Month: April 2015

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Hitman On The Go!

Hitman-GO

Before Hitman Absolution I pretty much loved every Hitman game ever made, but I was skeptical when Square Enix Montreal made a turned based puzzler out of the franchise, and then they put it on mobile devices.  Still somehow this game gets to the core of what Hitman is all about.  Finding a way to take out your target.

This game doesn’t have a story it has a series of boards, and Agent 47 is now a piece on that board.  You need to move him from one location to another without getting killed.  It is easier said than done, and a few of the boards are super aggravating.  Still 47, a plastic piece or not, is up to the task.

The game is on its surface is very simple.  You move 47 one space, and then the computer moves all its pieces based on their type.  Blue Guard pieces don’t move, but always stay looking forward; Yellow Guard pieces move one space in a straight line until they hit a wall or something and then turn around;  Green Guard pieces just spin every turn, and the Grays are back to back, so you have to stay to the side of them.

Now you will get tools to help take out these guards, and they are placed all over the game board.  If it is gun it lets you shoot to a specific location, cans and rocks let you make noise one space away from you to attract the guards to that location, and costumes that disguise you as one of the guard types.  Though once you land on a space with an object on it you have to use it right away, so timing is everything.

What I love about this game is that it understands what makes the Hitman games great.  Problem solving.  In the main line games it is how to sneak around to get that prefect kill, but in this game it is how to move your piece properly.  It is pretty much the same thing, just it is a very distilled experience with Hitman Go.  Now with Go there is pretty much one right way to do things, but in the big budget games there are lots of ways (in the good ones anyway).  Still, it feels the same and that is what matters.

This game is always on sale for like a buck, and that is more than reasonable for what you get.  If you love the Hitman franchise like I do, or you just want a mobile game that makes you think and isn’t always asking for your credit card, Hitman Go is a must own.  For everyone else, you should get it anyway because it is a great game.

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Is Costume Quest 2 A Trick Or A Treat?

Costume-Quest-2

I love games made by Double Fine, and even more than that, I loved the original Costume Quest, so it was only a matter of time before I played Costume Quest 2.  It took a few months, and a sale, but its day finally came.  While I still found the sequel charming, I just wish that they would have done more with the game in its four year hiatus.

This game takes place right after the events of Costume Quest.  Wren and Reynold jump through a portal that will hopefully lead them home, and it does, but their evil dentist is traveling though time to ruin Halloween forever.  Wren and Reynold will have to don their costumes and take the evil Dr. White down.

The story is easily the best part of this game.  It is creative, and is a great way to get the kids back in action.  The problem is that there isn’t enough other ideas to keep even a game with Costume Quest 2’s minimal run time interesting.  It took me about six hours to complete this game and that felt padded.  Like in Costume Quest, this game involves Trick or Treating, but 2 forces you to do it in like six different areas with minimal breaks in between.  It makes the middle three hours of this game quite a slog.

The game mechanics are very similar to the first game, but with some tweaks.  It is a simple turn based RPG, and your options are: a basic attack, a super attack or heal when a character’s meter is full, or playing a Creepy Treat card.  The cards do all sorts of things like double damage or heal teammates.  Your attacks change depending on the costumes your group is wearing.  Also during battle if you time things just right you can do more damage, attack twice, block, or counter attack.  It is nice little detail to keep you more in the game, but it still gets a bit repetitive.

This game almost felt like an expansion to the first one, and maybe it would have been better that way.  Pretty up the first game and add in the new combat system, and then tack on a new three hour adventure.  To try and force this game to be six hours was a shame, or they should have thought of more things to do, but still this game is cute, and if you played the fist one it is a good excuse to go back to the world of Costume Quest.  I just hope if Double Fine makes a third one they can think of a few more activities.

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So Much TV!!!

Orphan-Black-Season-1

Remember when we used to complain that there was nothing good on?  Especially in the summer months?  Well Netflix, On Demand, and the DVR have killed that.  There is too much TV to watch.  It used to be that in the summer time that TV was done, but now it is just heating up again.  Game of Thrones and Orphan Black are back on the air.  The last episodes of Mad Men started a few weeks ago.  Community is going strong.  There will not be the usual summer time lull until August, and that time will be used to catch up everything we have missed.

Pretty much I am using this as my excuse for not reviewing the start of Game of Thrones or Orphan Black, but I have watched them, and so should you.  Honestly they have gotten to the point I am not sure how to review them without spoilers.  They are good.  You should watch them if you have time.  Though I understand if you don’t because they are not on their own anymore, so it is hard to clear space for yet another show.  I think I am going to have to ditch a few shows next year.  We will see which ones I watch going forward, but I am guessing Gotham will not make the cut.

With all the good TV starting to get made, anything mediocre will get tossed.  It is just the way it has to be.  We are witnessing the end of broadcast television, and channel execs are trying everything to get that one last water-cooler hit, and we get to reap the bounty.  They are striving for that one last reason to watch their channel over the hundreds of others.  It is great.  Once TV as we used to know it dies will it still be good?  I am not sure, but I guess we will find out soon enough.

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What Can We Learn From the Batman V Superman Trailer?

superman-and-the-warriors

Well about eight million trailers came out over the weekend, and they were all pretty good, but I am going to discuss the Batman V Superman trailer for a little bit.  You can watch it again here to refresh your memory.  It was a pretty nuts trailer, and it was a teaser in the truest sense.  It showed a bunch of stuff without giving away any plot, or did it?

First off people have gone a little crazy for Superman.  I mean look at the picture above.  He is hanging out with The Warriors for some reason, and people keep kneeling down in front of him.  He clearly has some fans.  While they were showing people loving Superman, what people were saying about him was quite different.  People are unsure of him, and they don’t trust him.  The best line came from Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, “Devils don’t come from Hell beneath us, they come from the sky.”

I am guessing Luthor’s little speech is for Batman.  Batman doesn’t trust people with a lot of power (though he and Superman do become best friends), so Luthor is playing on Batman’s paranoia and letting Batman do all his heavy lifting.  It is a good plan.  They didn’t show it (they did show Superman working with the military though), but I am guessing Superman is getting similar speeches from the military about Batman.  Except more along the lines of, “can we trust someone who works on their own without any oversight?”  The military is big on oversight.

Finally we get the line that had twitter all a buzz.  Batman’s quote, “Tell me, do you bleed?”  I am glad Bruce spent some of his money on a voice modulator.  That should save him quite a bit on throat lozenges.  I am guessing after that they do what superheroes do best, they fight until they become friends.  Which is the real question I have with this movie.  How long is the fighting until they are friends going to take?  Will it be like the first hour, and then they will figure out that they were duped.  Then they will team up to take down Lex and tell the military to get their own hitman?  That would leave an hour for the rest of the Justice League, or will that take two hours and the Justice League stuff will be like fifteen minutes.  It is hard to say, but it will be a long ten months to find out.