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Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition Review
2016s Game Club selection may as well be renamed “Jam’s gaming bucket list” as the vast majority of the games we have played this year are titles I’ve been wanting to play for sometime but just haven’t got around to. I could use the easy excuse where I say I’m too lazy or too busy but I choose to go with the excuse that I was on a long and arduous quest to find twelve jade statues in order to prevent the end of the world by new year. Fortunately for myself and humanity I completed that quest, surprisingly in Sleeping Dogs as well and I’m able to finish off 2016 with my review of the game. All in a days work I guess.
Sleeping Dogs is an open world game set in Hong Kong where you play as Wei Shen an undercover cop who is attempting to take down the Triads from the inside. Of course its not that easy for Wei. He soon becomes close with the gangs leading you as the player to question who Wei is truly loyal to. While the story is certainly serviceable and well acted by the voice cast I never felt completely invested. There are some emotional moments in the plot with key characters but the ultimate pay off seemed somewhat lackluster. With the game ending open ended and setting up for a sequel, is disappointing since United Front Games has now closed and the chances of seeing this sequel are very slim.
As with most sandbox games there is a mix of various gameplay styles. Sleeping Dogs main stand out feature is the hand to hand fighting system. Wei Shen is well versed in martial arts as is every bad guy in this game who you’ll usually take on in large groups. You can attack and counter in a system very similar to the infamous Batman Arkham games, although Sleeping Dogs appears to have its own rhythm to its fighting system. I found that you had to be very careful with your button presses to begin with. Once you got the games own rhythm down, I was quite capable even with the odds stacked largely against me, once I got to this stage I felt like Bruce Lee (insert broken table). You can also grapple enemies and maneuver them to create devastating environmental kills such as impaling guys on sword fish or smashing someone’s head into a urinal which reminds me of a fond scene from the film True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Donkey Kong 64 Review
If Nintendo and Rare had an agenda through subliminal messaging then I present to you the game that is the king of repetition: Donkey Kong 64.
As always I like to delve into my personal history with this game. I got the N64 for my birthday as a surprise present from my two older brothers and I was a happy camper. It came with Banjo Kazooie and I was quite smitten with this game. The 3D levels and exploration where just fascinating and I had a fondness for the weird repetitive noises the characters made when their dialogue boxes appeared. Banjo Kazooie turned out to be a very evil game maybe even worse than smoking because it was probably my first venture into a collecting style game. Where in order to progress in the game you have to collect multiple items to get further and further until you finish the game and then you are left to go cold turkey, cold and shivering in the corner. Where do I go from here with my life? Why am I here? Sorry, I got distracted. So these collecting games were huge especially on N64. Mario 64 did this (even though I didn’t play this till a lot later). Over on the Playstation the Spyro series did this (very well in my opinion go listen to that podcast and read the review, please). Rare worked on Banjo Kazooie and I think they must have thought, “how can we take collecting to the next level?” and “what can we do with that Donkey Kong fellow?” Well along came Donkey Kong 64 which is a game that took the collecting concept and turned it up to the max and beyond. I brought this game (with the required expansion pack) and was expecting a nice casual collecting experience. Instead I ended up getting a monkey rap song in my head, which still leaves an imprint on my consciousness to this day and venturing on a collecting journey which took me well over a year to finish in its entirety. I left the cave that was my room with my first fully grown beard ready to return to reality and life again having never looked back since, until this game club. Now jokes aside I actually really liked this game a lot back in the day and it wasn’t the only one I played throughout the year. This was actually a common pattern for me oddly with N64 titles. Even Orcarina of Time took me over a year of on and off playing, I was just that type of gamer then. Donkey Kong 64 felt like a title I really got my moneys worth, not only because it was long but because I got the expansion pack which enhanced some of my other games like Turok 2 (any excuse to mention this game). Sadly I lost my N64 collection to one of my brothers who probably went on to sell the collection so I lost my original copy and my 101% save file. So to prepare for this Game Club I decided to go for the WiiU virtual console version and bravely start from scratch and try to finish this game in a month instead of a year. But that’s enough excessive babbling about my history its time to review this game today.
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix Review
Who doesn’t like Disney films? You pretty much know what your going to get: a family friendly film with a few laughs and occasionally some tears. Whether you love them or hate them there’s probably a Disney film you like. For me, I love the Lion King. It still remains one of my firm favourites, closely followed by Robin Hood, an older film in the company’s catalogue that I have a lot of nostalgia for. Kingdom Hearts seemed like a fascinating IP that essentially merges the Disney Universe with a video game.
I originally saw footage of Kingdom Hearts on a demo disc for an unofficial Playstation 2 magazine. The demo wasn’t playable it was an extended trailer with just music. The music from the get go was mesmerizing and still one of the series strongest draws. The footage simply showed a collage of the cutscenes from the game showcasing the main character Sora along with Donald Duck and Goofy. With them visiting various Disney worlds such as Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, Hercules and many more. The footage looked incredibly ambitious from a story standpoint. No gameplay footage was shown and I don’t believe Squaresoft (today now Square Enix) ever released a playable demo of the game. I vividly remember multiple magazine articles being excited at the prospect alone of this game. It almost seemed destined to be a critical hit.
Horror Obscura 2016: Tomb Raider Series
Tomb Raider is a very well known series in fact just recently the series hit its landmark 20th anniversary so it felt fitting to enter the series into the Horror Obscura this year. Many of course will argue that the Tomb Raider series is an action series but lingering in those tombs in practically every entry of the series there are horror themes to be found. So to celebrate the 20th anniversary and talk about some horror it’s time to discuss some of Tomb Raider‘s most memorable scares.
Horror Obscura 2016: Avenging Spirit
When it come to the obscure and horror games I really like to search out the titles you may have never heard of and today’s game is no different.
Avenging Spirit – I have seen this title floating around on the 3DS virtual console for quite some time and decided to recently pull the trigger on it. This is a Game Boy game released in 1991. You play a nameless character who has been gunned down by the mob and who’s girlfriend has been kidnapped. You wake to find this whole mess was your girlfriends fathers fault as the mob wanted to obtain his research on ghost energy. The father now has the balls to ask you to rescue your girlfriend before you fade away into the afterlife. Oh did I mention you’re now an adorable cuddly looking ghost? Yeah the story of Avenging Spirit sounds a lot darker than its appearance would lead you to believe.
The Horror Obscura 2016: Part 2
Rise Of Nightmares
The Xbox Kinect 1.0. Yes I’m talking about Microsoft’s first attempt at motion controls on the fantastic Xbox 360 console. The device actually sold pretty well to begin with people seemed to buy into Microsoft’s marketing for the device for about 5 minutes and then people left it on the side lines only to pull it out from the dusty corner of the living room when a new entry in the Dance Central series released. Then Kinect 2.0 happened and no one cared, so the real horror here is Kinect’s failure to capture an audience. Of course you’d have seen the title and you know that’s not what we’re here to talk about. No horror fans, today we are going to talk about the reason I kinda wanted to buy a Kinect for the Xbox 360 in the first place a little Sega title called Rise of Nightmares.
Rise of Nightmares to me is House of the Dead for the Kinect. Now I know that’s an incredibly bold statement to make since the House of the Dead series is just light gun zombie shooting bliss and Rise of Nightmares, well its a Kinect game and that just makes people just groan generally. We’re gamers right? we don’t like standing up and flailing our arms around we like to sit on sofa and be lazy. Unless of course your like Fred and you stand up to play games anyway in which case buy this game and enjoy.
Horror Obscura 2016: Intro and Part One
Introduction
Back by popular demand the Horror Obscura returns for another series of terror. This year, as well as discussing some horror titles you may not have heard of, I also wanted to revisit some games which are not necessarily considered horror but have horror elements portrayed in them really well. I’ve always been quite the fan of horror. When I was 5 years old one of my parents made the big mistake of allowing me to watch Stephen King’s It. Pro Parenting tip: Don’t let a 5 year old watch It they will think Tim Curry is terrifying, Home Alone 2 to me is terrifying with his inclusion (full disclosure I’m currently not a parent). Regardless of this experience I always held a kind of fascination with horror and think deep down we all sort of do. Whether its watching a scary film, playing a scary game or doing something scary like falling in love. Okay, I know this is a gaming blog not a life lesson but I feel we all sort of find horror even if its in media that doesn’t contain a monster as my first entry of the Horror Obscura 2016 will begin with.
Wonder Boy the Dragons Trap Remake in the works
I’m a little late to the party reporting on this announcement but I thought it warranted discussion.
People: we are currently living in great times in gaming. Not only are we getting a spiritual successor to the Wonder Boy series in the form of Monster Boy being developed by German developer FDG entertainment, but we are also getting a remake of what some may consider the best entry in the Wonder Boy series, Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap from French developer Lizardcube. Of course the remake has removed the “III” to eliminate confusion. The Wonder Boy chronology is incredibly confusing for gamers and is a topic I will be addressing very soon on the site. The reveal trailer so far of The Dragons Trap showcases some beautiful artwork as well as some actual gameplay which appears to closely resemble the feel of the original game. In fact there were scenes I noticed in this game that appeared the same as the original just with the updated graphics. The simple 2D gameplay remains intact. The Dragons Trap also allows you to transform into various animals like a dragon, a mouse, a Lion as well as several others. Surprisingly I saw no human form of Wonder Boy in the trailer.
I think what makes me happiest about The Dragons Trap and Monster Boy is both games are being developed independently without the use of crowd funding. It’s almost as if developers read my open letter to Sega. Both games also seem to be in very good hands looking to develop a product that is faithful to the original series. My only critique is the games do look dangerously similar as both feature animal transformations. However, if the developers are as passionate as they say they are then I’m still on board. Monster Boy really is a new tale entirely whereas The Dragons Trap appears to mirror the infamous Master System/Game Gear game.
Original Wonderboy III: The Dragon’s Trap on Master System
I really can’t stretch how giddy I am that The Dragons Trap and Monster Boy are coming out. I’ve been waiting for a sequel to the Wonder Boy series for years and now we’re spoiled with two. I’ll buy both these games day one possibly on multiple systems (especially if they’re handheld versions) and cover them on the site. But hey, if any other developers want to jump in any release another game then I’ll buy that too – some name suggestions include Wonder Otter and Monster Planet.
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile Review
Some titles just never seem to fair well in the West. Klonoa is a cute cuddly anthropomorphic animal, he kinda looks like he’s a cross between a dog, a cat and maybe a rabbit. In Japan this cute fella was incredibly popular and his Playstation game rocketed to the top of the charts for sales. Then Klonoa made his happy debut in the West and things just didn’t seem to fair well for the poor guy. The problem you see is we are horrible people over here in the West. Gamers here are hungry for blood like vicious hyenas, and that’s why games like Tomb Raider did well. If we have a platformer it better have attitude like Crash Bandicoot or be in 3D like Spyro the Dragon. Klonona failed to perform well and in turn the game become very rare and sought after to Playstation collectors in the West. I was lucky enough to rent this game back in 1998. Fortunately with the power of PSN, I was able to download the game to my PSP and see what this cuddly adventure has to offer and what we folk in the West failed to see.
Let’s Talk About Game Length
When I was younger and talked to friends about games I was often asked the question that would come up regularly, “how long is it?” If I followed up, “well, not that long bu…” I would usually have lost their interest and they would dismiss the game entirely despite me possibly recommending the game whole heartily. In this article I wanted to explore the topic of game length and give some personal thoughts.
As I’ve grown older I went through a few phases with my perception of game length. When I was very young without a care in the world and I messed around on the Amstrad and the Mega Drive, I didn’t care diddly squat about game length. I was small and just happy to mess around with this fascinating medium. To quote Dylan Moran from a a episode of the hilarious Black Books TV show, “He looks surprised, all children look surprised, the world is new to them.” This was absolutely me as a youngster everything just amazed me. I wasn’t allowed to play games for extensive lengths of time because my dad did accounts on the Amstrad computer and I was interested in other things like rocks and bugs. When I did game I didn’t care about length, I didn’t care about completing the game I was just having fun. I rarely would finish a game because I was young and pretty dumb, this probably pleased my parents as it meant that they didn’t have to buy a whole lot of new games.
Gaming History 101 