Limbo

     Limbo. This was one of those games we've heard a lot of in recent years, one of the wave of indie hits that have gotten a lot of press, made a lot of money, and opened up new places for gaming. Indie games are taken seriously now, both by the big companies and by gamers, and Limbo was one of those games everyone sang the praise of when it came out. Since I had only recently begun PC gaming, and being eager for a new adventure, I bought the game, ready to see what the big deal was.

     And to be honest... I was tempted to call it overrated at first. That first time through, I didn't connect with the game the way I'd hoped, there wasn't that little spark that a great game ignites in you. I think, sometimes, your mood and your circumstances can get in the way of the experience, prevent you from seeing it clearly. To be sure, I could see all the things that made the game good- it just wasn't hitting me.

     So, being interested in reviewing it, I made the time to play through it again, and I am glad I did. This time around, I was able to appreciate the incredible atmosphere, art, sound, and story Play Dead put in this game. It's amazing what they managed to do with shades of black and grey: they brought an entire world to life (or unlife, as the case might be). Limbo has that quality I look for, even if I didn't "get it" that first time. 

     Games are the artform of creating experiences. The basic actions you make in Limbo, or any other game for that matter, could be stripped down to rectangles and pixels (don't worry, I'll be getting to Thomas Was Alone soon enough), but when all the various elements are put together, moreover, designed for the purpose of fitting together, they create a world that lives in its own right, and an experience in that world that it alone can offer.

     The gameplay revolves around puzzles and platforming challenges, blending the two together very well, and the world, particularly in light of the game's title, is evocative of some kind of purgatory. This cohesion between the game and it's setting is most admirable.

     A game ought to immerse you, to draw you in and make the things you see onscreen real, not a series of images or a piece of software, but something alive, and the things that happen to the boy don't just happen to him, but to you, as well. His journey becomes your journey, his struggles your own, his goals your desires.

     As I mentioned in the video, there are no breaks or divisions in the game, only a map that scrolls forward until the very end. That one detail is one of the most brilliant designs I've seen in a game. It creates a sense of restlessness and a vague feeling of urgency. Most of the time, nothing is actively trying to hurt you; you can stay in one place and be safe. It's only when you try to move forward that you are in danger- and writing this now, I realize how brilliant a design that was. It creates a kind of tension: the endless scrolling and the wide view of what's ahead pull you forward, continually putting you in harm's way. You can stop your journey and be safe, but the path ahead will always be there, threatening, but also alluring.

     This, I believe, is how Limbo manages to tell a good story without giving you any kind of conventional narrative. Books and movies are about a series of events and choices, a good game is a series of events and choices- this, I suspect, is one of the most important distinctions between these forms of storytelling. The tension between choices, the danger ahead, the option of an unsatisfying safety, the necessity of pushing forward- that's a great story. And in a game with such great visual design and memorable atmosphere, it makes for a fantastic descent into the underworld. 

Speedyard

See all my reviews and other videos at Shotgun Butterfly!

Pop

     Eh... not much to say here. More likely than not, Pop was an attempt to cash in on the Wii and could be seen as a harbinger of things to come. You know what I mean... waggle. I've often heard the criticism that the Wii's revolutionary motion controls, coupled with relaxed standards on Nintendo's part, saw an influx of "shovelware" where winning the game amounted to "waggling" the control as fast as you could. And to be honest, waggling was an explicit part of Pop. There really wasn't much to this game, certainly not enough to warrant a seven dollar price tag. But hey, they knew someone like me with a brand new Wii was eager to buy something- and that was probably enough for them to make a little money of it.

     Altogether, Pop was just a horribly unmemorable and rather boring game. It might have worked as a one dollar touchscreen game, but as anything more, it's really just a waste of time and money. I will grant, though, that when the Wii first came out, it was just amazing to be controlling something onscreen with the precision the wiimote offered, and that alone was fun... but far from enough to save this game. Bam. I have said all there really is to say about this game. Go buy World of Goo instead.

Speedyard

See all my reviews and other videos at Shotgun Butterfly!

Age of Zombies

     Age of Zombies! Now this was a fun game. Not much to the story; it was minorly amusing, I guess, and I do like that they had different zombies for each of the time periods. The real fun was in the survival mode, where you faced off against an endless swarm of zombies coming at you from all sides. The game was at its best there and demonstrated a great balance in the gameplay. You had to juggle dodging zombies and corralling them into manageable groups with a careful management of your weapon usage and your score multiplier. It really kept you on your toes, requiring careful control of your character (Barry Steakfries, to be precise), a tactical plan for getting the most out of your temporary weapon pickups, and a longterm plan to manage it all in order to maximize your score. It made for a lot of harrowing misses as the horde closed in around me and last-minute saves as I reached a minigun just in time and quickly turned to mow down the horde. You were rewarded for learning the zombie's patterns, both in how they moved and where the next group would teleport in at, but it never took away the need to be aware of where you were and what you would do next. Age of Zombies was a great game and I highly recommend it for someone looking for pure zombie shooting action.

Speedyard

See all my reviews and other videos at Shotgun Butterfly!

Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess!

     Ah, this was a good little game! It's one of those games that you kind of feel bad for, given it's platform. Being released as a PSP mini, I doubt it ever got the kind of recognition it deserved. From what I can tell, it hasn't been ported to any touch devices or other handhelds, but it absolutely deserves to. It had a unique, fun, and challenging play mechanic and really left a good impression on me. It had a degree of polish that most smaller games don't seem to have, that little something that all the details like the tightness of the controls and the cleverness of the art style get across. To put it simply, it never felt cheap. From the gameplay, to the art, the music, the menus and unlockables even, you could tell effort had gone into it, that someone cared about making a game that, for a game aiming for smallness and simplicity, had real quality. Of all the PSP mini's I ever saw for sale, this one had the most personality, the most character- and that's precisely what I look for in any game. If you buy mini's on your PS3, this one's worth looking into.

Speedyard

See all my reviews and other videos at Shotgun Butterfly!

Welcome!

     Welcome to Should You Get! The main purpose of this blog is to act as a place to post extended information for the games I review in my "Should You Get..." feature on my Youtube channel, Shotgun Butterfly. I sometimes have a few more things to say about the games I review that I can't fit into the video reviews, so this is the place to post those thoughts.

     My aim with these reviews is to answer the basic question, "Should you get this game?" I tend to avoid numerical scores and I aim for a "video essay" format. As with all my game-related writing, I focus on the quality of the game as an experience above all else; look to see whether it is fun, engaging, or provocative in some way.

     I don't limit myself: I've reviewed everything from simple puzzle games to big-budget FPSes, and I'm willing to review for any system, platform, or genre. I tend to review recent games from the past five years or so, with a focus on more recent releases, though I won't rule out older titles.

     I try to avoid being dry and overly formal. I want to keep my videos conversational in tone, but always intelligent in content. I want to get across the enthusiasm I feel for games and all the things about them that make them worth talking about. Thus far, I've tended to stick to reviewing the game with few frills. Many "review shows" are just that: shows, and they feature all sorts of jokes and skits. I haven't done much of that, but again, that might change. As I said, Should You Get focuses on brief reviews rather than in-depth analysis or wacky skits. I have plans to do some things along those lines in future videos, but that will be some time in coming.

     It's been rewarding working on these reviews, as well as all the other videos I've made and am even now planning, and it feels good to be writing as well. I have big plans for all my work- so stick around! We're going to have a lot of fun diving into the world of games and all the makes them great.


Speedyard

See all my reviews and other videos at Shotgun Butterfly!