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]]>Read the Spelunky review. (opens in new tab)
As the initial wave of PlayStation Vita launch titles came to a crawl, two eagerly anticipated games dropped in June. Metal Gear Solid HD Collection revisits not only the PS2 classics, but somewhat functions as a companion to the PS3 game more than its own standalone experience. That leaves Gravity Rush as the unequivocally best PlayStation Vita game that’s out there.
As heroine Kat, you’ll be thrust into a gravity-defying fight against the Nevi, creatures that wants to colonize the burg of Hekseville. With a unique approach to not only gameplay, but methods of interacting with the PlayStation Vita hardware. As you get used to utilizing Kat’s powers to the max, Gravity Rush empowers you with an arsenal of incredible moves that never cease to thrill along the way.
If you’ve been on the fence about buying a PlayStation Vita, Gravity Rush is a great reason to finally make the leap.
Runner-up: Quantum Conundrum
Read the Quantum Conundrum review. (opens in new tab)
It’s no small feat to follow up one of the finest games of the last decade, but Kim Swift and the team at Airtight Games have concocted another excellent puzzle title. With Quantum Conundrum, that familiar thread of logic and spatial puzzles colliding with platforming elements arises again. It’s not fair to constantly judge QC under the lens of Valve’s title, since its its own entity. If you dive in and try to tackle its brain-teasers, you’ll love the process of discovering how many ways you can skin a cat. Well, not literally. That’s messy. And kinda cruel.
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]]>The best puzzle games have the ability to make the player feel inversely smart and stupid. Fez takes this further than any game we’ve ever played, giving us the feeling of being both cackling genius and babbling idiot within minutes of each other. It’s an absolute triumph in creating something new both in terms of its platforming and its puzzle solving; blending together genres in ways we’ve never seen.
It’s about opening doors, exploring, deciphering languages, and dipping your toe into the well of insanity just enough to hopefully come out with the knowledge needed to open one more door, to get one more cube. We’re sure some will be turned off by the dense, unorthodox style – it’s absolutely not for everyone – but we’re in love, and expect to spend many more hours unraveling the game’s secrets.
Runner-up: The Walking Dead: A New Day
Read The Walking Dead game review.
Telltale did a fantastic job of turning The Walking Dead into a videogame, trumping its attempts at adapting Jurassic Park and Back to the Future handily. The mix of old-school puzzle solving and action-based quick-time events spoke perfectly to the source material, creating an absurdly tense, emotional experience that blindsided us completely. If it can keep up the pace with future episodes The Walking Dead could be one of the developer’s best, and we’re really, really hoping that ends up being the case. We’re also hoping we eventually get to kill that one guy – if you played the game you know exactly who we’re talking about.
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]]>the Damned
Many in the Japanese games industry talk gloom and doom for their future, but if they’d all just shut up and make games as crazy, funny, action-packed, and unique asShadows of the Damned (opens in new tab), everything would be fine. Headed up by the beloved-by-critics Suda51, with support from big name developers including Resident Evil’s Shinji Mikami and Silent Hill’s Akira Yamaoka, this exuberant look at a journey through the bowels of Hell was head and shoulders above everything else that cropped up on home consoles this month.
The bloody, shadowy action was more entertaining than FEAR 3, the unique design aesthetics made us forget about Alice, the eclectic soundtrack is one of the most memorable we’ve heard in a long time, and the comedy was legitimately funny, unlike the painfully shitty Duke Nukem. Shadows of the Damned first won our hearts by being the most playable game from Grasshopper Manufacture to date, no doubt helped by the input of Mikami, as the controls take what RE4 did for over-the-shoulder shooting and ran with it. Despite being equipped with only three different firearms throughout the game, the shooting never let us down.
As we braved through more of Hell in SotD, we found to so many other reasons to enjoy our stay. Almost all the boss fights had some clever trick that kept things interesting, with some battles a genuine challenge that made each win feeling earned. We loved how sometimes SotD wouldsuddenly surprise us with some gameplay twist that was truly bizarre and unpredictable. Likewise the game impressed us with how it kept its formula fresh while simultaneously maintaining a familiar feel to the action. But what we’ll remember most is Damned’s mastery of the not-so-subtle art of the dick joke.
Shadows of the Damned never met a dick joke it didn’t love, with the risqué gags told so often and with such giddiness that you just have to give in and enjoy them. Unlike the mean jockishness of Duke Nukem Forever’s humor, Damned’s juvenile jokes have a childlike innocence to them that you can’t hate. SotD has over-the-top action, an unpredictable pace, and more dick jokes than you can shake a phallic symbol at. What’s not to love?
Shadows of the Damned never met a dick joke it didn’t love, with the risqué gags told so often and with such giddiness that you just have to give in and enjoy them. Unlike the mean jockishness of Duke Nukem Forever’s humor, Damned’s juvenile jokes have a childlike innocence to them that you can’t hate. SotD has over-the-top action, an unpredictable pace, and more dick jokes than you can shake a phallic symbol at. What’s not to love?
Runner up: The Legend
of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
In the grand scheme of things,Ocarina (opens in new tab)is a bigger, better game than Shadows of the Damned. But it wouldn’t be fair to award “Game of the Month” to a remake instead of a brand new title, so we’re bumping this admittedly excellent 3D conversion down to runner-up. Like we said in the review, this is everything you loved about the groundbreaking original – the puzzles, the story, the expansive Hyrule Field and countless secrets hidden in every room – gussied up for another moment in the spotlight. Further improvements, like controls and inventory management, were also addressed to make this the definitive version of an already outstanding adventure. As with any Zelda, there are a handful of minor complaints along the way, but they’re insignificant when compared to the staggering amount Nintendo (and 3DS dev Grezzo) got so perfectly right.
Jun 30, 2011
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