s a platformer in the simplest execution possible. The only obstacle is the environment, walls and spikes a common foe. The team has to work together to traverse the road ahead. Everyone has their own talents and limitations, but they’re easily overcome through coordination.

Thomas is the most balanced of the bunch: he’s small and can vault over most obstacles. Chris, on the other hand, is smaller and can therefore move through crevices, but can leap only half as high as Thomas, whereas John can soar further than both combined, due in part to his tall stature. Claire is large and hardly athletic, but can float in water; Laura can barely jump at all, but her body acts as a springboard. James’ gravity is inverted, meaning he moves across the ceiling, and lastly, Sarah can double-jump.

The goal of the game’s 100 levels is to use these characters’ abilities in conjunction with one another to reach the exit portals. Makeshift staircases allow ascent for the jumping impaired, for instance, while bridges allow safe passage across precarious pillars. There’s never any question as to the methodology, though, as solutions to most stages are clear upon arrival. The question in these isn’t so much a question of “how” you progress so much as it is a case of discerning what technique you need to employ. The first half comes off a bit dull, as such.

Diverse lot of quadrilaterals, there.

More characters arrive in the second half, however, bringing with them some additional challenge. Stages become larger, prompting expeditions to get a feel for the land and an idea of how to proceed. Because you begin moving with a bigger group (many of the early stages only grant you access to a couple folks at a time, not often giving you the full group you’ve accrued to that point), you start facing more challenges on how to proceed. Not just in traversal, but also in color-coated buttons that only certain rectangles can press.

It’s here Thomas Was Alone shows its devious side. For the greater part of the experience, it’s a simple run from point A to point B. But as your crew expands, the levels adjust to keep things fresh. Challenge emerges, hazards start to present themselves, the platforming gets trickier. It becomes a more intricate game whilst maintaining that deceptive mechanical simplicity. It’s brilliant.

It’s minimalist beauty and elegance at its finest.

If I’ve learned anything from The Sushi Spinnery, it’s that I’m a woefully uncreative sushi chef and that sushi restaurants have schedules on par with Bangladeshi sweatshops. However, whether these lessons are an accurate representation of owning a sushi restaurant is another matter.

The Sushi Spinnery is Kairosoft’s latest English-released management simulator for the iPhone. Most similar to Hot Springs Story, The Sushi Spinnery has you manage a piddling sushi restaurant that you must turn into a fish factory juggernaut.

As the owner of the restaurant, you can hire chefs, enter competitions, create new recipes, build and modify the sushi conveyor belt(s), and decorate to your heart’s desire. The game is an exciting, colorful, vivid, and somewhat whimsical business simulator, more divorced from the tongue-in-cheek metahumor of Kairosoft’s earlier simulators Game Dev Story and Pocket Academy. Instead, The Sushi Spinnery sparkles with equal parts childish delight and kitsch.

Part of The Sushi Spinnery’s major deviations from the older Kairosoft games is sushi coins. Second currency has always been a part of Kairosoft’s lineup – Game Dev Story used energy, for example – but this is the first time that the secondary currency is money. Getting creative requires a balance of both currencies, and the game’s lack of comprehensive tutorials can be frustrating for the first time player.

Gameplay-wise, the game is a mix between Pocket Academy and Hot Springs Story, where you manage large sections and periods of people at a time, but the requirements for success are a little more complicated. Because of the double-currency system, advancing to more complex recipes and doing well in competitions requires a bit more careful planning. Spacing and placing is also a bit more important in this game, since the smaller venues such as toy dispensers and game machines are some of the only reliable sources of the precious Sushi coins you need to advance. Long story short, you will likely still drop several hours at least on The Sushi Spinnery, if not exponentially more.

Remember: possible spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk!

Part II: Moving on to gameplay! This is Bioshock we’re talking about! Is it any good?

Eduardo: Let’s touch on gameplay. What did you guys think? I personally thought the gameplay was okay… for the most part. I’m a big fan of Bioshock 2 and I felt like Infinite took a bigger cue from that particular game than the first Bioshock for its gameplay, with much bigger firefights and heavier use of power combinations overall. That turn into a bad kind of chaos, especially later on in the game. At points I didn’t even know where I was being shot from. Vigors were very fun throughout the entire game, though.

Andrew: I started my playthrough on normal, and instead of restarting the game on hard I just continued on, so I didn’t get the achievement for my hard work. Combat gets tedious, the final battle is just a chore. At some point I just went I didn’t care about dying anymore; just revive me and I’ll just win through sheer attrition. I think on normal headshots kill in one shot, but on hard that definitely isn’t the case with anything but the hand cannon and sniper. I’m not sure exactly what the difficulty changes are, but it does seem to be more health and damage rather than real difficulty. Save system was a nightmare, no idea why they did that. I kind of wish I had played the game on normal because I do feel the amount of combat drags down the whole thing.

Vigors were interesting, but I didn’t invest as much money in them. Their upgrades are more expensive than the guns, so just dumping cash into all the weapon damage upgrades and a little bit of lightning and possession was what I ended up doing. Upgrading possession would probably have been something useful, but when the upgrade is like 1.5k when I can get like four different gun upgrades for that it never seemed like a cost effective thing for me to do. I don’t think the combat is bad by any stretch, but I definitely feel like playing on hard was probably something I shouldn’t have done.

Eduardo: I personally thought the vigors were way too expensive to upgrade, and when I did invest in a couple of them, they just made it too easy. That was an issue I had with the original Bioshock, where I somehow stumbled into a combo that made me invisible and super strong with the melee attack. The ending section was probably the worst spot for me, I struggled to aim Songbird at the blimps and the ground attacks were plain useless for me – and that was the only part of the game where I was able to actually hit the sensitive part of the patriots due to their A.I scripting of “go for the glowy thing, shoot it, ignore everything else”. But by that point my guns were so powerful that a couple of shots to their head just nailed them.

Heck, I thought of playing it on hard from the get go on this one, I probably should have…

Also, guys, once we end the conversation on combat, which I’d love to stay on for a while, I’d like to know what are your thoughts on the whole “morality” allusions thrown in throughout the game, such as the warnings of not stealing and such. Did you steal? Did you pick the evil choice at the beginning? Frankly, I didn’t find as strong of a choice in this game as in the first one, I tried to be good throughout, and even reloaded checkpoints at the beginning when the use of possession of a vending machine just freaked everyone the heck out. I tried going stealthy and not attacking guards but out of the blue they always seemed to open fire, even though they saw me walk by a couple of times before.

Weird.

Callum: I liked the combat. Played on normal and found it to be plenty challenging (though maybe I’m just not very good at shooters). The interaction between gunplay and vigors allow for plenty of fineness and variety, both in reckless running and gunning and more tactical play. With how large the armies you fight are, having the vigors on hand really evens the field. Doubly so when the traps are used effectively. Only wish it didn’t take so long to activate those functions. They always seemed to take a few more seconds than they should. And the upgrades – too expensive.

Once the Skyrails are introduced, however, things really take off. Being able to jump on and off them both to get around and to launch attacks from really adds dimension to the action. In one of the first few instances I had to use them to avoid rockets, board carriers, and reach sniper installations whilst still fighting an army of soldiers and mechs. It was awesome. I only wish there were more environments that made use of them.

Also: The final encounter. Hectic stuff. Strong example of how smart use of vigors can change the tide of battle as well. First attempt, I didn’t use them enough. Relied too heavily on guns and failed as a result. Started setting traps on my second run and suddenly it became more manageable, if only slightly. Perfect for crowd control.

The pure chaos of that final battle was the strongest part about it. It was fun to participate in once I started using smart tactics, but the sense of finality and desperation of it all served it nicely. Gave the battle more purpose than your average encounter.

What was most annoying was how the Songbird wasn’t always immediately responsive. Would hover the reticle over targets and the darn thing wouldn’t attack. Didn’t happen often, thankfully.

Gareth: I played on Easy, so combat was a cakewalk. Easy Street is easy livin’. I do hate “fake” difficulty. Just bumping up the amount of life enemies have is stupid. Was watching a video about this, actually: It said that you already know how to play the game and kill the enemies, but bumping up the difficulty artificially elongates the playing time. If they add extra enemies, that’s fine.

Thought gameplay itself was the strongest of all three BioShock games: Really easy to switch between vigours and guns. However, aside from Achievement hunting purposes, I felt like I could have stuck to the Pistol, Machinegun, and Carbine through the whole game if I so desired, and once I had the Shock Jockey tonic that was my go-to vigour because after hitting them with a vigour you only need shoot them once and their heads explode.

I have to agree that the finale battle on the zeppelin was probably the weakest bit of the whole game with the exception of fighting Lady Comstock’s ghost 3 times (Zelda’s Rule, check). It just felt really contrived: “Here’s this massive power thing which shouldn’t get destroyed” and you only know that because a health bar appears at the top right of the screen (I don’t remember Booker or Elizabeth ever mentioning it). Also I found the later levels (from after Finkton onwards) where not as interesting as Soldier’s Field or the Comstock Center. Emporia kind of just felt dead because there were no “citizens” left; felt this was an area where that E3 demo seemed to show off more than actually ended up in the game.

Eduardo: I liked the skyways as well and they really should’ve been used more, I agree. I also liked how handymen could electrify the thing and just leave you screwed outta luck. This seems like the game tailor made for new game+ in regards to upgrades, right? They do carry over, I think, to higher difficulties? (editor’s note: no, they don’t, unfortunately…).

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?! We’re stopping this cable car right now in the middle of this skyway if you don’t stop asking, reader! *Ahem* We’re almost to the conclusion of our group discussion of Bioshock Infinite. On the third and final part, we’re going to be talking about Infinite’s approach to morality, from the pacifist’s route to the moral quandaries in regards to Elizabeth.

Join us next time, would you kindly?

Monaco is a two-dimensional, isometric, tough-as-nails cooperative heist game where every instance varies greatly. Random generation of coins and guard locations make every attempt new and unexpected, always foiling any carefully formulated plans you construct. Whether alone or a team, the challenge is such that you can never count on any methods or strategies to succeed, forced to rely on your wits constantly for even a modicum of chance at victory. It’s brutal and magnificent; one of the finest cooperative games around.

The story may only be a small part of Monaco, but it is interesting nonetheless.

The story follows a band of thieves attempting to escape from the rich city-state of Monaco, pulling off a number of big heists along the way. The tale is told across 33 levels and two campaigns, offering up plenty of intrigue as things progress. Both campaigns use the same scenarios, the second act modifying those from the first into much harder stages by altering level design slightly and adding more security measures.

Your goal in each stage is to steal an item – cash, security tapes, jewelry – and escape. You do this by selecting one of eight characters each with their own unique talents. The Locksmith can unlock doors and safes much faster than any other character, for instance, while The Cleaner can knock out unsuspecting foes. Whether you’re noticed or not isn’t an issue. Just do the job and get out.

Stealth doesn’t work here like it does in so many other games. It’s forced, yes – you’ll die many a gruesome death, otherwise – but not so much as to penalize you just for being spotted or tripping an alarm. Rather, you’re encouraged to not worry and just do whatever’s required.

The way levels are laid out practically gives you no choice. Lasers, cameras, pressure pads, turrets – all conspire to bring about your untimely death, in addition to the usual suite of security guards and cops. Hacking terminals unleash viruses that disable those fiendish measures for a short period, granting momentary ease, but guards patrol in irregular ways, straying from their usual rounds and entering cabinets, bathrooms, and what have you with little warning. They do not limit themselves to a single back-and-forth circuit, instead adapting as noises are heard and sightings are made.

The Mole can bash through any walls, rocks, or whatever blocks his path. Very handy in cases like this.

For how simple the artificial intelligence can be (and often is), it is surprisingly clever. There’s never any true patrol patterns for guards. They wander about somewhat aimlessly keeping an eye out for you, changing course as time goes on. Mostly those changes come about because you were spotted, tripped an alarm, or your scent was sniffed by a pesky hound, prompting a nearby officer to investigate. Other times, it just happens. Avoiding detection relatively easy, though: just sneak when enemies are near.

Apart from The Lookout, who can see every foe on the map regardless of whether they’re in her line of sight, your primary means of tracking guards is staying nearby. Anyone in close proximity have their movements tracked by footprints that appear on the blueprint-esque map. The range isn’t especially far, but farther than you would expect. A question mark appears over the heads of anyone who sees you, slowly filling the longer they can see you. And once spotted, an exclamation point marks your last seen location. This brilliant, intuitive visual feedback provides the exact information you need to effectively remain stealthy.

As a single-player game, Monaco is slow and tactical. You’re able to steadily move and plan, able to make – no, plan for mistakes. Because of your four lives, you can swap characters upon death. It’s as much a boon as it is a hassle. You can purposely kill yourself to swap characters who specialize in whatever obstacle bars your path, completely bypassing otherwise insurmountable roadblocks at a small cost. For example: Could start as The Hacker, who can release viruses through outlets and hack far faster than anyone else, to get through a heavily laser-guarded room then kill yourself to swap to The Gentleman, who can automatically disguise himself when hidden, to walk through the entire security force to the exit. The game actively encourages smart tactics, allowing a wide degree of approaches on any given level.

Tools provide an additional, valuable advantage. Wrenches complete actions instantly, whilst smoke bombs and C4 allow you to make an escape whether through smokescreens or explosive diversions; firearms slay foes (only temporarily, though; they can be revived by their allies), and, of course, disguises and EMPs cloak your presence completely. The types of tools you can use vary from mission to mission. Choosing which one to take is one of the more important strategic decisions you can make, very well hindering an otherwise perfect plan if not used wisely.

Co-op makes cleaning out levels far more manageable.

Cooperative play is the exact opposite of single. Whereas Monaco is slow and calculated in solo-play, co-op turns Monaco into a bonanza of mayhem. With four players running about, methodology is thrown out the window in favor of playing completely by ear. It is both an easier and harder means of play; you’re able to cover more ground, allowing you to clean levels out faster, but you each only get one life, unable to swap characters upon death.
Teamwork is key. Using your abilities in tandem, watching each other’s backs through careful application of your tools necessary precautions for success. Whether things hastily thrown together or carefully orchestrated, it’s nothing short of exhilarating. The sort that embodies that “just one more game” mentality perfectly. It’s easily Monaco’s greatest strength.

Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory composed the soundtrack to Monaco, and it shows. The piano-based tunes act as splendid cat-burglary music, its primarily jovial tone matching the bright, colorful locales. Its sudden change to the frenetic upon being seen evokes urgency perfectly, as well, conveying that frightening sense of impending failure.
That Monaco makes stealth a blast without relegating it to “optional” status, let alone feasible in four-player mayhem, speaks to the game’s craft. The three years between its unveiling and release have been well-spent, refining the concept of multiplayer thievery splendidly. It’s been a long road, but Monaco is here and couldn’t be better.