Review: Virtue's Last Reward (PS Vita)

Virtue's Last Reward, sequel to the DS game 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, is not your typical gameplay experience. The graphics are comparatively plain, you don't fight anyone, and you read on-screen text more than you do anything else. That said, Virtue's Last Reward is one of the most riveting video games I have ever played.

At the start of the game, you wake up to discover that you've been kidnapped and trapped in an elevator by a malicious stranger who speaks with you via a maniacal AI rabbit. As it turns out, eight other people have also been abducted—and you are all being forced to play a deadly game. If you win, you can escape captivity. If you lose, you die. In addition to solving puzzles, you must participate in reality TV-style votes. Will your teammates ally with you for your mutual benefit, or will they betray you for a chance at their own freedom? Will you turn out to be a traitor yourself?

As the game progresses, the plot becomes increasingly intricate as you come to know your fellow competitors and as you make use of the game's flowchart system. After you naturally play to one of the game's endings on your own, you are permitted to travel back to pivotal moments and to make different choices. Ultimately, you will reach the true ending, and it will blow your mind. The very last plot twist lost me a little, but aside from that, I was more than glad to be along for this ride. 

There's no denying that this game is clunky. Looking around rooms and zooming in on objects during puzzle sequences can feel a bit stilted. (The PS Vita's touchscreen really helped with this, though.) The game's puzzles are tough, in part because they are not entirely intuitive. For example, I occasionally found myself stumped until I finally realized that two seemingly unrelated items in my inventory needed to be combined. The story sequences were so long that once I got going, there was no convenient place to save the game if real life interrupted me. 

Despite these minor flaws, however, Virtue's Last Reward is amazing. I haven't been this challenged and entertained in a long time, nor have I been so interested in collecting even the smallest insights into the minds of video game characters. If a bestselling thriller novel combined with a brilliant puzzler sounds appealing to you, this one is a winner.

Sympathy for the Devil: Idealism in Ni No Kuni

I had a blast playing Ni No Kuni, so much so that I continued to play it long after my confrontation with the official final boss. My familiars gained levels and evolved, I hunted down lost items, I enjoyed the stellar soundtrack, and I continued to visit the in-game locations that I loved the most. This game charmed me from the first few minutes of play, and it held on to me until there was basically nothing left to do.

What was so wonderful about Ni No Kuni? It's an all-around great game, and I didn't find anything to complain about. But its world especially drew me in because it was so damned nice.

Ni No Kuni is a game that believes everyone is truly good at heart. People who are hateful, cruel, or uncaring aren't that way because they are inherently flawed. Instead, they are heartbroken, and all you have to do to help them is find surpluses of the qualities they lack (including enthusiasm, kindness, courage, restraint, belief, confidence, ambition, and love) and then magically collect and share them. Even the worst enemies usually begin with good intentions, and while you have to fight them first, you can eventually end up having reasonable conversations with them. No one is so irrevocably broken that there is no redemption to be found. Oliver, the main character of the story, is a sweet boy who brings out the best in everyone.

Despite its idealism about the inherent goodness of other people, however, Ni No Kuni is not without true emotional weight. The story begins because Oliver's mother has died, and he travels to a parallel world with the goal of saving her. It is never clear whether Oliver's travels between worlds are "real," or whether they are part of a fantasy that he concocts to comfort himself after an unfathomable loss. No matter how you want to view the story, it does not offer any easy fixes for Oliver's grief. Even if most people turn out to be good in the end, Ni No Kuni allows its characters to experience real loss, including death, love that is impaired by serious obstacles, and, in one case, even the heartbreak of estrangement from family. Hearts can be fixed, but that doesn't mean everything can be repaired with a wave of a magic wand.

Ultimately, Ni No Kuni teaches the art of being soft and open to the world, but still tough. From the mouths of babes, I guess.

Harder!: On Fetishizing Difficult Games

As I've gotten back into more regular gaming, I have come to notice a somewhat vexing trend: the fetishization of difficulty in video games. There is, of course, nothing wrong with enjoying games that are hard. Dark Souls II is bringing joy to countless gamers right now as I type.

But I'm tired of getting the impression that gamers who don't permanently exist on the brink of rage quitting (or allegedly breeze through the hardest of difficulties) are somehow inferior. This drove me crazy in the weeks leading up to Thief's release—no one wanted to talk about the game itself, only how hard gamers could make it for themselves. And of course, the harder you made it, the more "real" your experience was. When I read reviews of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the game's atmosphere and fun factor sometimes seem to take a backseat to discussions of how hard the game is. IGN's Jose Otero praises the game for creating challenging yet achievable levels, but also can't resist an extra claim to badassery: 

To help welcome novice players, there’s a helpful item shop in each stage where you can purchase potions, balloons, and shields that will keep you alive longer. These items help alot, but I made a conscious effort not to use them. I challenged myself to finish Tropical Freeze on my own terms.

Way to make people feel judged for liking the balloon store. I remember seeing similar attitudes about Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS—the first half of the game is nothing, that half is for babies, the special levels are where the real game begins. Recently, I've seen several tweets and articles that ask the question, "What's the hardest game you've ever played?"

Games are for fun, no matter what level of difficulty you prefer. If harder games mean more fun for you, that's great. But that's not the be all and end all of gaming. I love to play games, but I am not exceptionally skilled. I like a challenge, but I often start games on easy because it takes time for me to adjust to new controls. I don't even know how many times I have died playing Super Mario 3D Land, and sometimes I was relieved to see that Super Tanooki suit. Why do I constantly get the impression that I'm supposed to feel bad about that?

For every gamer who wants a brutal experience, there is a gamer like me—probably several more gamers like me. I just want to unwind and have a good time, or maybe have some friendly competition if I'm in the mood. I'd rather connect with a game emotionally without fretting about the difficulty level. There are many ways to love gaming, all of them true and pure.

Review: Thomas Was Alone (PS Vita)

Not every game involves hundreds of hours of play or countless agonizing deaths—some games make for a pleasant afternoon ride that is engaging without being overly demanding. Thomas Was Alone is one of those games. It is short, sweet, and satisfying.

This puzzle platformer is as minimalist as it gets. The characters you control are quadrilaterals that vary in terms of size, shape, and jumping abilities. They travel through a world made up of equally minimalistic black shapes with gray backgrounds. But Thomas Was Alone's aesthetics are deceptively simple: The game tells the story of several AI creations who have been discarded by their human programmers and who must make their own way through an increasingly hostile digital world. The colorful shapes you pilot are actually characters with personalities, and Danny Wallace's good-humored narration makes you feel like you have actually gotten to know each one. The squares and rectangles you meet throughout the game have flawed but lovable personalities, and experience jealousy, insecurity, megalomania, friendship, and even love.

Thomas Was Alone has notably smooth, precise gameplay. It is full of puzzles with fun mechanics that involve different sorts of jumps, as well as abilities to float and defy gravity. None of the puzzles will make you tear your hair out, and only a few need to be completed under time pressure. The game isn't particularly challenging, but that's okay—I found that the mild difficulty level led to a smooth, meditative ride. The trance is deepened by a quality soundtrack that complements the gameplay without ever intruding on it. At times, the ride is a little too smooth. I actually found myself stunned to reach the end, because I never registered any powerful climactic or concluding moments. But in the end, that didn't detract from my fun.

Verdict: If you like puzzles and platformers, Thomas Was Alone is an excellent choice. The game is short, it's sweet, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. I found myself truly enjoying the story and rooting for its quadrilateral protagonists. My afternoon with Thomas Was Alone was an afternoon very well spent.

Review: Proteus (PS Vita)

I put my first day of Spring Break relaxation to good use by giving Proteus a thorough playthrough. When Proteus was first released as a PC game, it provoked several discussions of whether it counted as a game at all. The "goal" of the game is simply to explore a pixellated island full of plants, wildlife, and passing seasons. There are no requirements, no battles, and no ways to interact with the world except to walk and sit. On the PS Vita, you can also adjust colors using the rear touchpad, which is a nice added feature. An entire playthrough takes about an hour, if you're taking your time.

While Proteus does not have particularly impressive graphics, the visuals of the game are only one component of the experience. As you explore the island, the soundtrack changes in response to your movements. What plants do you examine, and what animals do you try to approach? Are you on the beach, or on top of a snowy mountain? The sounds you hear will change accordingly.

While this game tends to be a love it or hate it affair, I would say that it is mediocre. I have no issue with games that are all about the experience—Proteus has been compared to Flower and Journey, both of which I enjoyed tremendously. Given that the game's soundtrack evolves in response to the player's actions, I would also compare Proteus to Sound Shapes, a music-based platformer.

Proteus, however, falls short of these other games. It can provide a few hours of amusement (I gave it three playthroughs so that I could see a few different islands and find out whether the game would grow on me), but ultimately it isn't much to write home about. I will probably never bother to play it again. The graphics are pretty crappy, the music is nothing revelatory, and at a whopping $13.99, the game is ludicrously overpriced on the PSN. After reading several reviews in which the writers claimed to have laughed out loud in delight, to have rekindled childhood curiosity, or to have been reminded of hiking in the wilderness, I expected a lot more from my time with Proteus. You might get more out of it if you can insert more of yourself into it, but I found myself feeling alienated from the game's environment because possible interactions with it were so limited.

Verdict: Proteus might be worth playing if it goes on sale and if you're into "experience" games, but you're better off replaying Journey.

Honeyed Words and Skyrim Skill Trees

I have spent well over 100 hours playing Skyrim, and most of those hours were nonstop fun. The rest were spent grinding to improve my smithing skills. Making dwarven bows and enchanting them is profitable and great for levels and perks, but I would rather be out adventuring. And there is no way you could convince me to sit around practicing alchemy.

The sad reality is that Skyrim's most delightful skills (for me, anyway) are terrible perk investments. Lockpicking is not worth the perk points. Pickpocketing requires many points you before you can experience the joy of stealing the armor right off of your enemy's back—and that's if you can sneak up on someone in the first place. Additionally, Skyrim's leveling system guarantees that thieving skills are not the ones you want to develop early in the game. If combat skills aren't your primary concern, you can gain too many levels without improving as a fighter, then end up hopelessly disadvantaged during dungeon crawls. While it is fun to roleplay as a thief, overcommitment to stealth skills is Skyrim suicide.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Why not create more complex dungeons with more alternate routes and expanded possibilities for stealth? Picking locks could then be good for something other than the occasional shortcut or access to extra loot. Pickpocketing could be developed further by offering more opportunities to sneak up on enemies who carry important items or access keys.

Most wonderful of all would be improvements to the ultimate power of the Dragonborn: Speech. If the Dovahkiin can force dragons to the ground with her voice, then why can't she also use her speech skills for purposes aside from commerce and the occasional persuasion or intimidation check? I'd love to see scenarios in which I can sweet talk bandits and convince them to turn on each other, or even use speech skills to assist with pickpocketing. Perhaps people who have come to like or trust me could let down their guard and become less sensitive to a little thievery. If busted while breaking into someone's house, I could talk my way out of trouble. Speech could even have come into play during the civil war questline, which includes several raids conducted as part of a group of soldiers. Imagine being able to better rally and command the soldiers around you, or even being able to convince enemy soldiers to turn on each other without your allies having to do much of anything.

It's cruel to include skill trees that are so potentially interesting, but then squander the opportunity by forcing players to focus on other skill sets to ensure success in key parts of the game. I want to see an Elder Scrolls game in which all major skill sets (warrior, thief, mage) offer viable paths to victory.

In Defense of Thief

On February 25, Thief was released to a chorus of crappy reviews. At best, it has been called entertaining but flawed. At worst, it's been called an abomination.

I am not saying the game is perfect. Sometimes the sound cuts out, which is irritating. The in-game map is unhelpful and finding your way around can be a pain (although things get easier once you've spent time exploring The City). The half-baked supernatural plot line is unimpressive.

But none of these things is a death knell. Skyrim was buggy as hell, had repetitive dialogue (arrow in the knee, anyone?), and included some rather silly plot threads. We still loved it to death.

The truth is, I've been having a blast playing Thief. A lot of love went into creating this game's world. While a dark, oppressive atmosphere is consistent throughout, Thief's level design has enough nuance to keep things interesting. The warm red tones of a brothel, the dark mystery of ruins under The City, a house full of secret passages, and a terrifying abandoned asylum all held my attention. Propaganda posters are pasted to the walls throughout The City, and there are hundreds of collectible documents that give you further insight into Garrett's world (as well as tip you off to some good looting opportunities). Most of the game's collectables are intricately designed and have stories and meanings behind them. The paintings that you collect are just awful enough to convince you that they are high art. I love them.

In addition to its visual richness, Thief immerses you in sound. Although the audio does cut out sometimes, the game sounds amazing—Garret softly pads along various surfaces, opens and closes drawers and cabinets, and deploys his thieving tools with sound effects that immersed me in his world. And for all of the nostalgia for Garrett's old voice, I love the voice actor in the reboot. Garrett is a man of few words, but the words he does say are expressive and believable. During the prologue, he shows tremendous frustration with Erin while also showing tremendous restraint. When speaking to Basso, he remains laconic but is still somehow affectionate. He speaks to employers like Ector, Orion, and Vittori professionally and without asking too many questions—as a professional thief should. Basso, too, is extremely likable, and I wanted to see a lot more of him. Not only does he provide some much-needed levity in a dark and serious game, but he also brings out the best in Garrett.

Thief's actual gameplay is also hugely enjoyable. I have not had any issues with the controls, and I generally feel one with Garrett as I guide him through the game world. The swoop move never gets old, and close calls while robbing unsuspecting people blind have not yet ceased to thrill me. The AI is a lot smarter than the reviews led me to believe, and several of the game's scenarios presented me with real challenges. I love that I can adjust the difficulty or re-attempt missions using different playstyles,  and these options add a lot of replay value.

If you ask me, Thief is a tremendously enjoyable game, and one that is well worth your time if you're into stealth. So why do my own feelings seem to be in opposition to those of the rest of the internet?

I think Thief was crippled by the huge expectations that were placed on it by fans of the original trilogy, and by Eidos Montreal's desire to rise to those expectations. The demand for the original voice actor, the hate for new game features that are completely normal in other current games, and the obsession with whether the game would be hard enough ultimately guaranteed that no one was going to be satisfied. Because Thief is the only Thief game I have ever played, I don't come to it with the same perspective. It may not be like the good old days, but I'm guessing it probably never was. Still, if you want to roll like they did in 1998, Steam is probably having a sale right now.

Dying for a PS4—Just Not Now

I have been a gamer since my brother and I received our first Game Boys for Christmas, but I haven't been playing much since I started grad school. That all changed last year, when I decided it was time to buy myself a new console. Even though the PS4 was about to launch, I purchased a PS3 instead. So far, I haven't regretted it. The PS3 has an enormous catalogue of games that will continue to expand for another year, and my to-play list is intimidatingly deep. There is a lot of talk about next-gen graphics, but I am sufficiently impressed with Uncharted 3.

That, and every time I walk into a Gamestop to look at the PS4 game selection, I end up feeling disappointed. If you don't like sports games or shooters, your current PS4 options are downright depressing. Knack received middling reviews, while South Park: The Stick of Truth and Tales of Symphonia just came out for the PS3. Thief, Rayman Legends, Tomb Raider, Flower, and Assassin's Creed IV are also available on consoles other than the PS4. Meanwhile, all of the PS4 games that truly excite me won't drop until much later in the year. Witcher 3, The Order: 1886, and Shadow of Mordor are all on my wish list, but they won't be out until the end of next December, just in time to deplete my Christmas money. I will probably cave in and get myself a PS4 in time to play Elder Scrolls Online, but that's a lot of months to spend playing just one game.

There's no disputing that the PS4 is hugely popular and that everyone wants one. I myself want one in the near future. Over 6 million of them have sold so far. But what the hell is everyone playing right now? Would even more consoles have sold if there had been more diversity among launch titles?