Crush3d review (Nintendo 3DS)

The goal is simple. Danny is trapped in his own thoughts, dreams and nightmares thanks to his friend's invention, C.R.U.S.H, that allows the user to explore his own subconscious. I don't know about you, but being trapped inside one's subconscious sounds pretty awful especially coupled with the fact you're stuck with a clothing attire thats best attribute is a stylish bathrobe.

Knowing this, it's obvious Danny doesn't want to be stuck in his mind forever. This is where you come in. You will take control of the wardrobe friendly Danny with the ultimate goal to make your way out of C.R.U.S.H. and into the real world with the possibility of punching your wily old scientist friend in the face for making you try out such a faulty invention.

Moving on, Crush3d is a puzzle game with an intriguing and original twist. In each area, the player will have to collect a certain amount of marbles scattered through the course to open the exit. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. The marbles you need aren't always going to be convenient for Danny to get to. You'll have to navigate in 2D and 3D space to get the marbles you seek. With each camera view you choose, you will be able to crush and uncrush. In simple terms, this means you can flatten the course to 2D and navigate side-scroller style or stretch the environment out in 3D.

Navigating through this 2D and 3D space is the name of the game. There are also little additions in the courses if you are looking for a more difficult challenge. Trophies and books will be scattered throughout each course often proving to be a bit more challenging to get to. Books will grab you extras such as new pajamas and a great ensemble of bathrobes and trophies will offer more time trial courses for the more dedicated Crush3d players.

Just like in 2007 with CRUSH, the gameplay is still an absolute blast. I'll be the first to tell you that puzzle games have never been my strong suit. However, this game will challenge you and test your brain power. It does a great job of introducing new elements to the gameplay to change up the monotony of just grabbing marbles. At times, players will encounter pushable objects to help you reach another area on the course or for some reason, giant bugs will show up randomly to try to block your way out. All of these small elements keep the player on his toes and add that little something extra that lets Crush3d stand out in the puzzle genre.

Not all is well with Crush3d world though. Besides the original gameplay, please don't go into this game thinking it's the next best puzzler since Tetris. Besides the core gameplay, I didn't feel that Crush3d offered anything more. The graphics were extremely bland to me as the focus seemed to be more on the course than the outside world around it. There are consistent themes throughout the game for the courses, but more effort could have been put into the overall graphics of the game to create something really special inside of C.R.U.S.H.

To add to that, the music doesn't add anything special to the game either. It would have been cool to have even just a few awesome soundtracks in there to help the atmosphere of being stuck in a subconscious with no way out. Personally, I would have also liked to see another track that gave Danny a shred of hope that his friend's invention isn't destined for an informercial on late night television. Instead, all we get is music reminiscent of an elevator ride made popular in office buildings everywhere.

With all the negatives in mind, should you take a look at Crush3d for the Nintendo 3DS? By all means, I think you should. If you can understand what you are getting yourself into and realize it's not going to be the epic visuals of a top tier game, this is a great and simple puzzle game. Although it lacks a wondrous soundtrack or graphics to make players ooh and aah, Crush3d is a remake gamers should be happy to own on their Nintendo 3DS.

 

Via: Crush3d review (Nintendo 3DS)

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Resident Evil: Revelations Review

Simply said, yes.

Resident Evil: Revelations puts you in control of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, as well as some other members of BSAA, in an all new adventure that takes place between RE4 and RE5. The story revolves around uncovering yet another strand of weaponized virus called the T-Abyss, released by a terrorist group known as Veltro. If you're expecting some revelations, you're definitely in for a treat. The game plays out a lot like Alan Wake did, with each part of the story separated into its own episode, complete with a story recap after each mission to ensure you remember exactly what happened and what's going on. It's a handy feature for those that like to take frequent breaks between gameplay sessions, as it quickly brings them up to speed.

Revelations plays a lot like RE4 rather than RE5. Though you still have companions at your side, you don't rely on their participation much, aside from a little help with firepower. The control scheme is fairly unchanged from Resident Evil: Mercenaries and still allows you to aim down your sights while moving around as long as you have the left shoulder button pressed down. This was an extremely helpful addition in Mercenaries and really helps out in tight situations when you just need to move further away but you want to keep pumping those virus abominations full of lead. The game also features a Circle Pad Pro control scheme which I'm sure makes the game much easier to play, but sadly since we didn't have the add-on, we couldn't put this to the test.

In true survival horror spirit, the game doesn't necessarily throw a lot your way. Sure it's scattered around levels here and there, but since the monsters take quite a few hits to take down, aiming carefully and precisely is an absolute necessity. Weapons can also be upgraded at various workbenches scattered around each level with upgrade items found through exploration, which makes taking down nasties a much quicker affair.

New to the series is an item called the Genesis Scanner. Much like the scanning done in Metroid Prime, this allows you to survey the surroundings for any hidden useful items, such as healing herbs and ammo clips. Scanning downed enemies also fills up a percentage meter, which when full grants an extra healing item. It definitely adds incentive to use this scanning device about everywhere you go. There in lies a little bit of the problem. Since scanning is so necessary for your survival, you'll find yourself more behind the lens of the scanner, than actually in third person.

If there ever should be a benchmark of what the 3DS is capable of graphically, Revelations should be that benchmark. Whether you're playing with the 3D effect on or off, the game looks absolutely amazing. Mercenaries was no slouch in the graphics department either, but I feel like that was just a taste of what Revelations has to offer. The sound design is equally as impressive with an ambiance that will send shivers up your spine. I highly recommend playing with headphones if you want to feel some fear while you're playing.

There are some things to consider when using the 3D effect, however. The game allows for three separate depth settings for the 3D effect, and what I've found is the strongest one also seems to have a lot of ghosting (when the image is doubled on screen). Turning the depth to the weakest setting proves to work just fine, though the depth perception isn't as impressive when it's turned all the way up.

Revelations also includes its own Achievements system but labels them as Missions. These can be checked throughout your gameplay and tasks players with certain goals such as killing 150 enemies, scanning a number of hidden handprints, dodging enemy attacks 20 times, etc. To further incentivize the completion of missions, each one is associated with a reward, like custom parts for weapons, healing items, and more powerful and potent weapons to take enemies down with.

Resident Evil: Revelations is an absolute must-have for 3DS owners. It's a much needed departure from the usual Mario's and Zelda's that permeate Nintendo's consoles, and it truly delivers on all fronts. If you thought playing a horror game on a 3DS screen isn't scary, you're in for a delightful surprise.

Via: Resident Evil: Revelations Review

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Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater Review (Nintendo 3DS)

The game takes place in the 1960’s, when one little event could easily trigger a nuclear war between countries.  Naked Snake finds himself in the middle of a tense situation, in which he must eliminate a person he considers his mentor, The Boss, before she triggers an event that will put nations at each other’s throats.  It’s anything but easy, thanks to her Cobra Unit, filled with members of madmen (and women) who have their own way of dealing with enemies.  Naked Snake needs to use every bit of his skills and his cunning if he hopes to stop the Boss’ plan.

If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid 3 before, you know how epic this game gets.  It’s not a straightforward action game, but a game that relies just as heavily on stealth as it does Snake dispatching enemies.  You’ll need to use every bit of thinking you can with this game, especially when it comes to bosses like The Fear or The Sorrow.  (And yes, that incredible encounter with The End remains completely intact.  Don’t worry, hardcore gamers.)

With that, the game makes a mostly intact transition to the Nintendo 3DS.  There is some question when it comes to camera control (it’s better with a second circle pad, the one sold with Resident Evil Revelations), but the rest of the functionality is intact, whether you’re sneaking around a camp or using your side weapons.  What’s more, the game actually makes use of the 3DS’ gyro sensors in certain parts, like helping Snake across a balance beam.  It’s hardly what we’d call a game changer, but it’s nice that Kojima and his team left everything running moderately.

We say moderately because the team may have crammed too much into the game.  All the cut scenes, while amazing in 3D, are unskippable, meaning you can’t pause if you need to stop riding on a local transit or need to do something else.  Same goes for the ever-long CODEC conversations.  They can take forever.  Konami should’ve inputted some sort of ideal quick save system, so we wouldn’t lose our minds starting over at an earlier point in the game.

Still, the game looks very good on the 3DS screen, mild frame rate issues aside.  The third dimension really suits Snake well, and the environments look pretty damn swanky on such a small screen.  The audio is just as good, especially when the “Snake Eater” theme song kicks in.  We can’t stop listening to it.  The dialogue and sound effects are faithfully translated as well.

Yeah, maybe Snake Eater could’ve been chopped back a bit or edited to make the play experience as a whole a little smoother.  But as it stands, this is still a terrific translation of the classic game, retouched with 3D and featuring the kind of gameplay that still stands the test of time.  Even if you think you’ve seen it all before, you owe this Snake a revisit.  Even if it is just for that theme song. 

Via: Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater Review (Nintendo 3DS)

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Kid Icarus: Uprising review

"The game's simple, intuitive play control has players hold the system in their left hand, while the right hand uses the stylus on the touch screen for targeting. The controls are simple enough to be grasped quickly, but offer layers of depth and strategy for advanced maneuvers."

Many men have lied to my face, but few have done it with such pretty words. The sad truth is that Kid Icarus' controls are far from simple or intuitive, and are in fact so awkward that they practically render the game unplayable.This is a tragedy, because Kid Icarus: Uprising is an otherwise thrilling game, its design problems seeming to stem largely from the limitations of the hardware for which its been designed.

In case you haven't noticed, the 3DS lacks a second analog stick. This means that the console is ill-suited for a variety of genres, say: twin-stick shooters, or 3rd-person action games lacking fixed cameras. Why Nintendo subsidiary Project Sora took a look at the device, and immediately thought to develop a game which is mix of both genres, is a goddamn scientific mystery. Though it seems obvious that their chief motivation was to take advantage of the 3DS' unique visuals, the portable's control scheme just wasn't meant for this type of game, giving us a very apt example of why you shouldn't put graphics ahead of gameplay. 

As Pit, the titular "Kid Icarus," players will wrestle with two uniquely frustrating control modes, each stage beginning with a short aerial sequence before moving onto the lengthier on-foot areas. The flight segments are undoubtedly the most exciting part of Uprising, frantic Star Fox-style rail shooting which takes full advantage of the dazzling 3D  visuals. Here, players control Pit's movements with the Circle Pad, dodging enemy fire while firing back with the L Button, aiming their stream of fire on the touchpad. Again, it's like trying to play a twin-stick shooter without a second stick, and though directing your fire with the stylus is a fun novelty, it doesn't really make up for the fact that you're glued to the included plastic stand.

Let me be perfectly clear when I say that the stand is not optional. Though I'd initially dismissed the stand as some sort of crutch for those not used to holding their portable systems like a jackass (I perfected the notorious PSP claw grip during the hundreds of hours I sunk into Monster Hunter Freedom), I quickly found that with my right hand busy with the stylus, my puny left hand could barely hope to support the entire weight of the device alone. Playing without the stand is like trying to ride a bike without a seat, it can be done, but you'll quickly tire of getting your ass pounded.

It's the on-ground segments which highlight just how bumpy this ride is. Once Pit's wings run out of juice, the game devolves into 3rd-person tedium,  frustrating camera controls complicating even the simplest maneuvers. It feels a lot like trying to control a lazy Devil May Cry clone with a trackball, and though the levels are loaded up with secret areas, vehicle combat segments, massive bosses, and piles of sweet, sweet loot, none of it makes up for the clumsiness of the controls. Though Pit is supposed to move with the grace of an angel, using the stylus to spin the camera around never feels intuitive, and has you constantly stumbling into the enemy's line of fire. The dash maneuver is especially troubling, letting Pit supposedly dodge enemy attacks with a flick of the Circle Pad. Unfortunately, the move is so easy to trigger that it almost seems as though its primary function is to help accidently push Pit into the game's many bottomless chasms.

At least we know where he got his name.

What sucks is that Kid Icarus has so many awesome things going on, but the core gameplay is too broken for them to matter. Dozens of unique weapons are available, all of which can be combined into even more ridiculous armaments. There's also tons of special powers and stat buffs to collect, letting players customize Pit by fitting these variously sized powers onto a customization grid. Even more thrillingly, the collected powers and gear can all be used in the game's intriguing multiplayer mode, where two teams of three each wage war across a variety of battlefields, working to destroy the opposing team's angel. Though the online mode offers even more cool loot to collect, after struggling with the bizarre controls throughout the lengthy single-player campaign, it's hard to muster up excitement for this online experience. Not to mention that multiplayer arena combat isn't really a great fit for the 3DS's tiny screen.

To be honest, Kid Icarus isn't a complete failure. As mentioned, the flight segments are incredible, combining the best of traditional rail shooters with the flair of a Universal Studios theme park ride. Additionally, Project Sora has done a fantastic job of bringing a long-forgotten Nintendo character back to life. Pit is equal parts Link and Woody Allen, a handsome young warrior with all the self-confidence of our favorite neurotic Jew. Nintendo fans will also appreciate the game's frequent nods to nostalgia, bosses talking about how much they've changed since the NES days, with some of the game's returning monsters storming into battle with their terrifying original 8-bit music playing alongside. The presentation is excellent, even hilarious at times, though one can only polish a turd for so long. 

In short, Kid Icarus: Uprising is a game designed for some wonderful alternate universe, where the 3DS has a second analog stick and a depth effect that doesn't require your head to be positioned at exactly the right distance from the screen. Instead we're stuck in this crappy little dimension of ours, where you need a plastic stand to play your portable game, and Sarah Palin is considered a legitimate presidential running mate. There are brief moments where it all comes together, where the 3D visuals are perfectly aligned, Pit hilariously bickering with the enemy as you thrillingly weave between a crowd of bullets, gleefully opening fire on the boss. But more often than not, the game's ambition is limited by it's own hardware. It's definitely a game every 3DS owner should experience at some point, if just for the brilliant flying segments alone. Though at $40, Kid Icarus is too much of a novelty to justify paying full price. 

As a side note, the game does support the Circle Pad Pro attachment. Not to fix any of the control issues, but to allow left-handed players to experience the awful controls for themselves. Haven't our nation's lefties suffered enough Nintendo?

Via: Kid Icarus: Uprising review

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Shifting World review

Shifting World is based on the game Shift by Armor Games, a popular series of black & white flash puzzlers which features the rather intriguing mechanic of having players "shift" which color is solid. A simple button press inverts the world's rules, changing negative space into tangible platforms, and vice versa. At the same time the world is turned upside down, so when an exit is several stories up in the black world, it's a simple matter of switching polarity and jumping down to it in the white dimension.

This concept is cool, and in the Flash games it actually works rather well. However, this is largely because the flash games fit the entire play area onto the screen, letting players plan out how to best use their shift abilities. Unfortunately, Shifting World features levels far too expansive for such treatment. As a result the game is impossibly claustrophobic, keeping the camera firmly zoomed in on the main character, revealing only the immediate surrounding area. Though the bottom screen features a map of the level, this poses the exact opposite problem, much too small to provide anything more than a generic idea of where keys and other items are scatted about the level.

 

This makes navigating the game's levels seem like an entirely blind affair, forcing players to stumble along the monochrome corridors hoping they're heading in the right direction. The game's developers seem to be well aware of this disorientation, but their fixes are simply to make the levels largely linear in design, while also covering every surface in arrows nudging you in the right direction. Again though, this is supposed to be a puzzle game, and the constant hand holding means there's a rather diminished sense of accomplishment when you do finally arrive at the end door.

The game's monochrome visuals are cool, but don't really "pop" noticably.

However my biggest problem with the game is one which I think serves as an excellent example of when developers implement features without ever really asking "why?" Here I refer to the game's deadly spike traps, a design feature faithful to the original games, which like in many other 2D platformers will kill your character dead the second you touch them. The problem is that this isn't an action game, it's a puzzle game, and taking a step back from Shifting World makes you realize just how useless these spikes are. If there was a legitimate action component to the game, fine, but this action-puzzler features such stiff controls that dying to a mis-timed jump is a major annoyance, especially since the lengthy puzzles feature no checkpoints whatsoever.

 

Normally, these spikes would be a simple annoyance, though the game's most obvious flaw makes them a nightmare. No two bones about it, the jump button is broken. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've had trouble nailing down exactly what it is that causes the jump to misfire, but on countless occasions I've pressed that 'B' button, heard the little air-whooshy sound effect that signifies your character should be bounding through the air, and watched my black-suited avatar run off a platform into a bed of spikes. After a while I got filled with such tremendous anxiety when facing even the simplest spike obstacle, knowing that my knack for pressing the 'B' button wrong was sure to send me back to the start and undo five minutes of progress.

Love those spikes man.

There are plenty of other oddities abound as well. Though the visuals are interesting, the game's brightness level seem to abruptly change at random points throughout the level, often looking washed out and dull. I also hope you enjoy elevator music, because the same jazzy noir theme plays throughout each level. And as always, the Nintendo 3DS's depth effect is still wildly unimpressive, so even that novelty falls flat.

The moment which caused me to quit playing involved a blind drop onto a pit of these despised spikes, the game's shallow depth of field  making it possible for me to leap to my doom almost completely unawares. I'm not sure what the game's developers thought of that particular obstacle, if they truly expected me to be memorizing the position of every spike (despite the majority of them being singular obstacles) or whether I was supposed to be solving these puzzles through a sort of brute-force approach, learning where each unfair death is located and circumventing it on my next run through the maze. Point is, neither approach is rather fun, especially with a broken jump button.

 

In short, Shifting World is a very interesting mix of ideas which could've amounted to an incredible puzzle game. Instead we're left with a title that really needed nothing more than a reliable jump button and a better camera. Such flaws might sound small, but honestly they ruined this experience for me. Maybe the game excels beyond World 3, when some of the cooler features make themselves known (turning the world from 3D to 2D sounded fun). Unfortunately, I'm in no mood to find out.   

Via: Shifting World review

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