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Merry Christmas and happy New Year! We’ll see you in 2012.

Why am I telling you this? Because in early August, my beloved friend Mythos gifted me a game on Steam. It was called Poker Night at the Inventory. And even though the long loading times were anticipated (It’s sort of normal for Wine programs), the lack of sound was a real punch in the crotch. And I don’t just mean there’s no background music: There was a complete and utter lack of any sound whatsoever. I tried a few things, but ultimately uninstalled it, leaving both me and Mythos unsatisfied.

However, after finally getting Team Fortress 2 to run on Wine (And I have to admit, it’s actually more fun than it was. My sincerest apologies, Valve), I bought the Tales of Monkey Island pack off Steam for about eight bucks (it was a 75% discount for Wednesday only). It runs perfectly, and since Tales of MI was made by Telltale… well, I installed Poker Night at the Inventory again. And even though I usually don’t review PC games, here’s one just for Mythos. I love you.

Poker Night At the Inventory

Gameplay

Well, it’s poker. Texas Hold’em, to be more accurate. You get your cards and then you bet. A pretty standard poker game as far as that goes. Were it not for who you are playing against, anyway: At the table also sit Max, the homicidal rabbit from Sam & Max Hit The Road and the Telltale made sequels, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner (which I don’t actually know, I looked it up), the Heavy Weapons Guy and, my personal favorite, Tycho Brahe from Penny Arcade. Yay!

Graphics

Your four opponents come from four different franchises with distincly different graphical styles. Except for Tycho, they are all represented extraordinarily well, which in case of Max isn’t much of a surprise because, you know, Telltale made the only 3D games he appeared in. What’s wrong with Tycho, you ask? Well, since he’s a webcomic character, he’s essentially solid colours with an outline. And the outline… well, sucks. May just be Wine, or my computer in general, but… it just looks off.

Sound

The voices are fitting. However, again with the exception of Tycho. It may just be that I have read Penny Arcade so much that I gave Tycho a voice in my head and they don’t fit together very well, but just like the outline, it’s off.

There’s also subtle background music, nothing too annoying. That’s how background music should be.

Multiplayer

Not that I know.

Controls

You point. You click. Fitting, since Max is from a point and click adventure and Telltale also made the Monkey Island sequels.

Other

Not really, I think I’m done.

Final Rating:

Where was I? Oh, yes. New game. Good game? We’ll see.

Mass Erect Effect
(It had to be done. Now I feel bad)

Two days ago, at around 10 am, Mass Effect came in the mail. An hour later I started playing. Yesterday, at around 2 am, I was finished. Mass Effect is the longest game I ever played through in a single session – and I left out approximately 95% of the side missions still. It’s an incredibly long game, with so very much content that going everywhere would take hours, searching every planet for valuables many more and talking to everybody… well, forget about it. You are commander Shepard, a person whose background and visuals you can define yourself (mine is a smokin’ hot soldierette, just for the record) who unfortunately suffers from permanent out of body experiences. Erm. Point is, it’s a third person shooter, you see your characters backside for most of the game (that’s why I chose a female, huhuh). But it’s not just a shooter, it also comes with heavy RPG elements such as a questlog and semi-open world environment. Or rather, open galaxy.

Many aspects of the game seem kind of half-assed, it comes with many bugs and the control for the Mako, as far as I know the only drivable vehicle in the game, are so awful that trying to go anywhere but straight forward with the left stick is a nightmare.

Shepard is very, very strong. He/She can potentially carry a hundred and fifty suits of heavy armor at once, even while wearing another one. His/Her pockets must be made by Time Lords. Well, all the more money for me when I get to sell all this stuff.

I’m actually going to go back to Mass Effect when I’m done writing this. Hm. I think I’m done writing this.

Rating: Recommended!
And not just because the possibility of alien lesbian sex. That has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Read a proper review on ABR

Another Blue Ribbon?

Then I made a new WordPress blog, because installing and setting up a full-on CMS is a lot of effort. Heck, I even chose a theme from the first page. The star image is however custom made. In Blender. I’m such a 3D guy. After a few setbacks when trying to figure out a couple of things, it’s finally going relatively well. I recently figured out how to force a line break, something not even Google could answer conclusively. Not important for posts, but for the category pages.

Speaking of categories, there’s distinct pages listing reviewed Xbox 360/Xbox LIVE Arcade/Indie/Xbox games as well as DLC. Now, aside from the 360 and XBLA section there’s only one entry for each category, but that’ll be fixed soon, since at the moment I’m aiming for a pace of one review per day – until I’m out of games, that is.

The blog, aptly named Althir’s Boring Reviews (In memory of my old blog, Althir’s Boring Blog) can be found here:

Erm, click me. If you want.

This does however not mean I’m leaving EFM – I don’t even intend to stop the short reviews. But I’ll probably post links to the full reviews along with them from now on. Anyway, ABR is pretty much just for Xbox related stuff, so anything that is not Xbox, such as the eventual third issue of PSD, will still come here. I’m mainly putting these somewhere else because I want them to be sorted properly, alphabetical and by platform, and Mythos denied me a “Reviews” section altogether a while ago. With a good reason though, so no hard feelings.

Brütal Legend

Brütal Legend is a game by that guy Tim Schafer. He’s also made Psychonauts, which I never played, and worked on the first installments of Monkey Island. That, and the fact that Brütal Legend is very much Heavy Metal in game form, was the main selling point. If you’re not into metal, you probably don’t even want to bother.

Gameplay

The game is essentially divided into three parts: Slashing enemies with a giant battleaxe/electrocuting them with a guitar, running over enemies and, something they failed to mention when advertising, real-time strategy. Said RTS parts are not particularly well done and can quickly become frustrating.

The other two gameplay modes are integrated seamlessly into the RTS: You can still grab your axe and decorate your car with enemies – but controlling your units is more important.

Story-wise, the game has Eddie Riggs, voiced by and partially modeled after Jack Black, who enters the realm of Metal, where people like the Kill Master and the Guardian of Metal live. This land is in despair and it’s up to Eddie to rescue it. Several times, really – in quick succession. Doesn’t saving the world getting old after a while?

Graphics

Brütal Legend is a very pretty game: It’s a caricative style, very colourful and every single screenshot could pass for a Metal album cover. The landscapes are littered with relics such as dragon statues and there’s giant stone e-guitars, swords and whatnot to be found. The characters and creatures are all extremely Metal: Porcupines with steel quills? Warthogs with wheels for legs! You can ride most animals, and said warthogs, which resemble motorcycles, are the fastest way to get around the land. Even the plants are metal: Exhaust pipes, wheels and scaffolding literally grow on trees and there’s a flower that throws the horns – \m/!

Sound

The soundtrack is compromised entirely of Metal in various subgenres. There’s Iced Earth, Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne, DragonForce… and a lot more, I’m not looking this up right now. Metal, Metal and more Metal, anyway. The voice actors are no exception: Eddie is voiced by Jack Black, the Kill Master is Lemmy, the Guardian of Metal is Ozzy Osbourne and General Lionwhyte and The Baron are the one, the only, Rob Fucking Halford. All these are modeled after their respective voice actors, even (with the exception of Lionwhyte). There’s also minor characters with known faces and voices: A mortar operator that needs assistance is obviously Kyle Gass, the other half of Tenacious D, and a Hunter is Brian Posehn – who I don’t actually know, or didn’t until Brütal Legend, but I’ve been told he’s relatively well known in the US. Not to be forgotten: Tim Curry voices the Big Bad. But said Big Bad is not modeled after him.

Multiplayer

There is one multiplayer mode, and that is RTS. Disappointing, really, I would have loved some open world racing action. But on the bright side, they let you play as all factions except for Lionwhyte, since that is essentially a mirror of another faction anyway. The multiplayer maps are based on parts of the game world and are for the most part symmetrical. As opposed to the story mode, you can not access advanced weaponry and your vehicle is unarmed, which makes it absolutely useless except maybe for flattening weak enemies – since all player avatars can fly, they are not even the fastest way around.

Controls

Depending on what situation you are in, there’s two different control schemes and those are still very similar: When on foot, you can choose solos with RT and play them (as extra powers), when you’re in a car, RT acellerates and LT decellerates, just like, well, every racing game on the Xbox. Using weapons is the exact same thing in either situation (just that the weapons differ). Flying (possible while on foot and in a stage battle) exchanges solo playing for flying up/down. Overall, the controls are easy to learn, which is always appreciated.

Achievements

The vast majority of achievements are awarded in single player mode: Every chapter has it’s own achievement, finding collectibles has several more. Some achievements can only be unlocked in a stage battle, but only very few of them actually require playing online. Which is good, because as with practically every multiplayer game except for Gears of War and Halo, there’s nobody who still gives a crap.

Other

The game starts with a short sequence showing Jack Black going into a record store and picking up a record – which then seamlessly blends into the live action menu. The menus are said record: The sleeve, the vinyl itself… absolutely awesome, looks great and fits the game perfectly. Where else do you get a live action menu? Also always appreciated: Unlockable concept art.

Summary

Brütal Legend is a great game until it gets frustrating with the RTS parts. But it’s very funny, very Metal and very, very Metal.

Final Rating:

Portal 2

It’s great. Play it. Play it now. If you don’t have it, buy it. If you have it, buy it anyway.

Rating: Why are you still here?
I told you to play!

Here, you’re welcome.

What is this? Well, the first one to enter this code at xbox.com will be blessed with a Gears of War 2 map pack – the Flashback Pack – which I can’t use because the code is invalid in Germany. I tried everything in my power, including accessing the website from an actual British computer in England, the code won’t work. Yes, I bought Gears 2 used. But the code was on a card with the silvery crap still covering the code so I am absolutely certain it’s not been used yet. I do not know if it will work for anyone who is not in the UK, but it won’t work from Germany so don’t bother wenn du das hier verstehst.

Again, go to Xbox.com, sign into your profile, select “Redeem Code” and enter it. Alternately, you can do this from the Xbox dashboard.

Update: The code was used. And he who did it was kind enough to thank me. Amazing.

The good: Chain saw gun. Chain saw duels. One boss can only be defeated with chain saw duels!

The odd: Dom has a wife. And she is lost. So he misses her. For literally half the game he whines about nothing else. Sounds like an attempt to humanize the character. And in the end, it works.

The bad: Every. Single. Time. You start the game, you have to wait for a while which feels like an eternity while it claims to update the network settings. Which have not changed in the least since the last thirty times it updated them. Arghl.
Also, which is a major pissoffness on my part, the game shipped with a DLC code for a mappack. Which is invalid in Germany because the game is banned here.

I also noticed a trend: Gears had A. Carmine. He was a fellow Gear and the only one who wore a helmet. He also didn’t last long, was sacked in the first act. Gears  2 has his (younger?) brother B. Carmine. Who also wears a helmet. And, surprise, he’s also sacked, albeit later on. Don’t get too attached to the Rook, mate. As I was told, Gears 3 has C. Carmine, who also wears a helmet. I don’t know how his story ends, but if history is any indication…

Also, Horde mode. Fuck yes. It’s you and your teammates against neverending waves of enemies. I approve.

Rating: Recommended!
I mean, holy crapness.

And I also made a couple of purchases on XBLA. Namedly, two games. Here we go.

Trials HD

Motorcycle. Obstacle course. Frustration. It was down 50% so I went for it.

Rating: Recommended!
Frustration aside, it’s incredible. Then again, I bought it so that I would have something to frustrate me.

The Secret of Monkey F-ing Island: Special Edition

Monkey Island, I believe, needs no introduction. I’ve talked about it at great lengths before (mainly when comparing it to Pirates of the Caribbean) and the Special Edition is the exact same game with “better” graphics (they went for an entirely different style, hence the quotation marks) and the original voice actors from the third game on. Optional: Playing it with the original 1991 graphics, sounds and music. The controls are worse than on MI2:SE (wrote a review on that earlier) in that you can’t walk around with the left stick anymore and selecting an action is a hassle, but other than that it is the classic game that I played and loved, though not as much as LeChuck’s Revenge, since that came a whole lot earlier.

Rating: Recommended!
If you haven’t played Monkey Island yet, buy it. If you did, hell, buy it anyway.

After the disaster that was Dead Space in German (I elaborated back in that review so I won’t rattle it down again), I swore to never ever ever buy anything per Games on Demand ever again. As you can probably tell simply by me explicitly pointing this out, I did it anyway. This time it was Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which would be my oldest Xbox 360 – game now were there not also Monkey Island 2, which probably even predates quite a few of those who read this text. Just like DS, Most Wanted only came in German – which I loathe – and French – which I do not speak. But fortunately it automatically selects German for me rather than displaying a menu with French pre-selected, that can only be influenced by the D-Pad and defaults to French after just a few seconds. Damn you, Visceral! Where was I? Oh, yeah.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

Since the fourth game, Need for Speed failed to put proper numbers in. If I’m not mistaken, this is Need For Speed 9. The “Most Wanted” part actually only happens at the very end of the game (not much of a spoiler, since getting there is the entire “story” this game has to offer), but it nonetheless has a heavy emphasis on three things: Fast cars (not these rice bowls seen in the Underground games, luckily), high speed pursuits and the worst rubber band AI yet to be seen in a game. The first two of those three are beautifully executed, but the third one is aggravating at best. At worst? Well, I expect to break this controller before I finish it, that should say enough.

Story

Story? Are you kidding me? You are a racer in some city and want to become the racer in some city, partially because some jackass named Clarence stole your shitty BMW* but also because screw it we want to drive fast.

*Indeed, by the time you get there you will have at least two cars that exceed the BMW in every field.

Graphics

The game is old enough to have grandchildren. And oh, look: It does. The rate at which NFS games are spat out is remarkable. Anyway, despite being old, which comes with some perks such as pixelated textures, the game is actually quite pretty, though it does suffer from two common diseases: A brownish colour filter and overuse of bad-looking bloom. The latter, however, looks better than on the PC version for some reason. Hurm.

Gameplay

The one reason why anyone would buy this game. Quite plenty of NFS games tried the cops and racer thing before: Parts 1, 3, 6,9, 10, 12 and 13. Or something like that, you can’t honestly expect me to keep track of this, I didn’t even play any after Carbon, aside from the new Hot Pursuit. Anyway, of all these, the one that did it the best was in my opinion definitely Most Wanted, which gives the police plenty of weapons to fight you and quite a few tactics which to program must have been some piece of work. Hot Pursuit 2010 does it similarly, but since it has a different focus, saying “better” or “worse” isn’t actually possible I guess.

The races on the other hand come in two flavours: Those that suffer from aforementioned rubber band AI and those that do not. The latter are a piece of cake to win, the former… not so much. Especially the Black List races, which are boss fights in a manner of speaking, are greatly affected by this, so much in fact that they can close in alarmingly fast, getting 500m closer within eight seconds while you are at 300kph.

Sound

Obviously with me being poor and without a license, I haven’t actually heard any of these engines live, so they may or may not be authentic. They do however sound pretty good and have distinct sound effects for different cars.

The music… well, let’s say I put on my own after a while because listening to the same four tracks (the only four I could stand) gets old after a while, let alone six effing years.

Achievements

Disappointingly, only one of three game modes was granted achievements (XBox LIVE and the Challenge Mode got not a single one) and even they are scarce, only one is awarded for every boss fight, making fifteen achievements in total which are entirely unmissable if one finishes the game. An achievement for, I dunno, an hour of pursuit in one sitting would have been nice.

So, is this recommended? You bet your buttocks it is, even if it’s just for the incredibly fun police chases.

Rating: Recommended!
Wee!

Unfun Fact: Just like Dead Space and now Most Wanted, the German Xbox version of Burnout 3: Takedown comes without the English texts and audio. When the console is set to English, it goes by one language by default which can not be changed in the menus. This language is… French. Le fuck? Merde!