The awesome folks over at SouthPeak Interative have released two clever little videos promoting their upcoming RPG, Two Worlds 2. Titled, Sordahon’s Journey, this web series chronicles the path of game antagonist Sordahon as he attempts to find his own way. Two Worlds 2 is due out on September 14th across North America.
Checkout Part One below and Part Two (featuring an actress I recall from TV series Nash Bridges), after the break!
Part Two:
I can remember when I was standing in a video arcade with my friends waiting for our turn to play Hydro Thunder. Two arcade cabinets were set side by side and we each climbed into our chairs and felt the rev of the engine as we waited for a high speed race through wild maps in our choice of vehicles. It wasn’t long before the game hit home and we were playing it on consoles, with the Nintendo 64 letting four friends get in on the action at a time instead of the usual two. A plan to make a sequel was made then fell through and the game was lost, relegated to arcade collections. Now XBox Live as part of it’s ‘Summer of Arcade’ has brought Hydro Thunder back in the form of Hydro Thunder Hurricane with brand new maps, great game play and a mixture of old school boats and new ones with unlockable skins and achievements. You can even race Rubber Ducks.
Atmosphere:
The maps are visually amazing and interactive with the racing vehicles, the sounds are crisp and the animations are so clean that it all pulls you into the game. When your boat lands after a jump, the screen gets splashed and water drips down it. The controller shakes with the rumble of the engines and stereo sound makes it so that you are sure you just heard a tropical bird squawk in the next room as you fly past lush jungles and ruins. The atmosphere pulls in people just passing by and soon they are sitting right next to the racers watching the game enthralled.
Game Play:
The game has 8 different maps with 4 styles of single player modes; Race, Ring Master, Gauntlet and Championship. Race is what you would expect from a racing game, taking on 15 opponents by drafting, rubbing and boosting your way around the tracks to beat the AI players. Ring Master pits you against pre-determined times as you race around the tracks trying to follow certain racing lines to pass through rings. Passing through rings enables you to use your boost, missing them takes it away and gives you time penalties. One of the best aspects of Ring Master is the rings take you through some of the hidden passages built into the 9 tracks. Not all of them, they still want the players to explore, but Ring Master will show you the long way around the course as well as a few shortcuts. Gauntlet is a fun mode to play and a great mode to watch. Barrels of explosives line curves and cliff jump landings, as well as just random locations players tend to hit the walls, waiting for a boat to drift into them and explode. Reflexes and nerves get challenged as players try at the last second to stop physics and keep their boats from becoming burning hulks. This mode is quick to bring jeers and cheers from spectators. Championship combines the different game modes with the different maps so that the player has to complete a certain number of game determined races and place 1st, 2nd or 3rd in overall standings against AIs. Race and Gauntlet both allow you to pick Novice, Pro, or Expert level to compete at, the game determines the skill level required for the races in Ring Master and Championship. To complete single player you have to place 1st, 2nd or 3rd in over 50 races (Championship mode has 10 overall race series that start at two tracks and work their way up) and that is where you kinda begin to really feel the lack of tracks. Once you have raced it in each mode in up to three difficulty levels you not just know the tracks well you almost feel a little burned out. Don’t get me wrong, the tracks are AMAZING but I look forward to some new maps hopefully in the not too distant future.
Multiplayer Play:
This was the best aspect of the old game, so it is a vital part of the new one. All maps are available but only one previous single player modes, Race. So up to four players can race locally and up to eight players can race via Xbox LIVE against each other and AI. The lack of single player options being translated to multiplayer options was a bit of a surprise because honestly I think one of the funniest modes would be Gauntlet which would let players rub each other into explosive kegs. There is a unique vehicle and player mode that helps make up for this a bit though called Rubber Ducky. In Rubber Ducky players are divided into red and blue teams and one player on each side is assigned to be the rubber ducky. Then both teams do everything they can in Race mode to help get their team’s rubber ducky across the finish line first. The rubber ducky vehicle is also available in multiplayer Race Mode.
Controls:
Controls are pretty straight forward, triggers for gas and brake, A for boost, X for boost jump and the left thumb stick to steer. The ease of controller setup is nice because when you get into the Pro and Expert vehicles they can get a little squirally and the smallest adjustments mistimed with an incoming wave and you can literally find yourself steering your boat down a sidewalk. Warning: your friends and family will laugh at you for this.
Graphics/Audio:
The graphics have been greatly improved, without giving too much of the gamplay animations, there are moments where you just stare at what is happening around you with your fingers glued to the gas and boost. The sound rumbles in time to the vibrating controller and the music fits a racing game. There is a voice over in single player which seems to be your crew chief but all he says most of the time is ‘this is crazy!’ or ‘want to go back, I think there are a few walls you missed.’ I think I only heard him say one helpful thing but he adds to the fun of the game.
Playtime/Cost:
Single player will take you several hours if you have your racing game skills honed, probably a few days if you don’t. Multiplayer you can just start playing and have fun with, but with only eight maps you might want to have another game around if you plan to play the whole night with the buddies. I imagine there are new maps along the way and those would definitely kick the playtime up with friends by quite a bit. The game only costs 1200 Microsoft Points though so you definitely get your money’s worth, it is even cheaper if you buy it as part of a current game bundle.
Last Call:
They seem to put more effort into the single player aspects than the multiplayer, which is a bit of a surprise considering the multiplayer was the game’s big draw before. Still there is plenty of content for your buck, the game looks and plays great and being on XBox Live gives it room to grow.
Over the weekend at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, I was able to get some hands-on time with BioWare’s upcoming Dragon Age 2. According to Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw, up until the beginning of the convention on Wednesday, only 11 people outside of the team had seen the game, so it was a real treat to check it out.
Before getting to play the demo which had been setup for the show, Laidlaw gave about a ten minute introduction to Dragon Age 2, including talking about some of the most significant changes since the original. The BioWare team developing the sequel first looked at Dragon Age: Origins after its release, including forum and reviewer feedback. From there, they went on to discuss if these suggestions/changes were something they would implement in the sequel… (cont.)
Read the rest of our Dragon Age 2 preview from the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, head After the Break!
(cont.) After much hashing out, they decided that Dragon Age 2 would be a far more epic experience, where players would feel like they were controlling a party of ‘badasses’. Additionally, Laidlaw admitted that Dragon Age: Origins was ‘not great’, visually-speaking. To this, he made note of the re-designed overall visual style of the sequel, which would enable their upgraded game engine to pump out a lot more detail at the same frames per second. Again, We had not seen the game up to this moment – he had only been showing us charts and slides highlighting his topics.
Laidlaw then went on to announce that Dragon Age 2 would feature a new combat system. Gone would be the Frankenstein-like transitions between character movements, replaced by what was claimed to be a far more fluid system of control, character animation, and fighting. Interestingly, Laidlaw mentioned that Dragon Age 2 would not leave the tacticians out of the mix either – he noted that they want players to ‘think like a general and fight light a Spartan’. This means that queuing up actions would still be present (which made me, as a PC gamer, breathe a bit easier).
Something even more impressive, is that Dragon Age 2 will give the player much more of a ‘voice’ and really show off the results of his or her decisions and actions. The dialogue engine is actually capable of handling up to 10 different conversation choices – 4 more than Dragon Age: Origins! The game would also be told in a ‘frame narrative’ style, a story within a story, if you will. This will allow the game to cover a MUCH longer period of time than the original – a whole decade, to be precise!
The player’s character is named ‘Hawke’, and he is a survivor of the Darkspawn destruction of Lothering, a civilian town. Hawke ends up a refugee who escapes to the North – ten years later, Hawke is the ‘Champion of Kirkwall’ and also a ‘very prominent figure in the country’. One small problem, however, and that is that things have gone seriously wrong and now the people’s are again on the brink of war and Hawke (and his party) are the only ones who can fix things.
Different than Dragon Age: Origins, where players had multiple characters to choose from, Hawke is more of a fixed character in terms of name and origin – however, an unspecified length into the game, the player will be able to customize Hawke by deciding on a class, etc.
After talking about all the changes to the sequel, Laidlaw fired up the Xbox 360-based demo. Visually, characters looked A LOT more crisp and detailed than in Dragon Age: Origins. The graphical changes are very apparent, as is the new combat system…
I must admit, watching the combat initially, I was a bit concerned over the hack-and-clash style combat until the developer who was demoing the game hit the radial command menu, which allowed him to queue up actions for both Hawke and his companion, a female mage of some sort. After he performed some queuing, it was back to the fast-paced combat. It was just delightful to see Darkspawn giblets flying about everywhere. Blood was a major theme, both in figuratively and literally, in the first game and it looks like they are continuing this in the sequel – lots and lots of the red stuff flying about here.
Hawke’s melee swings could chop down several enemies at the same time while the mage had some very cool attacks of her own. She could stun an enemy, holding him in mid-air, then pretty much make him explode… VERY. COOL.
In fact, magic users will be very pleased to find out that they will also be getting those awesome fatality-style movements warriors so often received. In the demo, the mage pulled off a wicked finisher on the obligatory Ogre which joined the fray. Laidlaw mentioned that your party members would no longer just be ‘sacks of hit points’, but really formidable opponents in their own right.
After some this combat, a dialog sequenced opened up with Hawke and his companion. As I previously mentioned, not only is the dialogue system able to handle up to ten conversation choices, but BioWare is also adding a central icon to the dialogue choice wheel, which will display the general tone of the message you would convey with that choice. For instance, peaceful options would show and olive branch while aggressive choices would show a red clenched-fist. This is handy as, in Dragon Age: Origins, sometimes the context of your dialogue choice was not always apparent.
I could not help but draw a comparison between Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, and even what Bethsoft did with Fallout 3 in that, they are much more streamlined and action-oriented than their originals while also leaving in much of the tactical elements fans also enjoyed. While I can foresee some fans of the original game being hesitant in the changes to the overall design of Dragon Age 2, I have a lot of faith in BioWare on this one as I got the chance to play the same demo myself after the presentation ended, and found it to be VERY smooth and easy to transition back and forth between combat and the radial command menu.
Speaking to Laidlaw after my demo time was up, I asked what PC gamers could expect in regards to these control system changes. Mike responded by saying that PC gamers could expect their version of the game to be very similar to Dragon Age: Origins in terms of control (WASD, mouse, etc) but with the combat system changes found on the console versions.
I also asked if Dragon Age 2 was following the same development path as the original – being created for the PC and then split off for its console variants. Apparently, this time around they are developing the game simultaneously on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. This is being done to avoid time delays but also to make sure the experience never feels ported over from one platform to another. Each experience promises to be rewarding on its own merits.
If this demo was any indication, Dragon Age 2 is shaping up to be a juiced-up version of the original with better graphics, more blood, and a very interesting story-telling dynamic. A special thanks to Mike Laidlaw, Chris Priestly, Fernando Melo, and David Silverman of BioWare for their hospitality in granting us access to this demo.
When I began playing PotCO a couple years ago, Disney had been covering cable networks advertising the oportunity to fight for the pirates way of life against the Royal Army and undead pirates. I already played a game which had me fighting all kinds of creatures including undead so why should I try another game? Because it was free to try and you could have your own ship and crew. At the time I found that particularly fascinating; Sailing a ship and firing cannons. Who would have known two years later, when everyone was waiting for the new Pirates of the Caribbean game I would have a subscription and be recruiting others to fight the Jolly Roger?
Atmosphere:
Pirates of the Caribbean Online features some very immersive environment – there also the adventurous musical scores and well-detailed environments and characters. You talk to characters from the movie for quests and storylines but you also spend a lot of time conversing with other figures created just for the game or based off of old pirate stories. The Jolly Roger attacks cities and burns them to the ground, naval officers try to arrest you and throw you in the stockade every chance they get, voodoo and gunpowder blasts your foes. Oh and ships, you can earn gold to buy your own and sail it as captain or sign on as crew and man a cannon, mastering range and firepower to blast your enemies to Davy Jones’ locker. Unless of course he is the one you wind up fighting. And what could add more to an atmosphere than 3D? The developers implemented it into the game without telling anyone and after a bit of testing sent glasses to subscribers. So, by simply pushing a button in settings and putting on blue/red 3D glasses, the game takes on new dimension.
Game Play:
There are a wide variety of skills and even a profession to master to improve your combat and keep your ship seaworthy. Leveling each skill and completing quests also increases your level and usually either your health bar or voodoo bar. The main weapons are swords, guns, and voodoo dolls. However, things such as bombs and voodoo staves can also be learned and have their own distinct advantages. When sailing a ship you can steer it and fire broadsides, which will blast a cannon volley from your right or left side. Best case scenario is you bring other players on as your crew. The larger the crew the more experience and loot you get. The crew can also man cannons and fire them at targets to sink your enemy faster. Newer additions include onshore cannon defenses, PvP both at sea and on land and potions making that does everything from improve your marksmanship to increase your gassiness. To add to the experience things like potion-making and ship repair are done by playing mini-games. You can even take your ill-gotten gains and try them at a game of chance by playing poker or blackjack at some hidden away tables. It is an open world to play, you can do quests, not do any quests and spend weeks just sailing and sinking enemies, spend days at the poker table. The very best weapons and items are gotten off of bosses so you can fight your way to just about any boss and find a handful of people waiting for the boss to re-spawn so they can kill and kill again in hopes of getting a legendary weapon. They drop so seldom though, hence the legendary status, that some players will farm for months and never seen the most prestigious weapons.
Platforms:
PotCO itself can be played from a desktop browser on MAC or PC. Made as companions to the game are two mini games, Desktop Galleon and Cannons of the Deep. Desktop Galleon is just that, a Galleon you sail across you desktop, picking up bonuses and broadsiding enemy ships right across your desktop icons. Nice little distraction you can play offline and free, Desktop Galleons is definitely worth a try. Also in conjunction with PotCO is a mobile browser game called Cannons of the Deep. Another free to download game this one is a simple browse forward based system that allows you to intercept ships, fight battles, or parlay for passage. Graphics are pretty simple and not animated but it is oddly addictive and unlike Desktop Galleon, this game interacts directly with PotCO. You can get money in Cannons of the Deep and transfer 1,000 gold a day to your PotCO account as well as treasure items. You can also check your character’s stats and leader-board positions and even check out the shape of your ships. If you are saving up for the next bigger ship to sail or weapons to wield, earning a thousand gold on your game a day while running around can add up fast. Most people just think you’re texting!
Controls:
Controls are standard for character and ship and are also standard for most MMORPG or FPS. WASD, 123, and the mouse get you moving around just fine. There are hotkeys for menus but they can also be accessed through point and click. A player’s guide is provided free on the webpage and there is also a dedicated Wiki site.
Graphics/Audio:
Graphics vary in detail, they can be a bit cartoony for some things then other things like the undead warships look detailed and a bit spooky. Audio is good, sounds fitting for weapons and creatures, voice acting is good, You can even find a minstrel who play special music for you. When you are at sea you can hear the wind in the sails and the firing of cannon shots. Include the aforementioned 3D to the graphics and the experience is pretty cool.
Holidays And Other Events:
Usually concentrating on national or international holidays, PotCO celebrates with events and in game items. For Mother’s Day, a wide variety of tattoos were available, for St. Patrick’s Day the sea turned green and a variety of items and enhancements were available. Some are GM run events, but most are simple quest lines that open up tattoos or clothing options, neither of which effect gameplay and both of which can be removed. Got crazy and put a shamrock on your cheek for St. Patrick’s day? Got a hat for Pirate’s Day that doesn’t match your jacket? Both can be removed by opening your inventory.
Playtime/Cost:
Playtime is fairly limitless. Leveling skills, saving gold, doing quests, or just sinking everything you see can keep you going. Before this might have been a little less true when the game first began so if you gave it a couple years ago, the game has increased in richness a lot since then. A particulary impressive feature is how expansive the free to try game system is. I have known people who have played for a long time, making new characters or just saving gold without ever getting a full account. When I first started I played for free, got my first ship, and waited until I earned enough money for my second ship and had capped out all my allowed skills and quests before getting the full account. I was able to fully experience the different dynamics of gameplay before deciding I needed a bigger boat. If you do decide to subscribe it is $4.95 the first month, $9.95 each month after that unless you get a six month for $49.95 or one year for $79.95. If a full subscription makes you nervous there is a national drug store listed on the website where you can buy one month membership cards. If life gets too busy or funds get too tight you can go back to your limited membership and play all the limited membership choices and your account will be saved with all your full membership items and skills. So when or if you decide to go back to full membership you get access to all of your items again.
Last Call:
With everyone talking about the new Pirates of the Caribbean game coming out, the one that has been around a couple of years has been growing and improving under the radar. Sign up for a free account. Battle some royal naval officers, kill some undead pirates, sail some ships and sink others. You might find a richer experience than you expected.
Tons of DC Universe Online news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con this week and we have a new teaser trailer for you. The sneak peek shows a quick glimpse at some awesome footage of a rather different looking Batman and other DC characters. What could this be leading to? Find out when the full five minute trailers is shown this Friday night on Gametrailers TV. DC Universe Online is set to hit store shelves November 2nd for the PS3 and PC gaming systems.
Sony Online Entertainment has announced that Batman cartoon-veterans, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, will be reprising their respective roles as Batman and The Joker in the upcoming MMORPG, DC Universe Online. Also announced were Adam Baldwin (Firefly) lending his voice for Superman, Gina Torres (Firefly) as Wonder Woman, James Marsters (Buffy) as Lex Luther, and Michelle Forbes (True Blood) as Circe.
‘We’re excited that not only will Mark and Kevin bring their talent back to the DC Universe as part of DC Universe Online, but we’ve hit the jackpot with a full cast that are veterans of movies, TV shows and games that our fans are crazy about,’ said Sony Online Entertainment Vice President of Development, John Blakely. ‘Several of these actors are recognized as the definitive voices for these characters, and will help us in creating an authentic and exciting experience for fans when they get in the game.’
DC Universe Online is due out on November 2nd on Windows PCs and the PlayStation 3 platform.
One thing about the last couple NCAA Football offerings is that, while they don’t seem to have quite as much mainstream market appeal as their Madden brother, they have a sense of style all their own. Instead of over-produced, out-of-touch players and huge stadiums with 70,000 fans, you get a much more intimate and realistic experience with schools and players grounded by life’s hardships. Thankfully, NCAA Football 11 stays the course in regards to this axiom and brings a lot of fun to the table.
For starters, the game’s visuals have been taken to a new level over last year’s respectable offerings. A new lighting system as well as animation engine has brought a new level of realism to the game’s overall look and feel. As mentioned previously, NCAA Football has always have a more intimate and player/school-driven focus. In keeping with this theme, NCAA Football 11 has a greater emphasis on individual players, even adding more expression to their faces, depending on what is happening at the time. Even the in-game cuts to a team’s cheer-leading squad adds to this intimate vibe. Game audio is very well done, with cheering crowds and the crackling of shoulder pads – save for two areas: The announcers and the player chatter.
Simply put: There is no player chatter in NCAA Football 11. Your QB will call out plays, sure, but there is no dialog amongst the players themselves. A small addition like this would have added a lot to the game’s presentation. The announcers in this edition of the game are ESPN’s Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Erin Andrews. Lee Corso is not in the announcer stable this time around. They just come off a bit dull in this edition of the game. Sure, they do the job of announcing plays and keeping things general to fit with any team they are talking about, but they seem to be lacking that little something extra brought to the table by Corso.
In terms of game presentation, what will become fairly obvious early on is the integration with an ESPN college football broadcast style. Unfortunately, while the developers were obviously trying for a ‘watching the game on Saturday’ vibe, it just never feels quite 100% in that department. Game introductions follow basically the same pattern, unless your team one that has a special opening ritual, and the process just gets repetitive after a while. However, because it has some of this feel, it shoot’s itself in the proverbial foot by not being able to have the presentation of seeing the game live, at the stadium – so it ends up being a sort of hybrid in this area. This is not to say the presentation is not often times enjoyable, but it would have been nice to some clearer direction in this area.
Actually playing the game has been streamlined quite a bit by allowing players to call plays at the line of scrimmage, instead of in a huddle. This makes for a much more tactical game of maneuvering, as if one side sees the other in a specific formation, they can alter their tactics to compensate, and vice versa. Another area where the gameplay has been enhanced is in the upper-body twisting system. When running the ball towards a TD, you can control the swing of your upper-body with the controller’s right stick. Pressing forward will cause your player to charge forward, while moving it side to side allows for help in throwing off would-be interceptors. Gameplay moves along at a quick pace, with interspersed team animations and replays which come up at just the right moment. Another interesting addition to this year’s NCAA Football offering is its ‘One Button Gameplay’ mode, where you can play just about the whole darn thing with one button (more or less). This helps make the multiple control schemes a non-issue for inexperienced players, but keeps the rest of the gameplay experience for them to enjoy.
While the single-player Dynasty mode is somewhat lackluster, as it is basically the same mode offered last year, the Online Dynasty Mode has been getting a lot of attention from reviewers and players alike, as it is not just an incredible way of playing against others from around the country, but also features a multi-platform implementation that is second to none. Not only can you perform a ton of activities through the web interface, but you can also use the game’s mobile apps for your iPhone or Android devices. All of these tools at your disposal are very important, as the Online Dynasty really gives you a lot of managerial duties to perform. You even have to put together packages of incentives for prospective recruits and hope they go for yours rather than ‘the other guys’! One aspect of this game mode which really ups its social aspects is the story generator and blog elements, which help trash-talk or praise your own team or an opponent’s. This social element is all compatible with Facebook and Twitter, so you can keep your friends up-to-date on your progress.
Despite a few flaws, NCAA Football 11 is the most-fun college football title to date, with enough new offerings to keep players excited and enough of the standard stuff not to confuse everyone. If you are looking for a more raw football experience than you get in Madden, be sure to try this one out.
*DISCLOSURE: EA Sports sent us a copy of this title for review.
MTV Games and Harmonix have announced the retailer-dependent, pre-order incentives for their upcoming Rock Band 3. The incentives are available at Amazon.com, Gamestop, and Wal-Mart.
GameStop:
GameStop shoppers who reserve Rock Band 3 for PlayStation 3 system or Xbox 360 in advance receive three downloadable Rock Band songs at launch:
· Burning Down the House by Talking Heads
· My Own Summer by Deftones
· Blue Monday by New Order
Amazon:
Amazon shoppers who reserve Rock Band 3 for PlayStation 3 system, Xbox 360 and Wii in advance will receive access to an exclusive in-game guitar. Additionally, for a limited time only, PlayStation 3 system and Xbox 360 owners who pre-order Rock Band 3 in advance on Amazon will receive $10 off a future videogame purchase.
Wal-Mart:
Walmart.com shoppers who reserve Rock Band 3 for PlayStation 3 system, Xbox 360 and Wii in advance will receive a $10 eGift card for a limited time.
Rock Band 3 is due out October 26th across North America.
Sony Online Entertainment, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and DC Entertainment have announced that the upcoming MMO, DC universe Online, has begin beta registration. Please not that a Station account is required for signing up to enter the beta test. While no official date(s) were mentioned as far as when the beta would take place, we do know that the retail game is set to launch this November, so stay-tuned!
Across the sea is a ‘shrouded continent’ known as Tidalis, because of the great waves that smash ships to bits upon it’s cliff covered shores. Only myth comes out about what Tidalis holds, always told as a friend of a friend story. It is your duty to find ‘some amalgamated culture, divergent from our own feudalism in the absence of hereditary lords’ that has developed in this strange land. What you find is an imp in a bubble named Pickles who has laid claim to the land and sets puzzle traps for ‘aliens’ such as yourself who arrive in his kingdom. He is aided by oddly shaped floating creatures of various description and varying intelligence. Without giving too much more away, this is the back story behind some very innovative puzzle designs.
Atmosphere:
There are nice backgrounds, some funny, that generally are simple in design to keep from distracting too much from the game but the gameplay which usually pulls you in enough that you don’t notice the backgrounds. The cut scenes are silly and ridiculous with simple graphics. They can be entertaining but really the game would have been fine without them. They are only in Adventure mode and are skippable so some may choose to.
Game Play:
The concept is fairly simple, line up blocks of the same color with arrows on the blocks pointing in the direction you wish the blocks to travel. When the blocks are activated they leave spaces after they clear and activate special blocks or nearby lines. Blocks drop down to fill the spaces and new block drop from above. The matching lines have to be a minimum of 3 blocks long and can jump 2 normal blocks under normal circumstances. The trick is that circumstances become abnormal quick as unique blocks are introduced and game physics are distorted. Sometimes you have both these challenges and possibly a timer as well. There are easily over 100 various combinations employed in the game and the initial game starting color block patterns are random meaning you can play the same level twice and have different results and scores. Though it sounds a little complicated the general idea is easy to pick up when played and it tutors you a bit. Also when you right click and hold on a certain color it dulls the other colored blocks so you can see patterns easier. ‘Handicap’ can be adjusted to make the game easier or more difficult depending on your skill and if a puzzle gets too difficult to beat there is a skip puzzle option so you don’t get stuck.
Controls:
This game is all point and click, one mouse button to adjust the directions of the arrows and look for patterns, the other to start the blocks going. They basically destroy like a domino falling or a fuse burning so you just sit back and plan your next move while they destroy through your chosen path. Point and click is also how you get through the cutscenes, read the bit of dialogue then click on the screen for the next part, handy if someone is a slower reader.
Graphics/Audio:
You can change the design of the blocks but in the end the background and the graphics almost have a throw back feel to them. This would have been at home amongst the puzzle games of the old consoles graphics wise. It’s difference lies in the puzzle challenges. The music can be soothing when things are going well and it gets faster when the blocks get close to the top. When marathon playing I would recommend having some other music going, because it is always the same tune in the game when things are going well and the same one when things are going bad. It sounds a lot like other puzzle games and after a while can get a bit redundant.
Multiplayer:
There is a two player head to head mode very similar to other puzzle games but with this game’s twists. Online multiplayer is available but seems a bit limited in finding partners, probably better to get a buddy to play in a private hosted game or a networked one and then you can gloat on your victory in person.
Playtime/Cost:
This game is great for the casual player who wants to do a puzzle or two to kill some time or the hardcore puzzler who goes for hours on end playing. With so many different levels and with high replay value to try to beat your time or better your score, this game could last infinite hours and at a minimum if only played once at least a couple day’s play. It retails for $9.99 and can sometimes be found on sale for even cheaper, making it really worth it’s money for how much play is available. Even if you only play it once for a few hours that is cheaper than a movie.
Last Call:
Tidalis is a block-based puzzle game which can appeal to all levels of players with its varieties and combinations making for over 100 levels. The surface concept is simple but the level construction can quickly prove to be an addictive challenge. Combine all that with a great price and it is easy to overlook the lackluster and often ridiculous storyline.
*DISCLOSURE: A copy of this game was sent to us for the purpose of this review.
