The Hoth expansion continues the Dark Side storyline created by The Force Unleashed’s alternate ending. The previous expansion dealt a devastating blow to the Rebellion, but they still managed to destroy the Death Star. Enraged, Starkiller leads the final push against them on the remote ice world of Hoth. Except poor footing lands him in the caves beneath the planet’s surface.
Wrath of the Empire
The DLC strategy for The Force Unleashed seems to be take an interesting concept and then dilute it down until you have a short, linear add-on delivered at a high price point (800 MS Points/$10).
Hoth is no different.
You fight a lot of Wampas, but they’re nothing compared to the Rancors the core game threw at you. More challenging are the platforming elements I remember from Super Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. There’re some nice surprises once you reach the Rebel base — including an Expanded Universe shaking event — but too much time is devoted towards chopping up anonymous Rebels.
Hoth was previously only available in the Ultimate Sith Edition of the game. It arrived on Xbox Live without much fanfare and — the horrors — without Achievements. It’s too short, too easy and too expensive to recommend, especially since so many other games do Hoth so well.
I found this video over at Hawty McBloggy and it’s worth watching even though I disagree with Brian Schmoyer’s assertion that video games, as entertainment, have no lasting value. The short version is that after 30 years of gaming, the Schmoyer found himself “alone, overweight and divorced,” and he blames this on the time he spent playing video games.
Coming off of two Dragon Age playthroughs and one run through Mass Effect 2, I’m probably more sympathetic towards Schmoyer’s POV than a gaming blogger should be. I’ve basically minored in BioWare RPGs. However, I don’t think I could have made better use of that time so much as I would have made other use of that time — at the very least, I should have done more laundry.
Still, in between my tours of Ferelden and Masseffectium, I’ve managed to keep my approval rating high among my friends and family. Likewise, I continue to have a strong romance with my wife, which I attribute to the diversity of conversation options we have available. Finally, though my quest log is never empty, I remain a kickass Collection Development Librarian (it’s all about the graphic novels).
Mass Effect’s second and final DLC was quietly released on Aug 25, 2009, almost two years after the game launched. Like Bring Down the Sky, this episode can only be played after you have access to the Galaxy Map and before the story hits the point of no return (Ilos). It retails at 400 MS points ($5 US), adds 150 points to your gamerscore and offers a few hours of entertainment.
Pinnacle Station
Pinnacle Station is a new location in the Phoenix system of the Argos Rho cluster. Once a turian command center, it’s now headed by Alliance Admiral Ahern for advanced combat training. Think of it as Mass Effect’s holodeck equivalent. Here Commander Shepard can prove his skills by reaching the number one spot on the various combat simulation leaderboards.
Capture, Survival, Hunt and Time Trial are the four modes of gameplay fought in subterranean, volcanic, tropical and warehouse arenas. Similar to what you might find in a multiplayer game, these simulations are less compelling in a single-player RPG.
Survival – endless waves of enemies – works the best, welcoming different playing styles and combinations of biotic and combat abilities. Hunt and Time Trial – both focused on killing enemies as fast as possible – are less effective, especially since Hunt requires convenient enemy spawns. Capture – hitting three or four checkpoints – is the least well designed since it relies purely on memorizing the map.
I always thought Mass Effect had a crude, but effective, combat engine and Pinnacle Station reinforces this belief. There’s fun to be had here, but sluggish gunplay and teammates who can’t keep up with Shepard’s pace add unwelcome complications. Overall, this expansion seems poorly balanced. I took on Saren in Insane Difficulty, but the basic simulations had me reaching for the “I’m too Young To Die” setting.
Ultimately, it fails to offer an essential Mass Effect experience, but the final simulation and its reward make this expansion worth muscling through for completists.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
Developer: Level-5
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
Released: August 24, 2009
Test Freaks’ Freak Score: 9.6/10In their second outing, Professor Layton and Apprentice Luke explore not one, but two curious villages as well as the curious train that connects them. This time they’re on the trail of the Elysian Box, a cursed object that kills whoever opens it. It’s most recent victim? Professor Layton’s mentor, Dr. Schrader.
If you’ve played the first game, you’ll recognize the game’s structure. Resembling a point-and-click adventure, you navigate around a map by tapping your stylus on a series of mostly static screens. Populating these screens are villagers who fill-in their locale’s backstory and challenge you with puzzles.
The Professor Layton games collect brain teasers and plug them into a framework of overarching mysteries. Want to find someone’s home? You’ll have to decipher clues they’ve left you. Need to explore a mine? You’ll have to deal with wiring issues. Combine this with a whimsical art style, solid voice acting, beautiful music, and gorgeous animation and you have a charming game.
Which key opens the door?
Diabolical Box is packed with puzzles. Puzzle master Akira Tago combines original puzzles with reworked classics: the towers of Hanoi are now pancakes which must carefully be served; a slider puzzle contains an important key. You may remember some puzzle-types from the previous game, but none of this entry’s puzzles are an outright copy.
Even if this game were a retread of Curious Village, I would have no problem recommending it, but Level-5 has added some fun new features. Apprentice Luke creates a sandbox obstacle course for his overweight hamster. Professor Layton brews tea for picky villagers. Building a camera leads to spot-the-difference camera puzzles.
With over 20 hours invested, I’ve completed the story mode and beaten most of the 138 puzzles in the core game. However, I’ve barely touched Layton’s Challenges and haven’t downloaded any of the weekly puzzles. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how many hops it takes a frog to get to his home.
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
Developer: Vicious Cycle Software
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Platform: Xbox 360 (also PS3)
Released: Feb. 26, 2009
Test Freaks’ Freak Score: 5.9/10A funny thing happened after I gave myself permission to stop playing Eat Lead; I started enjoying it. This is when I encountered Altos Tratus, a towering JRPG-style character who’s the endboss of the Fraggmee Warehouse level. In addition to having a clever name, this boss is one of the best JRPG parodies outside of College Saga. And while I was amused all along by the Wafferthinn troops (2D German soldiers), when I hit the Wolfenstein 3D level I thought the game was finally hitting its stride. Only it was far too late.
Matt Hazard is the legendary Marathon character who hit the big time in the 8-bit days. Since then his career has taken a downward trajectory. Hoping to pull himself up from flops like Haz-Matt Carts, Matt is entering the “next-gen” era, but Marathon owner Wallace “Wally” Wellesley has other ideas. Wally hopes to pull off a twist by killing Matt in his own game setting up Sting Sniperscope as Marathon’s new golden boy.
Eat Lead, Wafferthinn!
Eat Lead is a third-person shooter built around the concept that Matt Hazard is a self-aware game character who’s trying to avoid death at the hands of Marathon’s programmers. What would be straight forward levels are turned on their head as programmers rewrite the game while you play it. A single level can shift between a Western saloon, a Russian nightclub and a Soviet missile base. Enemies armed with Super Soakers will attack you alongside space marines while you hear the moans of approaching zombies.
While this sounds like Left 4 Dead’s AI Director gone rogue, the end result is that one generic setting is exchanged for another. There are some good set pieces: a multistage sniper sequence finds you providing cover for Bill the Wizard and fighting zombies on a tennis court is original, but most of the levels are unmemorable.
Eat Lead, Cowboy!
The variety of enemies leads to some interesting weapon drops. You can soak zombies to death or turn a pair of Six-Shooters on some Nazis or take on space marines with your trusty Hazard Pistol. The enemies themselves don’t have a robust AI, but there’s enough of them to make the game surprisingly challenging – and some of the boss battles are downright unfair.
Of course the real challenge comes from multiplayer — not that it has multiplayer, but you get an Achievement for it anyway. But this is a game where you earn an Achievement for pressing start. It’s all part of the sense of humor which carries the game. Will Arnett voices Matt Hazard and he does a great job capturing the meta nature of the character. Neil Patrick Harris has less to work with as Wally, but it’s still NPH.
Much like 2004’s The Bard’s Tale, Eat Lead forgets gaming clichés are fun to point out, but annoying to play through. If a little less effort was put into being funny and more effort put into being fun, this would be a game worth recommending.
The opening crawl calls it “A Fragile Hope,” but that’s probably too optimistic. Branching off The Force Unleashed’s alternate ending, this expansion puts Starkiller in charge of finding the Death Star plans. If you thought things were bad when Vader was around, remember that Starkiller was the one who Force-pulled a Star Destroyer out of orbit.
After a darker version of Star Wars’s opening shot, players take control of a Tusken Raider clad Starkiller who’s searching Tatooine for a certain astromech droid. Seeking information at Jabba’s Palace, Starkiller’s mission is complicated by Jabba’s machinations and the arrival of Slave I. Later, he picks up the trail at Mos Eisley which leads to a surprising boss battle.
In terms of length and level design, Tatooine isn’t better than the previous expansion (Jedi Temple). The add-on, once again, only adds 30 minutes of gameplay and you basically run in a straight line until you reach the end. For 800 MS Points ($10), players deserve more – however, there’s a lot to be said for fanboy appeal.
Punting Jawas and choking Gamorrean guards never gets old and the obligatory showdown against Boba Fett works really well. Even if you’re expecting the endboss, you’ll find some surprises. Unlike the boss fights in the core game, the Tatooine add-on makes good use of the camera and provides more interactive settings for the battles. Less impressive is Jabba’s Palace, which seems more like a prison, and the fact that while reaching Mos Eisley should mark the game’s halfway point, it signifies the end.
Blogging in a Twitter World
Overall my blogging was down, but my tweeting (@GameCouch) was up. I think this is part of a larger trend. If I’m looking for thoughtful conversation about games, I go to Twitter. It’s also my source for news and a great way to see a quick snapshot of the gaming world’s psyche. If you’re looking for community, Twitter’s the place to go. Some quick recommendations not found on my outdated People to follow on Twitter: bsangel, 8bithack, trixie360, and CorvusE.
The Second Biggest Story
I understand why unique content gets a lot of traffic, but I was surprised that so many people came here looking for information about The Force Unleashed: Jedi Temple DLC. Doesn’t IGN cover stuff like this?
The Story I Wish Had Been Bigger
When a friend spotted Game Couch in a psychology newsletter, I was hoping for another flood of traffic to my interview with Grand Theft Childhood co-author Dr. Cheryl K. Olson. Instead it was just an aftershock from the 2008 piece.
We Are They
This lead came via Jamie Sanders (VNES). They’re a cool band and I still love the pirate song. Don’t know how the Wii contest ever turned out.
