grim dawn review

                                                     About This Game

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In the action role-playing game Grim Dawn, players are thrust into the dark, war-torn world of Cairn where a once proud empire has been brought to ruin and the human race driven to the edge of extinction. Cairn has become ground zero of an eternal war between two otherworldly powers, one seeking to use human bodies as a resource, the other intent upon destroying the human race before that can happen. This cataclysmic war has not only decimated human civilization but is warping the very fabric of reality and, in its wake, giving life to new horrors.

For humankind it is the dawn of a grim new age where iron has replaced gold as currency and the importance of salt as a weapon makes it far too valuable to waste on food. Small enclaves of human survivors exist scattered throughout the world, holed up in hidden refuges. These humans have quietly watched the warring invaders destroy one another and have become wise to the strengths and vulnerabilities of their otherworldly foes. A few survivors have begun to exhibit strange new abilities after surviving possession or exposure to the warp. These unnatural powers are feared by some but give many new hope of launching a resistance to fight the "outsiders" and reclaim what is left of their world.

You are one such individual. Blessed, or perhaps cursed, by the touch of Aetherial influence, you have powers and strength beyond that of normal men. It is now up to you to take this fearsome potential and use it against the enemies of humanity. Will you be the one to save Cairn from its grim fate? Or is humanity doomed to extinction?

Release Date: February 25, 2016

Genre: Action

Publisher: Crate Entertainment

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THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS HD REVIEW

Nintendo's HD update modernizes this epic Zelda game, but also brings out some of its flaws.

BY JOSE OTERO When I’m locked in an epic battle with Fyrus, a fiery boss that looks like a Balrog ripped out of Lord of the Rings, I can barely notice that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD is a graphical update to a 10-year-old Gamecube game. This elegantly designed encounter takes place inside the Goron Mines, and you have to make smart use of arrows and the heft of Link’s metal boots to trip the creature up and put him away. It’s a great fight; one of many emotional high points in the adventure. Twilight Princess HD doesn't always manage to look this slick, but when it does, it’s a great example of how a new coat of paint can bring back the magic of a classic Zelda game.
The fact that Twilight Princess holds up 10 years later is a testament to its ambitious scale, its memorable set pieces, and of course, its finely-tuned dungeon puzzles. You have to get through a slow opening hour, but once the story kicks into gear you’re tossed from the quaint activities of small-town life and thrust into a struggle to save Hyrule from the encroaching minions of the Twilight realm. Along the way you’ll meet interesting characters like Mayor Bo, the highest authority in Ordon Village, whose secret sumo wrestling training will help you enter the Goron Mines, or Midna, a sassy sidekick who hides her motivations for helping Link. The campaign jumps skillfully between the personal plights of these characters and exploring the devilishly clever dungeons for which Twilight Princess is so rightfully remembered.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD -- Opening Cutscene

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Twilight Princess’s labyrinthine dungeons are some of the best in the series, and each requires creative usage of Link’s diverse set of items in order to best them. Whether you’re manipulating statues to mimic your movements inside the pristine Temple of Time with the Dominion Rod or using double clawshots to cross deadly gaps inside the windy Sky Temple, the constant variety feels great. In series tradition, Twilight Princess develops a natural language over the course of the adventure that makes deciphering its item-based puzzles intuitive. But there is a catch: that same variety undermines its item sandbox, relegating a handful of its more unique items to one-and-done trials. It’s a bummer to discover that items like the Spinner, Slingshot, or Ball and Chain don’t have a lot of use after the first dungeon you find them in.

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Twilight Princess’s labyrinthine dungeons are some of the best in the series...

While the dungeons themselves are a major highlight, it’s a shame that the overworld, and the towns that dot it, don’t get the same attention; they feel empty by comparison. Though Twilight Princess presents one of the largest incarnations of Hyrule field in the series with nice, long draw distances, packs of enemies are spread out rather thinly across it, and I didn’t find a ton of reasons to explore it outside of a handful of secrets. This was a problem for me when it was originally released in 2006, and it’s still a problem now. The same could be said about the bustling Hyrule Castle, a large space full of citizens, but few of them offer any appealing distractions from the main campaign.

The Harsh Lens of Truth

The most obvious change from the original version of Twilight Princess is the substantial graphical update. The HD version uses detailed, high-definition textures in an attempt to rejuvenate Nintendo's decade-old epic for a modern audience, but the results are mixed. While looking for keys in the underground Lakebed Temple or fighting off King Bublin and his minions in an impressive battle on horseback, the graphics looked quite nice, at least at first glance. Each area benefits in some way from the added detail, with textures that add the illusion of bump-mapping to give depth to formerly simple geometry.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Graphics Comparison

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On closer inspection, though, this higher fidelity also reveals some distracting flaws, like the way the softer lighting engine doesn’t produce natural shadows, leaving places like the mountains surrounding Kakariko village looking like they're missing something. Make no mistake, this version of Twilight Princess looks far better on modern televisions than the original one ever did, but half of the time I found myself distracted by all the filed down, shadowless surfaces while wishing Nintendo had gone the extra mile to make this port stand on par with the timeless look of Wind Waker’s stunning HD facelift.
Thankfully, improved controls and other additions help modernize this remaster in neat ways, from streamlining inventory management via the GamePad, which makes it easier to swap items in and out, to speeding up sluggishly paced sections of the campaign. The new Hero mode’s stiff challenge will give seasoned Zelda experts a much tougher game to play right from the start, too. Finally, Twilight Princess HD also uses amiibo as a way to customize your experience, so you can add tweaks like double enemy damage until the end of a play session or replenish hearts once a day.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD -- Temple of Time Dungeon

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If you buy the Wolf Link amiibo, you’ll get access to the new Cave of Shadows. It’s a tough-but-fair gauntlet of Twili enemies to fight, but I wish Nintendo had done a little more to make combat as Wolf Link more enjoyable. It just isn’t as fluid or diverse as using Link’s advanced sword techniques, like the Helm Splitter, and that makes this optional add-on much less attractive.

The Verdict

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD holds plenty of memorable moments that’ve stood the test of time, and Nintendo’s high-definition update does a lot to modernize its look and feel. This cleaner, fresher presentation is still noticeably and disappointingly flat in some ways, but just past that are some of the best puzzles and dungeons to be found anywhere in the series.

IN THIS ARTICLE

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HDReleased Mar. 4th

WII U

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SUPERHOT REVIEW

BY ALANAH PEARCE Every level in Superhot is an exciting, self-contained, time-bending puzzle that turns typical fast-paced first-person shooter mechanics on their head. Every time you move, your enemies and their bullets do, too – but if you stand still, so will time. It’s a unique idea that creates a smart, tense puzzles where, in between reloading and lining up a shot, you can sometimes dodge every individual bullet in the spray of a burst rifle by moving one small step - and therefore a fraction of a second.

Even as you learn that painful lesson, near-instant respawns keep Superhot’s pace feeling addictive, rather than frustrating. The levels are also designed in a way that compliments both replayability and trial and error: they’re small, self-contained combat instances that would be a tiny part of a level in most games. The real-time playback you get when you complete a level might only be five seconds long, but Superhot’s real gameplay exists in those moments where time has stopped and you have to carefully calculate your next movement based on a heightened situational awareness of what the enemies around you are likely to do while they can move, too.

The First 14 Minutes of Superhot

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Tough decisions happen in those moments: Is it worth picking up that object to throw, knowing that picking something up is the most time-consuming action you can take, and your enemy might have moved three feet to the left by the time it lands? Something that an action hero would have to do by instinct in a split second is, in Superhot, a carefully thought-out move.

Pick Your Targets

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You’re not Batman - there aren’t any fancy takedown moves.

While the difficulty does increase throughout the 32 levels by introducing environments with less cover to hide behind, multiple entry points for enemies, and usually a lot more enemies armed with shotguns and rifles instead of clubs or pistols (just like other shooters), Superhot also presents scenarios that would likely be impossible without the ability to slow time. One of the later levels, for example, has you standing unarmed in a small room with three armed enemies. You’re not Batman - there aren’t any fancy takedown moves, so you have a few intense seconds to rely on your own attention to detail, and take tiny steps that let you see which enemy might raise their gun first, whether one of their bullets will be inside your head in the next second, or whether the one you just disarmed has recovered behind you and is ready to punch you out before you can shoot the others.

Gamescom Trailer

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None of my deaths in Superhot felt unfair, though - with white, plain environments that starkly contrast with glowing red enemies that shatter when they’re dead, with a sound effect that makes sure you know they’re out of the picture, every aspect of its visual design is catered to your success, so long as you’re meticulous.

A Particular Set of Skills

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Superhot doesn’t bother to introduce new weapons or effects to master.

But while every scenario offers a unique challenge, and every level is wholly worth playing, there’s a very significant lack of them - Superhot only takes around four hours to finish, and never significantly evolves its concept in that amount of time. Unlike a puzzle game like Portal or Braid, which constantly introduce new spins on their novelty mechanics, Superhot always functions based on the same time-stopping principle, just in different environments. It doesn’t bother to introduce new weapons or effects to master, except for a ‘possession’ style action that you’re never overtly prompted to use because no levels are designed around it. In its lack of variety and brief length, Superhot feels underdeveloped – a good first step toward a great game, but not quite there yet.

Superhot: Surviving In The Brutal Endless Mode

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Finishing the main story will unlock some very basic challenge modes in the same levels, but also an ‘endless’ mode that’s fairly addictive in its near-ridiculous difficulty. Hopefully we’ll eventually see some leaderboards, but they weren’t available at the time of review - the difficult-to-decipher menu is actually full of holes and links that lead to nothing, or things that aren’t explained well.

That’s if you can manage to get through the story without wanting to quit, though - what starts out as a laughably cheesy 90s-style hacker story turns into an annoyingly corny roadblock in between the enjoyable gameplay. While it uses its premise in some creative ways - like telling you to quit but rendering your ‘esc’ button useless - it’s largely just nonsensical in its ridiculous hacker hyperbole, like telling you your body is disposable, and you should submit to the software. The entire experience also feels very skewed towards the upcoming VR headsets, as opposed to the 2D screens it’s playable on right now, and while it’s easy to imagine playing these levels and experiencing some of the pixelated software-inspired cutscenes in VR, I doubt it would make the story any more impactful or intelligent.

The Verdict

Superhot’s clever time-manipulation idea delivers consistently fulfilling challenges by turning blink-of-an-eye action into carefully considered and cautious tactical decisions. It avoids potential one-hit death frustration with quick respawns and deaths that always feel earned and avoidable in hindsight. Its unique brand of puzzles are complemented by simplistic but helpfully high-contrast art and sound design, yet undermined by a tedious, intrusive story and a reluctance to put new game-changing spins on its ideas to extend their lives. 

IN THIS ARTICLE

Superhot Released Feb. 25th

PC LINUX XBOX ONE MAC

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PILLARS OF ETERNITY: THE WHITE MARCH PART 2 REVIEW

BY LEIF JOHNSON As happy as I was to meet a new party member, I admit I frowned a bit when I met Maneha. She's a barbarian, and thus a member of the only playable combat class that wasn't already represented by a named NPC companion. Her appearance thus marks a filling of the blanks; a sign that Obsidian's long saga is rushing toward its end with The White March: Part II. The snowy wastes of the White March, too, once felt like a blank slate, but now they've proven host to a memorable struggle that leaves few questions unanswered. With this seemingly final expansion, such elements come together to cement Pillars' status as one of the most memorable RPGs in recent memory.

Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part II - Official Release Trailer

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High praise, you might say, from someone who wasn't exactly fawning over the expansion's first half (and my opinion on that hasn't changed). It's just that the second half does everything so much better. Set seemingly months in the future, it kicks off by chronicling the consequences of improved fortunes at the hamlet of Stalwart in the wake of the White Forge's relighting, and ends with actions and sacrifices that feel almost as momentous as those capping the events of Pillars of Eternity proper. Though a touch formulaic, this is the stuff of great fantasy: the awakening of a forgotten evil rumbling in the bowels of the earth and the emergence of an army that threatens to kick aside civilization like a beachside sandcastle.

The New Faces of Evil

It doesn't hurt that the main antagonists are fun to look at, sort of like half-metallic, half-fleshy Groots with hammers and spears standing in for hands. As imposing and heavy-hitting as these giants are, though, they're not the main challenge in combat here (nor, somewhat hilariously, is the towering final boss). That honor mainly goes to the monkish followers of the goddess Ondra, who rove about their cloisters in balanced flocks with powerful casters and dodgy acolytes who demand careful planning with every pull. And all that says nothing of the varied battles with foes like tentacles and angry flowers that fill in the spaces between.

Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part II - Official New Abilities Trailer

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In contrast to its forebear, Part II is tightly paced (almost to the point of overlinearity), and it wisely minimizes visits to familiar areas in favor of exploring new ramshackle garrisons, menacing caverns, and gloomy temples built among the bones of a dead god. The enemies are creepier, and the lore more fascinating. I particularly enjoyed Maneha's brief personal quest, which takes the Watcher's motley comitatus into a gloomy abbey where she needs to offer tokens representing memories people would like to forget. Her voice acting tragically leans more toward "academic advisor" than "coastal raider," but I nevertheless found her dark personal quest one of the more engaging ones Pillars has offered so far. A crop of endings tailored to your choices rounds out the expansion's final moments, granting meaning to your actions over the journey’s roughly 10-hour runtime and the increased level cap to 16.

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The enemies are creepier, and the lore more fascinating.

Happily, the journey needn't be as taxing as it was in the past. The release of Part II coincides with Pillars' latest general patch for the game proper, which brings numerous tweaks as well as a fun scenario in which you have to fight for your stronghold in the face of a local lord's violent objections. But more to the point, the update also introduces "Story Time," a new difficulty setting that takes its cues from the Normal setting and, to use Obsidian's language, "biases the math heavily in the player’s favor."

It still presents challenge in spots, but it comes closer to being a true "Easy" mode than what Pillars had before. For players who just want to enjoy Pillars' rich tale and flip through the lore without mastering spellbook juggling, it's a godsend. Pillars until now has relied almost exclusively on vicious combat encounters requiring intense micromanagement to the point of tedium, and as my five deaths to the same merry band of no-name cultists attests, that's still true of the higher settings.

 

 

 

 

 

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The price of The White March: Part II's pacing is that the whole affair feels a bit short. I spent perhaps more time than I should have plodding through the expansion's first half, but I got through Part II in less than 10 hours. It left me hungry for more. Virtually everything here neatly serves the purposes of the overall narrative, which means there's little cause for exploration or, indeed, even the opportunity. But taken as a whole, it's ultimately worth it, and if this is your first time to Pillars club, you should do the smart thing and buy the two parts together rather than separately. As with so many predicaments in high fantasy, it gets better.

The Verdict

The White March: Part II expansion for Pillars of Eternity boasts better pacing and lore than its humdrum predecessor, but at the cost of a running time that feels somewhat inadequate. A welcome new Story Time mode helps dull the force of the brutal combat though, and memorable settings and enemies make this an expansion to savor.

IN THIS ARTICLE

Pillar of Eternity: The White March - Part IIReleases February 16, 2016

PC

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