Gemini Rue Review

Gemini Rue is a look back to a bygone era. From its 2D pixel art to its point-and-click controls, this is a game cut from the cloth of Sierra's classic adventure games of the early '90s. Created almost entirely by UCLA student Joshua Nuernberger, Gemini Rue was picked up by indie publisher Wadjet Eye Games late in development. The final release is a gripping science fiction thriller that weaves an amazing tale across two storylines. Unfortunately, what you're doing in between these story segments isn't as inspired, but it's worth pressing on just to see what happens next.

Some problems have multiple solutions.

Like its name suggests, Gemini Rue divides your time between two protagonists. Half of the time is spent as Azriel Odin, an ex-assassin on an intergalactic hunt for his missing brother. His search has led him to the planet Barracus, which is locked in a seemingly permanent rainstorm. The other half is spent as the mysterious Delta-Six. After having his memory wiped at the game's outset, Delta-Six wakes to finds himself trapped in an unknown rehabilitation clinic. Little explanation is given, but if Delta-Six wants to eat, he'll have to complete his firearms training.

Gemini Rue's strongest asset is its story. What start as two seemingly unrelated plot threads gradually begin to overlap each other in ways you might not expect. The pace is masterfully balanced between the two protagonists, and you never feel lost in the middle. Just as you start to figure things out for one, the game switches perspectives to the other. Azriel might uncover a critical clue to his brother's whereabouts moments before the game cuts to Delta-Six who is listening to conflicting reports from his "friends" about what transpired before his memory wipe. Just as you're about to solve one mystery, another pops up to take its place.

Certain segments allow you to switch back and forth between your two characters at will.

This is essential because the actual gameplay of Gemini Rue is very simple. With a few exceptions, the solution to any puzzle is obvious and never impedes your progress. The puzzles simply guide you through the action of what is essentially an interactive novel. This means you're never saddled with frustrations, such as attempting obtuse, trial-and-error item combinations or pixel hunting for a tiny key hidden in a busy background. However, this also means that the game slips into monotony at times as you go through the motions of its clearly prescribed path to the next plot point.

The shooting segments are a similar situation. When a firefight starts, your character drops into cover. From here, you can lean out and fire on your attackers. Naturally, you'll want to stay behind cover when being shot at and lean out just as your enemy finishes shooting but before he ducks back down. Timing--that's all there is to it. Once you have the timing down, these segments--just like the puzzles--become a breeze. Overall, the shooting and puzzle-solving do the job of breaking up the story sections, but on their own, they can get tedious.

What does hold up is the game's atmosphere. Whether you're Azriel listening to the patter of the unending rainstorm or Delta-Six surrounded by the deep hum of an industrial air conditioner, the ambient sound design always conveys a sense of oppression and isolation in the unknown. The entire experience is underscored by soft jazz or piano tracks that emphasizes the sci-fi/noir hybrid at play in Gemini Rue. On top of all that is the voice acting. Though a bit dull in spots, the voice acting lends an extra bit of immersion that really brings this world to life. Brian Silliman's throat-of-gravel voice for Azriel Odin is especially fitting.

The shooting segments are little more than a distraction from the rest of the game.

Thankfully, this game doesn't overstay its welcome. Clocking in at about eight hours, the game maintains a consistent pace that tugs you from one plot hook to the next. And by the time you enter the game's final act, you won't be able to put it down. Developer commentary is added after your first play-through and provides a wonderful incentive for you to jump back into the game. Even with its basic puzzle and action sequences, Gemini Rue is an intriguing experience for adventure gamers young and old.

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Posted in: Adventure

Trenched Review

During the First World War, life in the trenches was anything but fun; rats, lice, heavy rainfall, and enemy snipers all did their bit to ensure misery. Developer Double Fine's take on trench warfare in which Trenches are mechlike war machines rather than muddy holes in the ground, on the other hand, is a blast. Somewhat reminiscent of Signal Studios' excellent Toy Soldiers, but with a greater emphasis on action, Trenched is a tower defense game that lets you take an active role on the battlefield as you defend strategically important locations from an unimaginable evil. You're afforded brief respites between the waves of enemies that are headed your way, but Trenched is played at a pleasingly frantic pace for the most part, and you need to be both smart with your tower placements and skilled with your chosen weapons to overcome the enemy. All 15 campaign missions are fun to tackle solo or alongside up to three friends, and replay value comes courtesy of leaderboards and a compelling loot system. This isn't the Great War that your ancestors might have fought in, but it's a great war nonetheless.

No, really, this is tower defense.

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Trenched isn't a game that's going to keep you glued to your controller with its story, but its tale is at least good for a few chuckles. The events of the game transpire shortly after the aforementioned conflict, when two injured comrades serving at an Allied listening station intercept a mysterious signal that makes them supersmart. Frank Woodruff and Vladimir Farnsworth then take very different approaches to using their newfound intellect to aid other disabled veterans. Woodruff invents mechanical legs known as Trenches so that he and others like him might walk again, while Farnsworth invents television (referred to in-game as Monovision) so that veterans who are unable to move can still see the world. Woodruff's Trenches make him the toast of the town, while Farnsworth's broadcasts are considered a plague. Long story short, Farnsworth loses his marbles and, in an attempt to force his broadcasts upon humankind, fashions mechanical monsters (Tubes) and sends them into battle. And that's where you come in. As one of four marines with a customizable Trench at your disposal, your mission is to defend against Farnsworth's forces and to foil his dastardly plan to dominate the airwaves.

The first campaign mission, in which you must defend your battleship-with-legs base of operations, serves as a tutorial and does a great job of familiarizing you with the equipment at your disposal. Controlling your Trench and dropping defensive emplacements almost anywhere that you care to on the battlefield could hardly be easier. Emplacements, which initially include only mounted machine guns and shotguns, must be positioned a certain distance apart, but that's the only restriction. Typically, you start each mission with only enough of the game's scrap resource to place a couple of them, but since scrap is dropped anytime you kill a Tube, there's certainly no shortage of it. What's unfortunate, though, is that while most of your time is spent gleefully managing defenses or using Trench-mounted weapons to deal with enemies in a more hands-on manner, some of it must be spent wandering around the battlefield to collect scrap. Trenches are equipped with magnets that attract this valuable resource, but the magnets aren't nearly as powerful as they should be, and because Trenches move at a pretty sedate pace, this process quickly becomes a chore. Compounding this problem is that scrap disappears after a short time, so if you don't collect it quickly you don't get to collect it at all.

Both the missions you undertake and the enemies that you encounter are impressively varied.

Scrap collection is a minor but frequent irritation throughout Trenched's campaign. As you progress and unlock more customization options for your Trench, you might choose to equip legs that move more quickly or to carry emplacements that automatically collect nearby scrap for you, but these are imperfect solutions. Making your Trench a more effective scrap collector means compromising its abilities in other areas. Using legs with a sprint ability means not using legs with the ability to shorten your weapons' reload times, for example, and since no Trench can carry more than four different types of emplacements simultaneously, devoting one of those slots to a scrap collection pod means you have one less defensive option. It's a shame that scrap collection isn't handled more efficiently in Trenched, because customizing your Trench for each mission can be almost as much fun as the missions themselves. In addition to legs, each Trench incorporates a chassis with variable armor and speed ratings, and the chassis, in turn, incorporates one to six weapon slots and up to four emplacement slots. You'll inevitably have a favorite setup, but missions are varied enough and new equipment comes your way quickly enough that you're unlikely to use the same Trench for more than a couple of missions in succession.

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Posted in: Action

F.E.A.R. 3 Review

Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown. Unfortunately, F.E.A.R. 3 doesn't seem to grasp this, and it lays bare all the mysteries of this series of paranormal shooters, moving the story forward but stripping away its power to get inside your head and keep you up at night. But while F.E.A.R. 3 may disappoint as a horror game, it satisfies as a shooter. The campaign is good fun in single-player and especially enjoyable when played cooperatively with a friend. And the game's multiplayer modes present some thrills for those willing to work with others to survive.

Point Man will go to great lengths for a tasty cut of meat.

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F.E.A.R. 3 follows hot on the heels of F.E.A.R. 2's startling conclusion, but returns us to the protagonist of the original F.E.A.R., the genetically designed supersoldier known as Point Man. The events at the end of F.E.A.R. 2 have triggered a paranormal catastrophe of biblical proportions in the city of Fairport, and Point Man is eager to make his way there and help out a former squadmate caught up in the chaos. Point Man's not alone, though. His homicidal brother, Paxton Fettel, is along for the ride. Point Man may have put a bullet in his brother's brain in F.E.A.R., but Fettel isn't about to let a little thing like being dead keep him down. The brothers form an uneasy alliance, but despite the tension between them, the story progresses predictably. There's a pleasant sense of closure that goes with seeing the brothers confront the painful reality of their shared past, but there aren't any surprises or scares that will stay with you once the story has run its course. The visuals also won't work their way into your subconscious. F.E.A.R. 3's graphics are plain and lag behind current standards. As a result, the creepy living rooms, city streets, and food courts you fight your way through aren't quite as creepy as they should be; the environments lack the convincing level of detail to fully pull you in. The sounds are more effective; the loud blasts of gunfire heighten the intensity of firefights, and the ethereal wails that accompany ghostly visions may unsettle you a bit, even if the sight of them doesn't.

Point Man and Paxton Fettel are both playable, but when tackling the campaign alone, you must first play each stage as Point Man to unlock the option to play it as Fettel. Regardless of which character you're playing as, F.E.A.R. 3 is, at its core, a corridor shooter that shuttles you from one small area to another and sees you constantly beset by groups of enemies. Although the core action doesn't evolve much over the course of the game, the firefights remain exciting. The assortment of pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and other weapons you can employ feel powerful, and the smooth controls make aiming and shooting a pleasure. And your melee attacks, which include a sliding kick that can send enemies flying like rag dolls, make it fun to sometimes forgo the use of guns and charge your enemies.

Most of your time is spent fighting soldiers in the private army of the evil Armacham corporation, and these enemies keep you on your toes by flanking your position, though they also occasionally do dumb things like get stuck while coming down stairs. All of the areas in which shoot-outs take place provide ample opportunities for cover, but a lot of cover is destructible, and it's a thrill to frantically dash from one position to another as your cover is blown to smithereens. F.E.A.R. 3 prevents the shoot-outs from growing tiresome by providing atmospheric periods between firefights. For instance, a few quiet minutes spent making your way through a defiled superstore build up the tension before the bullets start flying. And although Point Man and Paxton are figurative killing machines, the occasional opportunity to take control of a literal killing machine and make things very unpleasant for your adversaries is a lot of fun. At a few points during the campaign, you can commandeer two types of armored power suits. These powerful, lumbering contraptions make the assaults of Armacham soldiers laughable, and shooting helicopters out of the sky from inside one of these machines is a delicious taste of destructive power.

Point Man's heightened reflexes come in handy in moments like this.

As Point Man, you have an edge in battle courtesy of your unnaturally fast reflexes. These let you trigger slow motion for brief periods, making it much easier to line up that perfect headshot or deal with an overwhelming number of assailants. There's nothing novel about the ability to go into slow motion in shooters anymore, but it's still cool to see the air vibrate in the wake of a speeding bullet that whizzes past your head or to watch as what's left of an enemy explodes in a bloody mess. Paxton lacks his brother's heightened reflexes but makes up for it with other talents. As a specter, he can't pick up guns (though he's still vulnerable to bullets), but he can suspend enemies helplessly in the air and fire deadly blasts of energy from his hand. He can also take possession of soldiers even from significant distances, and it's liberating to zap into the body of an enemy from across the room. A meter drains while you inhabit a body, and if it runs out, you're returned to spectral form. But enemies you kill leave behind psychic energy that you can use to refill your meter and prolong your possession time, encouraging you to take risks and not hide behind cover for too long.

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Posted in: Horror

Shadows of the Damned Review

Honestly, even if you forget about the demons constantly trying to kill you, hell is a pretty lousy place. Take, for instance, an ordinary act like turning on the lights. While residing on the earthly plane, you just flick a switch and your world is bathed in a fluorescent glow. But if you're stuck in hell, you have to find a goat head (listen for the bleats!) and shoot it with your flaming pistol. You do have a flaming pistol, right? There's a chance it's called a Boner. That's what Garcia Hotspur calls his gun. Make no mistake about it, Shadows of the Damned is a weird game, but it doesn't use its strangeness as a crutch to hold up sagging gameplay. There's a chance you may become immune to the reggae charm of the sushi lamp or just find vulgar jokes off-putting. But the beauty of the brilliantly crafted combat situations makes it so that you can't help but push on to see what devious traps lay before you. Shadows of the Damned turns the gloomy world of hell into a digital paradise.

Bring out your dead!

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If you had to choose a prime candidate for hell's most-wanted list, a demon slayer would be a fine guess. Garcia Hotspur kills corrupt souls for giggles, so it's not surprising when his lovely girlfriend Paula is kidnapped by the vindictive lord of darkness. Unfortunately for the bad guys, there isn't anyone better equipped to win her back. Plot details don't get much deeper than a basic setup, but story is still a large part of this stygian adventure. Garcia pals around with a floating skull named Johnson that serves as your tour guide and moral compass, and which transforms into a gun or torch when the situation warrants. The demonic-hunting duo is unrelentingly crass, fixated on the male reproductive organ and its many useful functions. It's immature, to be sure, but it also comes across as genuine. There's a natural rapport between these characters that gives their raunchy dialogue a whiff of believability. There are times when Shadows is tiresome and there are times when it's laugh-out-loud funny, but it's usually amusing enough to add to the experience.

On the most rudimentary level, Shadows of the Damned is a third-person shooter. Victorian houses, farming villages, and other gloomy abodes confine you in mostly linear levels, and you dispatch pain to unruly demons with your trusty guns. Garcia moves with the troubling grace of an injured ballerina. Jerky animations and a zoomed-in camera combine to make navigation clunky, and there are times when enemies trap you in a corner, which obstructs your view. But, for the most part, the controls function admirably. When Sister Grim lashes out with her razor-sharp scythe, you can dive away like a frightened rabbit. Or when demons get too close, you can run, perform a quick turn, and fire to end their pathetic lives in one sure blast. Movement inconsistencies are a looming presence, but Garcia can still overcome this liability with practice.

Eye see you.

Flawed core mechanics have been known to derail lesser games, but there's no such problem in Shadows of the Damned. Garcia enters hell prepared to execute every demon in sight, and he has the firepower to pull off such a feat. Endearing names like Skullblaster, Hotboner, and Dentist are affixed to guns comparable to a shotgun, pistol, and machine gun, but they are a lot more versatile than their real-life counterparts. Upgrades let you increase carrying capacity, damage, and reload speed, but these tools of destruction let you go much further. At specific story moments, new powers are unlocked that make the already-delicious combat even more enticing. Your ordinary pistol gains the ability to shoot combustible mines that are just as handy for knocking down cracked walls as they are at blowing a wicked demon sky high. With a blast from your shotgun, you can blow off an arm or leg or initiate an instant-death decapitation, but why waste your time aiming? Homing bullets let you dispose of demons with lazy ease. Weapons are diverse and deadly in Damned, and it's sadistically satisfying to strike down your teeming enemies with them.

Combat is a lot more involved than just shooting any fool who wanders your way. Darkness is the creeping threat that lingers around you, and if you get caught in the gloomy veil, your health slowly depletes. To lift this fog, you must seek out a goat head positioned somewhere on a wall. It's a basic concept that is used in fascinating ways during the course of your heroic rescue mission. You may need to run through a hall of shadows, cognizant of your slowly draining health, to reach safety on the other side. Or a monster may confront you that fears the darkness above all else, and you have to figure out a way to quench flames without succumbing to death yourself. Puzzles force you to step in a darkened room to find the solution, and certain bosses require you to make the same sacrifice. How can you so readily kill if you're afraid to dance with death when the time arises? There's a constant balance to tempt fate without dying that makes these scenarios intoxicating.

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

Another Transformers movie means another Transformers game. For many longtime fans, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the other robots in disguise are special characters, and hope endures that someday, a Transformers game will come along that does them justice. Unfortunately, Dark of the Moon is not that game. The action in this third-person shooter isn't bad, but it also isn't anything remarkable. There aren't any surprises or standout moments during its brief campaign, and the shallow multiplayer isn't likely to keep you coming back for very long.

Ironhide enjoys a pleasant, uneventful drive through Detroit.

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Dark of the Moon serves as a prologue to the upcoming film of the same name. There's a story here about the evil Decepticons desperately looking for something, but the game never makes it clear why we should care about the outcome, so it's hard to feel invested in what happens. And because you play as both Autobots and Decepticons, you're not rooting for either side to prevail. The ending is underwhelming; nothing is resolved, and there are no clear winners or losers. All we get is the setup of a situation that will play out at cineplexes later this summer. The visuals don't support a sense of global conflict, either. The South American villages, Mayan temples, and other locations don't have much detail, making them look more like playsets for toy robots than actual locations around the world. It's not uncommon to see robots pass through objects or get caught on corners, and destroyed enemies inexplicably evaporate into smoke and ash. The sounds do a better job of bringing the conflict to life. The various guns and other weapons you use throughout the game sound powerful. And Peter Cullen, the longtime voice of Optimus Prime, sounds as authoritative and benevolent as ever.

The campaign is spread across seven chapters, each one focusing on a different Transformer (or, in one case, two Transformers). When in robot form, you have a few different weapons and abilities available, and the unique abilities of each Transformer lend the action a bit of variety from chapter to chapter. Mirage, for instance, has a cloaking ability and a sniper rifle, and Megatron can drain health from nearby Autobots. But these abilities aren't significant enough to prevent the action from falling into a rut as a result of the repetitive and uninspired level design. You spend most of your time walking or rolling your way through levels, pausing frequently to blast generic robots of the opposing faction. On very rare occasions, you need to do things a bit differently, such as in one section as Mirage during which you have only the cloaking ability and melee attacks at your disposal. But for the most part, there's nothing that makes one battle significantly different from the next. You fight the same standard enemies in similar environments over and over.

Bumblebee likes to let loose once in a while.

So the game doesn't change things up much. But of course, this being a Transformers game, you can change things up a bit yourself at almost any time. In Dark of the Moon, Transformers have what's called a "stealth force" form, which looks like a tricked-out, heavily armed version of their vehicle form but lets them move in all directions. This mobility makes the stealth force forms fun to control, but their limited firepower means you'll probably spend more time in robot form. Each Transformer also has a vehicle form, which you can enter only by holding down a shoulder button that makes you speed forward. This form isn't always your most effective offensive weapon, but it is the most fun. Crashing into enemy robots sends them flying back through the air a ridiculous distance. It's an absurd and fun way to dispatch your foes, though this one-note goofiness can entertain for only so long.

Vehicle forms are also useful during specific sections of levels when you need to cover a lot of ground quickly. The controls for vehicle forms are awkward; cars and trucks are slippery and seem to pivot from a central point, as if their wheels aren't actually touching the ground. This awkwardness makes precise driving difficult, but this doesn't matter much. You can usually just drive ahead clumsily at full speed, bouncing off the sides of the road, and still not have any trouble reaching your destination. These sections are a breezy break from the third-person shooting that makes up most of the game, but the strange controls and slippery physics also make them one of the game's biggest disappointments. When Bumblebee transforms into vehicle form and speeds down the road, it feels like you're controlling a lightweight toy rather than putting the pedal to the metal in a Camaro. The flying sections are similarly disappointing; during one chapter, you pilot Starscream in jet form, but he flies through the air much too slowly to make this exciting.

Special abilities like Mirage's cloak technique differentiate the chapters a bit.

In addition to the campaign, Dark of the Moon has a multiplayer mode. Here, the Transformers are divided up into four classes. There are speedy scouts, airborne hunters, well-rounded commanders, and hard-hitting warriors. There are only three game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Conquest, in which teams earn points for controlling nodes. As in so many multiplayer games these days, you earn experience and level up, unlocking new perks (like faster speed on foot, or an automatic grenade drop when killed) and new abilities (like a healing ability, or a temporary boost to armor and damage for all nearby allies). Battles tend to be chaotic, with lots of players shooting and clobbering each other at close quarters. They're good for some quick and shallow Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots fun, but they lack the depth to keep you coming back for long. You level up very quickly and can earn every ability for every class in a handful of hours. With shallow action, just three basic modes of play, and five maps, this multiplayer quickly loses its appeal.

The same can be said of the entire game. The seven-chapter campaign is over quickly and leaves you feeling like nothing has been resolved. It's more of a commercial for the upcoming film than a story in its own right. Walking through levels blasting and crashing into robots offers some satisfaction, but the game doesn't have any memorable moments, and it certainly doesn't capture the Transformers magic that fans of the robots in disguise are hoping for. They say that Transformers offer more than meets the eye. But with Dark of the Moon, what you see is an ordinary and unattractive third-person action game, and what you see is exactly what you get.

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Posted in: Action

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls Review

Get out the graph paper. You just might need it in Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, an old-fashioned dungeon crawler for the PlayStation Network so true to its roots that it lacks an automap feature and just about every other amenity of a modern role-playing game. This slavish attention to detail is both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of the game. Developer Acquire has stuck so closely to the RPG formula circa 1990 or thereabouts that you might love the game for its evocation of nostalgia, in spite of its archaic graphics, sound, and mechanics. You can't argue about Acquire meeting its goals here, however, because this game is so true to the RPG experience as it was two decades ago that you might as well be playing it on a Commodore Amiga instead of a PlayStation 3.

Odetta is clearly dressed for adventuring.

If you have ever played any classic dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master for the late, great Atari ST and the Eye of the Beholder series for the PC, or gotten into any of the modern revivals, such as The Dark Spire and the Etrian Odyssey franchise for the Nintendo DS, you will immediately know what you're in for here. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is a straight-up single-player dungeon trek. It pits a traditional six-member party of adventurers against all of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired horrors that can be found in an eerie underground maze of caverns, chambers, and catacombs. Everything is basic. You roll up a party by tweaking skill stats and choosing classes from a list of mostly traditional fighters and mages, with a couple of oddballs like the samurai and ninja thrown in for good measure. You access various adventurer-accommodating features in a city represented by simple menu choices that instantly port the party to an inn for resting, a temple for healing, a shop for buying and selling items, a guild for accepting quests, and so forth. And you venture into a couple of many-floored dungeons to kill monsters for fun and profit.

The two dungeons in the game are moved through step-by-step with the party en masse, with the dungeon before you shown via a first-person camera. Three fight-friendly adventurers are in the front row and three ranged- or magic-combat specialists are in the back row. When you push the D pad forward, the party moves one step forward; when you push the D pad backward, the party moves one step backward; when you push the D pad sideways you turn in the indicated direction. Dungeon levels are simple mazes laid out with brick-lined walls, rocky caverns, and the like. Every square looks pretty much the same, unless you encounter a door, a treasure chest, some kind of special creature like a ghost or non-player character, or are swept off into a fight with monsters. There is no automatic mapping function here, which makes finding your way around extremely challenging. You can buy maps and deal with this in various other ways, but at times, you need to either resort to graph paper or a really uncanny sense of direction. An automap that can be turned on and off would have been a better solution here, letting more casual players get into the game without the hassle of manual mapping and using the limited in-game maps.

When you run into bad guys, you generally have a choice of either fighting or fleeing. Battles are turn-based and extremely simple. Each party member fights or casts a spell each turn until the monsters go down or the entire party bites the dust. Fighting is rather unforgiving. In the early stages, you have garbage equipment and weapons like cloaks and daggers, so you are vulnerable to being smacked around by a gang of kobolds. Leveling up is a fairly measured process, and you need to do a lot of killing and exploring to scrounge up the gold needed to upgrade gear. Still, it's all strangely addictive. The whole game is a level grind, and quite repetitive in the style of old-time RPGs, but the grim nature of the surroundings and the extremely focused "see monster, kill monster, loot dungeon" nature of what you're doing keeps pushing you forward. Tough battles provide a good challenge to egg you on, as well. Even the lack of an automap feature helps immerse you in the game, because you need to really pay attention to what you're doing to even find your way in and out of the dungeons.

This is about as elaborate as the graphics get in the dungeons.

With all that said, it is hard to quantify the appeal of a retro game like this. Part of the reason you keep playing is the thrill of exploring ever-deeper dungeon levels and seeing what else there is out there to try and kill. Despite the minimalistic visuals, sticking around to see what lies around the next darkened corner is a big part of the attraction. The stark visuals are entirely in keeping with the retro theme, of course, although the backdrops are perhaps a little too dark, even when you have assistance in the form of a spell. Another issue has to do with the six character portraits that line both sides of the screen to provide a look at the party you're leading and to keep an eye on their overall health by tracking hit points. These big and brightly lit anime-flavored icons contrast so much with the darkened dungeons that it is hard to make out where you're going when adventuring underground. Being able to turn them off would have been welcome, so you could better immerse yourself in the spooky dungeon corridors. The anime character art is also a bit extreme in spots, with some of the big-eyed female heroes dressed in risque outfits that are wholly inappropriate for exploring a dungeon stocked with goblins and dragons. Creatures are more appropriately drawn, although they are represented by flat, mostly unmoving models that don't have a great deal of detail. There are a lot of different types of monsters, ranging from floating evil coins and orcs to dragons and demons, but all you see of them are simple little figures that don't have a great deal of visual impact.

Audio is also pretty rough and ready. The generic music could have been composed, if not recorded, during the 8-bit era. Battle effects are equally old school and made up of basic sword clashes and groans. All of the vocals seem to have been carried over intact from the Japanese version of the game that was released back in 2009. This works with the anime character art, but it isn't so pleasing to the ear. Most of the lines are high pitched and involve various squeals. The collective gasp when you navigate the party into a wall is hilarious, at least.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is one uncompromising game. To really appreciate this sort of RPG, you need to be either someone who fondly remembers the good old days or someone who has always wanted to take a trip back in time to the dungeon crawlers that dad used to play. As such, it's either a good game or an awful one depending on your perspective. But the developers have clearly succeeded in their efforts to turn back the clock for the nostalgia-minded, so you have to admire the effort and the end results, even if you can't fully get into its old-time atmosphere.

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Posted in: Cartoon

Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts Review

In the Fallout universe, nuclear war has ravaged the country, but religious faith abides. In Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts, men of God struggle to find peace in a land where strife is inescapable--a powerful theme for a downloadable add-on. The story in Honest Hearts doesn't take advantage of this fertile premise, but that premise still enriches this formulaic yet enjoyable adventure into Utah's Zion National Park. As its name would suggest, some see this region as a promised land, and it's here that two religious leaders struggle to maintain control in the face of a warring tribe that would drive them out. Zion is a big and atmospheric setting for a new adventure, and there's enough new content here to keep you busy for four or five hours as you shoot up charging geckos and get to know the local tribes. That said, Honest Hearts doesn't make a lasting impression; none of its characters, places, or events stand up to those of the main game or even those of Fallout 3's better content packs. Yet, this enjoyable excursion gives you several welcome chances to exercise the power of choice, and it rewards you with new perks, new weapons, and an increased level cap.

These geckos are angry because they didn't get choice parts in a car insurance commercial.

The two men at the center of Honest Hearts are good, sincere blokes that nonetheless don't see eye to eye on how to deal with the White Legs, a violent tribe of nomads eager to scalp anyone that dares oppose them. One of these men is Daniel, a Mormon missionary with close ties to a tribe called The Sorrows. The other is Joshua Graham, otherwise known as The Burned Man. Joshua favors an aggressive approach toward the White Legs, which is no surprise given his violent past with Caesar's Legion. He is beloved by the Dead Horses tribe and preaches that mankind should shun the greed of the outside world. You stumble upon both men after the trading caravan you join falls victim to the White Legs, though neither makes a very strong impression. Joshua needs supplies like lunch boxes and walkie-talkies; Daniel sends you to find maps and disarm traps. These are nice men that nonetheless make you wonder how they managed to inspire the devotion of the locals. Joshua tells you that he was put on Earth to show people how to fight, yet he speaks in even tones, without an ounce of passion. For someone called The Burned Man, his personality lacks fire, and the tasks he needs performed are hardly extraordinary.

As mundane as the narrative is, you still get welcome opportunities to make decisions, though they would have more weight if you felt more invested in the consequences. Standard quests allow for a bit of flexibility. You might kill the gigantic Yao Guai creatures threatening the camp or collapse the cave in which they live. You could convince a tribesman to follow his heart and explore the "civilized" world or encourage him to stay with his people. The final series of decisions determine the future of several characters and their tribes, and these are outlined in an epilogue that closes the adventure in traditional Fallout fashion. Some of these characters include a few that join you as followers, and they, like Joshua and Daniel, are remarkably even tempered. It's nice to have their company, however--particularly that of Waking Cloud, a pious Sorrow tribeswoman indebted to Daniel for her saving her life. It's too bad that some of the quests these characters join you for are so routine. Find a key, open a cabinet, search for a compass: These are simple fetch quests that needed some dressing up with better context.

Hooked on Phonics doesn't work for everyone.

A few quests offer some variety, however, including one that pits you against a giant creature in Honest Hearts' best battle. The reward is an excellent melee weapon that nicely complements an intimidating helmet you might also grab before you head back to the Mojave. Other tangible goodies in this content include weapons (such as tomahawks) and new perks (extra damage when limbs are crippled). In addition, the level cap has been increased by five. Zion also serves as its own reward; its prickly cacti and red-orange plateaus provide a great backdrop to your travels. This graphics engine is showing its age, what with the bland textures, frequent pauses and jitters, and awkward animations. Yet campsites dotted with empty beer bottles and abandoned communal grills are an effective reminder of the civilization from which Joshua wants to shield his followers.

This being a Fallout game, it's no surprise that you could run into a number of bugs. These include some enemies you cannot damage or target in the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System because they are standing in water; VATS sequences that get stuck for 30 seconds or more before continuing on; and non-player characters sprinting through the air rather than across land. Don't let such typical bugs dissuade you from considering Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts, however. The story and related quests don't surprise, but this add-on gives you the opportunity to once again influence those you meet and accomplish your goals as you see fit. And, you do those things in a desert environment harboring enough creatures and caves to make it worth exploring.

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Alice: Madness Returns Review

In Alice: Madness Returns, the heroine of American McGee's Alice has not escaped the demons she worked so hard to banish. The Wonderland of her imagination has been mangled into a dark and demonic caricature, filled with even more torturous hallucinations than she last encountered. Alice's mind is a dark place indeed, and in this long-awaited sequel, we discover that the real world isn't any sunnier. Creative and creepy visuals give this action platformer a twisted and surreal vibe, drawing you into a land inhabited by fire-breathing doll babies and squirming leeches. The action doesn't display the same kind of creativity, unfortunately. The game recycles the same basic ideas over and again, and its failure to grow and challenge leads to occasional tedium. Nevertheless, leaping and floating through an eerie oversized dollhouse and a Japanese-inspired dreamland is a joy, and there are enough hidden secrets to make it worth inspecting Madness Returns' grotesque nooks. Alice: Madness Returns is a fun but thoroughly ordinary game that takes place in an extraordinary setting.

Porcelain makes for extravagant--if easily broken--headgear.

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In American McGee's Alice, the titular dreamer had seemingly overcome her insanity. A fire at her home had killed her parents and sister, leaving both her mind and her imagined Wonderland in shambles. She eventually triumphed over the Red Queen and her own madness, but it seems that this victory was a temporary one. Alice is still under medical care, struggling to remember the circumstances that led to her family's horrific end. Her psychiatrist urges her to forget her past, insisting that doing so is the only way to wellness. Yet forgetting proves a formidable task, and soon Alice finds herself once again lost in her imagination, where Wonderland lies in ruin. To save herself, she must save Wonderland, and vice versa. But this is not the curioser and curioser world author Lewis Carroll dreamed up when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Rather, it is a place of nightmares, where the card guards that once protected the Red Queen are now undead monstrosities, and hobbyhorses are not playthings, but deadly weapons.

Wonderland itself is Madness Returns' finest attribute. Each chapter explores a different visual theme, some of them impossible to describe in a few simple words. Rusted platforms float against a cloudy yellow backdrop, next to clock towers from which giant forks and teapots dangle. Gnarled vines twist into an off-kilter heart above a giant castle whose spires lean in all directions. Alice's clothing changes from chapter to chapter, and her flowery prints and blood-red fabrics subtly match the level art. Wonderland is not the only place you explore, however. At the start of each chapter, you wander about an increasingly morose London. This vision of that city is more grubby and industrial than even Carroll's contemporary Charles Dickens conjured, drained of color and inhabited by impossibly wrinkled old crones and filthy fishermen. This world is not flawlessly rendered, however. Textures pop in frequently (and sometimes back out, and then in again), and the game pauses at bizarre times to load data. Audio is an occasional issue as well: characters might talk over their own lines and are sometimes drowned out by the ambient music. At least that music is evocative, if not as excellent as the original Alice's score. The occasional tinkling of a toy piano and the buzz of low double basses provide fine contrast to the pounding drumbeats that accompany battle.

Alice uses a pepper grinder for more than just seasoning her supper.

Alice is generally a dream to control due to the effortless way you can string multiple jumps together and float gently downward. When you drift or perform midair leaps, flower petals blossom in your wake, emphasizing Alice's grace in a graceless land. The smoothness of motion makes bouncing from springy mushrooms and catching drafts of air a delight, and rarely is timing or landing a leap a struggle. For a few hours, you get caught up in freewheeling around this unusual place, scanning for secrets and admiring the view. You can shrink yourself to minute size and enter keyholes, where you might find lost memories, Madness Returns' equivalent of audio logs. You come across floating pig snouts and can shoot them full of pepper from your pepper grinder to uncover new pathways. Hidden treasures are scattered all over, and hearing the telltale snort from a nearby snout elicits a pleasant Pavlovian response: you hear the oink and immediately move into scouting mode.

Every so often, Madness Returns' level layouts displays a glimmer of creativity, such as when playing cards flip and slide into view, extending your path. However, reaching your destination is a usually predictable affair. You spend a lot of time jumping onto floating surfaces and into gusts of air so that you can flip a switch that creates another set of surfaces and gusts. Sometimes you need to drop bombs to weigh down pressure plates, shrink to miniscule size to bring invisible platforms into view, or run under a spiked ceiling threatening to slam down on you. But Alice: Madness Returns has a limited bag of tricks, and so you frequently perform the same actions in the same context. Monotony too often results, particularly when your objectives are simple fetch quests. (Some residents of Wonderland are unwilling to divulge information unless you do them petty favors.) Levels have no sense of momentum: were it not for the unique environments, you could replace one sequence with any other and not even notice, and navigation is barely more challenging in the penultimate chapter than it is in the first.

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Posted in: Cartoon

Hunted: The Demon's Forge Review

A game's success or failure often rests on the little things. An otherwise ordinary game can soar to great heights by nailing the details; conversely, a smattering of small flaws might cause fine ideas to flounder. Hunted: The Demon's Forge is the latter type of game: conceptually sound, yet clumsy as delivered. As a result, this cooperative action game feels like an ancient relic, in spite of its attempts to use modern gameplay elements popularized by Gears of War and co-opted by countless games since. It's a shame that a game with such promise feels so unfinished. Imagine this scenario: you take up your bow, and a buddy grabs his mace and shield. Together, you cut through swaths of maniacal monsters, seeking the most effective ways of ridding your fantasy kingdom of a rising menace. When Hunted comes together, it captures the essence of such a rambunctious adventure. But sloppy locomotion, technical glitches galore, and all sorts of basic flaws rise up to smite you. PC players also get a special problem to call their own: barely functioning online play. And that's a damning issue in a game designed to be played with another.

Bows are fine, but nothing beats a sharp steel edge.

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In spite of its numerous foibles, Hunted: The Demon's Forge isn't devoid of fun, and it boasts a great concept: combine the best parts of fantasy hack-and-slash adventures and Gears-style cover shooting, and then throw in some loot. One player assumes the role of Caddoc, a bald-headed melee specialist. The other takes over the ample assets of E'lara, an archer with impossible curves and no desire to shield her backside from swords, arrows, or the stares of lascivious passersby. Together, you move through dungeons, flaming villages, and more dungeons, slicing away at the titular demons while occasionally casting spells, grabbing loot, and trading barbs about who killed the most meanies in that last battle. Caddoc and E'lara are in it for the cash and are hardly heroes worth remembering once your eight hours with Hunted's campaign come to a close. Yet they share an easygoing camaraderie that's appealing, if wholly unexplored.

Hunted's good aspects follow from that mishmash of gameplay elements. Both characters wield melee and ranged weapons, but E'lara is best when shooting from afar while Caddoc wades into the fray. When you're wielding a bow, Hunted plays like a cover shooter: you crouch behind a low barrier or press your back against a wall, lean out, and fire. With sword or axe in hand, you swing away at a limited variety of snarling savages, rolling and blocking when necessary. As either character, you cast spells that work well in tandem with your partner. E'lara freezes enemies, and Caddoc smashes them to pieces. Caddoc lifts monsters into the air and slams them into the ground, while E'lara fills them with arrows. Two brands of action plus varied magical skills make for some fun battles. That diversity goes a long way toward veiling just how linear Hunted's levels are, how mundane its infrequent puzzles are, and how few enemy types there are.

If you don't buddy up with another, the AI takes over and does a respectable job, if not an outstanding one. AI companions are there to distract enemies and soak up a lot of damage rather than to dish out the pain. They rarely need reviving on medium difficulty, and as a result, playing on your own is easier than joining a friend. And things get mighty challenging in co-op. Demons can combo five attacks together in succession; should you fail to block the first one, you've no choice but to be walloped, which means going from full health to practically none. The limited number of health potions and the inconsistent rate at which potions drop add to the occasional combat frustrations that develop. Should you like the challenge and want to explore it further, you can play around with Hunted's level creator, called the Crucible. It's easy to use, but the results are limited: player levels are simply a series of battle arenas separated by doors that open when you have defeated every spawning monster. The limitations don't end there, however. You unlock new enemies, items, and arena environments by accumulating gold during the campaign. To earn the most interesting playthings, you need to collect a lot of gold, which means playing lot of Hunted. This is a disappointing restriction in which the reward doesn't match the effort. And while you can allow others into your private realm, there is no way to share your creations or download others to explore at your own leisure.

Let's hope the duo stocks up on Irish Spring.

You stumble upon plenty of random equipment on your adventure, though looting isn't Hunted's best feature. You find equipment on the ground or smash weapon racks, but the loot that falls from a rack is only for the character who smashes it. Most of the time, what falls is useless, making you wonder whether the team might have earned something more valuable had the other player smashed it instead. You might also be annoyed by the lack of a damage-per-second stat on weapons. There are slow, medium, and fast bows, for example, but the base damage stats don't help you compare different types. This is a small gripe, but it is one of many senseless, clumsy elements that crop up time and again in Hunted. A list of such oversights could continue for pages. You automatically pick up potions by walking over them, but to collect gold, you have to press a button. Why not have you collect it automatically as you do other items? You can perform finishing kill moves at random times, and these slow-motion brutalities look cinematic enough. But performing one means leaving your partner without assistance for several crucial seconds. Sure, you don't have to perform the action if you don't want to--but the game encourages you to do so. It feels as though Hunted's creators chose to implement the mechanic because it looks cool, and because all the popular games do it, rather than because it belongs. In actuality, it doesn't belong: it interferes.

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Posted in: Action

Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion Review

Punch Time Explosion doesn't just take inspiration from Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series. Rather, it's as if Dexter, Samurai Jack, and a bunch of their Cartoon Network buddies staged an invasion to oust Mario, Link, and the rest of the Smash Bros. gang from the land of zany multiplayer brawlers and claim the territory as their own. The Cartoon Network crew makes a spirited effort, and they give Punch Time Explosion plenty of personality. But beneath the superficial and short-lived pleasure of seeing Blossom and Ben Tennyson battle each other in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is a game that's shallow in multiplayer and frustrating when played alone.

After decades of peace, cartoon characters finally resort to violence to resolve their differences.

Like the games that it imitates, Punch Time Explosion is a fighting-focused party game in which up to four characters clobber each other on a 2D plane. There are a total of 18 playable characters, if you count duos like Billy and Mandy, which can only be played together, as a single character. As you take damage, a number displayed as a percentage increases, and the higher this number gets, the farther you're liable to go flying when hit. You lose a life when you're knocked from the stage or fall from it. Each character has standard attacks and a number of signature moves at his or her disposal, as well as a special attack that can be performed once a meter is full. A variety of weapons--wrenches, flyswatters, magic wands, and so forth--spawn frequently, and if you're quick enough to grab them before an opponent does, they can significantly increase your power. In addition, special items show up that, when collected, summon non-playable Cartoon Network characters like Johnny Bravo and Mandark to lend you a hand for a short time. The playable characters exude all the charm of their TV selves; Flapjack's absent-minded, goofy grin is infectious, and Buttercup's glare tells you she means business. But a small number of voice samples that repeat much too frequently make the game's sound design grate; hearing Ben Tennyson exclaim "I should have picked a flying alien!" for the umpteenth time as he's sent soaring off the field in defeat may push you to turn the voices off altogether.

The environments in which you do battle contribute to the craziness. One arena has you fighting on the rooftops of Townsville while a giant robot smashes the buildings under your feet. Another finds you in the mouth of a giant whale who sometimes belches huge amounts of water and dead fish into the sea, threatening to expunge you as well. The result of all this is a chaotic game in which the unpredictability and zaniness generate some short-term fun as you discover what happens on the various stages and what the various items and supporting characters do. But whether you're playing against CPU opponents or friends, this chaos also makes it difficult to take much satisfaction in victory; so much happens all the time that the ultimate outcome seems as dependent on chance as on skill. You can opt to play with fewer items or no items at all, but stripping away these distractions only makes it more clear that the underlying combat is shallow and that attacks have no sense of impact. Characters tend to come together and dish out their attacks willy-nilly until one is sent flying.

Punch Time Explosion is at its best in Story mode, but even here it has some serious problems. An evil force is corrupting the universes of numerous Cartoon Network characters, providing a fine excuse for the Powerpuff Girls, Numbuh One, Dexter, and a bunch of other CN stars to band together and battle evil. The enthusiastic and funny narration by a CN voice-over guy who just wanted to relax and enjoy some cartoons on his day off lends the story an authentic Cartoon Network soul and prevents the adventure from feeling like a hollow licensed cash-in. Platforming takes priority over punching here, and bounding across chasms and over hazards with each character's double jump is pleasant enough. Or at least it usually is; some sections crank up the challenge in ways that only result in frustration. For instance, at one point you must make your way across a series of floating barrels that have a tendency to spin when you land on them, making it overly difficult to get your footing and make the leap to the next barrel. What makes this and situations like it doubly irritating is that losing all of your lives often results in a significant setback, requiring you to repeat minutes of easy gameplay to get back to the tricky bit.

Dexter's creations claim another victim.

Your side-scrolling escapades are also frequently put on hold when you're required to defeat a number of small-time bad guys or a single, more powerful cartoon character. These turn out to be some of the worst moments of Punch Time Explosion's Story mode, since they can almost always be won by repeating a specific signature move over and over. On occasion, you're required to protect a character as you defeat 25 enemies, a situation that encourages you to rely on this tedious but effective approach to knock the bad guys away from the clueless and vulnerable character you must keep safe. Other diversions also crop up from time to time in the form of basic first-person on-rails shooting sequences, mine cart levels, and the like, and these are more welcome, preventing the platforming from growing stale.

Punch Time Explosion supports local wireless multiplayer for up to four players. Unfortunately, there's no online support, so unless you have a bunch of friends close by who own the game, your opportunities for full-featured four-player mayhem are limited. There is a download play option that lets up to four duke it out with a single cartridge, though this option limits the number of characters and has only one stage on which to do battle. Frustratingly, over half of the game's 18 playable characters and 20 battle stages are locked at the start, so there's a good chance you'll need to sink in some time before being able to beat up your friends with your favorite character or in your favorite Cartoon Network locale. Since the characters are the game's greatest asset, it's disappointing that so many of them are unavailable at the start. Punch Time Explosion has a host of cool characters, but without the support of exciting gameplay, their presence can only benefit the game so much. Unfortunately, like a cartoon starring your favorite superhero that doesn't make the most of his powers and personality, Punch Time Explosion leaves you disappointed.

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Posted in: Cartoon

DiRT 3 Review

When DiRT 2 was released in 2009 it boasted a lengthy and varied career mode, numerous multiplayer options, and uniformly excellent presentation. Its sequel loses none of those things and also makes some great additions to the formula. Split-screen multiplayer with support for two controllers is now an option, there are more vehicle classes to choose from, gymkhana events and snowy conditions pose fresh challenges, and new multiplayer modes put interesting automotive spins on some first-person shooter favorites. Dirt 3 brings a lot of superb content to the table, and because it offers a plethora of customizable difficulty settings and assists, newcomers and veterans alike can enjoy its excellent off-road action.

Gymkhana events are a great addition to the Dirt formula.

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Regardless of which difficulty level you play at and whether or not you take advantage of stability and braking assists, Dirt 3 handles like a dream. There are dozens of great-looking modern and vintage vehicles in the garage, and you race them on all manner of surfaces and in changing weather conditions, but getting behind the wheel of one that you haven't driven before is never a problem. The controls are responsive, and while it's certainly possible to mess up so spectacularly that your ride loses panels and becomes deformed to the point that it's unrecognizable, there are gameplay mechanics in place that ensure you don't feel the need to hold anything back. Even as you hurtle along narrow dirt trails and around icy hairpins, Dirt 3's cars, trucks, and buggies encourage you to push them harder by using excellent audio and rumble feedback to let you know that you're not quite on the edge yet.

Demanding new gymkhana events in which you're challenged to perform tricks in specially designed arenas reinforce how excellent Dirt 3's controls are. In these exciting sessions you score points for crashing through carefully positioned destructible blocks, and for performing donuts, spins, slides, and jumps. String different tricks together to get the crowd pumped, and you build up a score multiplier; display anything other than masterful control by colliding with something, and your multiplier goes down. It's not entirely dissimilar to performing combos in a skateboarding game, except that the tricks are significantly less complex. Stringing successful tricks together against the clock is still plenty challenging, though, and as a result, gymkhanas are great practice for other events. Once you can make a car dance around a cone and slide at speed through a gate or underneath a truck, getting it around a corner in a race doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Every event in Dirt 3, whether it be a point-to-point rally through a Kenyan desert, a head-to-head race in the Aspen snow, or a circuit-based rallycross event that weaves in and out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, demands precise driving. You can get away with a few collisions here and there, particularly if you take advantage of the five flashbacks at your disposal to correct your mistakes, and it's entirely possible that you might find finishing in first place too easy if you're an experienced player. Turn off some of the assists, crank up the difficulty, and switch from cosmetic damage to realistic damage, though, and you'll find that Dirt 3 is exactly as challenging as you want it to be. At the other end of the scale, if you're new to off-road racing and looking for a way into the genre, Dirt 3 has you covered. In addition to the aforementioned assists and other options, it's the first game in the series to offer a dynamic racing line like those seen in both the Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo series on consoles.

That racing line can be invaluable as you learn your way around Dirt 3's 100-plus circuits and stages; position yourself poorly as you take a turn or jump over a crest, and you might make a subsequent corner unnecessarily difficult. Also invaluable in the events where she's available is real-life co-driver Jen Horsey, who always delivers the information you need in a clear, concise, and timely fashion. (A male alternative is also available, as is an option to have either co-driver use more complex and detailed language.) If you listen to her carefully, rally stages that wind through the forests of Finland or around the lakes of Michigan don't seem nearly as daunting. You still won't have much time to admire the impressive scenery or to contemplate the foolhardy fans that occasionally run across the track ahead of you, but you're far less likely to wrap your car around a tree or crash through a barrier and into the crowd.

Replays afford you an opportunity to admire both the scenery and your skills behind the wheel.

Many of the events in Dirt 3's lengthy Dirt Tour career mode span multiple back-to-back races at the same location, but the game does an excellent job of keeping the action from feeling stale. After finishing the first of three rallycross events in dry conditions, for example, you might race the next during a grip-changing downpour and then the final in wet conditions after the rain clouds have passed and your visibility is improved. And in point-to-point rallies, racing the same stages in different directions can make for a very different experience, especially if you're under a desert sun one stage and having to use your headlights to cut through the black of night the next. Also lending variety to your career is that you invariably have several different events to choose from. The dozens of events that compose the Dirt Tour are organized into four seasons that must be completed in order, but your progress through each season is anything but linear, and you always have the option to return to events that you want to replay in an attempt to improve upon your position or best score/time.

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Terraria Review

"You feel an evil presence watching you." The warning message flashes on the bottom of the screen while you're busy chopping down trees in the forest. Night has fallen over the land of Terraria, a time for evil monsters to wake from their daylight slumber and assert their dominance. You need shelter if you're going to survive their deadly onslaught, but your time has run out. "The Eye of Cthulhu has awoken!" A roar from the darkness sends a chill down your spine. You equip your sword, ready your healing potions, and dig in for a fierce battle while a full moon gazes down. This colorful 2D adventure keeps you on guard by sending demons and monsters to kill you when you least expect it. You're never safe in Terraria. Surprises abound, both nefarious and empowering. In the dead of night, you may find your home invaded by a goblin army. But on the next night, you may find a treasure chest rich with helpful items. Terraria is a deeply rewarding adventure that continually urges you onward to see what lies ahead.

This fast-motion demonstration makes building a home a snap.

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Your adventure begins in a colorful land populated by towering trees, glistening lakes, and flowering pastures as far as the eye can see. After creating a character and choosing which size randomly generated world you want to start in (small, medium, or large), you're thrust into the game with nary a hint to help you understand what you're supposed to do. A guide wanders nearby, and he doles out advice when you click on him, but it's a poor way of introducing you to the basics. His tips aren't descriptive enough to get you started, and persistent enemy slimes have a knack for distracting you while he's dishing out his vague advice. Terraria is a game about discovery and exploration, and the thrill of happening upon something completely unexpected is a huge part of the draw, but this is still a poor tutorial. You're better off glancing at online guides to get your bearings in the early going than blindly trying to figure out what you're supposed to do.

With a little research or experimentation, you figure out that your first order of business is to build a shelter. You begin the game with a copper pickaxe and axe, and you use these to chop down trees and gather resources. A clever crafting system gives you the power to construct almost anything you might need on your journey. All you need to do is enter your inventory screen, and every item you can currently create is listed in a sidebar. Once you cut down a few trees, you can build a workbench, and from there a world of possibilities opens up. A workbench lets you build more-complex items, such as a hammer and sword, and you use these items to venture out into the dangerous unknown. Eventually, you can craft guns, explosives, and even magical items, but you have to put in a lot of work to get to that level. In the early going, your focus is to find materials to construct basic weapons and armor. Your wooden sword works well enough against docile slimes, but if you want to take on ruthless skeletons, you should forge a weapon made of gold.

Don't forget a light source when you travel underground.

Terraria is an open-ended game that never sets clear goals. You decide how you want to play, and there's always a new territory for intrepid explorers to venture off to. The controls handle like a traditional platformer, allowing you to easily jump around the expansive environments. Melee weapons have a wide range, so you don't have to be precise with your swinging, and you aim your long-range attacks with your mouse for quick shots. But you're not going to make much progress if you just hang out on the surface. The worlds are gigantic (even the small maps), and most of that space is underground. That's where the most valuable minerals are located, and also the scariest monsters. You use your pickaxe to dig through underground mines, gather resources to forge better equipment, and then use your new tools to get deeper with each visit. It's a tantalizing reward system that continually pushes you along to see what else you can find. Small pleasures carry you through much of this adventure. You may find yourself chipping away at useless rock and dirt for minutes at a time, desperate to find something of value. And then, out of the corner of your eye, you see a sparkle amid the gloom and point your pickaxe in that direction. A small cache of silver awaits. It may not sound like much, but you need it to build the next set of tools, and the feeling of joy when you find such a treasure is hard to contain.

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