Choosing between Rayman and the viking Barbara, you’ll go through different stages that focus on combat, classic platform puzzles or collecting lums. The controls themselves are simple to grasp. Rayman, and I’ll use Rayman as that was the character I chose, will continuously run in one direction until you swipe to change his direction. Tapping makes you jump. Swiping towards enemies and obstacles will launch an attack. Unfortunately the swipe to attack and change of direction are the same, which can cause confusion sometimes when you’re trying to do both actions in sequence. You can, however, play the entire game with one hand, which is a boon when you’re on the go. As far as I can tell Barbara controls the same although I got the feeling she’s slightly larger than Rayman on the screen.

Speaking of gaming on the go, Rayman Adventures is paced well for short spurts. Each adventure contains around three stages and the stages themselves can usually be completed in a few minutes. As you finish each stage, you’ll work towards acquiring an egg which hatches into an Incrediball. The Incrediballs are useful in two ways. They are sidekicks that will help you in the game. Some creatures help point out where the bonuses are. Some creatures will absorb damage so they’re useful in combat stages. You can play stages without a sidekick though. Freeing Incrediballs also enables them to contribute in ten meter spurts to the growth of a tree.

You might ask where this tree came from and why. Unfortunately, there’s not much explanation why. Exposition is kept to a bare minimum – usually on the adventure campaign map as subtitles. Why am I saving lums? Why am I freeing teensies? Why is there a tree? At best this is basic Rayman lore that eludes me, or at worse just a gimmick to keep the game going. With the completion of each adventure, you’ll open up one or more adventure areas. Once you put your egg in incubation and decide to move on, you can’t go back to that adventure. In fact, you don’t know where you’re progressing towards either but I assume this is how the game will be infinitely extensible since you’ll get additional adventures as the developers continue to update the game. Should you choose the adventure at the top of the map or on the right of the map? It doesn’t seem to make a material difference other than giving you different stages to complete.

The main currency in the game is the gem. Gems can help you buy food to feed your Incrediballs so they can become your sidekick. Gems can speed up or enhance through potions what Incrediball you’ll get from your incubating egg. Gems can come from completing stages, achieving daily reward milestones and from golden tickets; scratch-able lottery tickets. Simply watching an advertisement is considered a milestone too. Once you run out of gems, though, you’ll have to spend money to acquire them or replay older stages in your current adventure. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the eggs to incubate in real world time, which may be a half hour or an hour wait. The game is free so you expect there to be some catch to it.

Now, the worst part of Rayman Adventures is not the free to play mechanics. It’s actually the incessant need to connect to a server to play the game. I don’t know what server Ubisoft is using, but it needs an upgrade pronto. My experience with the game was playing on an iPad on Wi-Fi so I can only imagine the frustration playing on an iPhone on a mobile network where you may lose signal. That’s because the initial download of Rayman Adventures is quite small – at around 90 MB. Was this tailored for people who have the iPhone 16 GB mobile? When I first started the game, it asked to download some additional levels with the message “Connecting to server…” That’s okay as I’ve encountered this in other games like Modern Combat. When it finished downloading additional levels, I must have been very lucky because the game then asked me to go back to the App Store and download a new version and repeat the same process. Finally, I got to play through the tutorial adventures until I got past adventure three and the game needed more downloads. The “connecting to server” message appears again. Now as I finish the third adventure and move on, practically every stage requires a “connecting to server” message. I then started going to the store to claim my rewards and the “connecting to server” message comes up. At its most frustrating point, I finished all the stages in an adventure and wanted to move the egg into the incubator, which involves dragging an egg into an egg cup. Even that required “connecting to server” and I wasn’t able to complete the adventure. I tried closing everything on my iPad and rebooting the device but to no avail. During the next day, I tried Rayman Adventures again and it’s working. It appears losing connection to the Internet will also ruin the auto save process as well. I’ve heard of games operating on the cloud but this is taking it to the next level.

Rayman Adventures is not a deep game. You have to treat it as a collection of standalone adventures rather than a full fledged sequel that advances the Rayman franchise. In mobile play, that might not be a bad approach. You can easily get an hour of play from the game without putting money into it. Getting starter packs or extra gems will enable you to play longer. The biggest shame might be sinking money into the game and being unable to play it because of the dreaded server connection issues and that’s why in its current state, Rayman Adventures is difficult to recommend.

Reviewed By: Lawrence Wong
Publisher: Ubisoft
Rating: 60%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Rayman Adventures for the iPad from the iTunes App Store.

At its core, Freeblade is a rail shooter. You don’t control the movement of your knight nor do you even control where the knight is facing. Enemies will pop up and you use your finger to touch and drag your gatling gun whereas a two finger swipe will fire the secondary weapon. Double tapping will fire missiles. As each weapon has a reload or overheat period you have to balance between all three weapons against the multiple targets that show up on your screen. Eventually you’ll get a shield that only applies against the targets you tap on in the game. Melee is a timed challenge where you have to tap based on a countdown timer. Melee ended up being the easiest part of the game unless you’re playing on a bumpy subway or bus.

In the beginning of the game, combat is relatively easy as you’re mostly up against infantry and the odd armoured vehicle. Missions are no more than a few minutes in duration and then you’re shuttled back up to space to reload and refit. You’re effectively pulled off the front line as often as players are in a hockey game. As the campaign progresses, things get progressively more difficult. The Orks will swarm you with tiny buggies and switch it up with heavier weapons and some melee robotically enhanced Orks. There is never a dull moment in the game.

As a free to play game, Freeblade begins bogging down when the usual free to play mechanics show up. After the tutorial, I made great progress in the first handful of missions getting to the point where I was a known VIP to be targeted by the enemy. I felt like the rise of a great war hero on the front lines. At the conclusion of each mission, you salvage ore and weapons that can be used to upgrade yours or mixed together in a forge to produce better items. Thankfully, the developers have some auto-equip and auto-forge buttons that do the thinking for you. However, as the game progresses, you salvage more and more common items that produce weapons that are less effective. When I finally hit my wall, I had to chip in gold that I didn’t have to produce something satisfactory that would allow me to get past the next campaign mission.

The developers of Freeblade obviously planned for this so there are a few ways to increase your chances at getting enough resources and material to proceed: side missions, bonuses from watching video advertisements, salvage runs, and finally spending hard earned money for in game gold and items. Daily and weekly missions are offered outside of the campaign. The hope is that you get through these missions without too much wear and tear so your loot will equip you better for the main campaign. These missions fall outside of the storyline and are typically generic patrols where you kill everything on sight.

You can watch video advertisements at the head of a battle to get more bonuses. For example, a bonus may increase your chances at collecting rare loot. Periodically each real world day, you get to do a salvage run on the planet that will open a crate full of weapons or ore you can use. For me, even the extra missions weren’t allowing me to make a profit in my salvage to get me past the campaign. The video advertisements ended up being more annoying than anything. There’s one advertisement that is thirty seconds long for a patrol mission that could have been no longer than two minutes. The payoff simply wasn’t there and I ended up just waiting for the real world clock to advance so I can try my luck at a new salvage run.

Of course, all of this frustration is mitigated by spending money in the game. From a technical standpoint, Freeblade is impressive. The mechanics of the rail shooter, though simplistic, work well and fit a pick up and play motif. You can play it in short spurts and I can see someone trying to do this on a mobile phone even if I was reviewing on an iPad. It’s worth spending some money, and I found myself wondering what Freeblade would be like as an actual paid product. Tragically named, Freeblade proves the old adage that no iTunes or Google Play app is truly free. You’ll need the starter pack if you want to make serious head way into the campaign.

Reviewed By: Lawrence Wong
Publisher: Pixel Toys
Rating: 68%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade for the iPad from the iTunes App Store.

Regardless of your device, your vault is going to work principally on four resources: people, food, water, and power. To generate these, you’ll need to spend bottle caps on structures. People need housing, but housing needs power stations. In order to generate power, you must assign dwellers to work the power station. SPECIAL traits come into play as different structures require proficiencies of different people. Power stations, for example, are better staffed with people who have Strength. People, however, need food and water to survive so those pre-requisites must be there. Balancing all four options in the beginning of the game is delicate when you tend to overbuild or overpopulate your vault causing shortages. If the people can’t eat, they’ll lose health. If you don’t have enough water, your vault denizens become irradiated (how I don’t know, supposedly the vault keeps radiation out unless this is one of the many vaults in the Fallout universe that is defective).  There are secondary structures that help address this. A radio station can be set up to attract people from the wasteland. Medical and science labs can make stimpaks and rad-aways to temporarily deal with any acute supply issues you might have. Structures can be “rushed” to speed up production and generate bonus bottle caps, but you run the risk of rad roach infestation or fires in the building. Too many calamities and your vault dwellers get despondent too.

You will have to chase some secondary structures, though, simply because you are always assigned three in game reward objectives. Some of them could ask you to train a few dwellers in a SPECIAL trait, sell some weapons, upgrade some structures, or explore the wasteland. Achieving objectives can reward you with caps or lunchboxes that contain what looks like trading cards. Some cards give core resources, or VIP dwellers, weapons or outfits.

The initial objectives are quite easy to achieve and you’ll open up numerous lunchboxes. As the game progresses, lunchboxes become far and few in between. That’s when Bethesda steers you towards in-game purchases. I have to say that I was tempted in the beginning to speed up the progress of my game. I didn’t like fighting off slaver raids with my fists and the one BB gun my explorer found. I also didn’t want to wait for ten vault dweller babies to be born and grow up just so I could build the next structure I wanted. But I was able to get up to a hundred dwellers in a few days – you just have to spend a few days to balance the four resources, steer the vault population in the right way (more on that in a minute) and let some time pass. Unlike popular iPad games (Game of War comes to mind), your vault doesn’t live on to be attacked and killed by opponents in an online world. You can comfortably return to the game some time later and things will continue to operate. I appreciated this part of Fallout Shelter the most. It didn’t make you pay and chain you to the game. You can even play the game offline without an Internet connection although the lunchboxes cannot be purchased offline.

One of the more interesting things about Fallout Shelter is increasing your vault population. You do this by matchmaking a man and a woman in the housing shelter so they fall in love. Once they do, the woman becomes pregnant and the dwellers are returned to you for whatever assignment you give them with one catch; the women are unable to fight off rad roaches or put out fires. After a few hours of time in real life, a baby is born and you’ll have to wait for the child to grow up whilst it consumes food and water. Although it’s tempting to only mate the best of your vault, you’ll want to mix and match to avoid inbreeding. Fallout Shelter has no issues with you using a baby three generations later to mate with someone in his or her grandparents’ generation but you can’t commit any kind of incest. This pushes you to periodically get new blood into the Vault, either through the lunchboxes or radio.

Characters with better charisma in their SPECIAL trait will fall in love quicker. But in general, I never really found a reason to build structures to enhance anyone’s traits. Instead, I acquired enough outfits to equip them to some level of proficiency. It was only when the in game reward asked me to build a gym and train people in Agility did I manage to do that. You get to discard one objective a day, though, and typically I removed pointless objectives like that. Once vault dwellers exceeded level 10, I found them to be pretty competent in defending the vault and doing whatever their assigned profession is.

There is an option to send your character out to explore the wasteland. This, of course, is not as fun as the proper Fallout franchise. You get some random statistics of what opponents your explorer has encountered and how much experience they are receiving. You can recall your explorer (how I don’t know, communications are supposed to be down) to collect any caps, outfits or weapons that he or she might have accumulated in their quest. This was the easiest way for me to acquire items that otherwise would come from lunchboxes eschewing the need for an in game purchase.

Fallout Shelter is an interesting game until you reach the fifty dweller mark. After that, the game gets easy and monotonous. By this time, you have a strong base of people generating core resources and the only thing you’re missing is a flow of bottle caps which the passage of time will give you from the structures you’ve built and the increase in level from your dwellers. You’re no longer micromanaging anymore. I had at least a third if not more of my dwellers at level twenty or higher. And every time they increased levels, I collected an equal amount of bottle caps. Now multiply this by two and money stops becoming an issue. Boredom sets in as you’re waiting for your structures to generate money whilst your people gain experience. There’s no incentive to move people to different professions (serfdom anyone?) and the utility of a water purification plant (expensive) compared to a water treatment plant (cheap) isn’t that much different.

This is when I started to take a peek into my vault only once a day for a few minutes. I had reached a plateau. Compare this to when I began playing Fallout Shelter, when I spent hours micromanaging the infancy of my vault. Bethesda would like you to continue chasing VIP vault dwellers, outfits and weapons, but I had enough to keep the vault running and no amount of rad roaches or slaver raids was going to overrun this vault. Maybe this is how Fallout’s dystopia lore was born – a bunch of overseers who were bored and started social experiments in their vaults.

Reviewed By: Lawrence Wong
Publisher: Bethesda Game Studios
Rating: 70%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Fallout Shelter for the iPad from the iTunes App Store.

It used to be in game purchases simply made the game easier to play. In Kingdom Rush, I could simply cheat my way through difficult stages by purchasing health potions or other forms of deus ex machina. I could always reasonably finish the game myself but since spending time replaying stages was a commodity I didn’t want to spend, I made the plunge to buy some items to speed things up.

Recently, a coworker of mine was encouraging me to join him in Clash of Clans. He said the game was free so it’s not much of a commitment on my part and besides, I was always wondering why he had to go on his tablet in hotel lobbies and airport lounges to keep up with the game. Having been a fan of games like Settlers or Caesar, I thought a city building game with some military units would be fun on a tablet until I actually tried it. Now I realize it’s not so much a convenience factor as it is a veiled ongoing subscription cost you must constantly pay to continue with the game. The worst is the concept of a shield to protect your buildings, essentially your progress in the game, from other players. In our hyper-connected 24/7 world these days, there are a lot of people so this amounts to paying for a save game function. And yes, you have an alternative to paying, you can slowly (very slowly) generate it within the game’s mechanics. To get around this cash grab, my coworker suggested I join his online friends where he splits sentry duty a few hours a day to protect him and his allies. A few hours a day? Is this work or entertainment I wondered.

I first became truly annoyed by this in the now defunct Ultima Forever. A game that had top notch production values, and an ever expanding set of dungeons and locations to explore I was thoroughly confused as to how Electronic Arts would let Mythic publish a game like this for free until of course I realize there was a catch. Like a lot of RPGs, the game has a concept where your equipment breaks down. To repair your equipment, you needed keys and the keys were distributed sparingly throughout the dungeons. Of course, your equipment would only break down whilst in a dungeon but if you didn’t want to be bothered by this, you can buy some keys. Keys could also be collected for conversion into bigger and better items but what use are they to you if they shatter during the course of gameplay. I had been playing Ultima Forever since a few days after launch and you could tell the game was being tweaked here and there to ensure you have just the right incentive to play the game without being too frustrated.

Sadly, this has now extended to sports games as well. I don’t expect to get a copy of FIFA or Madden for free on iOS. Before purchasing, though, it’d be nice to play half a soccer or football game to try it out. But now it’s free. One day I fully expect to there will be a prompt to purchase something because I wanted to chip a ball over a keeper or do an onside kick.

I ended up politely declining the offer to participate in my coworker’s game of Clash of Clans. They must be making quite a bit of money as they are able to afford advertisements during weekend sports games. In the end, I’ll go back to my $19.99 purchase of XCOM Enemy Within. At least if I fail and let the aliens overrun planet Earth, I know it’s not because I didn’t shell out an incremental cost of $3.99 for a new SkyRanger so I can actually go on a ground mission.

The game begins with a flashback of Saxon’s time with a clandestine group called the Tyrants to another fugitive on the run, Anna Kelso.  Saxon had been working for a mercenary for hire corporation called Belltower (think Blackwater) but being the sole survivor of a botched operation led him to become part of the outfit.  The rest of the story is a mixture of Saxon finding out the truth behind his induction into the Tyrants as well as investigating the acute shortage of the drug Neuropozyne, a necessary serum required to fight human rejection of artificial augmentation.  Nearly all of it takes place in a futuristic Panama City.

The Fall works because it is able to mix obstacles and action sequences with multiple solutions that are seamless and for the most part reasonable.  Need to break into a guarded compound?  You can sneak around, find a ventilation shaft and get in undetected.  You can go in guns blazing provided you have enough ammunition and firepower to overcome the enemies.  Or if you invested in upgrading augmentations, you can use the cloaking augmentation to just walk past your enemies.  It’s this interplay that makes the gameplay part of The Fall so addictive.  Similarly, there are multiple responses to conversations with non playable characters that yield different outcomes.  Some make your life more difficult usually by putting you in the midst of a firefight.  Some enable you to use charm or subterfuge to get extra rewards.  For example, at one juncture Saxon needed to get into a night club.  My options were either to run an errand get a card to get through club security, kill all the club security guards, or upgrade my augmentations to a level where I can hack a pretty well protected back door.

On top of that, The Fall features an engrossing storyline that can be pieced together through eBooks, pocket secretaries and computer diary entries.  Some anecdotes are completely benign but often the reading material fleshes out the game world.  That said, The Fall is not a big game world.  This isn’t Elder Scrolls.  Although most areas are unlocked and ready for exploring once you hit Panama City, the game’s main plot line will take you to all the major destinations.  There are a few side quests but none that will take as long as the actual game itself.  Also due to restrictions of the tablet, there aren’t any dead end game areas randomly filled with swag that are redundant to the story.

The default control scheme for The Fall works remarkably well.  You use the left finger to move Saxon.  You use the right to look.  You can also double tap to automatically move to a specific area but I liked the direct control scheme better.  There are quick usage slots for your weapons, augmentations and inventory items.  While the tutorial mission is a little lengthy, you soon get a grasp of the whole interface.  You can hide behind objects similar to Gears of War by double tapping on the object.  You can do rolls to the other side of the wall by tapping an action button.  There are a few clipping issues in the busier areas.  I was stuck once rolling to a stack of crates and ended up in the crate in the midst of combat.

Speaking of combat, there are two areas of The Fall that I found wanting.  The first is aiming.  Combat is a bit frustrating because you can’t aim accurately.  With or without stabilizing or recoil enhancements to your weapons or the use of the zoom, the aiming was just never right.  When you get to enemies that wear body armor, you want to be aiming for their head to save ammunition.  The developers also praised the artificial intelligence in the game.  I found them to be moronic at best.  You can pick enemies off one by one such that I was able to clear four of five in an opposing squad stationed in one room whilst the last opponent having exited his alarmed state would go back to casually walking his normal patrol as if his other comrades did not exist before.  I also divided and conquered by repeatedly retreating back to ventilation ducts where enemies would not follow me.

In spite of these shortcomings, The Fall is still an engrossing game.  Beating the patrol patterns, playing the hacking mini game and sneaking around to bypass security cameras is a thrill because it creates tension.  That’s probably why the combat deficiencies are not as glaring as they should be.  The game is also well designed in that every key door probably has a password lying around.  You won’t ever be stuck because you never upgraded your augmentation to handle level four hacking.

Something that I found unrealistic was the ability to purchase ammunition, weapons and other upgrades at any given time even if you’re about to die (quick grab that revive pack!).  Currency is in the form of credits that are found throughout the game.  I need to search my trash more often because I can’t count how many hundreds of credits I found in rubbish bins.  If you don’t want to spend time exploring the environment, The Fall lets you make an in-game purchase to buy credits.  Thus if you really wanted to skip disabling the turret, you can spend a few real life dollars to purchase a rocket launcher.  It was unused by me but I can see some people using this to give themselves augmentations and weapons to effectively buy their way to completing the game.

Unsurprisingly, The Fall finishes with an ending that leads on to another yet unwritten chapter of the Deus Ex saga.  When compared to the PC and console games, I would say there is enough material in The Fall for one, or if you really push it, maybe two chapters of a typical Deus Ex corpus.   The story is incredibly rich.  Veterans of the franchise will appreciate the references to the NSF, Versalife, Bob Page, Gunther Hermann, etc. — so much so that any Deus Ex fan ought to check this game out.

Reviewed By: Lawrence Wong
Publisher: Square Enix
Rating: 80%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Deus Ex: The Fall for the iPad from the Apple iTunes Store.

World War Z starts out with Doug, an ex pilot, sitting around in a bar until a plane crashes into the building and all hell breaks loose as zombies jump out and start attacking victims. Doug’s wife is a military woman stationed in Japan with his son. While fighting off zombies, he gets a mobile call where his son confesses to killing the zombie version of his mother. He promises to get to Japan and asks him to stay safe for now. Doug then fights his way out of a city and extraordinarily flies half way across the world. The circumstances are about as believable as some moments in the movie.

Along the way, the game forces Doug to solve environmental puzzles whether it’s finding disconnected wires to open electrical items (usually a door or a switch) or running around trying to piece together numeric passcodes to open access panels next to locked doors. Conveniently, these codes are written on whiteboards scattered throughout buildings. Then someone got smart and started spreading the code on to different whiteboards with fake codes that trigger an alarm. Of course you can’t just run around a floor of a building finding all the codes. There are fires that need to be put out to get to one part of the room necessitating you to find a fire extinguisher. I’m sure you get the picture now. The puzzles can get monotonous and repetitive as they force you to back track over areas you’ve already gone through.

Of course, what’s a zombie game without actual zombies to shoot. The default control scheme has you double tapping to walk to places and when you wave the target reticule over a zombie, Doug will automatically shoot. There are also other control schemes that are more traditional where you get a direction pad. I didn’t mind the default scheme. Combat is split into three flavours. The most combat you’ll see is similar to Virtua Cop or House of the Dead. Doug is frozen in some indefensible position and has to shoot incoming zombies; usually from two different directions. Melee combat can also happen when you walk through staged ambushes similar to Call of Duty. You have to swipe in certain motions to dodge, push back and finally kill the zombie. Why you get ambushed all the time I will have no idea because often the zombies are so slow I think drawing a gun and shooting is probably a more effective way to dispatch the undead. Finally, there are rail shooter action sequences where you are on a vehicle trying eliminate hordes of zombies similar to the movie itself. The last part is the most dramatic but it happens infrequently.

As you solve puzzles and make the undead stay dead, you’ll also scavenge bodies and the ruins of each locale for supplies. Gun control laws are definitely not in effect in the near future because ammunition can be found in abundance if you just walk around looking for it. You can also pick up pieces of paper of people’s diaries that add to the dystopia but none of the fiction is actually riveting. How many notes about suicide and missing loved ones can you actually read? This isn’t Bioshock or Deus Ex.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about World War Z is its placement of checkpoints for game saves. There aren’t enough but the game has an inventory system driven by gold and experience. Experience is something you can pick up in the game itself. Gold, on the other hand, is something in-game purchases can buy you. So if you find yourself about to die and you know the last saved game is at the beginning of the level, you can bring up the inventory and purchase some medical kits to instantly heal yourself. The same applies to ammunition. I found it extremely irritating but that could explain why the game is only $2.99.

World War Z has its dramatic moments. How developers managed to fit mountains of swarming zombies in iOS I don’t know, but they do a good job. At times, the game even offers a creepy feeling and draws on that sense of desperation found in a game like Resident Evil. Those moments are unfortunately too far and few in between spaced out by endless environmental obstacles, annoying surprise melee attacks and some shooting gallery sequences that artificially exposes Doug to unnecessary danger. If the story were more compelling, you would want to see it through but sadly it’s not. After the movie’s initial box office results, Paramount has given the green light to film the next chapter of World War Z. Perhaps in a second outing, we can follow the Pitt character or someone else who doesn’t have to open a dozen locked doors to get to the next zombie horde.

Reviewed By: Lawrence Wong
Publisher: Paramount Digital Entertainment
Rating: 60%

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This review is based on a digital copy of World War Z for the iPad from the Apple iTunes Store.

Console gaming was introduced initially to a young audience. A whole generation of elementary school students grew up with the likes of Mario, Sonic and saved countless quarters on games like Street Fighter. When the preorders stop and the big box stores open up, which demographic will stand in a queue waiting to get their hands on a Playstation 4 or Xbox One? Most likely, it’s the same people who were salivating over a Playstation 2 or Xbox. Having recently been at a wedding with children ranging from early teens to toddlers, most of them were infatuated with their iPods, Galaxies, iPhones or iPads playing their Angry Birds or whatever new game is in vogue. The touch interface is so intuitive even babies seem capable of being entertained by them. Twenty years ago, children would moan, cry, nag and wail for their parents to spend hundreds of dollars on a SNES – will they do it come this autumn? Or for the same price as an Xbox One, those same children can get the latest iPad. Forget the children, which is more palatable to the parents?

The uproar about purchasing used games from retail stores is further illustration of how the paradigm of the target console gaming audience is one of an older one. The kids mentioned above never visit a retail store to get the latest games. They purchase from the Apple or Android store or some other application market place. They never use physical media because their devices don’t even support it. Everything is downloaded. What is the best game today could be discarded with the next five dollar download tomorrow. There are no time immemorial shrines of plastic boxes in their bedrooms. Games can be rented for a time or games can be handed out for free with in game purchases driving publisher sales. Where do retail stores and second hand media come into play for this generation of gamers? It doesn’t. Simply look at what’s happening with music and video media in the physical space. HMV is not where kids are hanging out anymore.

This is not to say the next generation of video gaming is dead. Far from it, a new generation of consoles may spark some original ideas and ways to engage gamers. The Kinect single handedly gave the Xbox 360 its second legs on life and validated the approach from the Wii, although Nintendo appears to have gone another way with the Wii U. However, if the industry continues to keep churning out bigger and faster consoles with endless sequels and reboots for games, it may find itself facing an ever shrinking demographic. Then it would really be no different than automobile companies who have run out of ideas churning out yet another version of the Camaro, GTO, Mustang hoping to pine on the nostalgia of an older generation.

The new physics engine, dubbed the “Infinity Engine,” actually does as advertised. It makes the game look more like real football: fluid and organic, not cookie cutter animations repeated ad infinitum. At first you won’t necessarily notice the difference, but the more you play, the more you realize that no two plays have been the same. The sheer variety is impressive. Sure, there are some graphical hitches here and there, but overall, I think it enhances the experience if you’re looking for it… but as with most things like this, you will only notice the difference if something doesn’t look right! Running into your own lineman on a draw play causes all the problems of running into the backside of a three hundred pound plus man brings. Conversely, the same hard trucking running back had one play where he broke three tackles, was hit in the middle of a spin move, and actually pushed himself up one-handed before recovering and running for the touchdown. It was magic!

Total Control Passing is another change. Like the Infinity Engine, the revamped passing mechanic is one of those things that it’s difficult to tell what has changed until that “Eureka!” moment when it all comes together. Comparing it to Madden 12 is probably the easiest way to understand. In last year’s version, pushing up on the analog stick when passing to a particular player would lead the receiver but not change the arc of the throw. But with Madden 13, making the same motion seems to have a noticeable effect on the trajectory of the throw. So leading receivers on cross field routes isn’t much different, but putting a higher arc on a pass downfield to a speedster makes it harder for defenders to magically swat it away! It’s all about throwing the ball into space, where the receiver will be, not where he is.

Keep in mind that the changes to the passing game are mirrored on defense, as corners and safeties are much more likely to play smarter and punish rushed throws. On both sides of the ball, player awareness has been heightened, and players actually have to look for the ball to make a play on it. While that may seem obvious, it’s actually new to Madden 13, and it does make a difference.

The all-new “Connected Careers” mode is a great idea… although part of me wonders about its execution. Essentially, you garner experience across all game modes, whether you are playing online, offline, franchise, or superstar. The goal is to reach the Hall of Fame as either a player or a coach. It adds a wonderfully addictive RPG element to the proceedings, complete with XP bonuses and character sheets. Player progression now feels natural, as you have to pay attention to balancing strengths and weaknesses not just for individual players, but also to how that translates to the larger team dynamic as well. It’s surprisingly fun, something I could see working for other sports games as well.

However, this revolutionary mode isn’t without some issues. The menu system is a convoluted mess at times; it certainly takes some getting used to. But for some truly peculiar reason, EA pushed Connected Careers at the expense of the classic “Franchise” mode. It all depends on whom you ask, but for me, my Madden experience has always revolved around the Franchise mode. I love to create my own virtual “Simon” (6’3”, now with hair!), put him on my favorite team and lead him to glory… and I can still do that, but only in “Superstar” mode.

In the new fangled “Connected Careers” pseudo-franchise mode, you can only play as a coach with set rosters. You can’t even edit players (that I could find), so I couldn’t cheat and change someone’s name to my own. The exclusion of what is a big draw to a lot of die-hard Madden fans feels like a slap in the face, but at the same time, seems like something a patch could fix. EA is notoriously bad about stuff like this, so I’m not holding my breath.

Graphically, Madden 13 has undergone a bit of a makeover. You’ll notice right from the outset that the presentation is better than it’s ever been. The inclusion of motion blur makes a surprisingly large difference to replays, making it look more “TV-like,” organic and ultimately, more realistic. In fact, there are a lot more little broadcast-style touches that make the experience more like watching a game on Sunday afternoon than ever before. This is bolstered by the commentary of Phil Simms and Jim Nance who, for the most part, keep things interesting and not too repetitive.

The Xbox 360 version of Madden 13 supports Kinect functionality, so the option is there if you want to use it. Personally, I didn’t find it particularly necessary, but it is fun to pretend you’re Peyton Manning! Unfortunately, like other games that try to take advantage of the Kinect’s voice recognition, the sensor can get confused. It goes beyond just annunciating clearly and speaking loudly; if there is any background noise whatsoever (including the game itself), then your commands seem to only get through occasionally if at all. The only way I could get it to really work as advertised was to turn the volume way down on the TV just to remove that variable. But in doing so, it removes the inherent realism of trying to audible over the crowd!

Because “Connected Careers” translates to online play, creating your own unique league with your friends now has even more longevity. Online set up, even just for random one-on-one encounters, is pretty easy. I also didn’t notice much lag or other issues that have plagued previous versions of the series.

So how to answer the initial question, does Madden 13 live up to the hype this year? The short answer is yes, but the long answer is still no. EA made some noticeable improvements to not only the gameplay, but also revamping some of the key modes of the series. “Connected Careers” is intriguing and addictive, and the Infinity Engine becomes more and more appreciated the more you play. Time will tell if hardcore fans end up appreciating their efforts. But Madden 13 loses points with me because of the “Franchise” mode debacle. The fact that you can’t have both a created player yet still coach the entire team bothers me to no end. Overall, it’s a better game (probably the best it’s ever been), but the experience still isn’t what it should be. The foundation has been laid, so here’s hoping next year will rectify these issues… but, as you are probably all too aware, we’ve said that before.

Reviewed By: Simon Waldron
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Rating: 85%

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This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of Madden NFL 13 provided by Electronic Arts.

Deponia is played using a third-person perspective, where you move from scene to scene. In each scene, there are various hotspots that you can interact with, including objects to pick up, people to talk to, and exits to take you to other scenes. Most everything in the game can be controlled by using a mouse. You left click where you want Rufus to move, you left click on objects to do something with them, and you right click on objects to examine them. The mouse wheel or clicking a button in the interface allows you to access your inventory, and the spacebar shows you where the hotspots are for the current scene. This is pretty standard for adventure games, making Deponia easy to start playing.

The majority of the puzzles in Deponia involve picking up and using inventory objects. For example, when you start out in your house, you have to pick up a plunger from the bathroom, which allows you to open a cupboard without a handle, which allows you to grab a mouse trap, which allows you to capture something from a dark corner, et cetera and so forth. Most of the puzzles are straightforward, but Deponia gives you a lot of places to explore with a lot of objects to pick up, and so your next move isn’t always obvious. Plus, given the comical nature of the universe where you’re playing, the puzzles don’t always make much sense (like when you use chewing gum as the elastic part of a slingshot), which adds to the complexity. I actually got stuck a couple of times while playing the game and had to consult a walkthrough, which hasn’t been the case in ages. Deponia also includes some mechanical puzzles, where you have to pull levers or rotate wheels, but these can be skipped if you don’t want to deal with them.

What should be the highlight of Deponia is the humor, but it was a mixed bag for me. There are a lot of funny jokes in the game, especially when you get stuck and start trying out every possible inventory object on every possible hotspot, but far too often Daedalic Entertainment falls in love with itself and allows conversations to drag on and on, often without a punchline. There might also be some differences between what people in Germany think is funny and what I think is funny. For example, after completing the game, you can turn on “droggeljug” mode, which replaces all of the text and spoken dialogue with the word “droggeljug.” Ha, ha? I lasted about one scene in that mode.

Overall, Deponia has some pluses and minuses. The story doesn’t make any sense, and the ending is terrible (nothing gets resolved; it’s all a set-up for the presumed next title in the franchise), but the world is colorful and the dialogue is well-acted, and the situations are more funny than not. Given its mild $20 price point, Deponia is a reasonable adventure to try out.

Reviewed By: Steven Carter
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Rating: 75%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Deponia for the PC provided by Daedalic Entertainment.

And of course with the release of Madden come the release of other games – a Call of Duty, some form of Halo, a competitor to Call of Duty (last year Battlefield, this year Medal of Honor), some racing game, some Resident Evil title – it sure is getting predictable these days.

Going away from predictability, the Wii U is coming out and you would assume Nintendo would be making a massive marketing push for their new console. As of now, I’ve yet to see it though. Of course, I’m still rather confused as to the premise of the console with its tablet sized game controller but then I was confused at the launch of the original Wii what motion gaming was all about. What baffles me is the screen which is tethered wirelessly to a console accepting optical media. You can apparently use it in lieu of a television but you still have to be in the vicinity of the console so what’s the difference between that and an iPad or Android tablet. Hopefully a fifteen second advertisement will explain everything.