Quantum Conundrum Review

Score: 2.5/5
Developed By: Airtight Games
Available on: PC, PS3, 360

Quantum Conundrum comes into the market in a tight spot. Not in terms of being pushed aside by bigger budget titles, but because of its very strong ties to Portal. First of all Kim Swift, creative director of Quantum Conundrum, was also the project lead of Portal. Furthermore, the way both games are designed are extremely similar. They're both first-person puzzle-platformers with a crazy amount of buttons, cube-shaped objects, and red lasers.

Quantum Conundrum drops Portal's titular mechanics in favour of dimension-changing puzzles. There are four dimensions here; Fluffy, Heavy, Slow, and Reverse Gravity. You start off only being able to use the fluffy dimension, where everything is ten times lighter, and everything ramps up from there on in. The puzzles make good use of all the dimensions, urging you to flick between them like you're frantically surfing channels. Most of the puzzles are pretty fun to complete and have clever solutions. While the trick of solving the puzzles is usually pretty intriguing, it is also quite easy. You can blow through the game in about 5 hours. None of the puzzles are really head-scratchers, instead you just need to wade your way through them.

The story is halfway between non-existent and a cup of lameness. You play as the 12 year old nephew to the owner of the mansion you find yourself in. There isn't much of a set-up for you being there and you never really experience any notion of who you're playing as. The only time I was reminded that I was a child, was in a few places where my viewpoint felt oddly low to the ground. This also lead to some noticeable platforming issues where it was difficult to place my feet accurately. Following that half-hearted introduction, the story mostly shambles along like a flickering ghost.

This game has some severe let-downs. Most obvious is the terribly unfunny writing. Like Portal, Quantum Conundrum has a disembodied narrator. However, your uncle who is trapped in an alternate dimension, Professor Fitz Quadwrangle, is no GlaDOS. Quadwrangle is described as quirky and peculiar, but he is nothing of the sort. The mild drivel drooling into your ears is so utterly boring and dull that the game would probably be better without any voice-over at all. Voiced by John De Lancie (Breaking Bad, Star Trek: TNG, My Little Pony), the Professor ultimately comes across as a smug and condescending jerk. When he says things like “Apparently you feel you don't need an advanced degree in robotics to operate that” it feels more annoying than witty. You'd rather he kept his mouth shut whilst you're risking your life to save his.

Some of the humour feels weirdly out of place too. The notes which appear onscreen after you die feel bleak without reason. The game flows with bright, happy colours and almost appears child-like but the second you die you're given descriptions of things you'll never get to see because you're dead. In theory, these notes should be rife with dark wit. Unfortunately that humour was only wishful thinking.
Your surroundings also start to wear on you after a short while. At first the colours and art style seem pretty charming, but they never ever change. Almost every single room is aesthetically exactly the same which isn't helped by the ridiculously repetitive hallways between each puzzle room. The repetition isn't the only issue with the setting, the house is filled with stuff but none of it has any substance. You feel the creators wanted a mansion bursting with character but just didn't know how to follow through with it.

I really wanted to love this game. I loved Portal and this seemed like an interesting side-step from the franchise. What I'm left with though is a half-baked, ill-witted, yet admittedly fun-to-play, watered down Portal. In Portal everything ties together and makes sense, but here everything is filed under 'quirky' and sent out to die. Luckily though, the dimension twisting saves Quantum Conundrum from its bland design, lacklustre writing, and wonky platforming. The dimensional puzzles are enjoyably clever enough to carry you through its short 5 hours. If you're a big puzzle-platformer fan who isn't too fussed on story then it's probably worth picking up. However if you're expecting the magic of Portal, you won't find it here.

The Walking Dead: Episode One Review

Score: 4.5/5
Developed By: Telltale Games
Available On: iOS, Mac, PC, PS3, 360

I should probably let you know I find the Walking Dead TV show incredibly dull. I love the premise and that’s about it. The first few episodes were promising with Mr. All American Sheriff Rick and his 28 Days Later-esque introduction to the zombie apocalypse. However, nothing really ever happened, and I didn’t care about any of the characters apart from one or two. The second season just seemed to continue their boring bickering with each other. Luckily this game is based on the graphic novel instead, and brings with it characters I care about and delicious, delicious cartoon violence.

The art style is great. It's reminiscent of Borderland’s cell-shaded aesthetic and perfectly ties into it's graphic novel roots. This interpretation doesn’t skimp out on violence either, there are a few squelchy pummelings and head explosions to be seen. Lee, the character you play as, is apparently no stranger to violence. He appears to be leaving behind shadowy secrets, as we are first introduced to him in the back seat of a police car.

Lee is not necessarily a bad person though. One of the great things Telltale has done with this game is the ambiguous morality of many of the characters. People are far better characterised here than in the TV show. Lee in particular is a joy to play as.

Most of the actual interaction is role-playing as Lee, very similar to a choose-your-own-adventure book. Dialogue between Lee and other characters gives you four options with differing replies. They can vary from being very antagonistic to friendly and supportive. One of Telltale’s best decisions was to make these dialogue options timed. With a timer quickly ticking away, you are forced to give your reply in a heartbeat. You might not be entirely happy with your reply, but you have to live with it. The sense of finality in your choices is something sorely missing from recent games.

Some choices are extremely final too. For instance, you have to decide who to save at one point in the game. Whoever you save, likely leaves the other to die. This isn't an easy choice between saving an evil child murderer or a cute kitten. You are left with very grey decisions.

While the story, visuals, and choices are mostly fantastic, the game does have some faults. Most of them aren't game-breaking, but they are annoying. At occasional points in the game, the audio cuts out, characters glitch through each other, and the camera angle blocks your view. These don't make the game awful, but they do make it a little obtrusive when it shouldn't be. Another problem is the simplistic puzzles. Fans of adventure games will scoff at the simplicity, but I enjoyed them for a little break in the story. Some parts may be a little basic, but the flavour really comes from the characters and their stories.

If you're looking for a game where you'll be shooting zombies left right and centre, that's not what this game is. It's a more methodical story about the people involved, rather than a rollercoaster of carnage. However if you're looking for some background to the Walking Dead story, this game is a pretty good place to start. A couple of the characters from the TV show make an appearance which helps bring together the Walking Dead universe. Like the TV show, this game is coming out in episodes. This first episode left me eager for more and I can't wait for the next episode coming out in early June.

Portal Retrospective Review

Score: 5/5
Developed By: Valve
Available on: PC, Mac, PS3, 360

First off, if you’re somehow completely oblivious to the existence of the game Portal, you should stop reading now. Throw your keyboard at the wall, click wildly until you land at Steam and download it. It may sound superfluous, but it really is an important piece of media from the last few years. Developed in 2007, Portal casts you as Chell, a woman with a portal-shooting gun (hence the namesake), attempting to make your way through a series of test chambers. The game is mostly comprised of puzzle rooms requiring you to move boxes, flick switches, and use portals in every conceivable way. All the while a robotic voice explains your progress with sharp wit.

GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), the robotic voice, is now infamous all over the internet for that same humour. Delivered by voice actress Ellen Mclain, the subtle, clever lines give the character of GLaDOS real depth. Her humour is definitely on the darker side of things. Lines like “Cake, and grief counselling, will be available at the conclusion of the test” provide a snappy narrative backing for your adventure through the increasingly dark and unravelled building.

The game’s mechanics and narrative are quite deftly paced. As you start the game, you are without the portal gun. However the developers slowly introduce different techniques applicable for certain puzzles, one step at a time. You actually have to complete a fair few test chambers before you are able to shoot the two separate portals. Robin Walker, a developer at Valve, described it as Portal being “an extended player training exercise. We spend a huge portion of the game introducing a series of gameplay tools, then layering these tools into increasingly difficult puzzles.”

The story works in a similar way. GLaDOS is originally an uncomplicated robot explaining basic mechanics to you, but throughout the rest of the game she slowly becomes more and more complex and animated. The pacing with which GLaDOS becomes a real 3-dimensional character, whilst also revealing Aperture Science’s deep, dark secrets, is the real genius of the game. The puzzles may be confoundingly fun and intricate, but the darkly whimsical GLaDOS shines the brightest.

Some of the lines spoken in Portal are incredibly ingenious, especially in context. Comments like “Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death” are tasty humorous treats thrown at you constantly. Neat touches like adorable, yet deadly, turrets spouting feedback like “I don’t hate you” when you knock them over, flesh out Portal’s inherent comedy. The writing of this game really is one of the greatest pleasures in videogame history.

While Portal can be finished first-time-through in about four hours, every second of every minute is superbly satisfying and smile-inducing. Even at five years old, and after finishing it upwards of ten times, Portal still makes me laugh with ease. The lines are just so unassumingly hilarious, seemingly without effort. I would highly recommend Portal to anyone who likes anything, particularly if you have a good taste for dry and dark humour. So for science’s sake, you better get testing.

Luxor Evolved Review

Score: 3/5
Developed By: MumboJumbo
Available on: PC

If you've ever played any of the Luxor games, with Luxor Evolved you're pretty much getting what you expect. Essentially Bejeweled on crack, the Luxor series gives you lines of coloured marbles scrolling across the screen. When you make a matching set of three they disappear; the aim is to destroy them all before they get into the pyramid at the end of the track. Power-ups and bonuses are collected by building up combos which add a layer of depth to the fairly basic premise.

Dropping the previous Egyptian themes, this reimagining of the series gives off a very Tron: Legacy vibe; the colours, aesthetics, and music all seem heavily influenced by the 2010 movie. Although the electronic music here falls short of Daft Punk's heights, the synaesthetic blast of sight and sound is comparable. The explosive effects and flashing neon lights, however, can be a bit much to bear at times. I found my eyes hurting at one point after playing for a tad too long which was disheartening. Visually, sometimes the levels are a little too spazztastic to easily see what's going on, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Compared to the earlier games, Luxor Evolved has a tonne more powerups and unlocks. There are the return of powerups like the fireball and lightning attack, plus the addition of a few new ones too. One of the new inclusions is the freeze bomb, which basically does as described. It freezes a bunch of marbles, leaving you to smash through them to clear some space; It's a handy pick-up in a pinch. Another new ability, gained by collecting small coloured pieces, turns you into an all powerful, bat-like spaceship. As you only spend short moments as the bat-ship, you'll grow to cherish it. Nothing beats getting the bat powerup just as you're about to fail a stage; it's great fun using lasers to obliterate half the screen of marbles.

Luxor Evolved also brings into play a couple of nifty novelties not seen in the previous games. One of the small but notable features is the exuberant use of a slow motion sequence; time slows down more often than a fight scene made by Zack Snyder. Like in Watchmen, this feature is pretty awesome. However if it's overused, then suddenly you're dealing with Sucker Punch territory. Thankfully, it never gets quite as bad as Sucker Punch, but it does still feel a bit heavy handed.

The variety of levels keep things interesting. Survival, bonus, secret, and boss stages are interspersed throughout the classic levels, arranging a total of 65 levels. While this gives the game a fair amount of length, the previous Luxor games have had up to 100 levels, leaving a little to be desired here. On normal difficulty, the game can be finished in around 3 hours. Luckily there are two extra levels of difficulty to keep you going if you're on the masochistic side.

MumboJumbo has taken the Luxor series in a new flashy, seizure-ridden direction. This is great for the most part, but it lacks some finesse. Amongst the banging music tracks, the blinding Tron-like visuals, and the indulgent use of slow-motion, playing for too long should be entirely avoided. The dazzling firework show gets a bit tiresome, physically and visually. However, the game is still very easy to pick up and play, easily curbing those assignment procrastination itches. So why not roll into some marble madness?

Vessel Review

Score: 4/5
Developed by: Strange Loop Games
Available on: PC

Strange Loop Games' Vessel is a puzzle-platformer which is rife with head-scratching moments. It is the start of a new charming series which escapes the drudgerous churn of brown and grey war-shooters like Modern Warfare 3. Colours are abound and on display in this steampunk imagining of an alternate universe. The enchanting Vessel aims to delight and please.

Vessel achieves that goal tremendously. Here is a darling puzzle piece which will keep you entertained for hours and hours (depending on how quickly you understand some of the incredibly devious puzzles). You take the role of M. Arkwright, an inventor who has created liquid automatons. These automatons, called Fluros, are at the heart of the puzzles. They jump on buttons, flick switches, and even evolve for different uses. The physics involved in the use of these liquid Fluros are impressive and a lot of fun. The fluros appear cute and intriguing; they make for very amusing companions (and enemies).

The diversity of liquids leads to some ingenious puzzles which delight rather than frustrate. Though some of the later puzzles are a tad formidable, you always get the sense that you can figure them out with a little more time. Despite some difficulty in the later levels, the game starts off rather lightly. In much the same vein as Portal, you are eased into the various mechanics and ideas, as the early parts of the game serve to teach you the rule-set for the rest of the adventure. The puzzles in play are excellently designed; They may keep you tied up for a good while, but when you finally solve them the sense of satisfaction is palatable.

The puzzles aren't the first thing you'll notice though. The art design is intricate and stunning. M. Arkwright traipse through the vivid, steampunk scenery with joy. The art is a distinct combination of 2D hand-drawn textures intertwined with 3D structure and lighting. This creates a fascinating, breathing world. With several distinguishable areas, the colours and themes change just before you become bored of them. The fresh change in scenery keeps the pace going throughout; you really feel like a miniature man in a giant world. Little details in the background operate according to your interactions which is a great touch. The music plays a similar role by reacting to your movements, which adds notably to the immersion. The little things in this game are what help it to become a noteworthy experience.

Unfortunately not all is peachy in the world of Vessel. A few niggling issues restrain it from being as elegant as it should be. The animations are a little wonky, particularly during platform sections and when using buttons or switches. It isn't game-breaking but it makes moving around seem a bit odd and cumbersome at times. The only other problem was some inconvenient movement of the camera as it jerked between two sides of the screen interrupting the flow of gameplay. Granted this only happened once or twice but it was fairly jarring.

Vessel is great to pick up and play. It is not a particularly short game, lasting somewhere between 9-10 hours, so if you've been feeling an aperture in your heart since Portal 2, you can't go wrong here. With only cosmetic issues, Vessel is a tonne of ornate fun which will likely remind you of the inherent entertainment in videogames.

The Binding of Isaac Review

Score: 5/5
Developed by: Edmund Mcmillen and Florian Himsl
Available on: PC, Mac

The religious flavours of The Binding of Isaac are up front and centre as the game opens with Isaac's mother going mad and hearing the voice of God. She then attempts to kill poor baby Isaac. This disconcertingly cute clip sets the tone for the rest of the game. It is a delightful romp through dark subject matters, deep dungeons, and frightful fates.

Just like the story in the bible, Isaac is essentially being offered up on the altar. However in this reinterpretation, you are given the chance to fight back and take a stand. Numerous vile, yet adorable, enemies are around every corner champing at the bit to complete baby Isaac's sacrifice. The grotesque imagery, such as disfigured fetuses, can be a little on the vulgar side and may offend some, but those with a taste for the macabre are likely to revel in it.

In basic terms, The Binding of Isaac takes you through randomly generated dungeon levels, one room at a time. This game is very much in the vein of 'Rogue-like' games wherein randomisation and permanent death play a huge part. Unlike rogue-likes such as Dungeons of Dredmore, this game is very action oriented, often requiring twitchy movements to dodge the barrage of enemies and their projectiles. Isaac is no glorified hero of war; the game never fails to show you just how dark a tale this is. You shoot your own blood and tears at the enemies to progress. Get hit too many times by your enemies and Isaac will die, permanently. Simple as that.

The real fun comes in the form of items. There are certain item rooms, shops, and boss rooms where an upgrade can be picked up. These not only change how the game is played, but they also visually alter your character. For example, the 'Bucket of Lard' health upgrade gives you two extra hearts, slows you down, and gives Isaac a noticeably larger belly. It is absurdly satisfying testing out different combinations of items to distort Isaac's visual appearance and experiment with new playstyles. Half the magic of the game is discovering, experiencing, and collecting all the different upgrades. Unfortunately, some item combinations can be a hindrance rather than a help which can occasionally lead to frustrating runs. Luckily though, any one item could change your luck and swiftly make you an all-conquering weapon of mass destruction.

Edmund McMillen's signature art style gives the hideously disfigured enemies a cute cartoon look, in some ways similar to his previous game, Super Meat Boy. This makes the game alluring in the most disturbing of ways. Although your foes are charming to look at, they certainly come with a bite. The quick paced combat will likely be a challenge to many, but as with anything, becomes easier with practice. The copious number of enemies will take a bit of getting used to; This is both a pain and a pleasure. Learning enemy attack patterns is all part and parcel of the experience, but if it is not done post-haste, your run may end all too soon.

The later levels become frequently frantic as the skill level also increases. Many times the difficulty results in a death right near the conclusion of the game. However, this isn't as much a problem as it is a part of the learning curve. A typical game will only last an hour at the most, so it's easy to fit in a turn or two during your free time. The game also ramps up the difficulty with subsequent successful playthroughs, introducing new items, enemies, and bosses. This keeps everything feeling novel, leading you into challenges with a refreshed sense of exploration.

The music here will be familiar to anyone who has spent any time with Edmund McMillen's earlier game Super Meat Boy. Composed by Danny Baranowsky, the soundtrack delivers electronic beats riding the line between moody and upbeat. The songs are a great background to the game but I find after playing for over 100 hours they can become a little repetitive. Fortunately you can mute the in-game music and play your own in the background if it gets too much.

The Binding of Isaac is a great game with a tonne of content for a small price. I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys rogue-likes, twin stick shooters, twitch style games, or Edmund McMillen's previous games. It may be a bit gruesome for some, but the sheer replayability and low price point are very hard to argue with. A huge update titled Wrath of the Lamb is due out in a few months so no time is better to plunge into this twisted, amusing, and exceptionally gratifying rogue-like.