Pads & Panels

Title: 30 Days of Night: Omnibus Vol. 1

Publisher: IDW

Writers: Steve Niles

Artist: Ben Templesmith

Rating:

Review by: Eric Stuckart

Bleak and sparse, 30 Days of Night is the type of vampire story that should be told more often. Rather than try too hard by showing a lot of flash and overdoing the action, it broods. It breathes its icy black breath on every page. And the pages are dark as they come. It doesn’t have to try; it gets its point across just by being, making it quite the page turner.

In this colllection, the first three stories of the 30 Days saga are included, the self-titled first story, along with sequels Dark Days and Return to Barrow. With the first story, the duo of Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith had something terrifyingly special on their hands. The story is simple. In the quiet Alaskan town of Barrow, a group of vampires comes up with a plan that no vampire has ever tried before. They decide to drop in on the townsfolk during the short period between November 18 and December 17 when the sun doesn’t rise — the titular 30 days of night. Without a sun coming up to make the vampires return to hiding for a month, Barrow becomes a free-for-all, an all-you-can-eat buffet for the vampires. This is the story of how those townsfolk fight back. (more…)

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#7 Ms. Splosion Man (360)

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios — Developer: Twisted Pixel

For a premise as simple as the one the first Splosion Man had, Twisted Pixel could have just rested on its laurels and made a copy of the first game with the sequel, but the studio went the extra mile, taking every element from the first one and either refining it or making it better with Ms. Splosion Man. In this way, the sequel feels somewhat similar on a basic level, but better in just about every way imaginable. The platformer’s gradual difficulty and gameplay curve reminds of the Portal games, in the sense that every element is smartly introduced in a way that gives the player a solid foundation before throwing him into the thick of it. Be it the zip lines, canons reminiscent of the barrels from Donkey Kong Country, trampolines or the very cool teleporters that transport the Splody one between the backgrounds and foregrounds, everything has its place and makes it one of the greatest platformers of this console generation, if not all time. (more…)

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Best of 2011 – Eric’s Music Picks

The Best

Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction (HevyDevy/InsideOut Music)

To describe Deconstruction in a nutshell is an impossible thing to do, as it is one of the most bizarre metal albums of the year, and likely the most avant-garde piece of music that Devin Townsend has released yet. Throwing together everything plus the kitchen sink, all forms of metal show their faces in this showing, from progressive to black to death and everything in between, not to mention the backing of the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as guest vocals by some of the greatest vocalists in extreme metal. It’s not for everyone, but it more than proves that Townsend’s creative wellspring is far from run dry. (more…)

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Title: Rage

Platform: 360, PS3, PC

ESRB: M

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: id Software

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

After years of development and hype, Rage has finally hit consoles and PC alike, unfortunately with a resounding thud. It’s hard not to look at the game as a disappointment more than anything else, as it excels at doing everything in its power to underwhelm players, especially knowing how much potential the game has in its possession.

Given id Software’s penchant for developing games heavy on the action and gameplay with the least bit of emphasis falling on the shoulders of the game’s story — one need not look further than Doom for that — it should come to no surprise that the game’s story isn’t exactly the greatest. It wouldn’t even be much of a stretch to say that it makes that of Borderlands look fleshed out, but in Rage’s defense, that partly might be due to the design of the game. Much of the attention is clearly being directed to the visuals and the gunplay, which are far superior to much of the first person shooter competition out there. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to really make up for everything else that Rage has to offer. (more…)

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Title: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Platform: PS3, 360, PC

ESRB: M

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

Ah, Call of Duty. It must be coming towards the end of the year already. With Modern Warfare 3, the behemoth military shooter franchise finally sees the end of its Modern Warfare storyline with this game, in my opinion the first in the series that truly doesn’t really see much in the form of innovation so much as doing just enough to get by and get the title out.

While that last statement still rings, keep this in mind: Modern Warfare 3 is still an expertly crafted first person shooter, with all of the flourishes that the series has become known for. It’s just that I’m starting to feel a bit of fatigue from the annual release of these games. There’s only so far one can take this genre, and for some people — myself included — it’s starting to see a logical end. Or a need to go back to the blueprints and start thinking up a new war style to exploit to keep things fresh. But I digress. (more…)

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Title: Alice: Madness Returns

Platform: 360 (PS3, PC)

ESRB: M

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Spicy Horse

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

American McGee’s Alice was a PC game that perfectly illustrated gaming at the turn of the millennium. Its art style was influenced by Tim Burton’s subverted gothic style — despite beating even him to the punch in weirding up the property, as he would nearly a decade later — and it had the extreme type of gameplay that was really starting to popularize gaming at the time. It hasn’t aged particularly well, but its blend of PS1-inspired platforming with a more mature combat style helped it stand out among other titles in its day.

It’s hard to say if that uniqueness alone was enough for it to deserve a sequel, but its cult status among its fans probably more than likely guaranteed that Alice would once again return to Wonderland, this time with Alice: Madness Returns. Fans of the series will probably find much to love in the game, with its creepy art style, its new game plus and enough collectibles to drive a player mad as a hatter, but ultimately its questionable design choices that pop up from time to time and clear lack of polish will be the true element to drive them insane, albeit in a less enjoyable way. (more…)

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Title: Bastion

Platform: 360 (PC)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Supergiant Games

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

Is it possible to reinvent the old school action RPG about the end of the world again? I was more than a little skeptical, but Bastion took the long-standing trope and grabbed me by the ears and made me pay attention and listen, and showed me a whole new world in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time.

To paraphrase the world-weary voice of the narrator, the Kid wakes up on a floating rock in the sky after the Calamity, a cataclysmic event that much destroyed the planet and caused everything to splinter apart and become somewhat weightless. As he explores what’s left of his part of the world, he finds that paths will build themselves up right under his feet, always giving each of the game’s areas a “more than meets the eye” feel. The Kid eventually finds the Bastion, the meeting place for the residents if anything ever went wrong, but the only one he finds there is the old man, the one who narrates the story. He explains to the Kid that he needs to travel what’s left of the planet to find cores from each of the remaining areas so that they can rebuild the Bastion and use it to attempt to reverse the effects of the Calamity. (more…)

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Artist: Bury Your Dead

Album Title: Mosh ‘n’ Roll

Record Label: Mediaskare Records

Rating:

Review by: Eric Stuckart

I’m not gonna lie, I enjoy the simple thrills that a good metalcore or hardcore band can bring to the stage, even if the songwriting is a little on the simple side. Sometimes, really stripped down, no-frills hardcore can be good for the soul. It is for me, at least. You can just sit there, turn off your brain and just roll with it.

For a while when I was younger, Bury Your Dead was that band for me. Not as thoroughly pissed and serious as Hatebreed or Madball, and definitely not as militantly straightedge as many of these types of bands tend to be; they just hit the spot. Their mosh-centric approach was littered with breakdowns, making it great for letting off steam, whether it was in the pit, driving in bad traffic or at the gym. (more…)

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Title: Shadows of the Damned

Platform: 360, PS3

ESRB: M

Publisher: EA

Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

It’s pretty standard fare by now to know that when going into Grasshopper Manufacture games, the player is likely to find a satirical, oftentimes unique gaming experience with humor and personality to spare, but it isn’t going to be the most polished experience out there. However, I have yet to be disappointed so far with this expectation, and Shadows of the Damned is no different.

In fact, the main thing that I think really pulls people into Grasshopper mastermind Suda51’s games is his way of always spinning a great, albeit weird, story. Well, that and how it factors into his games’ typically quirky “anything goes” approach. The X factor that might draw some otherwise curious gamers into this outing, however, is the involvement of Shinji Mikami, known for creating the Resident Evil series, as well as composer and sound designer Akira Yamaoka, known for his work on the music for the Silent Hill games. (more…)

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Title: Batman: Arkham City

Platform: 360, PS3, PC (to be released)

ESRB: T

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Rocksteady Studios

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

When it was released, 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum was perhaps the greatest superhero game ever made, and for good reason. It was stylish, stuck to the source material pretty closely — despite the ending getting a tad bit too video gamey — courtesy of Batman scribe Paul Dini, was graphically impressive, and had some excellent voice work, bringing in Batman mainstays Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill to voice the titular character and the Joker.

Now, that would all be for not if it weren’t for the gameplay, which did a damn fine job of making the player actually feel like the caped crusader. One of the greatest feelings that Arkham Asylum was able to evoke was that of combining action, adventure, stealth, and subtle detective elements into the gameplay to create something that was not only fun to play, but highly addictive as well. In all honesty, the only problem that many players had with the game (ending non-withstanding) was the fact that the game was limited to Arkham Island, which meant that most of the action took place indoors, save for the random encounters on the small stretches of land between the buildings of the asylum. Fortunately for bat-hungry gamers, Arkham City took the fight to the streets, and what a fight it is. (more…)

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