My therapist told me to prevent a violent incident resulting in many deaths I should write about my problems. So I’m going to do a Prototype 2 review.

I’m just kidding. I don’t believe in psychology. I’m a scientologist.

Story:
N/A

Graphics:
Ugh. I have to tell you about the story? Son of a…

Story: 
This thing was written by your average Xbox Live dwelling 14 year old. It must have been… It has to have been for the sake of my sanity. There is not one likeable character in the entire game. And I’m stretching to even call these moving objects characters. They just show up on screen and shout obscenities, only to be quickly killed by our protagonist. Oh let’s talk about that guy.

I only vaguely remember him having a name, so I’ll just call him Sergeant Jerkoff. He does absolutely nothing but kill things, curse, and curse about wanting to kill things. He’s Kratos from the 2nd and 3rd God of War, after some moron took over writing him and he just yells uncontrollably at gods and titans and horses. Crossbreed Kratos and Samuel L. Jackson with Tourette’s syndrome, now remove any coolness and hilarity present in that idea and you’ve got this jerkoff.

The rest of the characters are aren’t even worth mentioning. Anyone that has anything even remotely resembling character development is just there to be killed in the next 10 minutes. Guaranteed. The only villain that even comes close to being an actual character is Alex Mercer. But only because of his involvement in the first game. All he does in this game is forge some cockamamie (Ha!) scheme to infect the world or something.

Here’s the entire story arch from start to finish. And I’m going to totally spoil the whole thing cause it doesn’t matter:

Sergeant Jerkoff has family killed by virus. Becomes world’s biggest jerkoff. Sergeant Jerkoff then gets infected by virus directly from Alex Mercer, solely because they needed a new character. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler cont. Sergeant Jerkoff finds out daughter isn’t really dead. Filler. Kills Mercer to get her back. Horrible “Wait for the next sequel” ending.

I liked the story in the first Prototype. It had it’s problems but at least it was told in a way that kept me interested until the end, hell they even threw in a couple of twists. This game has nothing. And I mean that, that’s not an exaggeration. See everything I’ve typed under the “story” heading? That’s more words that whats in the entire script for Prototype 2. And that’s including “F***!” and all it’s variants.

Honestly the only way you’re going to find the story even tolerable is if you think Michael Bay is an artist of cinema. At which point I’ll assume you aren’t reading this review yourself and having someone read it to you. And for their sake I’ll ask you to remember that these are my words, not their’s and would you please stop hitting them.

Graphics:
Alright here’s the where the game improves upon the original. Prototype 1 (or [Prototype] if you want to be a real dick) was not exactly a graphical showcase. This one has nice shiny (sometimes literally) new graphics that look like they’re suppose to in this generation of games.

…

BUT (you knew it was coming) these graphics come at a price. And the worst kind of price; one that effects gameplay. The first game had a giant representation of Manhattan island to run around and cause mayhem in. This one has three islands, all separated by loading screens, AND you can only travel between them by going to certain places on the map and taking a special helicopter that warps you over there. Don’t try taking your own helicopter, it won’t work. Why? Well I’m not an expert but I believe **** You! is why. The biggest problem with this is that once you complete the, like, 5 missions and collect the, like, 3 collectables on the first 2 islands you will never go back. This wastes most of the map and is beyond stupid. Plus you only get the bottom half of Manhattan this time. Yeah I’m glad they gave us some prettier graphics.

Sound:
I don’t know. Adequate? You can hear all the well written dialogue like “F***!” and “Mother****er!” and “I’m going to ****ing **** you! Mother****er!” clearly. Honestly the sound pretty much stayed the same from the first game. Monsters growling, explosions, gunfire. It all sounds fine.

The voice acting is adequate as well. They couldn’t get Barry Pepper back as Alex Mercer because I assume he read the script then laughed right in their faces. Everyone else, including the voice of Sergeant Excrement or whatever I’m calling him does a fine job in delivering their soul crushing lines.

Gameplay:
“Who cares about all this?” You ask aloud to your dog cause it’s the only thing willing to hang around a person who talks to computer screens. “The gameplay was great in the first game. Is it still?”

No.

They’ve done what it seems every game sequel does nowadays and fix what wasn’t broken. But not only that they didn’t fix what was broken.

One of the biggest problems with the first game was the lock-on system. Well you’ll be happy to know that they’ve changed it! BUT… now it’s even worse. Before you used to have the option of holding the targeting button or toggling it. Now you have to hold it. And, in an attempt to be helpful, the game will just randomly lock-on to whatever the hell it feels like. And it is helpful in a “your mentally challenged son making you breakfast and burning down the whole house” kind of way. Sometimes it’ll lock-on to the biggest, most dangerous enemy. Sometimes it’ll be a grandma walking her kids to school in the middle of a giant monster battle. What the hell is she up to anyway? Better cut that bitch in half just to sure. Anyways, back to the camera issues. When you enter an enclosed space, like maybe a military base or an infected hive (Two places you’ll never go in this game. 50 times.) the bigger battle you’re fighting won’t be you versus the hoard of infected freaks trying to disembowel you, it’s you versus vertigo as the camera tries to maintain lock-on to whatever and avoid the walls. If you get in a corner you might as well just gouge your eyes out and spare them the ghastly display of spazitude they are about to receive.

Enough about that crap. Let’s talk about the combat! Killing things, that’s why you’re here. They switched up the combat from the previous game. Now you can have two powers equipped at once. That sounds awesome, right? Slap him with the whipfist and then cut him with the sword. What’s not to like? Well that’s why I’m here; to tell you exactly what you should be liking. In the first game the Square and Triangle (or X and Y buttons on that other piece of crap) performed 2 different attacks, and you could hold down the button to make a power attack. You could also alternate between the two for different combos and moves and it gave the combat some depth that you wouldn’t normally have. But now that you’ve mapped a power to each button your only options for attacks are press button or hold button. That’s it. And usually the hold button attack takes forever and gets interrupted by some jackkassy monster pimpslapping you in the side of the head. So now combat boils down to mashing buttons while the camera pirouettes around like a coked up ballet dancer.

Outside of combat no open world game would be worth existing if it didn’t have stuff to look for. If you’re like me you loved collecting orbs in the last game and you’re also damned attractive. The orbs gave you a considerable amount of XP (Or “EP” cause “look how different we are”) and were just fun to collect. It was like a platformer where you could suddenly get distracted by a helicopter trying to murder you to death. Well big surprise those are gone too. Those 300 orbs have been replaced by like… 6? deaddrops from Infamous. Except Infamous’ dead drops helped tell the story, these festering piles all do the exact same thing: remind us how bad the bad guys are. Every one of them is basically the same:

Evil Guy 1: “Hey look at that park full of retarded kids”
Evil Guy 2: “Let’s butcher them horribly!”
Evil Guy 1: “I’ll get the chainsaw! Maniacal Laugh”
Evil Guy 2: “Maniacal Laugh!”

Add in the aforementioned cutting up of the city and exploration is non-existent.

So the combat is stupid and there is no reason to explore. Good thing there’s the new stealth gameplay to talk about…

Just kidding. It’s the same as the last game, except maybe there’s TWO rooms in a military base now.

Length:
I don’t know exactly how long my playthrough lasted because unlike the last game that tracked every stat in the universe, this one tracks nothing. But it didn’t last very long. 10 hours maybe? I don’t know, it felt like a goddamn eternity. I actually switched it over to easy during the drawn out end boss fight just to get it over with. That might be a bad sign. There is, however, a new game plus if you’ve tied a mortal enemy to a chair and want to make him suffer as long as possible.

Buy?/Rent?/Avoid?:
Well if you can’t figure that out from the hate filled words you’ve been having read to yourself, then that’s your problem. And stop hitting them, they’re only trying to help you.

Such is life. You can’t win them all.

4 mercy points for the extreme violence

Fashion Story is a phone app game developed by TeamLava for Android and iOS. This is the 2nd game by TeamLava that I’ve become addicted to. I started off with Bakery Story and tried a few others on the long list of “Story” games they have but these 2 and Pet Shop Story by far are the 3 best in my opinion.

This game got me hook, line, and sinker immediately. I love handbags, accessories, and shoes. But mostly shoes! In this game there are different outfits that contain 4 items in each set. Some of the items include dresses, tops/blouses, slacks/pants, skirts, heels/shoes/boots, handbags/purses, sunglasses/glasses, and more. Each outfit has a theme, for example; “Lady In Red” contains a red coat, black stockings, red/white handbag, and black GoGo boots. The order time for this set is 9 actual real time hours, and yes all 4 items have to be ordered separately. The order times range from 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 12 hours, all the way up to 1 day. There’s even a 2 day outfit you can order! The object of the game is to buy counters and racks and have them stocked up in order to make the customers happy. Other ways to keep them happy are to have plenty of cashiers, mirrors and changing rooms. If they’re unhappy they will let you know by leaving with broken hearts and not making a purchase. In order to make money we must keep them happy. After all the customer is always right! (…or so they think, ha!).

Welcome to Think Pink, my Fashion Story shop. I recently redesigned and bought new stuff to decorate. Here is what it currently looks like right now. It’s fun changing and rearranging every so often or whenever I get a chance to.

This isn’t what I started out with. When you first begin, you start off with a small shop. Your goal is to decorate, fill it with goodies, and expand as you level up. Decorations include floor items, wall items, wallpaper, and flooring/tile/carpet. I will be honest and mention the only annoying thing about this game is most of the good stuff costs gems. You earn coins (money) from selling your clothing, shoes, and accessories. Earning gems is very slow or else they have to be bought and paid for with real money. Once in awhile I’ll splurge and buy some gems for something in my shop. A lot of items are gem only purchases. Sure there are still decent things to buy with coins but the super awesome stuff cost gems, of course.

One thing I do like in Fashion Story is I get to dress up my Sim style lady who represents my shop. Not many of the “Story” games by TeamLava allow this. I can buy clothing, shoes, handbags, make-up, and select different hairstyles/color to dress up my girl. And they only have ladies. There are no males to dress up. I’m assuming men wouldn’t be very interested in this game.

Unlike Bakery Story, neighbors are required in this game to expand. Each level of expansion requires a higher amount of neighbors. My shop is maxed at the original expansions they had. Now they added more expansions but the coin cost is too high and gem cost to expand is ridiculous. I don’t plan on expanding anymore any time soon. If I happen to save enough coins to do so one day, then maybe I will. Right now I’m content with the space I have. I keep, on average, 32 to 35 neighbors since we can visit each others shop and “tip” and gift daily. It’s the perfect amount for me to keep up with since I’m an awesome neighbor who tips and gifts daily. Some of my neighbors are very nice and we chit chat sometimes. It’s quite nice.

I play this game throughout the day when I get a chance. It’s something simple for me to do. Just order some items for a few, or several hours, and when it’s done set it out. I spend more time at night decorating, organizing, and redesigning my shop. So if any ladies out there who enjoy fashion games and want to give this game a shot, I highly recommend it!

Finally the return of Kid Icarus!  After a 21 year hiatus from gaming (outside a guest appearance or two) Pit is back in his own adventure and this time it’s on the Nintendo 3DS.  Medusa has returned and Goddess Palutena has called upon our Angelic Hero Pit to save the world from her wrath.

While the story is pretty basic, (or is it?) the pace of the game is as frantic and fun as the incredible dialogue throughout the game. Kid Icarus Uprising shines in its ability to not take itself too seriously.  There are some genuine LOL moments that will make you want to see this adventure through to the end.  The voice acting is one of THE BEST that I have listened to in a game.  There is no overly dramatic and clichéd dialogue to be had. Instead this is a game that attempts to entertain and get you to smile and it succeeds on all levels.  Sound effects are fitting and never detract from the story at all. The soundtrack is rather spot on and the remixed version of the original Kid Icarus theme will have you humming it to yourself long after the system has been turned off.

Graphically his game is on par, if not better, than the best that the 3DS has shown so far.  Enemies and backgrounds are detailed animations are smooth and the mood and settings are perfect for the story.  Enemies are distinct and interesting in style and variety. You will see revamps of classic Kid Icarus enemies. Yup, you guessed it, prepare to be attacked by the Reapers if you let them see you.  Images are crisp and the 3D effects in the game are rather impressive. Playing with the 3D on especially during the flying portions of each “Chapter” is a lot of fun and really leaves you looking forward to what else Nintendo may do with the 3DS in the future.  Luckily Kid Icarus Uprising has the game play to match the all of the graphical goodness that is brought to the table.

There are two distinct styles of game play to be had in Kid Icarus Uprising.  Each stage or “Chapter” as it is referred to in the game starts with Pit flying through a barrage of enemies as you aim to take them down. This section is basically a “Rail Shooter” this is a style in which you control Pit in the directions of up, down and side to side but the path forward is predetermined.  Basically the only thing one has to worry about is avoiding enemy fire and blasting the heck out of Medusa’s forces. These sections are fast paced and frantic as you avoid lasers, energy blasts, fireballs and enemies crashing into you. Controls are tight, responsive and you never feel overwhelmed on the standard difficulty setting.

The second section of the Chapter takes place after Pit lands. At this point the stage becomes a blend of platforming and shooting depending on the weapon equipped. Controls are fairly straight forward in this section, though not ideal.  Walking and running is controlled by the thumb stick, the harder your press the faster you move, double tapping will result in a sprint or dodge.  Direction and aiming is controlled via your stylus on the touch screen.  Without the second thumb stick unfortunately this really is the best option to be had. For the most part it works well but there are times when the action becomes too fast and you can get your either stuck or in a position where your camera angle is not ideal, and by not ideal I mean horrible.  Overall the experience is very positive even with these control limitations.  I rarely got stuck, nor did it cost me a defeat.

During these platforming sections you make your way through the level, blasting and hacking enemies in your path. Depending on the weapon equipped that may mean literally blasting them from a distance with bow and orbs or beating them down with clubs or claws. All of these have positives and negatives that will be addressed, but do know that you only get to choose your weapon at the beginning of the stage so choose wisely. If you are not comfortable with a weapon make sure to equip abilities that will help you out.

Abilities can be found throughout the game and can be set up in between chapters. To set up an ability it has to be attached to the ability grid. Each ability has a shape attributed to it and it’s up to you to fit them into the grid Tetris style, without wasting any space. Depending on how valuable the ability is it tends to take up a lot more space and/or has an odd shape to it so it really hampers how many abilities you can have equipped at one time.  Abilities can be offensive or defensive spells, restorative spells, jumping/gliding boosts and status enhancements or effects.  Abilities can easily be accessed by tapping on a sliding menu on the touch screen at any time in the heat of battle. Abilities are only used during platforming sections of the game.

So now that the basics of the game has been expressed, let’s get right into what makes this game utterly spectacular, depth and replay value.  First off there is a lot in the story mode, I’m not going to spoil anything but just be content in knowing that without  replaying the story at all there is more than enough meat to this game to warrant a purchase at full price.  That being said, what kid Icarus Uprising really excels at is that you will not only play each chapter once, but you will play them each over and over again trying to get new weapons or hearts in order to buy new weapons.  “How so?” you may ask.  Even if you are not one for wanting to replay a stage or game you have beaten you will find yourself suckered in by the wagering system the Kid Icarus Uprising has set up.

By wagering hearts you can raise the levels of each individual chapter.  By increasing the difficulty level of a chapter you increase the amount and quality of treasure that can be obtained on each stage. There is a price to be had though for your chance at fortune and glory, enemies will become more numerous, more powerful and faster. Death means that you will not only lose the hearts you have wagered but the level in which you entered will be dropped by one. So even if you continue the stage,  you will not have the option to complete the level at the difficulty you started out with and as such the amount of treasure and quality of that treasure will decrease for the rest of the stage.  Oh wait…did I forget to mention that all the treasure is randomly generated?  Well they are, so there is no guarantee what weapons or items you will get.  The result of this is? …Finding yourself sidetracked for hours at a time in an attempt at getting a more powerful weapon in order to slay Medusa’s army.  When I say hours, I mean hours as there are a ton of weapons to be found throughout this game and practically an infinite amount of status enhancement combinations to go with them.

Weapons come in 9 varieties; Blades, Bows, Palms, Arms, Staffs, Cannons, Orbs, Claws and Clubs.  Each weapon has their own specific strengths and weakness, attack power vs. weight vs. speed vs. range vs. melee. Plus each individual weapon has a rating attached to it to show that particular weapon’s range and melee ability. For example you may have 2 Ogre Clubs but one may have a 3 star rating for melee while the other has a 5 star rating.  Added to this is the fact that each weapon has 5 slots in which a random status increase or decrease may be attributed to it. For examples are Melee +2, Defense -3 or so on. In theory there are pretty much an infinite amount of weapon possibilities.  It also needs to be said that you can fuse weapons together and create new weapons at any time. It is addicting as you try to find the perfect balance of strength, speed and extra attributes that corresponds with the way you fight.

Finding a weapon that fits your playing style is a necessity if you are to have a chance at success in Uprising’s multiplayer.  Up to six players are supported at any one time either via local or online options.  Multiplayer games consist of; All for One Death Matches or Team Death Matches. There are some interesting caveats to the Team Death matches, including the fact that the more powerful weapon that is used the more it takes your team’s health bar down when you die, but overall the gameplay is pretty straight forward, standard and just plain fun.  Overall Uprising’s multiplayer is really a fast paced experience that’s only ever really marred by slowdowns when the black hole abilities are used… but unfortunately a lot of people use them.

With so many options, abilities, collectable items, stages, difficulty settings, weapons and a solid multiplayer experience, Kid Icarus Uprising is one of the best and most refreshing games that Nintendo has released in quite a while.  With very minor problems such as the much over exaggerated discomfort while playing, which I have yet to experience even with my large hands, and slowdown during multiplayer, there is so much goodness packed in to make them barely even noticeable. If you have a 3DS this is a must own. If you don’t own one this is a game that should make you go out and get one.  My only hope is that Nintendo realizes the potential they have with this series and explores it some more because Pit deserves more chances in the spotlight…and I would love to see a Pit make the jump back to Nintendo’s home console. Buy it now!

Now don’t get me wrong…there are several (okay, many) Apps out there that are free and they actually mean it. You don’t pay a penny for the App itself or for the updates or anything else as time goes on. Sometimes you have to suffer through the in-App advertising and that’s their way of getting you to upgrade (and pay) for the version without. But needless to say, there are Apps out there that are free.

Then there are the ones who hide behind the “free” word only to hit you with in-App game purchases. I’ve had several of these and they tick me off. Why would you offer it as free just to turn around and demand that I pay money in order to continue? No thank you, I’d rather delete the App and try again with another. Free is supposed to be free, not free to download or free to play through the first 5 minutes.

Ha!

Now don’t get me wrong. There are some games that are “free” to download and then they give you the OPTION to do some in-App purchases and I’m okay with that. Allow me to play the game without buying stuff and I’m good. If other people want to spend money through the in-App store, that’s fine with me. Oregon Trail, Oregon Settler, and Bakery Story are all like that. They are all FREE Apps that you could play as long as you want to WITHOUT HAVING to pay anything to keep going but you could if you WANTED to.

Other games frustrate me because I like the games but there’s an in-App charge to keep going. We Love Katamari, Guitar Hero, and Ghost Trick (my latest “free” downloads) are ones in which you get to play through a level and then you pay in order to continue. WHAT? In Ghost Trick you pay $9.99 for the rest of the story or $4.99 for each of the chapters that are left, which are three in total. So you dish out $9.99 right away or $14.97 if you pay for it piece by piece.

I’m not huge into paying a lot of money for Apps. It’s got to be one helluva App to get me to pay more than a couple of bucks for it. I think I paid $5 for the full App game of Lego Harry Potter and that’s the most I’ve ever spent for an App. That game was well worth it and there wasn’t a need to do any in-App purchases either.

What’s the moral of the story? Free doesn’t always mean free. Yes there are Apps out there that are free and will remain free for as long as you use them but there are more “free” Apps out there that claim to be free but want you to buy stuff once you have started playing.

So just keep an eye out for those in-App purchases and on your wallet. You never know who’s trying to draw out a buck or three here or there. And all those little purchases here and there add up quickly.

The idea of the game is that you’re given a random set of cards in each line; the 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. You won’t see or find any of the lower numbers in this game, so don’t go looking. The board moves in an upward motion and you need to move the cards horizontally to create Poker Winning hands before the screen reaches the top. If it reaches the top, you’re done and the game is over.

You can play through the tutorial but I don’t think it’s necessary. You have a choice between Action and Timed modes for this App. Action will slowly increase the pace that the cards stream up the screen. I didn’t find this increased pace quick enough as you’ll see later on in the review. The Timed mode gives you 3 minutes to score as many points as you can while everything else remains the same.

As you go on your merry way you’ll have bombs that you can place on the board if you get stuck or if a couple of columns are getting out of control. You can speed up or slow down the pace of movement upwards but I found that the speed of this game, as compared to the XBLA version, lacked a lot when it came to the speed of the game. The Xbox version seemed to be quickly paced while the App game felt like it dragged on forever. I found myself swiping up on the screen to get a ton of cards to show up and therefore make it more challenging for myself.

The controls are pretty darn easy since all you’re pretty much doing is moving the cards left or right with a swipe of your finger. The menus were easy to make your way through and options easy to set. The graphics are pretty decent and I had no complaints on them but they didn’t compare to the Xbox version at all. The game runs smoothly and without any hitches. It never crashed on me or froze. The sound effects are right on cue but the music I didn’t like much so I turned it on low/off and listened to my own.

If you have an OpenFeint account you can compare your score to those of your friends or the online community. If you have friends who own the game and are on OpenFeint than the replay value of the game just multiplied itself. Who doesn’t like having the highest score? If you aren’t playing against friends and aren’t feeling too challenged by this game then you’re not going to find a lot of replay value here.

I bought this several years ago on the Xbox360, played it a lot, and then forgot that I had it until I bought the same game for my iPad and wanted to compare playing styles. I gotta admit, I like playing it on the X360 A LOT more than I do on the iPad, it just loses something in translation.

The game is rated “E” for Everyone but it’s true when it comes to the easy of moving the cards around but there is a little bit of knowledge you need to know about making valid poker hands that many younger kids won’t know. So there isn’t any violence, sex, smoking or alcohol but the standard knowledge of what a poker hand is and the hierarchy of them will go over many of the younger audience’s head.

Poker Smash came out to XBLA in 2008. I really didn’t know about it, wasn’t really looking for a game but I saw that a friend of mine was playing it and when I talked to her about it, she seemed to like it pretty well. This was enough for me to go on at the time, so I purchased the game and loaded it up.

The idea of the game is that you’re given a random set of cards in each line; the 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. You won’t see or find any of the lower numbered cards in this game, so don’t go looking. The board moves in an upward motion and you need to move the cards horizontally to create Poker Winning hands that span, but doesn’t have to include, the 5 card column before the any one of the columns reach the top. If any one of those columns reach the top, you’re done and the game is over.

As you go on your merry way you’ll have bombs that you can place on the board if you get stuck or if a couple of columns are getting out of control. You can speed up or slow down the pace of movement upwards but I found that going faster made it more challenging and thus brought me back to play over and over. Who doesn’t want to beat their friend’s highest score?

The controls are pretty darn easy to learn since all you’re pretty much doing is moving the cards left or right. The menus were easy to make your way through and options easy to set. The graphics are pretty decent and I had no complaints on them. The game runs smoothly and without any hitches. It never crashed on me or froze. The sound effects are right on cue but the music I didn’t like much so I turned it on low/off and listened to my own.

The game is rated “E” for Everyone but it’s true when it comes to the easy of moving the cards around but there is a little bit of knowledge you need to know about making valid poker hands that many younger kids won’t know. So there isn’t any violence, sex, smoking or alcohol but the standard knowledge of what a poker hand is and the hierarchy of them will go over many of the younger audience’s head.

Throw in the online multi-player game and it’s a good purchase overall if you enjoy playing puzzle games and enjoy playing poker. Why match jewels when you can match cards instead? The replay value is good, if you remember you own the game. I bought this several years ago, played it a lot, and then forgot that I had it until I bought it for my iPad and wanted to compare playing styles. I gotta admit, I like playing it on the X360 A LOT more than I do on the iPad, it just loses something in translation.

Our very own Spottswoode takes on another problem with the wonders of the online pass in his latest blunt blog titled “Well That’s Horse****”. Please be warned that we in GP do not filter blog posts in any way. The language that can and will be used can be deemed inappropriate by many, if not most, people. While we at GP do not always agree with the language that our bloggers are allowed to use, we do stand behind our users ability to post their thoughts.

And lets face it; in regards to the following blog…..We agree with the argument Spottswoode is making.

Read at your own risk:

http://www.gamersperspective.com/forums/index.php?/blog/15/entry-47-well-thats-horseshit/