Cursed Witch Hunt - Spirit Walkers: Curse Of The Cypress Witch Review

Spirit Walkers: Curse Of The Cypress Witch unravels a mystery of a ghost of the young woman captured in these woods. You play as Maylynn who, with two female friends, goes on an innocent hiking trip and soon finds trouble befalling the group. Things get creepy and scary, and on top of it, a ghost of a woman starts showing up in mysterious places and then one of your friends gets seriously hurt. Looking for help you end up at a beautiful and majestic cypress tree and there you meet the witch herself who offers to help you save your friends. In return however she asks for a favor: you’ll need to travel to a different time and dimension and undo a thing that once went wrong. You’ll have to travel between times and dimensions, explore the world of ghosts and lost souls and overcome an ancient evil.

That is essentially the description given by the publisher G5, and it’s a great way to get this reviewers attention and I will just assume that you are interested as well. Now the big question is, Can this spiritual description be matched by game play that captures the imagination?

Well to start off the game has a great art style, the music helps add to the mystic of the story and the environment, and on top of that the story progression graphics go from photos to full movement scenarios. 

The game seems simple at first, but when you realize this is not just another click and find game then you realize there is more to the world you are exploring. The items that appear in the find screen will not be simply words of the items to seek, they will be shapes of the silhouettes, and that’s just the beginning of the difficulty. Then you must take into account that the world itself will add layers to the search, essentially you will fall in love with the mystic story, the wonderful environments, and the challenge. As always G5 brought us something to talk about.

by

Erick Castillo

Death Seeks Redemption for War - Darksiders 2 Review

If you missed out on a chance to check out the original Darksiders do yourself a favor and find a copy play it, finish it, and then pick up Darksiders 2 and continue the journey.

With that stated I will say that the original game was sadly ignored by a lot of people at first, but like all true greats it rose to the hierarchy of great games to have and well that made the announcement of Darksiders 2 an event to behold by many of us who picked up the original close to the time of the announcement.

The game takes place during the 100 year impisonment of War, you will take control of Death this time and instead of trying to prove the innocence of his brother he is out to undo the damage that he is accused of.

Death plays very differently than his brother War, his arsenal consist of quick slashes and fast movement, that is not to say that he is weaker since he does have the abilities to wield a heavy weapon is needed as a secondary attack.

He will start off his journey in The Veil as he seeks answers from an elder known as The Crowfather, this journey will help you become familiar with traversing the world and some of the combat basics needed to defeat the most common foes. Also this short journey will help you become familiar with healing items, drop items, and how your horse Despair and your crow guide Dust will aide you in your journey.

The game offers an amazing and breath taking world to explore, full of little details that bring it to life and that make you want just ride around Despair and explore every inch of it. The music is yet more proof of how much effort went into making this game stand out for more than just great story and action, and of course the story itself is just something to behold. There are very few new franchises out there that stand out like this one simply based on story and for good reason, this is a story of revenge and redemption much like the first game but it offers more than that because Death must find answers in order to help himself, his brother, and the rest of creation.

The game plays like a mix of The Legend of Zelda and Metroid which makes it very appealing, also the dungeons will have needed weapons and items available as needed much like in those games, you do have a slight level of open world map but only limited to the items you carry and how far the story has progressed.

Death changes weapons, armor, and trinkets to aide him on his journey and this time is more obvious that the armor changes his apperance as you change it. Weapons will also have stats that are unique to each one and some will even allow for upgrading via item sacrifice for experience, Death will also gain experience and levels that will allow for the use of higher level items.

The boss battles are huge, in some cases Titan sized enemies that will take some serious trial and error, also the game will give you many optional quest to follow from retrieving lost items to killing former deities.

The game is a full blown experience to behold, the game brings a mix of action, adventure, drama, beauty, and edge of your seat story telling. Overall Death is the Horsemen to ride with.

by

Erick Castillo

Raising the Energon Bar - Transformers Fall of Cybertron Review

Developer: High Moon Studios

Publisher: Activision 

Transformers a franchise that carries weight among the geeks since the 80’s, and also a franchise that in recent years has had it’s highs and lows when it comes to the formats of entertainment it’s being portrayed in. The films have a mix of love and hate from all it’s fans and some of the more recent TV shows have been hit or miss, and when it comes to the video games High Moon Studios has taken it upon themselves to achieve greatness.

The first title War for Cybertron gave us a fantastic story, amazing gameplay, and of course graphics worthy of the universe it portrayed, Dark of the Moon took on those same elements and worked out some of the kinks and added some new elements that would play out in the next instalment of the franchise.

Now with Fall of Cybertron High Moon Studios wanted to set a whole new standard for many of the aspects of that make up the gameplay and story telling in a first person shooter and a licensed game, so does this game stand or fall under the immense weight of the Transformers license?

Firt I want to point out that the story starts off with a BANG! And I mean that in the full sense, we get a glimpse of the Ark taking off and Megatron trying to stop them from leaving a dying Cybertron, this is used to give the player a refresher course in the gameplay and also show some of the improvements that come with the new game, also it pushes what great visual direction High Moon Studios has when it comes to the cinematography of the game as the action is being played.

Second the graphics are amazing and the level of detail on the Transformers is amazing and in some cases breath taking, even when you are standing still waiting for something or just taking a moment to gather yourself from an amazing shoot out, the Transformers body is still doing something even if it is simply cogs and gears readjusting themselves, it still all looks great and just adds to the the life of the game.

Third the music is film quality all the way, it makes the adrenaline rush into your thumbs as you dodge and shoot, or try and get a stealth kill, or simply watching Metroplex rise from the heart of Cybertron brings great joy when accompanied by the musical score of the game. The musical score adds so much to the game that if it had not been as well produced as it was I doubt the game would stand out so well, and as a side note the voice acting is also amazing so much so that it makes you wish that the films would have taken the time to record such high quality for them.

The game takes on both sides of the skirmish once again, this time you start off as Bumblebee and continue on as the last Prime himself Optimus and so on, the game will mix in the action with standard first person hallway and open terrain shooting to some stealth action and even some Batman Arkham city like grapple hook action with Jazz and of course some of the standard flying and terrain vehicle combat. The mixture of weapons is a very welcome addition and the Teletran 1 store will help you upgrade and purchase new weapons as you find them during missions.

The Teletran 1 system will also allow you to purchase PERKS, T.E.C.H., and consumables that will come in handy for the coming battles, the upgrades will be accessible by all characters and monetary points will add up across the stories so you can save up to upgrade weapons or PERKS and all your characters will have access to them. For example early in the game I got used to using an automatic rifle type weapon and decided to gather all the upgrades, the final upgrade gave me a 75% increase in melee attacks and that came in handy when I was being swarmed by weaker enemies and ammo was not easily spared.

Overall this game has raised the bar for shooters and licensed games alike, this one will stand out as one of the best games of the Transformers franchise and one of the must have games of the year, and with so many good games coming out this season I would not want to miss out on this one if I were you. Great games are the right of all sentient gamers.

by

Erick Castillo

Darksiders 2 Demo at San Diego Comic Con 2012

The Universe gets a Little Bigger - Scott Pilgrim vs The World DLC Announcement