Review: Multiplayer Mayhem in Gotham

By: Landon "DefHalan" Dastrup

Do you like First Person Shooters? Do you want a Batman game without Batman? Do you want to an inexpensive online experience because you’re out of money from the holiday? Then I have a game for you. Gotham City Impostors has come out and is showing off its unique weaponry. From Bear Traps to Roller Skates to Bows and Arrows, you can’t get more unique than this. These unique weapons are equitable to your Custom Classes. There are three game-types and five maps to prove your Class is the best. Every game-type is team based so you are put on either the Batz or Jokers team.

The three game-types are Team Death Match, Fumigation, and Psych Warfare. Team Death Match is just killing enemies, getting a point per kill, until a team reaches fifty points. Fumigation and Psych Warfare are the objective game-types. Fumigation is about capturing three machines called Gasblasters, pumping the gas of whoever owns it into the air. If the Batz own a Gasblaster, it sprays out a gas that attracts bats to attack the Jokers. If the Jokers own a Gasblaster, laughing gas is ejected into the air. Owning multiple Gasblasters will fill the air with your gas faster. Once the air is one hundred percent your gas, you win. Psych Warfare, my personal favorite, is all about grabbing a battery and hooking it up to stereos. These stereos play propaganda that will demoralize the other team. While demoralized, they can only slap, and not use their guns, but they can attack the stereos to shorten the time they are demoralized. All of these game-types play the same on all the maps. The maps just help with seeing new scenery after awhile.

Creating your own Custom Class is the main focus of Gotham City Impostors. The unlock keys, how you unlock things to customize your class, keep the game from becoming a grid to complete challenges and more about playing the game how you want in order to grow levels. Every feature of your character can be customized such as weapons, clothing, and calling cards. Calling cards pop up on enemy screens when you kill them. It is a quick way to show your personality and for players to remember you. Clothing is bought using costume coins that you get depending on how well you did in a match. The clothing can also be bought with real money if you don’t want to wait. There are even some things that can only be bought with real money. There are a lot of weapons to choose from for your custom classes. You can have two guns per class with mods on each gun. Depending on which gun you have equipped, there will be different mods. My favorite mod, which is on most guns, is the Body Oder Sniffer. It “sniffs” out enemies and will show you when they are hiding around corners or behind walls. There are also different ammo and scope types or you can expand your magazine size.

The Support Items and Gadgets are some other customizable pieces that play a big part in game-play. Support Items are more offensive tools giving you advantages in combat. Some Support Items you have to plan for and set up in advance, like Bear Traps, but there are others that are more instant, like Impact Grenades. Gadgets help with movement mostly. A Glider Rig, Spring Boots, Inflatable Shoes, and a Grapple Gun help get you into high places while Rollers Skates and Ninja Smoke Bombs let you get places fast or undetected. Targeting Goggles are a Gadget that would be more for Support Classes or Healers. Targeting Goggles let you spot enemies through walls. Spotting enemies will cause them to glow brightly for everyone on your team and if someone kills the person you spotted then you get kill assist points. Support Items and Gadgets are fun but the Body Types play a bigger part in the balance of Gotham City Impostors.

The heavier the weapon, the more it slows down your character. If you have a bigger character the less of a movement penalty you receive from your heavy weapons. The different character sizes change how fast your character moves and how much health you have. The bigger characters are slower and have more health while smaller characters are faster with less health. The Body Type you start with is the Tough class, which has balanced health and speed. It lets you get used to the game before getting too crazy on you. Other fun customizables are the voices. There are different voice types to pick from and each has different sayings along with the ability to change the pitch of your voice. Sometimes the voices can get annoying but overall it is funny.

With Body Types giving you health or speed, Fun Facts can give you other perks. Some are still just more health or speed but others give you buffs against certain weapons and items. The Fun Facts are passive bonuses you can give yourself. Rampage is a special ability you can activate for completing kill streaks or death streaks. You can choose to do more damage or absorb more damage. Your character even has a Psych Profile, which effects how you gain experience. Some actions will give you more experience but other actions will be penalized. All of these different features add into one amazingly unique game.

The gameplay is fast paced with lots of explosions. The weird weapons that you use in new ways help make this stand out from other games like Call of Duty. There are plenty of close calls and “Did you see that!” moments. The unlock system lets you unlock items when you want to, so, making your dream class is just a few levels away.  There have been some network issues, but in today’s industry, every game is released with issues they patch up later. Not saying I agree with this thought process, but it is what it is. March is going to bring some free DLC and some fixes to these problems. While fast paced shooters aren’t new to the industry, Gotham City Impostors keeps things fresh with its comedy and extreme customizing.

Gotham City Impostors Release Date!

Get your skates and grapple hooks ready. Load up your shotgun and put on a cape. January 10th is going to be one hell of a day. Gotham City Impostors is almost upon us. With a closed PC Beta last month and an open Xbox/PS3 Beta next month, Monolith is working towards making an amazing game. So many things are customizable and it all affects gameplay, such as: Weapons, Clothing, Gadgets, Appearances, and even player movement. I can’t wait to jump into the shoes of Gotham City’s unsung heroes, The Bats, and blow away crazy people, The Jokerz.

Gotham City Imposters supports 12 player verses modes. Monolith Productions, the mad men and women behind F.E.A.R., Condemned, and Aliens vs. Predator 2 bring us out of Batman’s suit into the streets of Gotham and its more insane citizen’s lives. Sign up for the Beta at http://www.gothamcityimpostors.com/

Decay: A Noose, A Killer, and A Doll

I start by loosening the noose around my neck and crawling off the toilet. What happened? Where am I? Who am I? Why is a doll following me and giving me clues? These are just a few questions you may have as Decay Part 1 starts. Many of you may not be aware of Xbox Live Indie Games. Indie games cost anywhere from one to five dollars, but most of them can be skipped. Rarely, an Indie game comes out that is good let alone great; Decay is one of the latter. The first part is only one dollar, making it very easy to jump in. The other parts are three dollars each, making the whole series only ten dollars.

Being a point-and-click adventure title, I was hesitant to play at first. Decay is on Xbox and not PC, so I was worried the controls wouldn’t feel right, like many point-and-click console games. My worries were quickly slaughtered! You escape a room only to find yourself in a hotel. With very little area to explore (just three rooms and a hallway) you may think it will be a quick adventure. However, just because you have been in a room doesn’t mean you are done with it. In the other parts of Decay you explore new areas and have more/harder puzzles; good luck with the piano puzzle in Part 2.

You do have an Inventory, where you store all the random stuff you find. In your Inventory you can combine, view, use, and even rotate your items. What good is a flashlight when you don’t have batteries? You found a picture of a family but did you see the code on the back? I found it helped if I had a notebook with me when I played and just wrote down the details of each room. In some rooms, there might be symbols and numbers but in another room you’ll find a note with just the symbols. Later, there is a wall safe and you must decode the note for the combination. Being able to write down the numeric translations from all the other rooms was a lifesaver.

The story unravels with so many twists; you won’t know what’s coming until it’s already there. In the fourth part of Decay, more things get added to the gameplay. They allow you to use the thumb stick to look around rather than having to switch from side to side. There are also more mini games to make sure you are paying attention and so many scares, I had to put down the controller a few times. With multiple endings, it’s hard not to go back and find out how else it could have happened.

This game gets a solid B+ from me. With its cleaver use of the controller in a point-and-click adventure and a story that makes you beg for more, I can’t imagine my collection without it. Every Indie game has a trial where you can play the game for five minutes before you buy it. Download the trial and see if you can find the answers to what’s going on before you Decay!

Costume Quest: The Perfect Halloween Game Any Year

Tim Schafer is a man any gamer should know. He helped create some of the classic Lucas Arts adventure games back in the day (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, etc.). Ever since he started his own company in South San Francisco (Double Fine Productions) Tim Schafer has continued to release games with critical acclaim, but bad sales numbers. Schafer’s games are unique and hard to sell. After a few games, Double Fine wasn’t doing so hot financially and had to think of a new direction. Schafer gathered his team and split them up into a few different groups. He had found his answer. Smaller games. Frequent releases. In comes Costume Quest. A fun Halloween style RPG and the first of Schafer’s small game experiment. The game was welcomed with good reviews as always. Just one thing to do now: Buy. This. Game.

Costume Quest is about two little kids (a brother and a sister) who go out on Halloween to trick-or-treat. The mom leaves one of the kids in charge. The player makes this decision, essentially deciding if you want to be a boy or a girl. Things go awry when the sibling you didn’t pick gets kidnapped by Grubbins (green goblin looking creatures). The story pretty much kicks off from there but doesn’t have a whole lot of twists and turns. It is a smaller game and an elaborate story isn’t really necessary for a title like this. You do have the occasional conversation with trick-or-treaters and some other weird characters (like a helpful scarecrow who gives you hints as you progress). Each conversation is funny, clever, and at the exact level of quality expected from one of Schafer’s games.

The game plays like any top down RPG. The battles are a little traditional with a turn based combat system. However, you can execute a few well timed button presses for extra damage every so often. The variety of attacks comes from the different costumes you find and build throughout the game. You and your crew can dawn a variety costumes for different powers. Each one serves a classic RPG role to support each other in battle (healers, tanks, etc.). This keeps the game fresh since you are constantly collecting new pieces to put together more costumes. This keeps the addiction level for collectables high since there’s a new way to play behind every costume found.

Costume Quest combines some of the best, and only, comedic writing in a video game with the solid mechanics of a turn based RPG. The battles themselves do get a little repetitive over time, but at around 12 hours, the game ends before it starts to feel too much like a chore. This is a game that should be bought and played immediately. It is the perfect fit if you want to stay inside on a cold Halloween night and play a cheap quality title. Buy this game, and hopefully Double Fine Productions will live on and continue to deliver other games like it in the future.

Hydrophobia, I Just Love Water!

I hate the concept of drowning. It's terrible. It's awful. It's a morbid demise. My teeth clench, skin slithers, and every moment spent around water as it fills an entire room to the brim are agonizing. My hand shakes. My breath shortens. I can feel my lungs collapse. Oh how I hate drowning…. Is what the main character must be thinking! (Did you like that?)

Hydrophobia is a game centered on a sinking ship named Titanic, and the protagonists Jack and Rose.... No wait. Oh my goodness, no! The ship's name is Queen of the World, and the protagonists are Kate and Scoot. How silly of me, but oddly enough they hail from the same United Kingdom as the Titanic (coincidence?). The first game for Dark Energy Digital, and available for XBLA, PSN, and PC.

The premise is that the world has gone to Hell, and the ocean has engulfed all known land mass, forcing people to live on boats. The Queen of the World is a city-sized ship refuging thousands of citizens from Mother Nature (score one more for humanity!) so people can continue to toil in their daily lives. At least until terrorist who call themselves the Malthusians attempt to hijack said boat and begin to slaughter everyone. They proclaim: in order to save the world some people must die so others may live, hence their motto, "Save the World, Kill Yourself".

Kate works as an engineer, and Scoot is her boss. One day she receives a call from Scoot saying there is a malfunction on the lower decks. Innocently skipping all the way there, she checks on the situation… and that’s when shit escalates! Malthusians! Lots of them! EXPLOSION! “Scoot! What’s happening?” “I don’t know! I just work here!” EXPLOSION! “Water everywhere? How could this happen?” “Do I look like Miss Cleo?!” “Let it go Scoot! Miss Cleo wasn’t psychic!” Well, something like that. Kate is thrust into a situation where in order to survive she must halt the hijacking. Scoot plays the part of control center and assists Kate via radio. Together they reluctantly uncover the Malthusians’ plot, and attempt to thwart them.

Game play is cover based third person shooter type of deal with a heap of platforming. One weapon is used throughout the campaign with a variety of ammo pick-ups, five in all: sonic, gel, semi auto, energy, and rapid fire rounds- look for them in specially marked cereals!- and a  cool compact hacking mechanism called a MAVI that can decrypt encoded systems, or hack far away consoles. The game starts you bare (No, not like that you sickos! Bare as in no weapons, and no MAVI!), and pick-ups are introduced as Kate progresses. The hacking mechanism becomes more elaborate with distorted frequencies, or encryption keys hidden in wall panels only the MAVI can detect, and near the end of the game Kate is trying to hack doors underwater!

Combat is diversified by having Kate fighting underwater, or shooting panels off the walls to surge baddies with water, or shooting combustibles to burn baddies, or shooting electrical systems to fry baddies (would you like your baddie braised, barbequed, or smoked?). The five ammo pick-ups work well, and can even be chained to cause major damage. I ran through the game using only the initial Sonic Rounds, totally missing the point of the four other ammo types, but that’s why developers must hate me so much! I got lost many a time trying to run through a corridor to avoid being drowned, but it would always happen. Then I’d have to sit through Scoot yelling, “NOOOOOOOOOO!” in his terrible voice, and repeat the process.

The acting isn’t all too great (especially Scoot, sorry!), and was pretty short (only three acts with three chapters), and I didn’t experience the “mastery of water” (some magic mumbo jumbo where Kate can manipulate water), and the ending was sad (not as in teary-eyed, but pitiful), the overall game was surprisingly an okay experience. Although the game boasted its Hydroengine superiority of water mechanics, I failed to see what was so awesome about the flowing water, or the ripples it made. It did, however, piss me the hell off every time I broke a panel to flood an area so I could get the achievement to knock three baddies with water, and the water would only lightly dampen the baddies, but would knock my character off her ass instead! (Deep breaths… remember your Karma.) B. Not a C. No, that would dissatisfy all those who worked hard on this title, and are still working to perfect it! So if ya’ll would excuse me… I need to see a therapist, because I have a phobia… of spiders.

Crimson Alliance Review: Get Your Swords Sharpened

Crimson Alliance is a top view dungeon crawler RPG made by Certain Affinity. Yes, Certain Affinity, the same people that made the Halo: Reach Defiant Map Pack and the Xbox Live arcade game Age of Booty. You may have gotten Crimson Alliance for free if you got all the Summer of Arcade Titles. If not, you can pick up one character for 800 points ($10) or buy all classes for 1200 points ($15). Either way, this is a fun experience for you and your friends.

The simplicity lets any type of gamer jump in, but has the depth for veterans of the genre. It has simple controls for all three of characters: X is a standard attack, Y is a Stun Attack, B is a Defensive strike, and A is a Dash move. Even though it sounds simple, the controls can get tricky to master.

Co-op is a big deal in Crimson Alliance. The four-player co-op, either on the same system or over Xbox Live, allows you to always have someone to play with. There are some secret passages that require more than one person to get past and some doors that only open to a certain class, but the game can be completed in single player. You will want one of each class playing just so you don’t miss out on any secrets.

Sharing is caring in this game. You don’t have to fight your teammates for gold. Any gold one player picks up, everyone gets. The gold is important to upgrade your character. You don’t level up or get stronger in this game. It’s all about the weapons. You buy new weapons and clothing to make your moves stronger and give yourself more health. Some weapons have added abilities like lighting strikes or extra damage to certain enemies.

Crimson Alliance isn’t perfect for all. It does have some issues that are hard to overlook: camera is way too far out, all characters must stay in the same area, it’s hard to target enemies with ranged attacks, and without a real level up system, it is hard to feel the progression of your character. But, as a gamer who doesn’t play many dungeon crawlers, I do feel this game had what I was looking for in a social environment. I was playing with friends and it wasn’t so easy I felt like I was playing a child’s game.

Also, there is a new level that will bring new missions that are perfect for co-op. It will add new loot, new enemies, and new challenges.  It is coming out October 12^th for only 240 points ($3).

Trenched Review

Trenched is just the game XBLA needs. With very few tower defense games on the service, Microsoft grabbed themselves an exclusive on Tim Scafer’s latest title. As anyone would expect from a game in this genre, you will get to fight the enemy in waves as they try harder and harder to get through the defenses you have built. The game has a few twists on the classic tower defense concept and presents a solid experience that any tower defense fan would enjoy.

Trenched doesn’t work quite like every other game in its category. Instead of building defenses from a top down view, you get to join the fight alongside your turrets to play a more direct role in your victory. You control a mech called a Trench and pack copious amounts of guns and ammo allowing you to blast the enemy away 3^rd person shooter style. Unfortunately, because you’re on the ground at all times, setting up your defenses isn’t quite as easy as top down versions of the genre. Every emplacement and upgrade requires you to run to the desired location to deploy. You won’t find any streamlined management of your defenses here.

However, being on the ground does have some advantages. Your Trench is fully upgradable with a healthy selection of weapons and emplacements you can choose before every mission. Any enemy you kill earns you XP and helps you gain levels. This unlocks new equipment and makes certain enemies easier to deal with. The end of every mission awards you with a nice wad of cash to be spent on all those fancy weapons you just unlocked. You can even eventually upgrade your Trench’s legs to make running all over the battle field a little less inconvenient. With the benefit of XP grinding, you can replay old levels to gain more money and experience to make later levels a little easier.

Trenched doesn’t have much of a story to tell. An evil scientist of some sort wants to destroy the U.S. army so he can use his advanced radio creatures to broadcast his message of… evil. This isn’t too much of a disadvantage because this kind of game doesn’t really need much more than that. The gameplay is where it counts.

Defend structures. Get money. Buy weapons. Defend more structures. This formula is fun but does get slightly repetitive. New enemies and defenses are constantly being introduced to prevent all the levels from blending together, but it only goes so far before you feel like doing something else. Luckily, Trenched doesn’t exploit this flaw. As soon as you’re done with it, it’s done with you. Not too long and plenty of fun, but you can’t help but think you should have gotten a little more for $15.

Out of all three of Schafer’s recent downloadable games (Costume Quest, Stacking, Trenched) this is probably my least favorite. However, it is still very entertaining and I enjoyed every minute I played. It even reminds me of how the brutal legend RTS sequences should have been (another game genre typically played top down, but retooled in a 3^rd person view). If you had trouble with those levels, don’t worry, the 3^rd person angle is a much better fit for tower defense. If you’re a fan of the genre and want to play something new but familiar, buy it. If not, you can survive waiting until it falls in price a little.

Wayforward Brings Out the Big Sexy Guns

Wayforward is developing three games for your enjoyment coming out this season. The first game is Mighty Switch Force. Continuing the Mighty series, this game makes the jump from DSiWare to Nintendo E-Shop for 3DS. The second game is Aliens: Infestation for the DS. Having Contra style action, and Metroid style level design, makes this a game to look out for! Aliens is also coming out for the original DS so everyone can play it. No matter what DS you have, check it out! The third game they are working on is BloodRayne: Betrayal,coming to XBLA and PSN. It’s also the first time Wayforward is making a game in HD.

Mighty Switch Force is coming for download on the Nintendo E-Shop. It will be joining three other Wayforward games on the E-Shop, including: Mighty Flip Champs, Mighty Milky Way, and Shantae Risky's Revenge. Mighty Switch Force's focus is on switching between 2-D and 3-D views to solve puzzles. The run and gun action mixed with the puzzle solving makes this game a must have!

Aliens: Infestation is a Metroid style game that takes place after the second Alien movie. With over 15 characters to play, each character brings their own style of dialog into the story. It will definitely mix up the story a little every time you play. The action is going to be similar to Contra 4 with the exploration of Metroid making this game an exciting adventure for any type of gamer. This game is coming out for the DS in retail stores, so no matter which DS you have, I hope you pick it up and enjoy.

BloodRayne: Betrayal is coming to XBLA and PSN. It will be the first Wayforward game to come out for Xbox and the second for Playstation. (Wayforward also remade Mighty Flip Champs for PSN. I would suggest all Playstation owners check it out!) It has been a long journey for BloodRayne. It had two games for PS2, Xbox and GameCube. It also had three movies that I didn’t watch and heard horrible things about. Now BloodRayne's future is in the hands of Wayforward.

I trust Wayforward to do a good job. They are taking BloodRayne from a third person view to a 2-D side scrolling view. The hand drawn animations and landscapes are amazing! The action looks intense and fun. Early reviews have commented about how hard it is, but I personally enjoy having to master a game before beating it. With its Castlevania feel and fast paced action, almost like a fighting game, makes this yet another game that will be taking money out of my pocket.

Bottom line, Wayforward has three great games coming out. No matter what your favorite company is (Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft), Wayforward has a game for you. Check them all out this coming month, because they are all scheduled to release sometime this September.