WET puts you in the boots of Rubi, a gun-for-hire who is duped into bringing the son of one Mr. Ackers to who she thinks is Mr. Ackers. Bamboozled by a doppleganger, she seeks revenge when they aim to take her out of the picture. This results in a Kill Bill-esque rampage full of bloody revenge.

Your weapons include dual pistols, dual shotguns, dual SMGs, and dual crossbows. The weapons in Rubi’s arsenal come in twos to utilize the “Split Targeting” system. It’s what it sounds like. While you’re in slow-mo (triggered by jumping and shooting or sliding and shooting), you automatically target one enemy while manually targeting another. Making for a fun and efficient way to bring cronies to the other side.

The car chase scenes remind me of The Matrix: Reloaded, full of far-fetched jumps and improbable dodges. But this is all a part of WET’s over-the-top antics, which get old quickly for some. I played this game all the way through in two sittings I was so entertained. It’s by all means a rental unless you get a good deal on it. It goes by quickly and you find yourself doing similar things from time to time, but they find ways to change up skill use throughout.

“Rage Mode” is triggered by the same cutscene in different levels. You’re minding your own business, all of the sudden a lacky will run at you like they have a chance against Rubi’s brutal fury. She guns him down in a single shot, blood splatters on her face and BOOM… Rage Mode. The level turns red and the enemies turn into faceless black and white clones which become fodder for your guns/sword.

The formula of every level is the same, with an occasional surprise car chase scene. All tied together by a grindhouse feel, grainy film which becomes increasingly more grainy as you take more and more damage. This can be a little distracting when you find yourself in a pickle. But this is one of those occasions where you have to man up.

Again, WET is a rental if you have other games you want to buy. The acrobatics are quite impressive especially when combined with the combat of split-targeting. Health comes in the form of increasing your combo-multiplier in “Arena Mode” or chugging a bottle of whiskey, tossing it in the air and shooting it. Rubi is a badass voiced by Eliza Dushku, the dialogue is nothing to write home about, but if you’re looking for a revenge tale that you can complete quickly, give WET a try.

These past couple of months have been one of the best times in gaming that I’ve seen for quite a long time.  This is surprising, and I’m a tad miffed as to why devs didn’t release these HUGE titles right before Christmas, but alas, the wait was well worth it.  Here again, we have a very big-name title that meets or exceeds it’s expectations.  Surprising, given recent year’s efforts.

Bioshock 2 takes place 10 years after the events in Bioshock.  You play as “Subject Delta”, an early prototype of the Big Daddies you saw in Bioshock 1.  Your assigned little sister is the daughter of a cultist revolutionist, Sophia Lamb.  Upon her discovery of your assignment, she convinces you to kill yourself, relinquishing your control over her daughter, Eleanor.  You are resurrected a few years later to find yourself in search of your little sister.  If you don’t find her, you die a slow and agonizing death in the tunnels of Rapture. This story is quite good, and has enough twists and turns to keep the player interested.  I wasn’t quite as enthralled as I was with Mass Effect 2, but I think this may be due more to my personality more than poor writing.

Gameplay is solid and builds on some of the (minor) mistakes that the first game made.  I really enjoyed the new mechanics involved with the drill you are given as part of your suit.  Some of the most satisfying moments from this game come merely from sneaking up on an unsuspecting splicer and ramming him or her into oblivion against a wall and twisting their innerds into a fine soup.  Other fun dynamics involve the ability to adopt little sisters and take them hunting for adam.  Your job is essentially to defend the sister while she harvests, which can be quite daunting and requires a lot of prior planning before you drop her on the ground.  Setting traps and hacking security machines is absolutely necessary for success.

As the game progresses you are given more and more powerful plasmids and weapon upgrades.  One complaint I did have, however; Is that the game became almost too easy when I acquired the tier III freeze plasmid and the drill specialist ability.  Combat eventually devolved into a quick tap of the freeze plasmid and then plugging away with the drill until the enemy shattered.  I RARELY had to use even a single health pack for a big daddy or even some big sisters.

This game is quite beautiful and I really enjoyed the scenery.  Like Mass Effect 2, the Unreal III Engine powers this game.  My favourite scenes here were the underwater parts, where coral, plane debris from Bioshock 1, and other props adorned the city scape.  Immersion is superbly executed, and I had no problems with believability in the slightest.  Sound quality is just as good as the first game, if not better.  The crowning achievement of the immersion factor of this game likely goes to the score.  Shrieking strings and rumbling kettle drums added so much suspense to some parts of this game that, at times, I could barely stand it.  Rounding corners became a terrifying prospect, and walking into a large arena made you think twice about ignoring your options for decent cover. If there’s one thing that Take 2 hit spot-on, it’s immersion.

Overall, I think this game is a solid title.  It’s definitely worth a week’s rental, if not a purchase.  There is little here that I have to complain about, and even then there’s nothing here that I would consider a “deal breaker”.  I had the opportunity to play both the PC and console version, and would recommend both equally.  After you beat Mass Effect 2, definitely try this.  If you haven’t bought Mass Effect 2 yet, then fuck you.

You know when a game seems really far off, so you block it from your memory in hopes it will create the illusion of coming out sooner? Well, that is exactly what happened to me. Tuesday’s release of the game I’ve been awaiting for since completing Bioshock came to me abruptly via commercial. Part of me knew it was coming out in February, but the exact date eluded me… exact knowledge adds to the waiting. Once I saw it had come out that day, I rushed to Blockbuster right away (in case you’re not aware, the best day to rent a game is the day it comes out. Which is normally a TUESDAY. The people who want it immediately usually go to buy it somewhere, and those who only kind of want to play it try to pick it up on a Thursday or at some point in the weekend. This is a bad idea if you actually want the game to be available). I was roughly a year late on playing Bioshock, so I wasn’t about to let a lot of time pass before I got to play this latest addition to Rapture’s lore.

Please note there may be spoilers.

Eight years after Jack strolled through the halls with his own brand of justice/terror, the Big Daddy “Delta” resurrects after a decade of being dead. Rapture has not withstood the test of time well. Leaks are everywhere, barnacles grow on the walls and floors, and the Splicers are just as crazy as ever… probably crazier. In the last game, the game focused on Andrew Ryan’s ideology of Capitalism, Creation and Progress without being brought down by “the Parasite” (Big Government, Religious leaders, etc.) and focusing on the individual. This time around you meet Sophia Lamb, a psychologist with a view which greatly differs from that of Ryan. She believes focusing on “the Self” is, well… selfish. And would rather have everybody succeed or suffer equally. To pull this off, she exploits the influence of religion to burn this point into the minds of Rapture inhabitants. When you walk through Rapture, it becomes very clear this is not the same place Jack left it.

The “Good”

Like its predecessor (and many games before it), Bioshock 2 gives you the choice of taking a “Good” or “Evil” path. Even a crude combination of the two, whatever tickles your taint. I’m not sure there is a special ending for dabbling in both, however. At this point I’ve only ventured through the good path.

Sinclair, the voice which guides you through Rapture, at one point reveals you can either “Adopt” a Little Sister or “Harvest” her. This is similar to the first, but the difference lies in how much Adam you really want. When you first encounter a Little Sister (after taking down a Big Daddy, of course) you’re given the choice. If you choose to adopt her, she’ll climb on your back and sniff out corpses containing Adam (if you don’t know what that is by now, you probably shouldn’t be reading this). If you choose to Harvest, you’ll get the Adam right away. Here’s where the change comes into play: you’re given the choice again when you take the Little Sister to a vent. Meaning, if you were so inclined, you could have her gather Adam and just harvest her later. That’s for the Evil path, which I will review in part two. The good path will seem like a less effective way to acquire Adam, until the Little Sisters give you rewards for setting them free. That shit adds up. In Bioshock, I always felt like I was never getting enough Adam no matter what path I took. Bioshock 2 will leave you in Adam up to your eyebrows as far as the Good path is concerned.

You’re given quite a few decisions to make in your journey. Ones which will be viewed by Eleanor, the Little Sister you were paired with before your death ten years prior. These decisions will effect how she acts when she comes out of the coma she’s in throughout most of the game. There are definitely some ethical quandaries, when on the Good path you’ll run into certain characters you’ll feel deserve the stricking hand of justice. But forgiveness is a key factor of the Good path, so sometimes you just need to walk away even though they may have done something unforgivable in their time.

This game doesn’t skip a beat when it comes to playability. You still have an incredible amount of control, more probably. And now you have a fucking Drill! Downside is it runs out of fuel quickly, so make sure you’re using it for the right cause. The upside to this is the basic melee attack with the drill is still very strong, and will take out a Splicer with great ease.

I’m a much bigger fan of the new hacking system. Although the first one had fun moments, the new system is not only more realistic (as it happens in real time instead of stopping the action) but more fun. It is also a greater test of how well you handle yourself under pressure.

Next time: The “Evil” path, enemies and final thoughts on Bioshock 2.

Recently, I decided to give up on a certain aspect of Batman: Arkham Asylum: The Riddler’s riddles. I beat the game’s Story Mode almost a week ago, but thought the Riddler had to be brought to justice. More on that later.

Let me say, as a pretty big Batman fan, this is an exceptional title. With games like this, I still find myself amazed at how far graphics have come. Especially when you spent hours on titles like this:

It isn’t difficult to immerse yourself in the circumstance Batman finds himself in. For those who have yet to play it, I’ll set the scene.

It begins with the night-clad streets of Gotham, the clouds hang heavily above the Batmobile speeding by. Inside, Batman puts the pedal to the metal as his destined nemesis, the Joker, taunts him. A daunting feeling looms over the Dark Knight, the capture of his rival seemed all too easy this time around. He’s right to feel this way, the Joker has something up his sleeve (other than the usual Joker Cards, gas emitting bouquets and revolvers with a “BANG!” sign). As Batman and the guards of Arkham escort the tyrannical trickster down the cold asylum halls, you continue to feel the chill of the criminally insane seep into your bones. Obviously, something isn’t right or you wouldn’t be holding the sticks.

If you couldn’t tell, Joker not only escapes captivity but takes over the asylum. With the aid of fellow inmates and prisoners transferred from Blackgate Prison (after a fire just HAPPENED to spread *wink* *wink*), the Joker plans a party the Batman won’t soon forget.

Ok, now that you’re caught up it’s time to get to the fun stuff.

It took me awhile to actually get my hands on a copy of this game. Thanks to my buddy, Will Handford, I was finally able to take a crack at this title I’ve been hearing so much about. Well worth the wait, my friends. The “Freeflow” combat system is enough to keep you glued to the screen like glitter to a kindergartner’s Mother’s Day card. Keep your combo intact and it will not only multiply your score (increasing your XP and replenishing your health), but allow you to pull off insane ninja-type moves that Batman is well known for. You better believe there will be Achievements/Trophies linked to these combos. It’s astounding how well this system works. You would think there would be many a kink in its execution, but if there were any flaws they were quickly forgotten. I was truly impressed by the work put into the Freeflow combat.

The top villains in my book are as follows:

4. Killer Croc

The detail put into Croc’s creation is downright SICK. Look at him! I’ve seen many interpretations of KC and this was by far the most terrifying. It’s never a pleasant reunion when it comes to Croc and Batman. Bats is high up on Croc’s desired menu, and he’s got the scent. I was a little disappointed in the “battle,” but it was still kind of fun to outrun this beast.

3. Poison Ivy

Ever the harlet, Ivy’s slinky seduction is always a vain attempt when it comes to Batman. This being because he’s well aware of the outcome of locking lips with her: certain death. He’s had his close calls with Miss Ivy, as well as seeing the aftermath of her handywork. The battle is a fun one, albeit slightly frustrating. I won’t spoil the surprise, just know it’s diVINE… eh?… eh?

2. Harley Quinn

Oh man… does this girl do funny things to my brain… and pants. I’m well aware she’s a fictional character, but try telling that to my wang!

1. Scarecrow

Of all the interpretations of Dr. Crane’s alter ego, this is EASILY my favorite. So much so that I plan on getting a tattoo if the image used in the credits (as well as this version’s Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn in a… provocative stance?). His levels were very interesting to say the least. Especially the one that caused me to think I broke my brother’s XBox. Now THAT’S instilling fear! Kudos to the development team on that.

Now I’d like to bring up the riddle aspect of this game. Throughout your venture through Arkham Island, you have the choice to solve riddles, decipher tablets from The Spirit of Amadeus Arkham, obtain tapes containing patient interviews, and pick up Riddler Trophies around the island. Collecting all 240 of these will end in the Riddler’s capture. Thus, giving me incentive to find them all.

Again, I finished the Story Mode roughly a week ago but continued to play so I COULD BRING THE RIDDLER DOWN. I’m down to the LAST TWO TROPHIES. This would normally be a time for celebration… but I can’t find them. I’ve been searching and searching but they seem to be the Bermuda Triangle of trophies.

The areas circled in red are roughly where the trophies should be. The Riddler’s question marks hover around the general area, so it’s safe to say they’re approximately in the middle of their hover pattern. Here’s where I run into the problem…

First off, the trophy closest to the Intensive Treatment area seems to be in or above the ventilation system. It can’t be in it, because I’ve looked… many times… up and down. If there’s a way to get above it, I haven’t figured it out.

The Lower trophy appears to be somewhere on a FUCKING CLIFF. Try to use the Line Launcher to get over there and you’ll fall in the water. Not to mention I’ve looked all over that mother fucker and found jack shit. I’ve checked the little Cave area up and down… it doesn’t seem to be there.

Now, normally I would just consult GameFAQS in this situation. This proved to be a moot point, so I checked other Walkthroughs. Many would call it cheating, I call it doing what it takes to bring the Riddler to justice. After many sites and watching many videos, I discovered that NONE OF THEM SEEM TO COVER THESE AREAS. Which I find a little weird, quite frankly. Every video and strategic screenshot seem to just skip over this little chunk of the game. But why? It seems pretty important, especially when you’ve got 238 of the 240 Riddler puzzles.

Another thing I found interesting (by which I mean aggravating) was this little nugget of information. The map shots I did find were missing this key component

THIS ENTIRE AREA IS NOT ON THE MAP. This is puzzling considering it’s one of the first places you go in the game. After completing the Intensive Treatment building, you crawl through the vent, go through this little cave area and look at Arkham Island while theatrical music plays (you even get an Achievement for hitting this point in the game). So why is it nobody talks about these trophies? I can’t wrap my head around it. It was driving me bonkers, and I very rarely use that word!

I thought I was losing my mind. My brother had to help with looking up guides and walkthroughs online while I continued to scale the area in hopes of finding SOMETHING. After talking to Tom (aka SamuraiLink3) I discovered there were some bugs involved in the PC version. Was that it? Were these trophies glitched out of the game? If there is no record of them, are they just ghost trophies sent to haunt my psyche? I could almost feel gamer madness take hold until I just decided to drop it. Which is severe blow to my honor as a gamer. This means the Riddler is still at large in the city of Gotham. I failed this aspect of the game.

I’m still pretty miffed about this. Maybe I simply missed something simple, that has been known to happen.  And if anybody knows how to get these trophies, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I’ve scoured the internets just so I could find these two fucking trophies and get my measely Achievement points. I’ll write an article reviewing why you’re so awesome if you can help me out. Seriously. A huge article about why you’re awesome!

Despite the bullshit I endured at the hands of the Riddler, this is still an amazing game that deserves the highest of praise. If you have a vast knowledge of the Batman mythology, solving riddles will help you in certain areas (example: knowing to look for Scarface when a “puppet show” is mentioned). However, this is a great game for anyone. If you haven’t played, you should probably do that soon considering Arkham Asylum 2 has just recently been announced.

And the absolute best part of this game: NO ROBIN!

Recently, with the help of the Playstation Network, I was able to acquire this remake of a CLASSIC game. If you’ve never had the privelage to play “Turtles in Time,” just push in an upward motion to move the rock you’ve been trapped under for God knows how long.

For those fortunate enough to know this game like the back of your hand, prepare yourselves. They based the game off of the original Arcade version, not the SNES version. When I played for the first time I almost lost my shit (in a bad way), but I kept my shit because it is still fun.

It all started in Scene 3, “Sewer Surfin’ “, when I didn’t get to fight the Rat King. At the end of the level, Shredder appeared in hologram form to send me to a prehistoric time. This wouldn’t have bothered me had my favorite boss battle not been on the next level. The first Shredder battle, in which you must toss Foot Soldiers at your screen… as in right at your face! How fun is that shit!? Answer: Very.

It made me quite sad to miss out on a revamped battle of that caliber, however, it’s still a fun ass game.

If I remember correctly, there is a power move of sorts in the SNES version which hurts you as well as others. “Re-Shelled” has a power move that doesn’t hurt you, and easily clears a path in a pinch. So… that’s nice…

I could go through the entire game and list the boss battles that aren’t there, or switched, but that would ruin the game experience. Not for a lack of good gameplay, but because I don’t want to write a giant spoiler. “Re-Shelled” is still a fun game despite changes from the SNES version. It’s a different feel for a classic experience. Get some friends to join in and I guarantee a good time. If you have an SNES, go with the original. If not, “Re-Shelled” is worth the money you’d have to SHELL out.

Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it already:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBQ4A8pbn4 

I avoided reviewing this title because, for some reason, I thought somebody already covered it. Not sure what I was actually thinking of, but this is a title that might look easy to skip over. However, that would be a pretty big mistake.

Zuma is a puzzle game where you play as a frog disk that shoots colored orbs at other colored orbs. Sounds pretty uninteresting when you put it that bluntly, but this game is far from any nearby puddles lamesauce.

I’ve played the demo many times over the past year on the 360 and PS3, I was finally able to spring for the full game over the holiday. So now I’m trekking through the Aztecy goodness that is Zuma. There’s sort of a plot to it, with some laughable lines aimed at a protagonist whose only response is “Ribbit.”

This is one of those “just one more time” games. Easy to lose many hours to this God of Boredom Killers. Bonus orbs, such as Explosion, Reverse and Accuracy, will pop up randomly amongst a cluster of a certain color. Hit the group with an orb of the same color and you’ll obtain that bonus. The main objective of this game is to knock out groups in a way that will string together other knock outs. Eventually, you’ll want to destroy all the orbs before one falls into a skull icon’s mouth.

Although the soundtrack is repetitive, it’s kind of a fun song. The only word in English is “Pressure,” which is what this game mainly consists of. When the pressure is really on, the music will take a more intense tone. Which can really fuck up your game if you let it get to you. Just keep a cool head and focus, keep an eye out for opportunities to knock them all back.

This game may very well keep you glued to your respective chair for a long while… So sit somewhere comfortable.

I know that Ratchet & Clank: Race Through Time is just an ad for Insomniac’s newest title (A Crack in Time), but wouldn’t putting just a little effort into it make people want to play the actual game a little more…  Andrew Brophy, A KID, makes fantastic games that are unique and original in every way, and here we see poor quality from Sony (one of the three big first party publishers).  There probably could be some irony in there, but I really just wanted to promote someone that makes quality freeware games.  Strangely enough, Ratchet & Clank probably could work really well in 2D, so I was doubly disappointed by the lackluster ad.  A browser game, shouldn’t lead to this level of annoyance.

We’re probably all in agreement that Silent Hill 2 has a fantastic story, but looking at the original game I can’t really say the same.  But before I get to that let me say that Silent Hill 1 has always had 1 major advantage: mood.  The mood in that game is terrifically horrifying.  I’ve almost wet myself just waiting for the monsters to pop out, even when they never do.  And yes, mood can sell a game.  Anything in the survival horror genre has to feel oppressive and helpless which is why I feel like the daylight zombie kill-em-up of RE5 make it less of a horror game than Condemned’s angry hobos.  One fits the mood, the other doesn’t…at all.

So we can usually forgive survival horror for having clunky controls, lousy camera angles, and a crap story because it still manages to scare the hell out of us (in fact, those problems can sometimes aid the “scaring the hell out of”).  A game with virtually no story like Condemned can add to the scary by simply not letting us know why the homeless are trying to kill us.  But Silent Hill 1 does have a story, and it works while you’re still piecing it together.  It just fails towards the end.

Silent Hill 1 is about a guy who takes his adopted daughter to a resort town and on the way there she disappears, he crashes his car, and you spend the rest of the game trying to find her with the aid of a nurse and a police officer while psychotic monsters and bird-things try to rip you to shreds as the village is shifting dangerously in between foggy and pitch black.  All good so far.

***REALLY OLD SPOILERS FOLLOW***

Once you’ve barely figured out that your daughter is connected to the ghost girl and the old lady is trying to sacrifice her to summon some kind of demon, you still wouldn’t guess that you have fight the demon at the end, which you do.  This takes all the slow building mood and sets it on fire.  Then you escape with the police woman as fire rains down from the sky and you manage to save a new baby.  Happy ending.  But no!  What the hell?  I didn’t save my daughter and I’m already over it.  Here we have a peaceful moment of “everything’s gonna be alright” but there’s probably a bird-thing seconds away that wants to rip me to shreds.  And I just fought Lucifer, what kind of ending is this?

Needless to say, I didn’t like the ending to Silent Hill.  The story doesn’t manage to wrap things up in a dark or believable way… at all.  It comes off as silly.  So, I consider Silent Hill 1 a bright red rash on the Silent Hill series’ body of great storytelling.

Spyro the Dragon doesn’t exactly feel the same today as it did back when I was a kid.  This is probably because it was an early 3D platformer that suffers from nostalgitus.  See, back when I was a youth and I had finally moved from the 2D perfection that was the SNES to the new and experimental world of PlayStation I was willing to accept the flaws of games like Spyro because it was 3D and the graphics were “awesome.”  Only now I’m in my twenties, poor, and am amazed as to how this game is not worth the ten bucks I paid for it on PSN.

A lot of 3D platformers were like this back in the day, their graphics were blocky but not unbearable but the controls were stiff and the gameplay was dull, and Spyro the Dragon was really dull.  There’s never a feeling of increasing in skill and you rarely get any kinds of buffers to make you more powerful thus all the insentive is based around wanting to see the end of the generic (“Save all the dragons!”) story.  Without a reason to want to play or any signs that I’m progressing aside from changes in scenery there’s not a lot of reason to want to play.

(Side Note: The same could be said about games like Noby Noby Boy, except for that particular game there is a clear goal based around community and expanding across the universe.  Spyro the Dragon has pretensions towards being a more epic plot but with no insensitive to actually act upon it.  Why do I care about these other dragons?  Why don’t I feel more powerful than when I started?)

The positive side of Spyro the Dragon is that it did have some interesting gameplay ideas: using a dragonfly instead of a health bar, gliding to get to certain areas, being a fire-breathing dragon, etc.  But they were all crushed by clunky controls and constant repetition without much reward, which many other similar games back at the time (Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie) did not have.  It’s just a sign that the PlayStation was really a second place console for 3D platformers and nostalgia can be a very bad thing.

X-Men Legends was the first in a series of 4-person co-op games focused on using teams of Marvel superheroes (and sometimes villains) and franchise fapping.  The 3rd installment in this series was Marvel Ultimate Alliance and the 4th installment is a game being released just next week: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.  Because I have a ridiculous love for these games I’m going to briefly and nostalgically look at the original!

It’s probably most important to first note that X-Men Legends was a game with a weak plot, generic backdrops, and on occasion controller snappingly frustrating difficulty.  The 4-man co-op aspect of the game is a mess as well with portions of the  game only accessible as single player, making your three buddies sit around waiting for their turn to jump back into the game.  Legends sets itself up as the weakest of the three games so far, but luckily the other two were able to hammer out a lot of these problems.

Everyone knows that X-Men Legends is not a game to be played for the story or scenery.  It’s all about playing as your favorite characters from the comics, which Legends does fantastically.  Jubilee, Emma Frost, Magma…and probably some of the less popular mutants like what’s-his-name…the dude with the claws… Anyway, they’re all there.

The best thing Legends does is introduce the 4 character/1 screen co-op even in solo mode (granted Lost Vikings did it with 3 characters way before Legends, but shut up).  This allowed the player to not only control their favorite X-Man but their favorite X-MEn!  Like the phrase goes, “the more the merrier.”  It’s a winning formula that’s some much prettier and more varied button-mashing offspring.  But here at 72pc we don’t look at those qualities.  We respect our roots AND our video game elders.  Just play X-Men Legends once and you’ll agree that it feels pretty damn old.