Game Review: Blazblue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)(X360)(PC)(ARC)

I'm very sorry for the lack of posts. Life does that.

I will be talking about Blazblue: Calamity Trigger
Blazblue is available on Xbox 360, PS3, Arcade and on PC (EU and JA only)

Blazblue (pronounced Blaze Blue) is a personal favorite of mine and is probably one of the most unique fighting games you will see.

Blazblue may scare you away with it's unorthodox characters, visuals and game play. But behind it's unusual exterior is a deep fighting game that is a challenger to Street Fighter's crown as king of fighting games.

Presentation:

Here you see Rachel Alucard (left side) and Ragna The Bloodedge (right side)

Blazblue has a purely anime aesthetic that works but may scare off some people. The style is well done, detailed and matches the feel of the game very well. When the game play starts you will notice the beautiful, HD sprites used for the characters and a slick interface. Another cool thing about this game's visuals is that it uses gorgeous 3D backgrounds that fit in surprisingly well..

Overall, the visuals in Blazblue's HD visuals are colorful, slick and very well done.

Story:

The story in Blazblue may confuse and bewilder some people at first but eventually you'll understand everything and get absorbed onto the world of Blazblue. I haven't gotten through the whole story yet so I can't really say how good the main plot is. In the story mode you will have many paths to go through and several endings, but only one ending will continue the story. Once you complete every character's story mode you can choose to see the True Ending and fight the final boss and such. The story mode is long (in kind of a cheap way) and will take you a while to complete because in order to unlock the true ending you have to see every character's endings and paths.

Gameplay:

Blazblue is one of those easy to learn, hard to master games. The game uses a simpler special attack format consisting mostly of quarter circle forward (hadoken move) or backwards. This kind of move set makes the game much easier to grasp and also makes it less frustrating to learn all of the moves. The game also utilizes the right thumb stick for quick specials that will be invaluable to you if you are new to fighting games and such.

Blazblue's cast of characters is minuscule compared to the latest Street fighter and Mortal Kombat games. The cast consists of 12 well balanced, totally unique and easy to learn characters ranging from a cyborg with swords for wings, a vampire princess to a masked swordsman and a blob of bugs, each with their own Drives. 

The game uses a very simple 4 button system of weak, medium, strong and Drive attacks. Drive attacks are character-specific moves and abilities and are used to execute powerful and effective moves. For example, Ragna The Bloodedge's drive: Soul Eater, thieves away an opponent's HP and adds it to his each time one of his Drive attacks connect. 

Every character (excluding one, Hakumen) has a Heat Bar, which is used to execute powerful and dynamic Distortion Drives which are moves such as unleashing a flurry of bullets, a powerful counter-attack and a powerful pile-driver. Every character can unlock an Astral Heat which works somewhat like a fatality in Mortal Kombat, they are fun to watch and end fights with a bang. Astral Heats are hard to hit with and can only be executed if the battle is on it's final round and the enemy has only 20% of their health.

There's a large amount of gameplay modes to be played in Blazblue such as Arcade, Story, Versus, Score Attack and Network Mode (online)

Sound:

Blablue's soundtrack can be somewhat described as a Rock Opera. Every character's themes are expertly crafted and captures each character's personality and fighting style. 

The voice acting in Blazblue is good, although some lines may make you cringe in your seat (I'm looking at you, Jin) or sound plain awkward. But, what game doesn't have this problem? If you downright hate the English actors you can hit the options menu and change it to Japanese. One thing I think most people will not like it that during the fighting is that the characters will say their lines like crazy and may annoy you, I myself took a bit of time to totally get over it.

Parental Notes:

Most of the objectionable content in the game is the swearing there are frequent uses of d*mn, a**, sh*t and h*ll and some less frequent uses of b*tch and b*stard. Also, one of the characters, Litchi Faye Ling, is rather revealing. One of the other characters, Noel Vermillion, in her story mode talks about her problem with her lack of.... endowment...

this game is rated T for a reason!

Verdict:

Presentation: 9

Story: 8

Gameplay: 9

Sound: 8

Overall: 8.5
- Blazblue is a fantastic fighting game with great game play, well balanced fighters and interesting world, but loses points for voice acting flaws, some slightly overpowered characters and a needlessly long story mode.

Indie Game Spotlight: Shatter

Alright! Back from my hiatus! I'm gonna be showing you guys Shatter! It's like brick breaker....ON CRACK.

Okay, let's start with the game play!

The game play in this amazing game is SOLID...cwhutididthar?....Well, the game looks like an average brick breaker until you get into the main feature of the game, the advanced control system. So, if you've ever played a brick breaker game before you know what it's like to have that one last brick that just taunts you for minutes on end, well, with Shatter you suck the ball towards you or blow it away allowing you to have control over the ball, letting you pull of some sweet moves. 

The suck and blow thing also affects the brick themselves, too. some bricks float around and can hit your "bat", causing it to flip out for about a second. To combat this you have a shield, with the shield you can either protect yourself from blocks, or fire collected shards. Shards come from the blocks you destroy and give you energy or be fired upon collecting by putting up your shield. Firing the shards on collecting is actually a trick that the game instructions don't tell you, and it's also very useful. Another thing you can do with your energy that you've collected  is you can use a shard storm and fire a stream of shards at blocks to destroy them; this can end a level very fast and is very well worth the trouble.

Next is the presentation

The game has a lot of cool things going on with it.The visuals have a really nice glass effect to everything and it really works along with it's absolutely fantastic soundtrack. The sound effects are also something to mention. The music is a collection of Electrock, and it's BEAUTIFUL. I've been listening to this soundtrack for several days and my top songs are Amethyst caverns, Neon Mines and the Boss theme.

This game is available on PSN, Steam and Onlive for about $8 or $9

Indie Game Spotlight: World of Goo

World of Goo is by far one of the most interesting games I've seen. It's got a quirky atmosphere and well done gameplay.

I like World of Goo because it has gameplay that you don't see a lot and has charm to it's little goo-ball characters. In World of Goo the goal is to build your goo tower/structure to reach the pipe and then the pipe collects your extra goo-balls and counts 'em up and if you have enough it lets you progress. The game is fun for anybody who is creative or likes a good puzzle. Sometimes you will find yourself in a level where you have balloons to keep your bridge structure from falling into a pit and another you just gotta build skywards. The game is uncomplicated at a glance, but when you get to the meat and potatoes you really gotta think about having a good foundation for your structure and you gotta keep it's balance. Sometimes you'll use special goo balls, some just hang and some you can take apart. Be careful, if you place a goo ball you cannot take it off, so make 'em count.

I really like the quirkiness the game has, the little goo balls make funny sounds when you place them, the music is good and the graphics are well done. Overall the game is good, just remember the time bugs if ya screw up. 

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas.

Indie Game Spotlight: Aquaria

Okay, time to talk indie games. One of my favorites is Aquaria. It takes a fresh new take on the exploration games by putting almost the whole game underwater and having a deep story that's about as deep as the seas of Aquaria itself.

You can see the 8 note song wheel which you can play songs
with, it's fun to play around with and try to replicate the
title song.

Aquaria is an amazing indie game where you play as the curious mermaid-like Naija trying to find answers about why is she the only one of her kind left. Aquaria plays kinda like Metroid with some puzzle stuff. The name of the game is explore, find and use, over the course of the game you will find a collection of 3-5 note songs which you play on an eight note song wheel, the songs are easy to memorize and have all sorts of effects, such as picking up rocks, creating a shield or even transformation. The art in the game is amazing, the hand-drawn sprites all animate well and have unique designs. The world in which you explore, Aquaria is huge, from the Open Waters, The Veil to the Abyss. The world is open and kinda scary, actually. Another notable mechanic is the cooking system, every food item has an effect ranging from healing to speed boosts, you can find raw materials such as leaves or fish oil and etc and combine them to make new foods that can have even greater effects. The game has tons of little goodies from finding a pot that, in your little home has a constant supply of meat for you to cook with to costumes which have effects and even a giant black pearl. Naija, the lone protagonist is a very well made character and she also has a great voice actor behind her. The game also has one thing that most computer games have, mods. The mods in this game are pretty good, some have large arenas to fight in, there's a map editor and a jukebox to listen to the music in the game. The controls in the game are super simple and really good, you use the left mouse button to do a dash-like movement and swim and the right mouse button interacts with things and uses special abilities, the game is also Xbox 360 controller compatible to an extent. The game is rather boring until you get your first transformation song which lets you shoot at stuff, then you can go around without having to run away from the larger monsters, killing some of the creatures also drops ingredients for cooking. I really appreciate music in games and Aquaria has beautiful music that fits it's atmosphere perfectly, music in some games is just there but in Aquaria you really notice it and you WILL find yourself humming these tunes, guaranteed. Aquaria is one of my favorite indie games and if you like exploration games or if you wanna try something new you should at download the demo here. Naija is also a character in another indie game: Super Meat Boy. Fun.

Thanks for reading!

Hidden Gem: The World Ends With You

It's time to talk about a game that few people have played or even heard about, The World Ends With You, or TWEWY. This is my favorite DS game. And I will MAKE you listen to my rantings!

This game is LOADED with style, and it's got a sweet cast of characters

Pretty much everything about this game is godlike compared to other action RPG games. Reasons why this game kicks so much trash.

1. The art stile is amazing, it's got an edgy look to it while still being anime.
2. The enemy designs are so freaking awesome, they have a cool tribal tattoo style. Sadly I can't find any pictures of them, sadness.
3. The story is so crazy I never figured it out until the end, and even then theres still stuff to figure out and with careful observation and some snooping around you can get secret reports which fill in those gaps, the plot is perfect.
4. The characters are some of the best I've seen in any game, I actually was really depressed when one of the characters died.
5. There is over 300 different pin/psyches (attacks)
6. it has the best Soundtrack ever, with J-pop, J-rock and a bit of rap here and there.

This game just emanates style, it's undeniable. The game takes place in the shopping district of Tokyo, Shibuya. Neku (the game's protagonist) wakes up on the sidewalk, confused and nobody taking notice of him like he's invisible, he finds a pin with a skull design that allows him to read minds and is soon under attack by psychic creatures known as 'Noise'. He then teams up with Shiki, a girl who perpetually carries around a stuffed cat (named Mr. Mew) to defeat the Noise using Psyches, the only form of combat the works on Noise. Neku then finds himself in the "Reapers game" a test that if won comes with great rewards, at a price of course.

What's goin' on!?!?

The combat in the game is called the "Cross-stride system", where on one screen you control Neku with the touch screen and on the top screen you have Shiki (or any other partner you may have) who is controlled with the face buttons or the D-pad. They fight simultaneously and you have to control both of your characters, although you do have an auto pilot for the top screen which helps if you're still getting used to it. The main feature with the battle system is the light puck, a lime green ball of light that is passed between the players when a combo is performed, and with each consecutive pass it gets stronger and when it is held by a character it gives them a damage boost reaching up to 5X power. The action may look like a mess of explosions and crap but it actually does take some thinking if you wanna get good rewards.

       

All in all the game is a beast and has TONS of replay value, I've beaten the game 3 times and i still haven't gotten everything. Only two things wrong with it, no real multiplayer (all it has is a mini game and player shops) and tons of text that you can't skip unless you've beaten the game once.

See ya next time!

Underrated game: Blur

It has come to my attention that Blur, one of the greatest racers I have ever played is disliked by people. what da  fudge

Why do people hate a game with this awesome of box art!?

This game is too great for my face to handle.

Why it's awesome:

1. The game looks BEAUTIFUL, The cars are super fun to look at and the power ups look gorgeously awesome.
2. The driving is a perfect balance between a realistic racer and a mario kart kinda thing. 
3. 20, yes, 20 player races and deathmatches.
4. it's made by Bizzare Creations, the guys who made Geometry wars and Project Gotham Racing, so they know how to make a super pretty game and a good racing game.
5. The power ups include, Nitro (boost), Shunt (homing missile), Bolt (3 shot attack), Barge (shockave), Min, repair, shield and Shock (which places multiple lightning things in front of your competition.). That's a sweet selection.
6. SWEET wrecks, like your car does double front flips whilst going a-kaboom.
7. The music is kickin'

Why would you hate his game!? It's so good! It's so pretty! It's so underrated!

...OH! I know why everyone doesn't like it! It's not Call of duty!

Next up is a hidden gem!