The Walking Dead: Episode 4: Around Every Corner Review

Hits

• Interesting New Character
• Plot Twist
• Dark Mood

Misses

• Uninteresting side story
• Nonsensical Plot Line
• Unwelcomed New Gameplay Addition

Recommended For:

People Who've Been Heavily Engrossed Into This Game Series

Not Recommended For:

The Faint of Heart

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The last time we were with Lee's group a lot had gone down. Most of the core group hadn't made it and some new folks joined the mix. Mainly the Hobo Chuck, and couple Christa and Omid. After sustaining an injury, things look pretty bleak for both Omid and the group as they were travelling to the coast and finding any chance of escaping this new world. Not to mention the man whom Clem had been communicating with over the walkie talkie. After reaching Savannah things get even worse. Before you know it you have barely any time to save Clem in a new game mechanic: first person shooting. Yep, you read that correctly, first person shooting. Even though it may have been a welcome addition for others, it took me out of the character and felt like I was playing Dead Island: Walking Dead. 

From this point on "Around Every Corner" becomes the darkest episode of the series to date. After escaping a zombie threat, the gang hides out in an abandoned home and make a chilling discovery that carries the weight of the events of the previous episode. It is soon after this that a mysterious new character "Molly" is introduced as a complete and total badass. Through a series of bad luck you end up in the worst place in both the old and new world: the sewer system. Talk about disgusting. While down there you make a saddening discovery, an idea, and a haven for people who are deemed unworthy. One of those things is not like the others. This cause of action leads Lee down a dark road that he may not come back from.

A few supplies and a bunch of deaths later you are given a choice that is supposed to give you a strong case of indecision but fails along the way. Just when you think everything is safe a wrench is thrown into your happy hopeful ending. Faced with unimaginably low odds the entire plan changes and turns into something with many lives on the line. 

Make no mistake, this is a great episode and deserves to be played by even the most novice video game player. Even though it feels out of place with the ebb and flow of the story Telltale finds yet another way for you to hate yourself. 

(P.S. Apologies in advance for the general vagueness of this review as I didn't want to spoil much of the episode)

SPAZ - Review

PROS

• Backgrounds that look better than space itself
• Tons of customization
• Zombies
• Procedurally Generated Galaxies
• Tons of missions
• Infinite replay value
• Continued support from developers

CONS

• Combat can become repetitive
• Mining can be an annoyance
• Lengthy distances between some story missions

Not Recommended For:

 Gamers who dislike a challenge and gamers with little free time.

 Recommended For:

 Everyone Else.

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SPAZ, or Space Pirates and Zombies is a game in space, the end.

What, you actually wanted a review, is space not good enough for you?  Well then you either need to play Portal 2 or you have expectations which are way too high, but fine, whatever you say.

Space Pirates and Zombies is a game about Space, Pirates, and Zombies.  In game you control a single ship within an expanding fleet, while having the overlord-ish ability to hop between them at anytime, as well as to pause the game and issue orders.  While the game mostly has a fast paced, action feel to it, it has a very nice underlying strategy system.  One thing I love is that the tactics are optional, while if you don’t use them you won’t do as well within game and will die more, you don’t need to understand what everything does, since the AI tends to handle itself fine on its own.

Tactics Screen

The game is basically a hybrid between mission based and open world exploration.  You can freely fly between systems, but then you need to choose which mission/station/planet to warp to.  When you aren’t in one of those places, you are at your mother ship, which serves at a mobile base between systems.  While the game does have an overarching story, you tend to forget what it is after playing for a few hours, since while you do have goals pertaining to it, there isn’t really anything story related outside of it, since the game gives you so much freedom you just tend to do missions while doing your story ones along the way.  But basically, you and a group of people created a giant ship, with the hopes of traveling into the depths of your universe to become rich bastards.

The open universe is nice, there are tons of random missions which can help you progress with either experience, Rez (The games currently), or with new blue prints.  I really like how the game goes about giving you new ships, you can’t simply go to the nearest station and buy them, you have to kill a certain number of that ship and reverse engineer it, which makes getting bigger ships a challenge, since the bigger, the stronger.  As far as ship customization goes, it is diverse and works well.  Each ship has a certain amount of turret slots, device slots, missile slots, bomb slots, etc. and you can choose what to put in each one, and as you level up you can put on even better items.  While there aren’t too many different turret/main weapons, each weapon is different so that not having too many differences isn’t that big of an issue.  Each ship also has a build cost, which is how much it costs to rebuild once destroyed, if you aren’t a player who enjoys mining for 30 minutes every hour or two, then you need to be careful not to make the most expensive ships in the galaxy!

Each galaxy in game is procedurally generated, which means each time you play; it will be an entirely different world to explore.  The developers did a good job of bringing these galaxies and systems alive; each game has two warring factions, the military and the civilians.  You need to choose which one to side with, or just not to take a side at all, and many of the missions in game help please one of the factions.  And depending on which faction you choose, will depend on if they give you access to their station or not, which can have items for sale, allow you to bribe guards, or allow you to mine.  There are tons of random missions which can pop up, some connected from earlier ones, which helps give a sense of…life to the systems, though it would be even better if there were neutral factions such as bounty hunters and merchants, who could reward you with rare items or money for helping them, which would in turn get others of their faction to like you.

A Rather Large Galaxy

The combat itself is very in-depth, action packed, and fun, though also challenging.  One thing the developers did very well is balancing combat, while it does feel hard at times, you simply need to try a different strategy, if small missiles aren’t doing the trick, fit all your ships with large slow moving missiles and try that instead.  I love how the game allows you to refit ships in the middle of combat, so you can completely switch strategy, with nothing but a small build time in between.  There are many strategic approaches to take such as cloaking devices, drones, bombs which stall enemies, and many others, allowing the player to choose how he prefers to play, since there isn’t one “win it all” combination.

Combat in an Advanced Ship

My only complaint is that after playing for a while, combat can get repetitive.  Because about 10 hours in, it boils down to “Shoot with missiles, fire laser, get hit by gravity bomb, sit here and get shot at, die, rebuild, repeat”.  Because I came to a point in which I needed to travel halfway across my galaxy, and since to unlock new systems you have to destroy blockades (or you could bribe the guards, but shooting is easier) and some of them were at a level too challenging for me, I had to do other missions to level up while also killing blockades, which were mostly the same fight over and over again, with needed mining in the middle.  I understand that the bigger you make your galaxy, the longer the game takes, but if they could’ve simply condensed missions and not have made some of the story ones so far away, it not only would have helped speed up the pace, but it would’ve been less repetitive.  Speaking of which, I wish exploration was a bit more rewarding, I would have liked if some random missions involved finding wrecks of rare ships to reverse engineer, some rare ship equipment, some mission which involved moral choices which had repercussions (which also would add to the ‘alive’ feel of the galaxy) but instead it is mostly a mix of mining and shooting.

Now there is one thing that does change up combat, and that is zombies.  When fighting zombies you really have to take a different combat approach, which is a welcome change from the usual dodge and gun.  If a zombie spore reaches your ship, your whole ship will be zombified and be taken control of by the zombies, so you need to make sure you keep your distance, but the ships still have weapons so you can’t be too defensive, which makes zombie combat much for interesting.

Zombies

All of the SPAZ ships look very cool and differentiated, along with the systems and asteroids, all the art smoothly works together.  Now the backgrounds are…just amazing, easily the best space backgrounds of any game I have played, since they are multilayered and dynamically animated.  The sound is also good and fits in with the game.

So ultimately SPAZ reinvents gameplay you’d expect from more retro games, mixes in some RPG elements along with procedurally generated galaxies;  which all forms together into one hell of a game.  This game honestly has nearly endless gameplay, and while it is challenging, it is balanced, and above all else, fun to play.  It also has good progression as you play through the game.  You can check this game out on steam with their demo, or get the full game for $15.  You owe it to yourself to buy this game, since it isn’t just an Indie Gem, it’s near Indie Perfection, and one of the best Indie Games I have ever played…hell, it’s one of the best 2D games I have ever played. The developers clearly put a lot of hard work into this game, and they are going to continue to do so with additional content in the upcoming months.  The only thing that would’ve made this game better was if there was a mobile version so I could play a mission or two if I’m bored for twenty minutes.

Dead Island Review

Hits

• Deep RPG Leveling System
• Gory, Bloody, Goodness
• Tons of Replayability
• Expansive/Dangerous Environments
• Seamless Drop In/Drop Out Co-Op

Misses

• Zombies Can Be Overwhelming At Times
• Financial Issues
• Annoying Bosses

 Back in 2006 developer Techland announced a zombie game that would focus primarily on melee and have an expansive game world. Nothing was seen for three and half years until a cinematic trailer featuring a family during the outbreak shook the internet and game world. Although the mood for the game wouldn't be the same as the one in the trailer, people thought that things wouldn't work out for the little zombie game that could. Boy were they wrong.

In theory this game is like Condemned met Left 4 Dead, had babies with Borderlands, and made L4D raise the kids as its own. You have the choice of 4 main characters who each have their own special skill. For instance, Sam B is an expert with blunt weapons which in this game is the equivalent of having Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar in a kiddie pick up game.

"You's A Dead Bitch Now!"For each character there is a different backstory, Sam B for example is a one hit wonder rapper who was brought to the resort to play said one hit wonder. Logan, is a former football star who's career was destroyed by his own ego.

The story takes place on the island of Banoi which is one of the most sought after vacationing locations due to the wealthy and celebrity tourists. You'll explore numerous locales such as the Jungle, a laboratory, and even a city that's literally gone to the dead.

Just because it's a zombie game don't expect the cliche shambling corpses. Techland did a really good job with incorporating different zombies into the game. You have the traditional Romero zombies, the fast 28 Days Later zombies, and you have special zombies. Usually, special zombies are a real lettdown in games like Left 4 Dead due to the implausability of it but here it works surprisingly well. The Ram for example, is essentially an infected human who's in a mental patient gettup. Like his name, his main attack is ramming you so for the love of the Doctor be careful.

Although the gameplay works in terms of smoothness the undead can easily overwhelm you and some can even knock you out in just one punch. I see a lot of broken controllers with cheap shots like this. The weapons work like you'd expect and despite being a pacifist, it's extremely satisfying to lob a head off a zombie like an undead nightmare. That being said, certain weapons you get later on aren't as good as the machetes you can find early on.

 One of the things that Dead Island was promising was a deep crafting system and they delivered on that promise. You have mods such as shock machetes, and even craftable ammo. Despite this, you need to 1. have your weapons at 100% and 2. by the time you get them back to good condition you have almost nothing left.

When you talk about this game you may bring up Dead Rising 1 or 2 but in truth this game is everything Dead Rising wanted to be. You have countless side quests to distract you from the main quest and continuous ones to keep you focused. Certain ones will seem pointless and others on the other hand will be downright difficult.

One of the worst things about this game though is the survivor escort system. Like Dead Rising this games survivor AI isn't that great. The first time they see a zombie they will go crazy or won't even defend themselves when they are being struck by the undead attackers. It's not big enough to break the game or anything but it's something that after a while can be quite frustrating.

The multiplayer for this game was another feature that was heavily anticipated, being able to drop into a game mid-stream is something that is difficult to do these days and Dead Island pulls it off. It can be annoying to have people constantly dropping in but thankfully there's an option for that.

With most of the gameplay feeling like the original Condemned there is unfortunately another thing the game has in common with Condemned: gun mechanics. Oddly, guns aren't that effective against the undead. Even if you shoot them in the head multiple times they will still shamble on towards you.
Eventually, when you encounter certain enemies later on you have boss battles that are extremely frustrating due to the poor gun mechanics. Like the challenge says: "Guns don't work, but they help".

 After 4-5 years in development Dead Island succeeds on most things it promised but others it doesn't quite do well in. The shoddy gun mechanics, poor survivor AI, and frustrating enemy AI really stop Dead Island from shining as one of the greatest games of 2011. With all that said there is enough satisfaction in here to get your moneys worth.

Read Dead Redemption Zombie Nightmare DLC Review

PROS

• The best value you will get for a video game this year
• Zombies done right in a video game
• Genuine terror added to an already amazing game
• More addition to the story

CONS

• I’m drawing a blank here

After you are done reading this go and write Rockstar San Diego a big thank you letter for showing people how DLC is supposed to be done. This piece of downloadable content priced at $10 has content that will rival (and in many cases surpass) full $60 retail games.

You Don’t Need Braaaaaaains to Know This is Awesome

Where could I possibly start with this one, how about the fact that Rockstar San Diego took one of the best action/adventure games ever made, with one of the greatest most thrilling narrative drives, with some of the slickest gameplay ever crafted and adds mythical creatures, sasquatch hunting, hoards of undead and manages to turn one of the greatest action games ever into one of the greatest survival horror games ever.

The writing, acting, animation, gameplay, every bit of this DLC is as top notch as RDR, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on to explain all the details that make this game great. Like the fact that the fantastic story missions lasted me nearly 7 hours. As a point of reference, I spent $60 on the new MoH game, and playing the single player through to completion as well as the multiplayer I only spent about 6 hours in that game, RDR Undead Nightmare’s single player (not including all the multiplayer goodness) lasted me an hour more than that whole game. I could mention how there are 27 towns that you help survivors clear of zombies, which could then come back to raise hell again. How about using parts of the undead as ammunition in your brand new blunderbuss. That’s all just the single player.

On the multiplayer side you have 4 player co-op that would make the Left 4 Dead series proud, an all new hoard modes places you and three friends against waves of undead that (much like L4D) you will actually need to play cooperatively to survive against.

No More Clever Headlines Needed, Go Play This

Undead Nightmare starts off with John Marston finding his wife and son Jack infected after being bitten by the now zombified “Uncle” after hogtying and locking your family in your house you’ll be off to help qualm the zombie menace. You’ll meet familiar faces throughout your journey, oh and did I mention that you’re now going to be taming the 4 horses of the apocalypse as your mounts, yeah, awesome!

The best part of Undead Nightmare is that it is genuinely terrifying, there was more than one occasion I had to turn the lights on in my game room and walk away to regain composure. 

The single player is the star of this DLC but everything else is just icing on the proverbial cake. This is one of the best values in the video game medium I have ever seen. If turning the best western game ever into one of the best horror games ever for the low price of $10 isn’t enough for you, well then you need to take a look at your life. Now I’m going to go peacefully over this way on my magic death horse go and enjoy this…. OH S**T ZOMBIE COUGAR!!!

Dead Rising 2 Review

PROS

• Combo weapons are cool
• Vast improvements made over the first game
• Plowing through hoards of zombies in creative ways is still incredibly fun

CONS

• Survivor AI (while greatly improved) is still pretty stupid
• Most boss battles feel incredibly cheap
• Save system (again while improved) still sucks
• Time limit will cramp fun exponentially

Four years ago the original Dead Rising shuffled onto the Xbox 360 introducing gamers to one of Capcom’s new poster boys, Frank West (as well as one of the greatest lines ever delivered in video game history (you know the one)). Frank had to survive in the “Willamette Mall” for 72 hours with a bunch of human survivors, a handful of crazy people, and of course thousands upon thousands of undead.

I don’t think there is one person, gamer or critic, who didn’t love the premise of Dead Rising. Take the classic zombie flick “Dawn of the Dead” and make a game version of it, be stuck in a shopping mall and use anything as a weapon to slaughter the zombie hoards; however, even though the game received high scores from nearly every gaming outlet and high praise from those who played it, there were still quite a few problems with it. The save system was brutally frustrating at times, allowing only one file to be used at a time, no checkpoint system, and placing save points so far apart resulted in sometimes hours of gameplay being lost. The survivors you were trying to help sucked at surviving making the escort missions frustrating as can be. The boss fights with survivors gone mad (aka psychopaths) were also incredibly difficult due to the flawed control system. Yet people played it and loved it, I myself remember spending an entire summer trying to get the achievement for killing 53,594 zombies. Still these problems did make the overall experience better than the actual game.

Thankfully Capcom, and development partner Blue Castle Games listened and fixed almost every complaint there was to be had with the first Dead Rising to make a powerful sequel.

How Did I Get Here?

The story of Dead Rising 2 is a touching one, the series new protagonist Chuck Greene a former Motocross star, is on a mission to save his daughter Katey from turning into a flesh-eating monster. He does this by giving her a daily dose of Zombrex a new drug that holds off infection for 24 hours. Zombrex isn’t cheap though which is why Chuck and Katey have ended up in Fortune City, the new Las Vegas, and why Chuck is slaughtering zombies on a reality game show “Terror is Reality” which is under protest from zombie rights activists CURE, but generally accepted by the populace.

Well it all starts off well enough but then wouldn’t you know it, an explosion in the zombie holding pen frees all of the undead and they start wreaking havoc. Chuck grabs his daughter and runs to their new safe house barely making it past the swarms of undead. As if things weren’t bad enough for ol’ Chuck shortly after arriving at the safe house a news report shows him planting a bomb causing the explosion which let the zombies out. Now we all know Chuck wouldn’t do that, the military doesn’t though and you now have 72 hours to prove Chuck’s innocence before the military arrives and executes you and your daughter.

While the last game had you in control of photojournalist Frank West who’s weapon of choice was a nice picture of a zombie with a servebot mask on it’s head, Chuck prefers to get down and dirty and create some new zombie killing weapons. The original Dead Rising had around 250 weapons to kill zombies with, a drop in the bucket (which by the way can be combined with an electric drill and placed on a zombies head for a one hit kill) compared to all the zombie killing utensils in the second. The combination aspect is the biggest addition to Dead Rising, box of nails + baseball bat = nail bat, car battery + wheelchair = portable electric chair, bowie knifes + boxing gloves = Wolverine claws. It is incredibly fun to find a bunch of combineable items (marked by a wrench icon) and seeing what you make.

With all these tools at your disposal you need something to use them on, and that isn’t a problem as Dead Rising 2 has lots of zombies. While the original game was able to show a few hundred zombies onscreen at a time Dead Rising 2 can show thousands at a time making them easier to spot. They’re also a bit dumber meaning you will and survivors (who are smarter and less prone to run into the middle of a zombie circle and get munched) can run past them with relative ease.

Time, Time? We Don’t Have Time!!!

 For the most part though the way Dead Rising 2 plays out is similar to Dead Rising with some small changes, and unfortunately this is a big problem. As I mentioned you have 72 hours (sped up 12X) to do a bunch of case files that will help clear your name, find and administer Zombrex to your daughter, and find survivors and help lead them to safety. Now I’ve talked to others who enjoy the time limit, they say it helps deliver the tension of a zombie apocalypse, and I get that but for me the time limit is a real deathblow to this game. In the first game if you wanted to ignore the case files, ignore the story and just kill zombies then it was a free for all in DR2 however, fail to complete a case file and you have to start from your last save or restart the save with all your stats carrying over.

Because of the strict time limit I felt all my time was spent running past zombies rather then killing them which is what I want to do. It’s really unfortunate that forcing the case files was an aspect because I ended up frustrated easily. Having to constantly drop what I was doing and rush back to the safe house to receive a mission, going through a load screen each time I enter a new area or cutscene made this game feel “last gen” at times.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the psychopath battles, you will find most of these while on survivor search and rescue missions. Now the battles are a mixed bag, the enemies you face are mentally broken and in some cases downright terrifying, one actually had me scream out loud at 1:00 am in terror, which was awesome. However, some of them are insanely difficult and are easily the hardest part of the game. Since they’re (mostly) optional this means only the hardcorest of hardcore will be able to beat them, but simply experiencing them is worth trying.

Bring a Friend

Everything is better in pair’s right? Well zombie killing is no different, DR2 really shines when you bring a buddy in to help slow the hoard. The game handles this a bit differently, story wise nothing changes your friend will also play Chuck Green and the story will just pretend he’s not there. So you can bring a buddy in to help you level up and finish the story. When you bring someone into your game they don’t progress in the story they will retain all the experience and weapons they got while helping you when they jump back to their profile though. The co-op definitely adds a much needed breath of fresh air into the gameplay.

But let’s say you don’t want to be friendly, let’s say you want to play against others for cash prizes. Well then Terror is Reality is right up your alley and arguably the best part of the game. In the terror is reality mode you compete in a bunch of competitive and incredibly addictive games against other players. There are a bunch of games to play my favorite being the “Pounds of Flesh” game where you wear a moose head and knock as many zombies as you can onto a scale, whoever has the heaviest scale at the end wins. The games are fun as can be and when you win the money you earn carries over into the main game.

Have I Done This Yet

Between the unforgiving time limit and no autosave/checkpoint system you will be replaying portions of this game. Depending on how diligent you are with your saving this may range from having to replay 5 minutes of game or if you’re like me and forget all the time you’ll have to replay sometimes up to 4 hours of game (insert my non sensical hate filled rant here). This can lead to a “I don’t want to do this again” and shutting off the game which is never good.

There are also a lot of recycled story elements from the first Dead Rising. Fortune City is honestly just a larger version of Willamette Mall, there is a cutscene showing how zombies become more aggressive at night, and the cutscene where we find out the zombie killing power of the queen wasp feels like it was copy and pasted from the first game and just replaced Frank with Chuck.

Overall though DR2 is an improvement over the first game, with many if not all of the issues of the first being addressed. If you loved the first Dead Rising you’ll probably love this one, and there is definitely stuff to love, but there are still to many issues holding it back from being the ultimate zombie game it strives to be.