Top Ten Scariest Characters in Gaming

By: Julian 'MakAttack' MacDonnell

-Possible Spoilers-

So yeah, my first top ten list. Took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to do for this as I wanted it to be both meaningful to me and interesting to you. I should start out by saying I love the horror genre. Whether it be a night of playing Resident Evil 2 or seeing how long I can play Amnesia The Dark Descent before I wet myself in a combination of fear and anxiety, I will always have a place in my heart, and on my shelves, for anything in this genre. But as I grew up and played more video games of varying genres, I would go on to encounter other scary or intimidating characters that were outside horror games. So it is that I make my case here that the list following are currently my top picks for the most scary, intimidating and frightful characters(human or otherwise) to ever grace our video game systems.

Wakfu Review

Wakfu Review

By: Ed Beers

PC/Mac

Mating Sheep. Now that I have your attention, this game has mating sheep, but I'm getting ahead of myself. This is a Free-to-play MMO from Square Enix, and while it's not going to replace WoW or SWTOR anytime soon in terms of lore or story, fans of the strategy classic Final Fantasy Tactics should give this at least your first 10 levels. I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised, as well as just plain surprised, say by the mating sheep-fine, fine getting back on topic.

This is not a serious game, or at least this series does not take itself serious, so do not let the long explanation of what your classes do make you think otherwise. This is a goofy game, and it's goofiness does it credit. You start off by, after making a free account and choosing your server group based on where you want to be, choosing between 13 different classes, which is a fair amount of variety by itself. Each class plays differently enough, you've got archers, thieves, assassins, summoners, fighters, healers, plenty of character types to choose from. But also each class has 3 of four different 'element' spells and specials, Earth Fire Water and Air, to follow which help make how you want to play a character special to you as well.

As you start playing, if you're used to turn based strategy RPGs, such as either the Final Fantasy Tactics or Disaea series, you'll notice how similar the fight systems work. You move through the map by clicking on the square you want to get to, as long as you can  get there without opening some gate or door of course. The fights are, surprisingly enough turned based, and thankfully not random encounters. You and your enemies are given 30 seconds to move or attack, a helpful counter on the side. Course it wouldn't be very fun if you could just attack endlessly for 30 seconds. Instead you're given a certain amount of movement, action, and 'Wakfu' points, which are used up by spells attacks and movements of course. The more you use your spells from the three element paths, the strong the spells become of course but the further down those paths you go, learning more powerful and costly spells, or spells with more interesting effects like swapping places with an opponent, or strengthening a summon, or other such effects. When one gets into the flow of the fight system it can get very fun and fast pace.

An interesting aspect of this game is the eco/political system within the game. You'll start learning early on, among the first 10 levels, of the ecosystem in the Wakfu world. How you can go out and kill monsters chop down trees and the like, or even create more, to balance out the forces of the world. Will you be a ruthless logger? A tree huger? A poacher, or a shepard? And that's not even entering into the political system... Mainly cause since I'm playing this for free I cannot enter fully into it. From what I understand, once you join a nation you can actual start working FOR the nation, working within the system to make your nation the best. There's even elections to choose leaders, which even non-paying members can take part in.

Right enough of that helpful information about gameplay and variety and the like, this game is SILLY, and that's a good thing. If this game was serious it would be an interesting system but I doubt it would have pulled me in so much. But it's silly, it's goofy, from it's cartoony 2-D style artwork, to it's major NPCs such as a golden flying TV, to it's in game history of the world being nearly drowned by an ogre crying over being rejected, all the way down to the sheep like creatures bouncing on top of each other with very pleased happy panting looks on their cartoony expressive faces, and it's wonderful because of it. I know that a lot of games try to have a silly aspect or two to it, but how can one really take a world flooding monster serious, when it's flooding with world with it's tears over a bad relationship? Is it bad that it's a silly game, of course not, in fact I feel that it does itself a favor by it, but I do believe I'm repeating myself.

This game, being free to play, is worth looking into, especially if you're a fan of FF Tactics and other such games. Once you find a class and play style you might find yourself look for battles. And even when fighting gets dull you'll have plenty to get into with crafting items, harvesting or hunting, mining or planting. It's all fun, and it barely takes any time really.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron Review

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron Review

By: Ed Beers

PS3/XB360

“Lemme tell ya a tale.” True a traditional start to a story, but in a story such as this, traditional and expect is a good place to start. As one might be able to tell from the title, this game is based on a Judeo-Christian text, namely The Book of Enoch, ancient (300 BC - 1st century BC) Jewish writings of the Great-Grandfather of Noah, fallen angels, and their giant babies. But this isn't a religious study blog this is a game review.

The story begins when seven angels, blinded by their love of humanity, may just have doomed it by their actions. They left the heavens, and came to Earth, where they were worships above God. They created the Tower of Babel as their home of worship, and the angels began to mate with the humans. Their children, the Nephilim (giant humanoid blobs), feeding upon each other grow larger and larger, threatening to swallow the world in flames. Seeing this, God prepared a flood, a flood that would cleans the world of the humans, the fallen angels, and their children. Wishing to save humanity from such a fate, a heavenly scribe, Enoch, went to Earth to find and purify the fallen angels, and stop their children. Followed by the four Archangels, and provided support by the aloof Lucifel, can Enoch climb all the levels of The Tower of Babel, and purify the fallen and their children, and stop the flood?

The visuals are stunning, original feeling, and each level of the tower feels fresh and different. One second you'll be fighting wave after wave of enemies in an ethereal coliseum, before being thrown into a cartoony, almost cute 2-D platforming level, before finding yourself racing along a Tron like futuristic city, or leaping across a living Japanese ink painting. The pacing between these scene changes is just right, moving to a new word just as you feel you've seen all you need to of the one you're in, alternating easily between 3D action, and 2-D platforming. The music following you through the game follows a similar trend, changing with the background, as well as in or out of battle. Some levels, if you don't like angelic choirs or tribal drums can get on one's nerves, but nothing too truly terrible.

The controls for the game are simple enough, you have your attack button, your jump button, your block button, and your purify button (will get to that in a second, don't worry). Gameplay however, can get very complex in some battles. As you enter battle, you'll have chances to steal and purify the weapons your enemies are using against you, there are three types of these. The sword-like Arch, the long range Gale, and the shield turn gauntlet Veil. The more you use your weapons, the more impure they become, which is why you need the to purify them during and after battle, the more pure the weapon the more damage they do. Course things would be far too easy if that's all there was to combat. Like many battle systems in Japanese games, things in El Shaddai work on the rock paper scissors system. Gale's most effective against Arch wielding opponents, Veil against Gale, and Arch against Veil. That's not to say you cannot win if you have the 'wrong' weapon, but they make it hard enough to encourage you to steal the more effective weapon any chance you get. Don't be surprised to find yourself facing each enemy type in one group of enemies that comes along. But, the game is kind, they realize how hard many fights well get. When you get defeated, and you will, you'll notice our hero scribe falling in slow motion, and darkness closing in around him. That's your cue to mash every button on your controller, to get right back on your feet. Course, get knocked down too often, the amount of mashing you'll need to do gets larger, and the time you have to do it in gets smaller. Can't have things getting too easy, where's the challenge in that?

This game is a beauty to behold, there's just something wonderful about how it looks and feels that I did not feel in the demos or teaser trailers. Maybe it's the sense of control, or the flow of the story, but it is something that needs to be experienced. Though most argue that video games are not art, I believe El Shaddai is, at very least, a giant step forward towards a piece of art that is also a video game. Please, give this often passed by game a hand on try.

Eph's F's: Batman Arkham City Game of the Year Edition

No, do not adjust the screen.  That is correct I am giving the Game of the Year Edition of one of 2011's best video games an F.  Not because of gameplay or anything like that. God no.  It gets an F for an entirely ridiculous reason.

Okay, now that I have your attention, I'm going to let you, the reader, to go and take a couple of minutes and just google Arkham City Game of the Year boxart.  Don't worry I won't go anywhere.

 And for those of you who were lazy to check it out, I have the image for you below.

Is this smart marketing? I mean for one thing, if you've been living under a rock or just awoke from a coma and didn't hear about/play Arkham City, now would be a great time to.  But the thing is, this boxart is just....atrocious.  I think I saw a Brazzer logo somewhere in there.  

Now let's analyze this boxart.  First off the picture, what do we see? It's Batman obviously wiping off what appears to be blood.  Then there's everything else. Funny thing is that the boxart is clearly yelling out at the top of its lungs that this is one hell of a game of the year edition game.  Look at that huge 10 out of 10 and 5 out of 5's. You get quotes stating the obvious and also bonus content.  With this kind of boxart, I'm surprised NOT to see any sort of product placement on it.

So hats off to you Batman Arkham City: Game of the Year Edition. For it is not what is inside that I'm failing, but for what is outside I am.

-Eph