AlexAeon

Aeon Review! LittleBigPlanet (PS3) 5/5 sack-smilies!

Alrighty! The PS3 game that I've been waiting for finally came out. Yup LittleBigPlanet! Whew where to begin on this review... Well I guess I'll start with the premise of the game.

(Outline) http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/lbp1.jpg

So this is a puzzle-platformer as well as creator/building game... that puts you in the position of a "sack-boy", or sack-girl in my case. Which is basically a cute little puppet thing that the player
will be controlling throughout their many adventures. Now let me also start by saying EVERYTHING in the game world is made of some sort of inorganic material. You'll be adventuring in levels made entirely out of cardboard, metal, fabric, and anything else. Even the NPC characters and enemies are in fact made out of various parts. Some people might get a WTF moment out of that, but it sets the stage for one incredibly whacky and fun time.

(Plot/Setting) http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/lbpSackPeople.jpg

What's a sack-person to do in this whacky world? Well isn't it obvious, go on a grand epic quest to save the world! Maybe. The actual plot of LittleBigPlanet is a bit lost in the craziness of things, but essentially the story is that there are seven "creator curators" that manage everything across the giant fabric-woven planet that is LittleBigPlanet and you have to visit each one and assist with any problems they might be having. Along the way you have to solve puzzles, do lots of platformer jumping and defeating enemies that you come across, usually by jumping on their head Mario style. So its nothing to deep. but thinking back to the old classics of the genre like Mario, crash bandicoot, kirby, etc... Is there any reason a platformer game SHOULD be deep? Not really.

(Gameplay) http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/lbpRAWR.jpg

The most important part of any game, and being in classic platformer style you wouldn't think there'd be anything too amazing here right? Dead Wrong. While the basic single player campaign is more or less classic platform jumping, grabbing to objects to manipulate the environment or climb around, and enemy stomping the real meat of LittleBigPlanet comes from the unique options and situations that the customization and creation aspect of the game provides.

First I'll go through the options of the sack person. By collecting bubbles with prizes and completing levels you gain clothing and accessories for your sack-puppet. You also gain stickers and decorations, which can be used to unlock various extra areas in the single player or multiplayer levels, but it for your pod too. The pod is a nifty little cardboard box which your sack puppet calls home, and you go to between levels. Every part of the game is accessible from the pod, via a PS3 controller in the box that the sack puppet operates like a "computer" (which is by the way, so god damn CUTE!).

Now you also get objects when, sounds, various tools as you complete the single player. You can use these to go to "MyMoon" which is a separate material planet that each player can fill in to make entire full levels completely out of their own materials and designs. Its hard to explain the scope and depth of this but I'll say that nearly anything you can imagine to make, whether its designing a game level, or creating wierd vehicles and machines, or giant monsters to fight.. you can do it, and it will be unique.

Finally you can upload your levels to the online LittleBigPlanet where other players can freely play your creations, and get prizes which you can design yourself. Multiplayer is an interesting experience, where you can play with other players cooperatively through both custom made and the single player campaign levels.

Its tough to explain what all there is to the custom content of the game but I can give some examples. So far I've seen a Mario Bros entire level re-made complete with goombas and turtles to stomp, and graphics uploaded with the PS3 eye to make it more mario-style. Then I've even played a rather interesting "jail break" level designed for co-op play where you have to break out of prison by solving various puzzles, dodging traps and enemies and it even ended with a high speed car chase after the breakout! Then theres all kinds of "challanges" and story-based type games that have been created, some simple, some epic in scale.

(Graphics) http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/lbpRandom.jpg

DAMN! For an incredibly cartoonish whacky game, LittleBigPlanet is pushing some of the best high definition graphics I've seen from the PS3. Anyone that's tried to say next-gen consoles aside from the wii are all hyper-realistic graphic machines with no style... Will have to promptly do a double take on seeing this one that manages to use modern technology for its graphics and still have style, rather hilarious style at that. But anyway, graphics don't make a game, but they certainly do make a good game a GREAT game when done right.

(Cool Stuff) http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/lbpCreate.jpg

I just had to make up an entirely new section for this. LittleBigPlanet has so many neat little features that just make it so much fun to play around with, but don't really fit into the other catagories.

For instance, it uses the Sixaxis controller and sticks to animate the sack-boy player. As an example you can tilt the controller in your hands and your sackboy's head will look in that direction or swing their body, which in combination with the ability to hold down the L2 and R2 buttons along with the sticks to move the sack-boys hands you can make some pretty funny dance routines. Or of course use the hands to wave, gesture for another player to come to where you are, point in a direction etc for practical purposes.

The PS3 Eye camera also comes into play, you can upload images to use as textures within the game, either as stickers and decor, or to design your own levels with custom looks.

In the creation mode, I mentioned you have the ability to create and share whatever you want right... I really meant ANYTHING. My first time playing around in the creator level I designed a house... then decided it could use some eyes, and legs... and it should be on FIRE. Then I slapped a "brain" onto it and gave it a voice.. them flaming house with legs comes to life, trying to chase me down as it squeels like a baby.

(Conclusion)

Well I've got to say that LittleBigPlanet is an amazing game that covers a few genres besides just puzzle platformer. The look, feel and playability of the game is so far one of the best I've played in some time, I dare say that the creation aspect of the game is even better than Spore that came out for the PC a few months ago.

Lastly I'll just come out and say that I'm just glad that its a 100% PS3 exclusive. Now I'm not usually in the little fan-girl box, and I love that games these days are more multi-platform accessible... But its good to have some big, innovative successful titles that help define and separate the console from the 360 and Wii markets.

Aeon Review! presents... Silent Hill: Homecoming (4/5 smilies! )

Yup... As a survival horror gamer I've followed the silent hill franchise since SH2, and played up through 4. Overall its a solid horror series that's been known for using more intense psychological scares. Less OHMYGOSH something jumped through the glass! and more just sounds and imagery that make the player feel.. uncomfortable.

Now Silent Hill Homecoming was being announced as something different, made by a new team and all... Now with some of the early information available I myself was in the crowd of people that thought this was going to be an abomination of the franchise, but when I picked it up I've got to say I was pleasantly blown away. So I'll break things down into categories to make things easy to follow, lets start with the presentation and plot.

PRESENTATION / PLOT

Okay the story this time around is that our protagonist for this game, Alex (woot! ) is a soldier returning home in search of his brother. Lo and behold the town of Shepherds Glen, woah I know another Silent Hill that DOESN'T take place exclusively in the actual town of Silent Hill, is completely abandoned and infested with twisted freaks and surreal places that shouldn't exist. The standard fare for the series, anyone thats played any of the previous games will get into the mood pretty quick.

Something that I thought was interesting this time around is that although it does build up on the previous games, SH Homecoming actually seems to follow the continuity of the MOVIE Silent Hill more than the games. That is to say while it doesn't reference anything from the movie, it heavily centers around the good ol crazy cult folk of Silent Hill, and you'll be seeing guest appearances from a few things that you'll instantly recognize as being straight out of the movie. While the movie inspiration its definitely not something I expected, I cant say it took away or hurt the game at all.

BUT, what I will say what I personally didn't like so much is that Homecoming has the SH 4 syndrome going on for characters. That is to say theres a surprisingly large cast for a silent hill game, but you interact very little with each one before they get killed off, which is nearly an inevitability for any character in the Silent Hill universe.

My thoughts on the overall plot thats presented, after playing through the game once... Is that it's intriguing, and without giving any spoilers I will say that while its certainly not the strongest plot by far in the series as a whole, its still interesting enough to keep me dredging through the bowels of whatever hell I come across to get to the end and see whats going on. And of course, there are many different endings, each which will probably leave you with more questions than answers... In true Silent Hill fashion.

GAMEPLAY

Okay the MEAT of any good game, the gameplay. What does the Aeon have to say about this Silent Hill? Well like they promised, the combat was totally revamped. This time around our protagonist has the ability to quickly dodge, counter attack, and deliver light, and strong strikes that chain together to make combos. I know, doesn't sound like the clunky Silent Hill combat we're used to right? Now the concern myself and many others had was that all these flashy new moves would turn Silent Hill into some kind of arcade action game and take away from the survival horror aspect. This presumption was totally dismissed as soon as I got a feel for the new system.

Combos, counters, and evasion do not make mister Alex some kind of action thriller super hero in combat. Instead you the player will need to master these techniques if you just want to SURVIVE against average enemies, who have also been beefed up tremendously. Depending on the type of enemy you're up against, you'll have to be dodging, choose your weapon carefully and make combos and counterattacks at just the right moments in order to get out of a scrap alive. Many of the enemies have a sort of combo, or special as well which if your not careful can land you being hacked, slashed, and mauled to death without any hope of even fighting back.

Oh and guess what.. no more Auto Aim with ranged weapons. Yup you have to bust out the crosshair and steady your hand to fire those shots off all on your own now. While that might be bad news for those of the weaker twitch skills, it definitely helps to even out the playing field with guns now. In addition to having to aim, you also have a set limitation on the amount of bullets you can carry for each gun. Some might say its an annoyance, but I myself recognize it as a much needed balance band aid thats been needed in Silent Hill for a long time. No longer can you equip your hunting rifle and just hit the shoot button 50 times in a row to steamroll everything in your path.

My final thoughts on the revamped combat... It was an incredibly needed overhaul, and they pulled it off very well without going over the top. Although some people considered the old style a "feature", the clunky combat of the old silent hill games was pretty uninteresting after a while. In the previous games you could just walk around in a circle and beat something to death and the enemy was too slow and stupid to even fight back. So yes, Homecoming gets the big THUMBS UP from me.

But wait, theres more! This is next gen gaming were talking about, remember? This Silent Hill got a few cool little features that help flesh it out more too. Such as the areas you will be exploring are no longer divided up by rooms. That is to say when you open a door to enter one room, you no longer get a loading screen and suddenly the previous area no longer "exists". In this incarnation of the franchise all areas in a particular "level" are seamless. Oh yeah, that means you cant just open up a door to escape a horde of marauding abominations anymore, they'll follow you right throguh the door and anywhere else they can get to on foot. There are still plenty ways to elude combat, but you have to be just a little more creative this time.

Seamless levels, to me, makes the game feel more "real" and continuous. Which while we're on the topic, the infamous transition from regular abandoned level, to creepy as hell otherworldly twisted reality is now (sometimes) completely in real time. Which is a pretty interesting little thing to see, but I'll cover that more in the next section. Whew, just one more point here though...

PHYSICS! Oh yeah baby! Nearly every game these days has it, and in Silent Hill Homecoming it works out pretty well. Simple gravity makes for some extra creepy effects when you accidently knock something over when you stumble through a cluttered room in the dark, whew you'll be freaking yourself out for hours trust me.

GRAPHICS

Yup, I gotta cover it. Now as anyone knows I dont go on graphics alone, pretty pictures do not a good game make. However having detailed, quality graphics can definately help set the mood and atmosphere much better in a game like this. The models for everything are top notch and the textures are just incredible as always for a Silent Hill title, which is just brought out so well with the power of the PS3/360.

As any fan of the series can testify to, you'll find yourself stopping and just staring at some of the rather.. unsettling and just outright twisted things you'll be seeing in your surreal quest. In addition there are also some nice new special effects going on. The infamous fog and darkness of the series is brought out even more with incredible visual detail right down to rays of sunlight beaming incredibly realistically through cracked windows, shadows that make you flinch, and even specks of dust just floating about in the air.

You'll even get to see the cuts and bruises you inflict on the monsters, and as Alex gets hurt he'll even limp and move slower, clutching to his body as he moves which is both a cool animation, and very nice for making the game more immersive. My only gripe on this part is that unlike EVERY other Silent Hill there is no blood left behind upon killing a monster. Instead the bodies leave no blood puddle, and the corpse dissapears after a while. Slightly annoying as a fan of the messy kills in previous games, but not to fret theres still plenty environmental blood and gore everywhere.

Now I mentioned before about the seamless levels and the new transition, I'll explain a little. In every Silent Hill game you explore a "normal" level, then an "otherworld" version of the same level. The otherworld is usually a twisted, completely chaotic and warped version of whatever place your at, with objects and buildings that shouldn't exist, rooms that are physically impossible, even rooms that are alive or just plain don't make sense etc.

The transition from normal to otherworld was usually handled by the screen blacking out, then a little cutscene where everything was magically changed. While this does still happen, during some points of the game you will actually get to watch and still be in gameplay mode while this transformation occurs in what I have to say is a very cool sequence.

So the visuals are basically excellent next gen quality, and very pleasing to the eye. Well that is if you aren't so scared you've got your hands covering your eyes.

SOUND

Its a Silent Hill game! Of course by now we all know to expect lots of sick, disgusting sounds that make you want to just hit the pause button and gather your sanity. In traditional Silent Hill fashion everything in the game makes sounds that add to the mood perfectly, even when theres nothing around there will be off the wall sounds that keep you tense and weapon readied, just in case whatever's making that sound jumps out of nowhere to make you empty your bladder in your pants.

As for music its standard SH fare, mostly environmental sounds that combine to make some kind of eerie yet entrancing background music. Though there are a few soundtracks, which for fans of the oldschool will love some remastered SH2 music, in addition to some new very nice sounds.

what can I say, the Silent Hill franchise has always been known for having deliciously creepy as hell sounds and awesome music. This one just continues the trend, which is great.

SUMMARY

I think Silent Hill Homecoming came out pretty damn well, despite being developed by a new team. Its not the "masterpiece" that many consider the earlier Silent Hill games to be, but it tells a solid story on its own and brings a ton of new features to the franchise's table that were all thought out and well implemented. Theres some nitpicking and minor stuff that keeps this one from being a perfect in my opinion, however I still give this a solid Aeon rating of 4/5.

With all this, and multiple endings, unlockables and challenging new gameplay to keep you going I have to say that Homecoming is a definite must for a fan of survival horror and a fan of Silent Hill. Its got good replay value if you want a game that you can get some mileage out of, and heck its just plain fun to take another adventure into the messed up town of Silent Hill yet again.

Aeon Review! presents: Spore (PC)
Aeon Score: (5/5 insanely happy smilies!)

Okay, the game that us god/builder sim gamers have been waiting holding our breath for what like 6 to 8 years now for has finally come.. SPORE! Okay so what are games that are incredibly hyped and raved over usually like? sucky right?... Well I'm pleased to say that Spore lives up to its promises AMAZINGLY, and blows that norm out of the water... But before I go fan-girl mode, I'd like to start off with some basics and technical things that I have to get out the way first.

Alright first off for those that don't know (MY GOD, Have you been living in 1999!?!?) Spore is a game by EA/maxis, created primarily by that whacky guy Will Wright, who showed the world that not all games have to start with a plot device and end with an epic final boss fight with games like The Sims, SimCity, heck every sim title you can think of is this guy.

Now the theme of Spore is that you are put in charge of basically being god, destiny, fate, THE ONE, whatever you wanna call it. You create a life form from a single cell, and guide its evolution and culture by either interacting and socializing with other beings, or shamelessly slaughtering everything in your path. With the final point of the game being that having dominated your world, you are free to play sim-god and shape other planets and lifeforms in your computer's universe.

Whew, sounds epic huh? It is. Now that I've covered the premise, let me get people in the right mindset. Spore is NOT TheSims, or Simcity.. You wont find yourself playing around with your cities for hours and you wont find yourself having to hold your lifeforms hands every step of the way. But at the same time Spore is NOT a strategy/RTS game. Yes you can do some conquering and warfare at certain stages of the game, but that is by no means the goal or even a large part of gameplay. What spore is, is an interesting blend of several different genres all in one game, giving a healthy taste of each. In essence Spore is a sandbox game, meaning that you are free to do what you like, because you like to do it.. So dont expect big boss fights or huge scinematic battles or something like that.

Alrighty, now that you're in the mindset I'll go through the game stage by stage as though you were playing it, since honestly, thats probably the easiest way to explain things.

(BEGINNING)
Okay so you start the game up, after registering online and all that good stuff you are presented with a rather mind boggling view of a spiral galaxy with a few little shining blips that represent solar systems you can start off in. So you click on one and you're on your way, giving a nice view of a meteor shooting through space and crashing into the planet's ocean. A few little spores of single cell life bubble out from a fragment of the meteor, and thus.. Life begins..

(CELL STAGE)
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00Aeoni.jpg
So you are now a simple little amoeba like one-cell organism. At this point you can pop open the editor and decide to give your cell some attachments to make the simple life easier. First thing's first is giving your cell a mouth to eat food, you either have carnivor, herbivor, or omnivor mouths that determine what it will eat.

Now this stage of the game plays out kind of like an oldschool 2D arcade game. You float around and absorb tiny bits of plant, or if your carnivorous tiny bits of dead cells. You'll get larger, and things start evolving around you, so now you need to up the ante!

You can choose to add parts that will help your little cell to move faster, to escape from bigger cells that want to eat you, or you can equip it with some weapons, poking structures, poison gland, shocky thing etc so that you can defend, or hunt and kill other cells to eat and grow larger.

Once you've grown enough you find yourself getting a little too fancy for those other simple cells, time to grow some legs and strut on over to land!

(CREATURE STAGE)
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00Aeoni-bug.jpg
Yup, you the guy now, all multiple-celled and ready to take on the world! During this stage you have a nest where your creatures gather and mate, you control a single creature which you can use to interact with other creatures, hunt, explore etc to unlock new parts to use in the creature editer.

First off let me say that you can create almost ANY kind of creature you want like this, you want to make a pig-snouted gorilla with no legs that flies with giant butterfly wings and has 5 eyes.. you can do it! But no matter what you create your options are to either explore and make friendly with other critters by dancing, singing, charming and other things, or senselessly kill and devour them for food.

Now there are some interesting little things in this stage I'd like to mention. As time goes by and things change, or you eat up all the local food, your creatures will actually pack up and migrate to a new region of the planet, at which point you have to follow a migrational path to catch up to them for mating. Also you may encounter UFO's from more advanced planets that come to visit, or abduct creatures too, there are a bunch of little things to find and explore during this stage but I wont spoil it.

So after you've grown and evolved your creatures mind enough you can hear the 2001 a space odyssee music play and you're ready to get intelligent!

(TRIBAL STAGE)
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00Tribal.jpg
Your creatures will band together and create a village hut and campfire, one of them will don a large staff and become the village chieftan. At this stage in the game you no longer control a single creature but rather you have a strategy game style control over all adult creatures in your village. Your primary matters at hand now are to tell your creatures to gather food to store in town as yes, they do need to eat periodically and also to explore and interact with the other species that have evolved into intelligence.

You now also get the option of building various amentities in the village, such as spears for fishing, musical instruments to help with diplomacy, or throwing spears and stone axes, also used for diplomacy if that's how you like negotiating. A very neat feature is that you can also equip your creatures with clothing, some of which gives them bonuses both in combat and in diplomacy or food gathering.

You advance in this stage by either peacefully having diplomatic relations with your neighbors, or by annihalating and stealing their resources. Over all I'd say this part of the game is kind of like a mini taste of games like Age of Empires or Populous.

Once you've sufficiently converted, or destroyed the other tribes you're ready to rule the world!... or.. are you?

(CIVILIZATION STAGE)
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00civilization.jpg
Your creatures start building walls, better bigger buildings, forming cities and becoming more modern. Your species is now the only one on the planet however they've also discovered culture, religion, philosophy.. and as such have split up into factions. Since they dont all believe that you are the "one true creator" any more.

No longer do you command individual creatures, now you manage your single city that is still loyal, nothing too complicated at all, but quite fun because you get to design from the ground up how you want your buildings to look, how your creatures dress in fashion, and the most important part... vehicles.

At this point in the game you can create land, sea, and air vehicles which you can strategy-style select and command to do things. One important thing they'll be doing is gathering spice... yeah, spice. I can only imagine that someone loved Dune, because spice is the primary fuel and currency in the advanced stages of the game. You mine it with vehicles from the land or bottom of the sea, and process it in your cities' factories.

Now heres where it gets competitive, you'll quickly find yourself competing with the other factions on your planet for control of spice mines. The primary goal for this stage though is to retake the world and unify it. Either by force, diplomacy and economic trade, or religion.

Well theres quite a bit to toy around with in this stage if you're an RTS fan, but when you've taken the world over you're ready to move on to the final phase...

(SPACE STAGE)
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00planetside.jpg
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00solarsystem.jpg
http://h1.ripway.com/alexaeon/00everything.jpg
Yup, the final frontier! Now you get to build a spaceship and blast off to go where no mutant frog-bug-creature has gone before!

Now there is a LOT to this stage, and it is structured so that you can set your goals for yourself.. basically the final stage can either be goal oriented, or sandbox depending on how the player wants to play.

Let me go over the spaceship real quick. The ship is now your viewpoint and means of control. What you'll be doing in this stage is up to you, but some big things to note are that you're not alone and expanding your empire by setting up new colonies on distant planets and mining for spices to trade and fuel your economy are very important.

Now there are things that need doing here, your spaceship has very limited tools and capabilities to begin with. During this stage you must earn badges by exploring, trading, conquering, and various other things to advance and earn the right to buy new tools. You will also quickly find that in this stage you're not the big fish in the pond anymore, you will encounter much larger, stronger, and more capable of handing your behind to you empires. So this is the one stage where you truly will need to do some diplomacy, and you'll need the extra help so you might not want to conquer everyone around you this time.

In addition to dealing with your space neighbors, you've also got to deal with random events that pop up from time to time. Things like ecosystems crashing, pirates raiding, allies needing assistance, worker strikes, etc etc. Now in other types of games like this disasters were just a pain but I have to say in Spore its pulled off decently. Very rarely is a disaster completely "random", but rather is produced by factors that were set in motion some time before you got the flashing red panic light.

Aside form dealing with your own empire's economy and your ever persistant neighbors theres a lot to do in this stage. You really get to play around with how the universe works in this phase as you develop your spaceship. Not only can you create ecosystems, change climates and atmospheres of planets but you can also sculpt valleys, rivers, oceans, and even paint them different colors. You also have the ability to modify other creatures and even advance them into tribes and civilizations on your own. As you advance and cover more territory the game gets more hectic, but at the same time with more tools you can make the galaxy your own private playground.

This stage can either be where you decide you're "done", where you just want to play intergalactic trader, start up a federation of planets Star Trek style, or just go about terraforming and playing galactic god. There is a definate goal though if you choose to follow it. Reaching the center of the galaxy is the primary objective but well... I'll just say the galaxy is a BIG place, and not particularly friendly the closer you get to the center.

Alright, so that's my basic review/playthrough of the Spore experience. Lastly since its on the mind of most PC gamers I'll just run through how it runs. So far the only issue I and some others is having is with the online login, though since its a single player game save for the user downloaded things thats not a big problem. I have yet to run into ANY glitches, lag, or so much as even minor complications during gameplay. Which really amazed me, it runs exceptionally well! unlike many of the bug ridden new PC games that've come out in recent years.

Lastly but not least, I'll just briefly mention the online portion of the game. Now Spore is a single player game however you can upload all of your creations to the spore servers and this can then be downloaded into other peoples games. Theres even a handy content browser where you can search up new things to download in-game. I'll say this is a pretty darn neat feature to show off your mad sculpting skills, but overall its nothing that makes or breaks the game if you just want to play with Maxis content only.

So what's my final thoughts? Spore is a game that when it was announced just blew our minds. It had an epic vision of what it wanted to accomplish and bring to our computers and now that its finally been released... I have to say that it has lived up to my expectations amazingly well, and its definately something that a fan of open ended games should go out and pick up.. like seriously right now, get up off your butt and go get it!

Civilization Revolution (PS3/360) Score: 4/5

Aaah yes, the Civilization series of games. The game that dared to be different and try a slightly less twitchtastic approach to gaming than most other games. The Civ games have always been different from even other popular franchises that were based on strategy, such as the Age of Empires games (which also rocked!) in that its always been turn based, and the focus has always been on more than just "build stuff to go and kill the other guys stuff", but I'll talk about that more later.

Civilization games have also been famed as a PC title, meaning they were always released for computers, and if a console got anything it was just some crappy, horribly done port that just went down as being a pain to play on whatever console it was on at the time.. Yeah Civilization for the SNES, I'm lookin at you!

So what happens when its announced there would be an entirely new, shiny Civilization game? The people rejoiced! Then they said it was for PS3 and 360 only, NO PC version... Well for hardcore PC gamers that dont touch consoles, they didnt exactly react well, but for everyone else we were just hoping it would be awesome. What did we get? Well after spending quite a few hours, days even beating the various difficulties, I've got to say JOB WELL DONE! And I'll break it down here.

Okay now let me break it down real quick for people that might not know or be into Civilization games in general. The basic concept is that you take on the role of the leader of a country that you choose from a fairly good selection, and then you start the game off in ancient times as nomads, then build cities, plan infrastructure, culture, research technologies, and basically raise your civilization all the way from the stone age up to modern times and beyond. All while playing the diplomacy game, or waging war on the other countries on the game board. All this is done in Turn Based Strategy format, that is you plan your moves then "end" your turn and it all plays out. Typically because of this format Civ games have never really been very "exciting" or action packed, the fun was basically in just playing dictator/president/monarch and watching your empire grow and prosper or conquer the globe.

Lets start with some generalities like how the new game translated to consoles. First off as a vet Civ player I noticed that the game is far more streamlined, which means that theres fewer things to research, fewer dealing with politics, societal issues etc and time advances quicker. What does this mean? It means that yes the game has less depth than the INCREDIBLY OVERCOMPLICATED mess that PC civ games have become which turns diehards of the series off, but I'll say I liked it, and heres why: An average game of Civ Revolution on harder difficulties now only takes about 3, maybe 4 hours max to play out whether you win or lose. Some people dont like the shortening but I'll be honest here, the WEEK-LONG play sessions I used to have on some of the PC civ games was just not cool... Sure it was totally in-depth and all, but I never finished more than maybe 1 game on the PC, then I just got bored after a day or so.

Second off theres the actual gameplay, well Civ Revolution is no action thriller, but its definately more interesting to watch units fight it out, and you'll be doing lots of fighting I'll tell you that. There are four ways to win the game, Domination, Economic, Scientific, Culture. So in theory you wouldnt have to fight at all to go with the less violent victories right? WRONG.

The AI in Civ Revolution, whether you think its a good thing or a bad thing I can say this.. It wants your ass DEAD. Every game you have four opponent civiliaztions, they each usually try for a different victory but no matter what they generally dont fight each other, they have a sort of hive-mind mentality where they just gang up on the player. So if you wanna win, you're going to have to build your armies and take at least one or two of them out before they get you. The AI in this game is aggressive and diplomacy is far simpler, its still an option to have peace but more often than not the AI wants your best tech, all your gold, or basically something that would cripple you to stop waging war on you.

What does the Alex think about this? Well it certainly takes the more subtle points of foreign relations out of the picture that the PC civ games had. At the same time the new AI is a challange, I actively have to not only defend but reach out and aggressively take their cities in order to just survive in what would be a 4 vs 1 slaughter-the-player game. So if you play more laid back, you'll probably find yourself hating the new AI, if you like some action and sweating a little as you try to survive and prosper then you'll love it.

Now another good point real quick to bring up is management... Theres almost none. You have to build buildings in your cities, build new cities, roads, all that but with a few button taps you can have your entire country up and running without worrying too much. Now you still have to custom move your workers around to get MAX efficiency but overall you'll find yourself having far more time to do other things than play manager. This is another one of those things where you either love/hate it, some people like the intricate tediousness of micro-managing a whole continent of cities... Other people prefer to just let it run and have time to do what they want to do.

Lastly I'll make a brief note on graphics, yeah I dont normally judge a game by its pretty pictures but I have to comment on this one. The game has a very stylish approach, the advisors and units and everything are pretty well detailed and shaded an all high def goodness. Though everything has a slightly cartoonish look to it, not overy exagerated by any means, but its definately got comical overtones.

Overall I think Civilization Revolution is an outstanding console exclusive release of the Civ franchise. I could nitpick, but who cant find something, so I'll just say my only solid complaints were a bit of graphic lag in later stages of a match when the whole map is covered in cities and units... Its a bit much for any console to take whether its a PS3 or 360 and you get some very minor freezing going on, but nothing that disrupts gameplay in the slightest, just an annoyance.

If you like city/empire builders and you like a more action oriented challanging experience then Civ Revolution is right up your shady gamers alley. If you fall into the more diehard empire builder sims that are based on micromanagement then you probably wont have too much fun wth this. So I'll say whether you like this game or not all depends on what type of gamer you are. Me, well.. I loved playing through all the difficulties and I still play it sometime too, its a well done game thats addictively fun if you get into it.

((Well since I saw some other game reviews with the weblog, I felt like I'd do something fun with mine, and I've never written a review, so I get to try something new! XD))

Siren: Blood Curse (PS3) Score: 5/5 smileys

So lets start with some history. The original Siren, I'm actually amazed at how few people actually remember the game from the PS2. It was very well done and in my opinion was up there with Silent Hill in terms of survival horror goodness.

However thats the thing about both the old and new Siren, its SURVIVAL Horror, not Action Horror. I think that turned away a lot of mainstream/horror dabblers because the game wasnt about combat it was about surviving through the events. Basically in the original Siren you barely had weapons, if you did they were unreliable and the shibito (zombies) didnt stay down long enough to make fighting worth it since if you got hurt fighting you got hurt BAD. Your goal was to get from point A to B by running, hiding, and solving puzzles where necessary.

So lets fast forward to the now. Siren: Blood Curse for the PS3, well lets start with the medium. Its a full game exclusively for download, which lowers the cost down to $39.99 which is cool if you're non financially endowed, and this also means you need to download 9 gigabytes to your hard drive. For me no problem since I've got a whole lot of nothing on my harddrive, but some people might be tight for space.

The game itself is set up like a classic horror movie. When you load the game up you have a title screen, then you can select the episodes, yes the game is broken down into episodes with individual chapters within that you play and watch cutscenes. The game flows like you're both watching, and part of a horror flick. Now in addition to that you also have an archive where you can actually examine and interact with some of the things you find during play. Such as someones wallet, a diary, or even video tape clips and cell phone conversations.

Now lets start with the meat of any good game, the gameplay. People who played the original Siren, whether you loved it like me, or hated it for its sheer difficulty like some, will notice that gameplay is similar but quite different this time around.

The characters themselves are just average people for the most part, to give this experience they die with just one to three gunshot wounds, or if they get whacked with a heavy object they go down, sliced with a blade a few times they bleed to death etc. Offensively they vary, some characters are better with weapons than others, and the little 10 year old girl character doesnt fight at all. If you try to fist fight a shibito unarmed, chances are they will kill you, even with a weapon they can easily overpower you in numbers however you do stand a much better fighting chance in this game thanks to some new features.

Lets discuss those new features. Thanks to the PS3 Sixaxis controller's motion sensitivity you get some very fun and immersing things to do in combat, or just to keep your ass alive. First you can brace doors by holding triangle and shaking the controller like crazy to force a door closed from a shibito that tries to get in wherever you're hiding, making them leave you alone for a second to find another entrance. In actual combat the shibito might knock you down on your back, if that happens you can lean back and bounce the controler up/down to try to crawl away before they finish you off. If a shibito jumps on you and tries to strangle you, or in some levels hold your head underwater to drown you, you can jiggle that controller like mad to try and break free. Theres some other things, but I wont spoil that. :P

Now all this stuff basically gives you a fighting chance at getting away from the shibito that in the original Siren, you were just dead meat if you got caught. As for the actual combat its definately improved, still a little clunky but honestly it just adds to the intensity. In this Siren you do get a nice array of weapons if you can find them in the environment, mostly common household/industrial objects, but a few hunting rifles, old pistols and other deadly things. Combat is an option now, however you still can't kill the shibito, they stay down for a MUCH longer time than in the PS2 Siren, but your goal is to survive and get away, NOT go on a zombie killin spree.

Oh and lets discuss the Siren series signature feature.. Sightjacking! Sightjacking allows you to scan around psychically to tap into the eyes and ears of others, whether its the shibito, or other humans. Now in the original Siren this was a hassle, you couldnt move or do anything while sightjacking. But in Blood Curse they decided on a nice medium, you can sightjack and still move around and act as normal. However the screen splits in half, which is honestly pretty damn disorienting with two seperate fields of vision, and secondly your primary vision gets blurry and out of focus, which makes sense since you're basically looking and listening for two people at once.

So as far as gameplay, the new Siren is a HUGE improvement over the original, while still maintaining the survival horror aspect of not being able to just kill anything in your path. Now this leads into the next part of my review, the atmosphere, mood, immersion, whatever you want to call it that makes a survival horror game well.. survival HORROR!

First off the game is dark, real dark. Now there are some levels set in daylight, but for the night levels, or indoors your only ray of sunshine is a tiny pocket flashlight, very Silent Hill-ish. Now some people complain about it, but the lack of light DEFINATELY increases the mood.

Second off we have the enemies, the shibito, which themselves are just as creepy as ever. They're undead, and at least in this one they seem much more intelligent. They wander around the environments laughing like escaped mental patients and gleefully butchering anything human in sight with a way too happy smile on their faces. Aside from the run of the mill zombie-villager you'll also run into all kinds of freakishly demon looking mutated shibito, from flying moth-like shibito, shibito that are mutated and bent backwards Exorcist style walking like spiders along the walls and celings, to some just plain freakishly disgusting things I wont even mention. Lets just say that as a fan of survival horror, even I couldnt stand to look at some of these things.

So how does the dark atmoshpere combine with the sights and sounds to make me, the veteran survival horror gamer feel? Well I'll give some examples:

I was playing the little girl, Bella, in the hospital for the first time. I had to turn on a monitor to grab the attention of a twisted looking shibito nurse to distract her. I accidently did it too soon, she turned and saw me. I hauled as fast as I could down the corridor with her chasing, ran into a room, slammed the door behind me then crawled under the bed to hide. I hear the door turning and peak up to see the nurse sloowly walk in giggling like crazy glancing around right next to the bed, and I'm actually in my armchair breathing heavy and hoping that nurse doesnt look down and see my character.

Another time I was playing as Howard, his companion had been shot and I had to go complete the level objective. This was on one of those rare daylight levels, it was nice, almost eerily pleasant as there were no shibito in the immidate area. Then I come across a shack that beyond the basement in it leads down into a series of incredibly creepy mine shafts filled with those backwards ceiling crawling spider shibito. I, as a player actually hesitated and I really, really did NOT want to leave the comfort of the well lit area to even go in the door to that mine complex. When the games gets to you enough that the player is even feeling the fear, thats when I know I'm playing a good survival horror game.

So over all my thoughts on Siren: Blood Curse? I think it just might be the best survival horror game to come out in a looong time. Its a highly underrated series because of the incredible difficulty presented from the fact that its NOT an action game. Having to hide, run, sneak your way out of a dangerous situation might just frustrate a lot of gamers, but for people that really enjoy a good scare and a pretty nice plot its a very very welcome addition to your harddrive