This Mark of the Ninja trailer is full of ninjas and... Ninja Gaiden boxart?

To celebrate Mark of the Ninja's release, Klei Entertainment has produced a never before seen trailer that gives a little background to the premise of the game. Something about ninjas and a toxin in a plant that gives you superpowers. While that's totally rad, I'm having a hard time averting my eyes from that striking Ninja Gaiden photo. Yeah, you should definitely check this game out.

Shadow Complex Review

A long while ago, in a time of inferior technology and rustic gameplay elements, the side-scroller reigned supreme. The genre has spawned some of the greatest games of all-time, but like all good things, it went away for a while. Being unable to cope with its absence, Chair crafted Shadow Complex - a quirky, futuristic, side-scrolling shooter. To put it quite simply, it has resurrected the genre in the best way possible.


The long-running Castlevania series and the earlier Metroid titles are usually credited with being the best examples of side-scrolling ingenuity and Shadow Complex pays homage to these games in almost every way. The graph-paper maps, exorbitant amounts of upgrades, ridiculous varieties of platforming puzzles and weapons, it’s all here. Orson Scott Card’s “Empire” was also the basis for the story, giving it instantly more appeal. Speaking about story, the protagonist’s name is Jason Bailey, a normal dude who’s out frolicking with his latest pickup at the bar. Quickly, a seemingly harmless day of cave diving turns into a search and rescue operation from the clutches of a super-terrorist organization called the Restoration.

The indie co-op appeal

Indie gaming has always surprised me. It’s people or maybe even just a single dude, who take their own free time and resources to craft an experience from seemingly nothing. They don’t get paid to make it, there’s no business backing these guys, it’s all from their own minds and that’s damn impressive.


One of the reasons why I look forward to trying out other indie titles is due to their focus. Instead of trying to buy me in with unprecedented visuals and an unparalleled storyline, they usually just want you to have a good time. Of course there are some indie titles that have a great story and maybe even better aesthetic appeal, but I’m going to focus on two particular titles that are short and to the point.

The danger of priced downloadable content

Since the start of this console generation, we’ve been assaulted by downloadable content. The incessant nagging of this digital devilry can be troubling but it’s not all completely trivial. On one hand it’s a nice boost for the games we truly enjoy, but it could be giving companies the wrong idea. 

Let me start off by saying that DLC is a fantastic idea. Now that practically everything is online, having the ability to expand on a game is marvelous and easier than ever. Expansions, extra content, new maps, it can all be distributed without any real obstacles and it can make for a richer, more entertaining experience. With all the good though, come the spam and the most contrived forms of DLC you can imagine.

It all starts with pictures, themes, and clothing for your avatars. Sony offers premium themes and micro-transactions through their home service, but I feel this is much, much worse on Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Games typically offer picture packs with five or so photos you can use for your profile picture. You also have to pay for extra clothing and accessories for your avatar. And to top it all off, you have to pick up Microsoft Points to do any of this. Sure it’s your choice to pick up any of this stuff, but would you willingly pay $10 for an assortment of profile pictures and a lightsaber for the avatar you only see for a couple seconds? 

I feel that customization is a requirement to making your account unique in many different ways. Adding a premium price on every little thing walls off the crowd who might’ve explored this feature further. There are still various amounts of free materials you can download, but anything worthwhile is priced. For me, if it’s even a dollar I’m not going to bother with it. For one, I have to pick up extra Microsoft Points that are just going to sit on my account since there’s no way to buy the exact amount. That’s not a huge deal, but more importantly I’m turning on my system so I can play some games, not look at my avatar.

This is all trivial though compared to how certain games are abusing the ability of DLC. As I stated earlier, it’s amazing how developers can augment their games whenever they want now. However, there have been quite a few games that have been built around the utilization of DLC. Tomb Raider Underworld pretty much had no ending unless you picked up the DLC. Ubisoft’s new take on Prince of Persia had a cliffhanger ending that was only answered if you picked up the Epilogue Pack. Even the renowned Fallout 3 dabbled in this theme. In its defense, the extra content was actually good, but a lot of it was glitchy and if you bought them all it’d cost you an extra $50, or almost the price of a full game.

To go against DLC would be stupidity. A lot of it is quality material and especially for competitive multiplayer games and titles like Rock Band, it’s almost necessary. But no matter what way you look at it, it’s tough to justify a price-tag for something you can’t test out. You don’t know if the maps are the next best thing or are equivalent to a pile of rotting carcasses. Demoing certain content can make or break something but with talks about bringing prices to demos, that too could be an issue. 

All I’m saying is that tagging a price to everything isn’t the way to get your extra content sold. Why not award players with pictures or avatar awards for doing certain things or unlocking trophies/achievements? And if you’re going to release 20 different episodes of extra content give the players who bought the rest a little discount or gift. Just a little more focus on quality can make the distinction between excellent and forgettable DLC.
 
Enjoyed the article? Follow me on Twitter!

Why Halo needed Reach

Whether you game or not everybody knows about Halo. Besides being one of the most popular franchises of all-time, it’s the reason console shooters took off in the first place. Sure there’ve been plenty of quality shooters before Halo’s day, but after Halo 2 blew the competition away, with internet functionality among other things, Halo’s place would be firmly cemented into gaming history. What came after would be controversial, but I don’t think anyone can deny the stale smell emanating from the series’ tried and true mechanics. With Bungie’s departure from Microsoft and my clear displeasure with the third game and its contrived spin-offs, I pretty much wrote the series off as having done all it could. Then, Reach hit me. 

Reach, is exactly what the Halo series needed. It’s a boost to a franchise that has long followed the “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” approach. While that’s the safe way to play with game design, after the third game Halo desperately needed something to put that infallible sheen back on its armor plating. I’m not saying that traditional FPS style isn’t a good time, but as technology advances so does design and Halo needed new ideas. Reach provides an augmentation to the series by modernizing and organizing the game into something that feels fresh yet still familiar. There are surely some hurdles to cross, but if this game can do it I feel confident in saying it will be the definitive Halo experience. 

With all this talk of Halo being different, fans shouldn’t feel immediately alienated because the core of the game hasn’t changed. You’re still running and gunning with your shields and trusty plasma grenades at your side. What I’m most excited about are nuances like spawning in on your wingman, which if you ask me is anything but a slight change. You’ve been able to do this in a slew of other games, like Battlefield, but implementing this in Halo calls for extra strategy and adds some needed depth. More than that, Reach is also borrowing the Battlefield class system. No longer will you be dependent on reaching location A where weapon B always spawns. I’ve become embittered with that system over the years but now choosing your class suddenly clears up the battlefield and makes for your initial spawn to have a few extra seconds of life. I can’t explain how important that difference is.

The class system and Battlefield-esque borrowing seems to be the most controversial item Reach offers. Truthfully, I think Halo will be better off now that more of its random nature has been toned down. You know, spawning in the midst of a massive gunfight, getting gunned down by the very man you just killed not two seconds ago, never being able to get the damned sniper rifle. Surely some of these things will still happen, but more of the control has been put into your hands. There was nothing worse than being camped when a team controlled all the effective weaponry on a map. Now that you can control what you spawn with and where you spawn, this frustration should be relaxed. 

Giving an identity to both the Spartan and Elite is further evidence of Bungie trying to tweak everything about the series. Elites are gigantic compared to Spartans who should be easily concealed, they’re also stronger, and can regenerate health. Both sides also have unique armor functionality that will be instrumental on the battlefield. Spartans can sprint, like in Call of Duty, Elites can cloak, and both sides have the option of using a jet-pack. There’s so much more apparent and this customization adds yet another layer of strategy while ridding Halo of the identical combat we’ve all become accustomed to. Surely this is the way the game should have always been played.

There are the many more changes and obvious inclusions to a brand new game like Reach, but what we should all be excited about is how the gameplay has changed so dramatically yet in such a subtle manner. Halo has finally evolved with the rest of modern day gaming and I can’t wait to see how it all pans out.

Enjoyed the article? Follow me on Twitter!

Mega Man 10 Review

This may not come as a surprise to many, but I’m going to say it anyway; Mega Man 10 is ridiculously tough. Of course, that’s how Mega Man rolls and is probably why people like me keep coming back to it.

If you’re any kind of a Mega Man fan, or have at least played a couple of the original games, you already know what you’re getting yourself into. The tenth installment, like the rest of the games, offers a unique attempt by Dr. Wily for world domination. This time a virus called Roboenza has been unleashed which causes robots to go all crazy and it’s up to Mega Man to prevent the robots from taking over the world.

Standing between Mega Man and bringing Wily to justice is the standard eccentric cast of eight robot masters. When you have to fight against a robot sheep that controls cyberspace and electricity, eccentric is the only word that can possibly describe the situation. As usual, the robot masters all have a severe weakness to another’s power and finding that certain weakness makes the game infinitely easier. Easy though, as I’ve been saying, is not the word used to describe this game. Realizing this, Capcom decided to implement a brand new easy mode for the people who just can’t wrap their head around how game difficulty used to be. It’s certainly nice for newer players and people who just want to be done with it, but Mega Man was meant to be hard. Something is lost when running through a stage with sparse amounts of robots and platforms preventing your untimely death on the spikes below. Death, my friends, is what Mega Man is all about.

Putting aside my splendor for sadism, Mega Man is known for its pretty rockin’ soundtracks and 10 definitely delivers. Among my favorites are Strike Man, Nitro Man, and Blade Man coming in close behind. There’s a great deal of other excellent tunes and a lot of them, like Pump Man, are very atmospheric. What’s even better is the ability to play as Proto Man or Bass instead of the Blue Bomber. Both characters have specific play styles, like Proto Man can charge his weapon, slide, and even block certain enemy shots while jumping. Bass can fire in multiple directions, dash, and can even fly when combined with his dog companion Treble. And if you’re a real aficionado for DLC there are special stages and an endless mode on the way. All in all, there’s definitely reason to play through the game multiple times.

Compared to the rest of the Mega Man games, I can definitely say that the bosses in this one are among the toughest. Mega Man 9 had some very tough fights but 10’s bosses do more and follow erratic patterns which make it rough. Solar Man was the toughest boss to fight with the Mega Buster. I swear, whoever concepted that guy has no soul. I’m thankful though because the Challenges have been overhauled. Instead of finishing a stage and having random messages pop up like, “You’ve finished a stage in constant motion!” you can now visit individual rooms that challenge you to beat a boss like Solar Man. It’s good practice and lowers frustration since you don’t have to go through the level to get to him. Believe me, if you’d been through a level as many times as I have only to get your ass handed to you by the stage boss… there’s nothing better than those rooms.

Mega Man 10 succeeds in, once again, revitalizing the wonderful 8-bit formula. It’s everything you’ve come to expect of a series known for its rockin’ music and sadistic difficulty. Mega Man 11 can’t come soon enough.