Software

1. Injustice: Gods Among Us
2. Dead Island: Riptide
3. Bioshock Infinite
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
5. Defiance
6. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
7. NBA 2K13
8. Skylanders Giants
9. Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins
10. MLB 13: The Show

You know it’s a quiet month when a game like Defiance sneaks on to shelves and nabs the number 5 spot on the physical best seller list.

I like seeing Injustice at the top of the charts. It’s a big win for developer NetherRealm Studios, who could clearly overcome “sequel-itis” and a horrifically vague name to find success in the mainstream market. It’s worth noting that NetherRealm’s previous game, Mortal Kombat, was the last fighting game to debut at number one on the NPD chart.

The rest of the chart is largely business as usual. After the late February/early March blowout of highly anticipated AAA games, we’re starting to enter a quiet period that won’t be broken until August 20th when, in a move to shrink wallets worldwide, Saints Row IV, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified launch on the same day. Yeesh.

Hardware

1. Xbox 360 (130k)

No other hardware numbers have leaked yet, but with the Xbox 360 being number one at only 130k, the message is clear: People are starving for next-generation hardware. Hardware sales tanked by over 40% from last April. But before we get all up in arms, the software numbers show that games are still selling well. And really, what did we expect now that the next generation of hardware is right around the corner? Still, these figures are  worrisome for the immediate future, since the release calendar is pretty dry until August.

If you really want some kind of extrapolation on numbers and a console order, I’d wager that the 3DS bumped up pretty closely to the 360 at #2, and the PlayStation 3 selling just under 100k at #3. Nintendo’s Wii is probably right below the PS3, then the Vita and Wii U continue their descent into complete irrelevance.

Hiram – Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Yeah, the console games are cool and all and have good stories and stuff, but for my money, GTA doesn’t get better than Chinatown Wars. After the last few times that a GTA game appeared on a handheld not being too great, there wasn’t as much hype as there should have been around this one, but Rockstar delivered a game that I still put in my DS every now and then- and even though I beat the game, it’s still full of secrets to find. While it plays great and looks nice on the DS’s screen, my favorite part is definitely the writing. Taking the series mobile allowed the series to get incredibly self-aware and referential, and the writing has never been sharper and funnier. There’s even a surprising amount of mission types, and the final sequence on the back of a boat with a minigun to find your father’s killer is immensely satisfying.

Jonathan – Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV was a tonal shift in the series, and one that shook up the gaming world.  Before GTA IV the series was comedic in nature and revolved around silly gags and crazy moments rather than the tenacity and raw emotion that fueled the fourth installment.  Don’t get me wrong, San Andreas was an amazing game and did have some great emotionally charged moments but it was nothing close to GTA IV.  To me San Andreas was the last of the “gamey” GTA games, meaning one that let you fly jet-packs and preform ridiculous stunts.  GTA IV took it in a whole different direction that was completely unexpected.  Nico and his story still stay with me today and everything from the streamlined gameplay, to the beautiful city, to the insanely well done voice work made the experience that much sweeter.

Alexander – Grand Theft Auto IV

Over the years I have sunk a lot of time into the Grand Theft Auto series. While messing around could be fun in the games, especially San Andreas, I found myself always entertained the most when playing through the stories. Due to this GTA IV was probably my favourite, though it was a close call with Vice City. Niko Bellic was a strong relatable protagonist that made you care for the story properly for the first time, especially when the games climatic hours had to you make some rather tough choices that culminated in some disastrous consequences. While the story was fun, the multiplayer free mode was what kept me coming back long after the games ending, with me and a few other friends ripping people new ones in helicopters and on foot. The current generation of consoles allowed for all of this, so here’s hoping that GTA V will live up to what is now extremely high expectations.

Jeremy – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I was a huge GTA fan since the very first game and I have played every game since then. The one I easily remember with the most fondness was San Andreas. At the time the game was easily the largest open world game I have ever played and was filled with more things than I ever could hope to accomplish. This game really defined sandbox games for me and my friends and I spent so much time trying to find the craziest things to do like flying a harrier through a tunnel or jumping bikes off of mountains. GTA 4 kind of lost the luster that I felt was so strong in San Andreas which was just all of the crazy and ridiculous stuff you could do in this giant city. I appreciate GTA 4 for bringing it down to reality but that wasn’t why I played the GTA games. While I still enjoy every game to be released under the Grand Theft Auto name, San Andreas will always be the one I remember the most.

Allen – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

San Andreas will always have a special place in my heart. I love the design of the map, how each major city was completely different from each other in shape and form. It blew my mind that I could escape the smog of Los Santos and into the fresh air of the forest surrounding Mt. Chiliad, tear down the steep hills of San Fierro and make a flat out high speed burn straight to heart of Las Venturas, with many interesting and crazy stops in between. Quite often, I would forgo the game’s story missions and steal a motorhome, taking it for a relaxing drive through the city to Mt. Chiliad’s peak. After gazing upon the incredible landscape Rockstar molded, I would hope on a motorcycle and run it off a cliff at top speed while listening to ‘Freebird.’

Joseph – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

As fond as I am for the ridiculous nature of Volition’s Saints Row franchise, I still feel that San Andreas was the game that really hit the sweet spot in terms of fun insanity, sheer content, and a gripping story that kept me invested throughout. San Andreas is a behemoth of a game. The world is massive, and the story shuffles you from the L.A. inspired Los Santos, to the Las Vegas rip-off of Las Venturas. There’s a ton of diversity with each location, and while its size can definitely work against the game due to its now archaic mission structure, it created a sense of adventure and progression throughout the game’s lengthy main story. San Andreas was the first GTA game to introduce RPG-lite progression mechanics, and while these weren’t incredibly deep, it meshed with the rags to riches story, eventually resulting in a severely overpowered CJ when returning to Los Santos to take down the corrupt Frank Tenpenny (Samuel L. Jackson). The game captured a sense of player progression that not even Rockstar’s own Red Dead Redemption could capture.  Most of all, San Andreas is just a ton of fun to play. Flying a hydra jet while listening to Living Color’s “Cult of Personality” and parachuting into the middle of a gang war while wearing only a cowboy hat and boots encapsulates the game’s sheer ridiculousness. I can’t fault Rockstar for going in a more grounded direction with GTA4 because topping what they accomplished with San Andreas is definitely a difficult task. 

Mikhail – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Vice City was the only GTA game I’ve played for more than an hour. It just really struck a chord with me, more so than the previous GTA games (and GTA IV). In fact, I’ve played that game for many, many hours. I enjoyed the cut scenes, the Scarface-inspired story and the Miami setting. It was a cool world to be immersed in. Dirty, but cool.  I never finished it because I couldn’t beat one of the latter story missions, but I enjoyed my time with it up to that point. Even now, 10 years later, I can still recall certain locations, certain routes, and moments. It’’s also one of the few games I remember playing together with a long lost friend, and so above all the other Rockstar games this one is close to my heart.

Ryan – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

GTA III introduced an entire generation of gamers to what was possible utilising the potential of the new gaming hardware within the PS2. But in hindsight whilst it was a fantastic game you can tell Rockstar was a novice in the craft they had created themselves. So if that was the product of novices Vice City to me was the game where they mastered their art. The game was a blood soaked neon lit representation of what it truly meant to make a sandbox. The world was brilliantly realised. The story was a fantastic reimagination of one of my favourite films of all time. And the soundtrack… Well lets just say I still have a Vrock playlist on my iPhone. I have many fond memories spending hours of my teenage years on this game hunting down those hidden packages and inviting my friends over for a “survival challenge” where we would put in the all weapons cheat and see how long we could last causing havoc on the streets of vice city. This to me was the first GTA that really showed off the series’ now well known character and I will never forget it for showing me this.

Brian – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

I grew up on the neon-lit strip of Miami Beach, so it’s little surprise that I felt right at home with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. While the formula was still being perfected, I happen to think that  San Andreas was a superior game, this is the one that grabbed my heart. They captured this idealized, movie version of the 80’s better than anyone else had at the time because it was a composite of all the best versions: the cocaine druglords of Scarface, the hot cars and fast women of Miami Vice, the end of disco, the drug-adled gluttony of hair bands. Vice City introduced the motorcycle to GTA, and I spent hours driving the strip between the port and the biker bar, a huge straight, length of pavement that was probably home to more mayhem and chaos then any road anywhere. It let me buy a strip club, run a print shop, film a horribly cheesy porno and advertise it with a pair of rock hard fake tits projected onto the side of building. I made Tommy Vercetti the King of Vice City, and in turn, Vice City made me the king of Miami. A fake, fantasy Miami… but what else is South Beach if not utterly fake and fantastical.

John K – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was the perfect mix of everything that has made Grand Theft Auto great ever since it moved into 3D.  The series reached its peak in the PS2/Xbox era, when it was still tongue-in-cheek, before it became overly “realistic” and “serious”, and when fun side activities were more fun and abundant.  Vice City was the pinnacle of that era.  It had great side missions that, when you completed them, allowed you to buy assets in the city.  This was a feature that was sorely missing in GTA IV.  Vice City had a lot more radio content than Grand Theft Auto III, but it still had great writing and lots of humor.  In San Andreas and especially in GTA IV, that content swelled noticeably, but at the expense of quality.  With Vice City, Rockstar nailed the setting perfectly, paying homage to one of my favorite movies of all time: Scarface.  They have gotten pretty good at modeling games after movies, but they never did it as superbly as they did it with Vice City.  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is easily one of my top 10 favorite games of all time.

So there you have it, 1 vote for China Town Wars, 2 for GTAIV, 3 for San Andreas, and 4 for Vice City. What’s your favorite GTA title? Feeling nostalgic and want to go with GTA 1, 2, or 3? Or maybe you agree with our editors, let us know in the comments below.

As the camera fades up, Iwata talked a little about their E3 plans, namely that they’ll be making a special Nintendo Direct for us then.

The first game Iwata then announces is a new Mario and Sonic Olympics game. This one is a Winter Games set in Sochi, a town in southern Russia that’s apparently a resort place. There are, of course, new minigames on display, like snowboarding, and while they were only showing the WiiU version, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 3DS edition come as well.

Iwata then mentioned a few things about a new partnership with Sega, including the fact that they’ve entered an exclusive deal on Sonic games, and the next main game in the Sonic series, Sonic: Lost World is going to launch exclusively on Nintendo consoles. Additionally, Nintendo will be putting a bunch of Sega GameGear titles on the 3DS eShop coming soon. There are three on there currently, but it looks like they’ll be bringing many more, coming out soon.

We then go over to the Treehouse where JC Rodrigo talks a little about some things coming soon on the 3DS. First, he reminds us that Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons is coming out on May 20^th. He talks about how interconnected the games are, and to encourage you to buy them both together, they’ll be $4.99 for a limited time before going to a regular $5.99. He also reminded us that Mario vs. Donkey Kong is out and has level creator mode, and that Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is also on its way soon.

Speaking of coming soon, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is out soon, and there’ll be a video series from the Treehouse talking about the game and some of the unique content in it. A special Swapnote and StreetPass puzzle are also coming for the game soon. Game and Wario is also coming  soon (June 23, to be exact, for $39.99), and they showed off a couple of games, such as a puzzle game with patchwork pieces, or an automatic jumping game where you control a ninja who needs to get pork buns (and don’t we all?). There’s an Iwata Asks about it, so go read that since they’re usually pretty good.

Resident Evil Revelations on the WiiU was talked about next, but if you’ve played it on the 3DS, you know what you’re in for. In fact, it’s probably easiest to just go play the demo that came out earlier this week, as that’ll do more to set your mind right than the fact that the MiiVerse integration can be used to give the monsters little voice bubbles (which I think is kind of cool).

As for a more anticipated title, New Super Luigi U was confirmed to still be multiplayer, but there’s no Mario anymore. Instead, other players can be toads, and Nabbit, the little rabbit thief, was also announced as a playable character. He seems to be made mostly as a character for people who aren’t great at games, because even though he doesn’t power up, he also doesn’t take damage from enemies, giving someone with less skill a chance to enjoy the game. A release date of June 20 at $19.99 was announced, but there will also be a standalone physical edition for $30 on August 25. Why the extra $10? Well, it comes in a GREEN CASE, so you be the judge of why.

In the middle of this, Iwata suddenly dropped a release date for the anticipated The Wonderful 101, which will be September 15. More on that later, I guess, but I’m certainly looking forward to it because it looks awesome and like a good use of the WiiU GamePad.

Iwata ends with talking about Pikmin 3, which doesn’t feature Olimar anymore. Instead, 3 new captains, from a planet that is dying because it’s running out of food, have come to the totally-not-Earth planet that the Pikmin live on in search of food. Despite the rush to save the planet, there’s no time limit of days, so you can still explore to your heart’s content, and rewind to previous days so you can try tackling the game with a better strategy. Breaking down the controls, it sounds like you can play the game literally however you want, even a slightly crazy “use the GamePad as the main screen and control that with the Wii remote” method. That game is out August 4, and while we’ve made jokes about that not necessarily being launch window like was promised, hey, at least the game’s coming out.

We finally pop over to Reggie, who seems to be the “one more thing” guy for all of these, who says that during E3, they’ll be trying to bring the games more directly to the players at home, and will be releasing a bunch of E3 demos to Best Buys around the county so that we can go and play them. Would I have preferred they just be available to download? Yes! But given how secretive so many companies are with their demos, it’s nice to see them available to us in some way, although we don’t know exactly which games are going to be demoed there.

So that’s it. A very lean one, almost makes it seem like Nintendo HAD to do one this month or risk losing us all when our attention spans waned or something. The promise of more things for the WiiU continues to be a nebulous “next time,” and with E3 drawing closer, hopefully this will actually bear fruit at some point. But after news like the fact that EA has nothing in development for WiiU—not even their sports games, which only recently stopped coming out on the PS2—it would have been nice to have something to say “I know you’re concerned, but let Reggie take you in his big, strong arms and tell you everything is OK with a nice little lullaby about all your favorite games.”

Furthermore, with the big show less than a month away, it would have been pretty nice of Nintendo to even just name drop things they’ll be talking about at E3, which, despite the fact that we can already pretty much predict them, would have probably made some people pretty happy. It’s something, right? It shows that they’re making things for the console and not just leaving it with its cheese in the wind. Well, E3 is coming up soon, and it seems more like it’ll be a make-or-break deal with Nintendo on this thing, so we’ll see what happens at the show.

Meet DarkStation continues and we’re introducing John K. As per use, we talk about a bevy of things, including why old stealth games are better than new ones and some of John’s most loved and hated games, the first two Deus Ex game falling into both of those categories. With each new episode of Meet Darkstation we’ll introduce a new writer, the folks you don’t get to regularly hear from on the DarkCast.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Show Hosts

• Jonathan Miley twitter
• John K

Show info

• Download
• RSS
• iTunes

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remember that you can send any suggestions and comments to this podcast@darkstation.com or post them on our official twitter. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes. While you’re there, review us to let us know how

Electronic Arts spokesperson Jeff Brown went on the record with Kotaku today, telling them that the games publishing giant currently has, “no games in development for the Wii U.”

This may not come as a surprise, given the minuscule install base Nintendo has amassed since launching their touchscreen console last winter. However, this does cast a lot of doubt on the amount of support Nintendo’s console will receive from third parties once new consoles from Sony and Microsoft have entered the mix.

It bears repeating that this doesn’t necessarily mean that EA won’t return to making games for the Wii U in the future, but it is safe to say that Wii U owners excited for Madden, Fifa, or Battlefield 4 will be out of luck this holiday season.

Check out the Kotaku report for more analysis from Stephen Totilo, their editor-in-chief. There haven’t been any feel-good stories about the Wii U for a long time. Perhaps Nintendo can change the tone with tomorrow’s Nntendo Direct.

• Game Info

• Publisher: Shiro Games
• Developer: Shiro Games
• Release Date: 04/04/2013
• Genre: RPG
• ESRB: E

Evoland is a very original piece of work. There have been a lot of throwbacks to the old-school style RPGs, but none have taken it quite as far as Evoland. Filled with more callbacks than maybe any other game, Evoland is a well-made referential game that fails to find any kind of originality of its own. The concept of this little downloadable game is actually quite impressive from a technical standpoint. Evoland harkens back to the days of the original 8-bit Zelda and Final Fantasy games of the original Nintendo days, but exists more as an homage or parody of those titles.  The game starts with a classic Gameboy look with only two colors and no sound, but the idea of Evoland is right there in the title: evolution. As you play through a game that looks like it was pulled right from a Gameboy cart you suddenly come across treasure chest and when you pick them up, you have color. You pick up the next one and now you have sound. Evoland is a game that actually evolves as you play, finding upgrades to the game itself in treasure chests along the way. What starts as a flat Gameboy style games eventually turns into a 3D 64-bit RPG by the end.

Evoland was a game clearly made by fans for fans of classic RPGs. The idea of evolving a game as you play is actually quite clever and really the best thing Evoland has going for it, because unfortunately the constant references and repetitive combat wear thin very quickly. Through the span of the game’s run time you will encounter multiple styles of play but you will mostly find yourself playing this like a top-down Zelda game or through active time battles a la Final Fantasy, and it basically just boils down to what type of area you are in. The real appeal to this game is the referential humor, which is all actually very clever. There are constant references to Final Fantasy such as the characters names being parodies of Final Fantasy VII characters and there are enemies that look like they were ripped right out of Zelda. One of my favorite moments of the game is when you pick up the treasure chest that unlocks the story and a paragraph of text pops up to lay out the plot of the game and afterwards a dialogue box just pops up and says “You’ve unlocked the story. Man that’s deep!” which just struck me as clever. You can expect to see a lot of this type of humor all throughout the game but sadly it will grow old very quickly.

Evoland was an idea that had a lot going for it but the plain and simple truth is that the game is just boring. With everything just being ripped out of multiple other games, Evoland struggles for some originality. For anyone who’s a super fan of old school RPGS and loves some good referential humor then this game is absolutely worth a look but I would just be forewarned that you are in for a rather bland gameplay experience. Even the visuals can be a little lacking. I almost wish this game was just released as a 16-bit handheld game but I admire what Evoland sets out to do–it just fails to stay interesting for its entire run time, but luckily that time isn’t all that long. The graphics are pretty good in the early stages, but as you get more polished graphics with new treasure chests, they start to lose their luster.

Evoland seems like a fun experiment that would have been more exciting to have seen go all the way with its idea of being homage. While I was playing this game I only hoped to see the game get more and more in-depth but sadly hits a limit that fails to be anything worth bragging about. Evoland is by no means a bad game but really just feels middling once you really get into it. This game could serve as a good stepping stone to something great but really only feels like a stepping stone that can only be recommended to fans of a good homage. Evoland can be found on GOG.com for $9.99.

• Game Info

• Publisher: Neocore Games
• Developer: Neocore Games
• Release Date: 5/22/13
• Genre: Action RPG
• ESRB: N/A

Van Helsing, as a character, has grown far beyond the Dutch doctor Bram Stoker wrote about in his seminal vampire novel, Dracula. Through the many films and books that have followed, he’s become not only a vampire hunter but an all around monster hunter, with incredible Batman-esque gadgets and encyclopaedic knowledge of the undead in all its forms.

It’s this Van Helsing, the fearless hunter of the occult, that takes center stage in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. An action rpg, in much the same vein as games like Diablo and Torchlight, the three hours I played spanned the first two areas of the game, and had Van Helsing tasked with finding his way through Borgovia, an area I assume to be either just outside of, or taking the place of, mythical Transylvania.

Armed with a melee weapon (fast dual swords or a large, slow two-hander) and a ranged weapon (dual pistols or a rifle), Van Helsing’s trip through the wilderness of Borgovia is about as monster filled as you would expect. In fact, I found it almost comical just how many and how big some of the groups got, with the later area, a dingy swampland, easily throwing mixed groups of harpies, toad men, and little rat-things named scavengers that numbered at least 20 deep.

Quests are dolled out by exclamation point baring citizens, and the few that were present in the first areas consisted of mainly fetch or kill quests. Of note was one particular quest that sent me into an instanced version of the hub town, which I then had to defend from harpies. It consisted of not much more then going to different parts of town and beating on the same kind of packs I had dealt with in the wild, but I found the use of the town proper and mix of normal/champion enemies within the packs to be entertaining.

Helping me to slaughter the masses of enemies was a follower named Lady Katarina. A noble woman whose spirit had become bound to Van Helsing, she functioned much like the pets from Torchlight, able to carry goods and sell them back in town, as well as attack from either melee or range and even act like a very limited tank, though she had far too little hit points to serve well in the capacity. The banter between the two was playful, and pointed at a deeper history then was revealed in my brief time with them.

Van Helsing and Katarina both have their own skill trees, with hers serving a buffing capacity, while Van Helsing’s dealt with either melee or ranged abilities, interspersed with the occasional passive ability. Van Helsing also uses Torchlight‘s reputation concept, but instead of providing extra skill points upon level up, you can pick from a series of perks that were very reminiscent of the Fallout style of level up reward. There were perks that granted extra skill points, better criticals on first strikes, and even one that provided extra defense the lower your hit points went. Nothing I saw was game breaking or game changing in anyway, but it did add a bit of flair to the proceedings.

What little of the story I experienced was fine, though the writing seemed a bit lacking, but the thought of a narrative not wrapped up in years of convolution combined with this type of gameplay is enough to warrant a serious look when the game comes out in a few weeks.

One other thing to consider is that fact that there is only one playable character. While Van Helsing does have options when it comes to combat, the distinct lack of other playable characters leads me to question the viability of multiple play-throughs.

Overall, Van Helsing has some good things going for it. The combat was fun if not altogether engaging, and some of the enemy types, especially some heavy hitters in the swamp, led to some thoughtful “run and gun” rather then “stand and chop” encounters. I think it does have to be mentioned that this style of game has been pretty much perfected by Diablo and Torchlight, and while the small additions Van Helsing has added seem interesting, I don’t know if it’s enough to truly pull away from those mighty forefathers.

• Game Info

• Publisher: Phoenix Online Studios
• Developer: Phoenix Online Studios
• Release Date: 05/16/2013
• Genre: Adventure
• ESRB: N/A

Everyone’s favorite Beantown psychic detective is back on the case in Cognition – an Erica Reed Thriller – Episode 3: the Oracle, the third installment in the ongoing Cognition adventure series.  In case you missed episodes 1 and 2, Erica Reed, the protagonist of Cognition, is an FBI agent who tracks down serial killers.  In addition to the normal forensic capabilities that law enforcement uses, Erica also has Cognition abilities – i.e. psychic powers that she can use to reconstruct past events.  If you haven’t played the first two episodes, then you should start this series there.  You might get by without playing episodes 1 and 2, but they provide critical story and character development that episode 3 continues without hesitation; that, and they are worth playing because they are pretty good.  If you enjoyed the first two episodes, then episode 3 is easy to recommend, as you will want to see how the story develops.  At the end of episode 3, you will, most likely, be hungry for the next installment.

Like episode 2, The Oracle picks up mere hours after the end of the last episode.  After having lost her boss and then rescuing her colleague, Sullivan, Erica is now drawn into the investigation of another murder.   Other than that basic setup though, episode 3 deviates immediately from the formula established in the first two episodes.  In episodes 1 and 2, the FBI field office functioned as your home base, and the episode had somewhat of a self-contained murder mystery.  You would visit various locations in Boston, collect evidence, and interrogate suspects.  In episode 3, on the other hand, the Boston city map and the FBI home base are gone.  The entire episode takes place, instead, in one skyscraper.  Your murder investigation is limited to the prologue, and the guilty party is revealed right before the opening credits.  Soon thereafter, the game introduces a new playable character, and you spend the rest of the time switching back and forth between Erica and that other character.

Episode 3 is, ultimately, Cognition’s version of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince. There is minimal story progression in the present, but there is a lot of time spent looking in the past, learning the origin of the Cain Killer and the other characters of the series.  Because The Oracle is largely expository, it flows a lot like the typical middle chapter of a series.   Its story meanders somewhat, occasionally bogging down in character interactions that are somewhat dry (albeit necessary to tell Cognition’s story).  The lack of new locations or travel is also kind of a bummer.  The sense of adventure, exploration, and discovery that thrived in the first two episodes isn’t in this one.  About 2/3 of the episode is spent in four different rooms, playing as the two characters.  As a result, the middle portion of the episode is kind of a drag.  The good news, however, is that the ending easily makes up for it, with some interesting reveals and another climactic puzzle solving scene.  On the whole, the story continues to be a valuable asset for the series.

One area that has little downside is the visuals.  The technology isn’t cutting edge, but the art department at Phoenix Online Studios continues to produce some wonderful cel-shaded scenery and some great cut scenes.  Part of the reward for completing a puzzle is just to see what the next area looks like.  There are some terrific looking paintings in the apartment where you spend most of your time, and they actually factor into one of the game’s major puzzles.   The series also continues to get a lot of mileage out of the occasional gruesome image of violence, torture, or death.  Cognition, despite the fact that it is just a game, makes its crimes seems like real tragedies.  The visuals, along with the writing, deserve a lot of credit for this success.

The voice acting, on the other hand, continues to be inconsistent.  Some of the performances are pretty good, adding some necessary depth to the characters.  Erica Reed still raises her voice a lot and talks tough like she is in an 80s cop drama, but her corniness has kind of grown on me.  On the other hand, John McCoy, Erica’s partner, has an important scene, and the voice performance for his character almost ruins it.  It is a tense scene where Erica confronts John for something that he has done wrong, and he responds with about as much emotion and anguish as somebody who forgot to set his DVR to record his favorite TV show.  It is an important scene that doesn’t deliver the emotional weight that it should.

The traditional point-and-click gameplay returns, with significantly more emphasis put on the supernatural abilities of Erica and the other playable character.  The two characters work in tandem and solve puzzles by finding different pieces of the puzzles at different points in time.  The puzzles are harder this time, and they require you to notice material that looks optional or unimportant on the surface, but actually has critical clues.  They aren’t worse or more illogical than other point-and-click puzzles, but I can easily see somebody getting stuck badly in this game if they haven’t read through their cell phone messages or journal with keen enough eyes.  One safecracking puzzle, in particular, requires you to use some very minor-looking details.   Beyond that observation, there isn’t a lot to say about the puzzles, other than that they are mostly par for the genre, for better or for worse.  If that fact hasn’t bothered you up until now, it won’t bother you in this episode either.

Cognition – An Erica Reed Thriller – Episode 3: The Oracle, is mostly an entertaining experience.  You may miss some of the features that showed up in the first two episodes, like the forensics/murder investigation elements and the variety of locations.  I found myself missing those, which is why I enjoyed Episode 2: The Wise Monkey a little bit more than episode 3.  Episode 3 does have its strengths though.  The new playable character is a surprising change that keeps the formula fresh, and the characters in the game are people whose history you will want to learn.  The story is turning out to be less predictable than I expected too – events take place in The Oracle that I didn’t expect to happen until the very end, which means that I have positively no idea what to expect in episode 4.  In the meantime, if you played the first two episodes and you liked them, you should pick up episode 3.  You might feel some monotony while playing it, but the strong points of the episode and the payoff at the end make up for it.

Now, despite the fact that the company was able to raise more than $10 million from the program in just the first year, EA is suddenly turning tail and discontinuing the program, stating that too many consumers were unhappy about it to actually continue the service. Now, apparently no EA games in the future will have this service, although I wouldn’t be horribly shocked to see a game like Fuse come with one just  because it’s just ending development as soon as this news came about.

I get as tired of internet cynicism as the next guy, but I have to wonder… why? Because people weren’t happy with it doesn’t really feel like a reason that a company would give. They exist to make money, after all, and a lot of companies don’t care if they make literally everyone angry along the way (see: this current kerfuffle with the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch). I start to wonder if something has come along that has just made those obsolete. Is there something worse? Could fears of not playing used games be a thing in some way? I’m no expert, but I can’t help thinking that it might be a huge hassle to find a way to lock all games to just one console… but that’s why I’m not in charge of these things. I just don’t have the imagination for it.

But maybe, like I said, everything is fine and the world has just made me pessimistic. Maybe there’s no need for it because of other reasons. Maybe they DO just want to be nice to us consumers. And even further, maybe every other company that’s tried doing Online Passes will see EA continue to be gigantic even after this and ditch them as well. It’s also occurring to me that I’ve only entered one online pass ever, and it was for Mortal Kombat. So I didn’t really mind that, but people who buy more multiplayer-focused games probably hated it a lot more than I did. I guess we’ll just see how this goes, and hopefully we’re not back here in a year saying “never mind, passes are back.”

Recently we were able to sit down with Daniel DiCicco of Zer0Sum Games and talk about his first game, Stardrive. We discuss the game’s Kickstarer campaign, and it’s release and why Daniel chose to use a publisher rather than venture through processes like Greenlight.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Show Guest

• Daniel DiCicco twitter/facebook/website

Show Hosts

• Jonathan Miley twitter
• Brian Tyler twitter 

Show info

• Download
• RSS
• iTunes

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remember that you can send any suggestions and comments to this podcast@darkstation.com or post them on our official twitter. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes. While you’re there, review us to let us know how we’re doing. All comments, critiques and suggestions are appreciated.