Status: Main game completed, varying difficulties

When I spot games that are under $10 I instinctively want to add them to my game library (much to the chagrin of my husband). Hence why I’m rarely allowed to peruse the game section at Fry’s when we stop in there. For the most part I’ve scored big, finding titles that I’d either forgotten I wanted or oddities that seemed to fly under everyone’s radar.

I really only picked up Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 because 1) it was cheap, and 2) I wanted to see just how well this surgical game played. I’d heard about the ridiculousness of having to disarm a bomb using medical supplies in a previous installment, probably what had originally caused me to avoid the franchise.

Truth be told, I didn’t care too much about the story of Under the Knife 2. Sure, I glanced it over as I mashed my way through to start the operations and I caught a bit of it. Some super virus that the Trauma Center team believed they’d previously put a stop to has resurfaced and they are dealing with a new medical group who will stop at nothing to get their names on the map. Or something like that. I don’t normally skim story like this but all I wanted from Trauma Center was the surgical experience.

(Also, the “voice acting” in Trauma Center is awful. Random short clips of speaking come up every once in a while, more often than not clashing with the actual text. I’ll take no voice over the over exaggerated bits. It just amazes me that the Professor Layton series can do so well with including and incorporating audio on a DS cart while so many others can’t get the formula right.)

Anyway, back to the important part – the gameplay.

Left: Reassembling the ribcage | Right: Draining blood & removing the shattered bones

You won’t be able to waltz into a hospital with the skills to perform heart surgery but you will improve your hand-eye coordination after spending hours upon hours digitally operating on patients. Starting out with simpler tasks like removing benign tumors and suturing wounds, you’ll get a handle on the basic tools of Derek Stiles’ trade. Then the story starts throwing crazy stuff at you. GUILT, a creation of bio-terrorists and c0-star of the previous installment, rears its ugly head with various new strains and mutations for you to deal with. Things get more complicated, requiring the use of every surgical implement at your disposal as well as Derek’s super power: Healing Touch.

Derek’s Healing Touch is activated by drawing a star over the patient, slowing the timer so you can add a few precious seconds to the clock. Generally, Healing Touch may only be used once per operation so making sure you use it at the right time (if you need it at all) is imperative. Every surgery has a time limit noted at the top of the screen with other pertinent information about the procedure you are undertaking and your attending nurse will give you status updates should the patient’s health drop or they notice anything significant happening. When Healing Touch was available to me I did my best to save it for use near the end of my procedures, just in case I need a few extra seconds to stitch, disinfect and bandage my charges.

At the start of each operation you can select from three difficulties. I’ve only been able to run through a couple at the beginning on Hard, with most of them finished on Normal or Easy modes. This was a game I was checking out for the experience, so I wasn’t going to beat myself up for coasting through on Easy. Besides, even on Easy some of those surgeries prove challenging.

I’d been very impressed as I found myself nearing ever closer to the end of the game that my time had been spent treating those in need and not doing the impossible. Then I found myself using a scalpel to open a locked door. Because this is a scenario doctors would find themselves in. Even more ridiculous was that for part of this event I had to use the Healing Touch on part of the lock so I could slice through some cables.

Unrealistic situations aside, the surgeries themselves can get pretty intense. So much so that at one point I was gripping the DS so tightly with my left hand during a scenario which took three attempts for me to save a patient that I managed to pull a muscle in my arm. My husband bugged me about it relentlessly after I told him about it, joking that I would make a horrible doctor. I also had to switch from my larger stylus (a Lost in Blue preorder bonus) to the thin stylus so that using the scalpel felt more natural; I was making clumsy incisions using the other.

Hope I didn't lose anything in there, like a watch or a sandwich

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 was a nice change of pace from my usual gaming habits. Being able to play doctor for a fraction of what medical school would cost with the added bonus of not throwing up at the thought of really cutting open a body gave me a sense of accomplishment, granted one that didn’t come with a fancy piece of paper or a paying job.

Overall Opinion

While I had a great time trying out a genre that was never in my go to bag, I can’t say that my time with Derek and team will continue. Trauma Center was an experience I felt I needed to enhance my overall gaming comprehension. If you want to be a well rounded gamer, you should leave your comfort zone and give new ideas a try every so often. Even with the outlandish story and below sub-par voice acting, there is a style of gameplay that I had never attempted before and proved a pleasant discovery for me. That in itself trumped my issues with the other aspects of this game and I believe I am a better gamer for it.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 can be purchased via Amazon

Status: Unlocked a good chunk of gardenables, only a few seeds left for my collection

As a fan of the first two Cooking Mama titles, I was excited to try the first franchise off-shoot, Gardening Mama. Mama and I had gotten along pretty well in those first two games and the prospect of moving to a new environment was inviting. By the end of Cooking Mama 2 things were getting a bit too repetitive for my liking and I needed a break from the kitchen.

Unfortunately, not a lot had really changed from Cooking Mama to Gardening Mama.

In single player mode (or Let’s Get Growing), the garden is broken up into sections: flowers, roses, fruit, and vegetables. Like any garden, you can only do so much at once with any particular plant, so more often than not you’ll be dividing your attentions amongst the various gardens tending to weeds, pests, and sprouts. And that makes sense as that’s typically how a garden operates. Once you’ve unlocked some more seeds and gardens, you’ll instinctively want to plant more items but the game has other plans.

Watering the sprouts

After finishing a task on one plant, you start getting notifications that other plants need tending to. Sure you can push them off, but if you do the plants won’t last for long and die off, forcing you to start from scratch and take a failing grade. So you are forced into a nearly unending cycle of rushing from one wilting plant to the next time after time, leaving you very little opportunity to start something new. When this turned into a regular occurrence, my desire to keep playing dropped substantially.

The controls for Gardening Mama have not gotten any better. If anything, Mama has become more vague with her directions and I felt like I had no real freedom to do as much as I wanted to. Most of the directions were the same as before: drawing shapes on the screen, pouring water, blowing into the mic. However some instructions come simply with a vague description and no visual aid to assist you. I have yet to successfully bend a sapling’s trunk to tie down onto a trellis because I can’t seem to find the right spot on the thing to bend it and always run out of time or somehow snap it in half. If Mama didn’t want to get angry with me every time it happens, you’d think she’d give better directions to her students.

But I don't want Mama to fix it!

Once a plant has completed a full life cycle, you receive your overall score and see what sort of butterfly you’ve attracted. The one I’ve seen most often is the white cabbage butterfly. If you’ve unlocked any new seeds or a special item, that will pop up for you as well. Exactly like every Mama game I’ve played before it and every other game I refuse to touch.

Gardening Mama also features a multiplayer mode where you can link up with other players to exchange items or compete in mini-games. I skipped this feature but did mess around with customizing my garden accessories and dressing up Mama. It’s always nice to be able to change things up a bit, I only it had helped keep me interested in playing the game more.

Overall Opinion

Usually I go for 100% unlocks in a game, especially in genres such as this one, however I just can’t bring myself to put this cartridge back into my DSi XL. Even if a game is based on chores, it shouldn’t feel like a chore to play it. Gardening Mama has confirmed for me that I am finished with the Mama franchise. There will be no Crafting, Camping, or Babysitting Mama in my future and it saddens me to say that I now wish this series would just go away. It started off with promise and has turned into another Babiez/Horsez/Dogz-esque pile of mediocre and uninspiring code that should join the Atari 2600 E.T. game in a pit.

You can purchase Gardening Mama via Amazon

Plants grow happy with rainbow water time

Status: Finished completely through several times over
Trophies: 9 of 14

When Microsoft fails to give me the amazingly different and unique IP (intellectual property) I crave, I know I can turn to my PS3. Betsy doesn’t get as heavy a workout as Betty, her 360 counterpart, but she knows that when she does, she is about to be part of something truly special.

ThatGameGompany’s masterpiece has me going back for thirds, fourths, and fifths. If digital food had calories, I’d be too fat to get off my couch by now. Journey is indeed that delicious to behold. Stunning isn’t a strong enough word to describe the eye candy I’ve been ingesting these last few days. I can tell you it’s going to be ages before I get the Return trophy because I can’t see myself waiting a week to play this again anytime soon. Daily exposure is on my menu for the next month at least.

As told completely through visuals, Journey tells the tale of a civilization that once inhabited the land. Beginning in the desert with a goal of reaching a grand mountain in the distance, you will follow in the footsteps of your ancestors as you fight the elements and traverse a great distance to make your way home.

I’ve played both flOw and flOwer and loved them, but the beautiful, wordless storytelling and direction of Journey has trumped it’s predecessors. While all three of the PSN exclusives embrace the “feel” aspect that TGC advocate, Journey is definitely the most successful. The immersive  feeling of trudging or sliding through sand greatly varies from trudging through the snowdrifts and massive winds as I neared the mountain goal. And as a Canadian used to tromping through waist-deep snowdrifts and 50/kph winds in the dead of winter, I can assure you that the way TGC presented Snow is exactly dead on.

For the first level of the game as you make your initial walk through the desert expanse toward the first cluster of massive buildings known as the Hub, you’ll notice a mountain in the distance that the game automatically focuses the camera on. Without a word, Journey has told the player that your goal is the mountain and the beam of light at its peak. Once you’ve reached the Hub, you may notice other players exploring the world with you. Multiplayer in Journey is encouraged but not a requirement; if you want to spend your time exploring every nook and cranny alone or team up with another person who wants to help guide you to some of the more elusive secrets, the choice is yours.

Head toward the mountain with a Companion or alone

Communicating with other players or the ribbon creatures that will aid you on your travels toward the mountain is done with the push of a button. The circle button is your voice: a simple chime that can call the ribbons to you to replenish the energy in your scarf or to beckon your Companion to follow. Along with that chime is a glyph that appears over the players’ heads that is unique to them for that particular run through the game. At the end of your Journey you will be able to see the PSN tag that matched the glyphs of those you spent time with. These are randomly assigned at the start of each new quest so it’s very likely you’ll see the same symbols several times.

There are other glyphs to be found along the way, each one adding length to your scarf. It is with this energy that you can jump and fly; the longer the scarf, the longer you can soar. Most levels have three or four of these for you to find, with some hidden and others in plain sight. Find all of these and you will be able to don a special outfit at the start of your next adventure. I am currently searching for the last three that I need to unlock this item in my game.

I absolutely love gliding over this bridge

Some may argue that Journey is too short, as most of the time you can finish within 90 minutes. My response is that it’s all about discovery. The first time through everything is fresh and there is so much to take in that you may be distracted by one thing and miss several others. Each time you revisit a level it seems there is something more to find that you missed previously.

Overall Opinion

I have been waiting for what seems like ages for a game like Journey to come along and remind me that there really is more to gaming than the same old stuff we get year after year. Sure, I love those adventures as well, but the experience one has with Journey is unlike anything else. It’s calming zen-ness, a perfect blend of music, stunning visuals and relaxing atmosphere, is what makes Journey so special and brings you back for more.

Official Website: http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/

Status: Finished once on Mobster difficulty w/ Good Ending, now playing New Game+
Achievements: 18 of 50
Gamerscore: 305/1000
DLC Purchased: none

I don’t normally play direct sequels to games haven’t at least attempted first, but since we have no clue where my husband’s copy of the first Darkness installment is, I made an exception. After checking out the demo for Darkness 2, there was no way I was going to wait until we either found his copy or replaced it.

So I stepped into the hand crafted Italian leather shoes of one Jackie Estacado, the head of one pretty powerful mob family. His dinner is rudely interrupted when an unknown rival decides it’s time to take Jackie out of the picture. He is barely alive when he decides that the only way to save his friends and family is to release an inner demon he’s been keeping at bay for so long. And so, the Darkness and Jackie’s Darkling side-kick have come back to aid him in discovering who is after him now.

Your Darkling Pal

Darkness 2′s biggest boast is the quad-wielding FPS style of game play that can really only be accomplished when you have two demonic arms growing out of your back. Jackie has options for his guns, as he is able to carry to smaller guns that can he can use together or on their own and can carry one larger two-handed deal. I always went for the sawed-off shotgun but that’s because I always go for that in any game that let’s me have one. The “quad” part comes in thanks to those extra limbs the Darkness gives him. The left one can grab objects like car doors for shields or fan blades to slice up the enemy, while the right side is more about slashing at breakable objects or knocking back those pesky jerks who won’t stop shooting at you.

As with most games of the action-shooter variety, Darkness 2 offers the player upgrade options via Essence Stones located at various waypoints throughout each main level. There are four Talent Trees for Jackie to learn which requires spending the Essence collected while ripping your attackers apart with bullets, eating hearts or grabbing Relics. I went with the Weapons Tree first, maxing out all abilities so I could have explosive rounds and picked up a couple of health related abilities from other Trees. Abilities are progressive, so you will have to unlock them along the marked path, which means you might want to plan ahead for some of the best bonuses.

Using the Gun Channeling ability

There are two abilities in my arsenal that I just love: Swarm and Gun Channeling. Swarm unleashes a cloud of bugs from the mouths of the demon arms that distract your enemies which keeps them distracted for a short time. This particularly comes in handy when there are more than 5 people trying to kill you. Gun Channeling helps focus your guns for a limited time adding some extra punch. Both of these abilities require a cool down period which can be shortened and time in use extended by purchasing complementing abilities from the corresponding Talent Tree.

One of my favourite features of the game is New Game+. When a game gives me the option to carry over all the unlocked abilities and collectibles into a second (or third) playthrough, that makes me want to replay it more than one that does not. Odds of someone unlocking all of the Talent Tree abilities in a single run is possible but slim, and since I do like to earn achievements, this is a huge perk for me.

And because every game developer now feels they have to throw in some variation of multiplayer in order to keep gamers from trading in their games, Darkness 2 has Vendetta Mode. Here you go out on hits either alone or preferably in a team. I haven’t touched this part yet because it still upsets me that game devs continue to do this. A great single player game doesn’t need you to throw in some passable multiplayer to keep it in the owner’s home. The experience is what will give it a permanent home in a collection.

But for me, some of the best moments of the game didn’t come from Daisy Popping heads or slicing bodies apart by throwing fan blades at them. No, instead it was talking to Fat Tony during stints in a psych ward. He is just too priceless and provided a good 5-10 minutes of laughs.

Overall Opinion

By the time I finished my journey with Jackie and his dark passenger, I was itching to play the first game even more. I also wanted to talk about it with my husband, but I sort of got ahead of him and must now wait for him to finish his game so as not to ruin anything for him. And the ending! Well, let’s just say that I am looking forward to getting more familiar with the Darkness franchise, because despite the predictability, I found myself really engrossed in the story. I was pleasantly amazed at how much fun I had playing and look forward to finding our missing copy of the original as soon as possible.

Darkness 2 is available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC for purchase via Amazon

Status: Finished once and then it all went to hell
Achievements: 46 of 60
Gamerscore: 910/1250
DLC Purchased: nada

I thought that with time I’d be able to finally write about Fable 3. Hope that the memories of what happened to me that fateful afternoon burned in my chest for months, but now I know and have come to accept that this will never be.

Lionhead and Microsoft’s push to get the game out on time meant that too many glitches were overlooked or right out ignored. Even the Day One patch barely fixed the major issues Fable 3 suffered. There were pop up and weird texture problems, characters getting stuck in places they shouldn’t, and difficulties connecting with other Heroes over Xbox LIVE. Things that shouldn’t happen but frequently do in the game industry these days with it’s heavy reliance on digital distribution.

And then there were the game breaking problems like the major FUBAR that happened to me and led me to making the poor quality YouTube post that to this day still gets comments. When my game froze during an attempt to connect to a friend’s game during the middle of an autosave that I couldn’t keep from happening, it corrupted the one and only save file the game allowed me to have. The result: my Hero Queen was stripped of all her clothing and items and forcibly changed into a man with only a lightning spell for protection. It’s ridiculous for games in this day and age to limit the player to a single save file. Instances like this can be avoided if developers stopped restricting us, especially when most games offer multiple save slots per character/game.

I ranted about all of this before and promptly traded in the game. Hell, my husband barely touched it and when he heard what transpired with my character he was all for getting rid of it before it broke one of our systems somehow. (Not like we know if it would have actually screwed up either 360 but we weren’t going to risk it.)

So here I am, months and months later, and the mere thought of Fable 3 is enough to get my blood boiling. But for the sake of keeping up my library of played games, I am adding this blurb to my site.

And holding true to my boycott of all things Lionhead.

Stealth Elf is stealthy

Status: Finished once (played coop with my husband)
Achievements: 26 of 38
Gamerscore: 640/1000
Adventure Packs Purchased: Darklight Crypt, Dragon’s Peak

Skylanders had flown under my radar for a long time, mostly because I have a major prejudice against Activision these days (although not as bad as my hatred of Lionhead) but also due to my increasing dislike of gimmicky games. I’d also been extremely pumped for Skyrim, which had been my big Holiday 2011 game and consumed my life for a month straight.

After coming out of my Skyrim haze and seeing a bunch of our friends talking about how much they were enjoying Skylanders, we decided to take the plunge and picked up the starter kit, and adventure pack and a couple additional characters. Over his Christmas break, my husband and I drove all over looking for the now impossible to find toys and I watched him play at night until we managed to find a few toys I could register to myself.

Once I had Hex (Undead), Whirlwind (Air) and FlameSlinger (Fire) in hand, I was ready to venture into the Skylands.

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure takes place in the magical world of the Skylands. A short, evil maniac named Kaos has designs to bring his Darkness to Skylands but you appear as a Portal Master with the power to summon magically gifted heroes called Skylanders as defenders of the land. As the Portal Master, you will guide Spyro and his Skylander friends through various levels, battle enemies and collect the components needed to rebuild the gate Kaos destroyed and keep the lands safe from his evil.

There are 22 levels in the main game (this excludes the bonus Adventure Pack levels: Darklight Crypt, Pirate Seas and Empire of Ice) for you to explore, filled with treasure chests, hats and Soul Gems to unlock a unique ability for individual Skylanders. For instance, the Soul Gem I needed for Hex’ final ability was hidden inside Darklight Crypt, making me extra glad that that was the one adventure pack we did indeed have.

Spyro's Back!

The use of Spyro’s name in the title of the game is a tad misleading; yes, Spyro is one of the characters you can control in the game, but the game is not specifically about Spyro. There are a total of 32 Skylanders for the player to potentially collect, divided into eight elemental-based classes. Each character has his or her own unique attacks with new ones available for purchase as you progress and gather oodles of coins. They also have added bonuses in power in certain sections of a level and can open special gates to areas containing Legendary Treasures – hats that grant various stat upgrades when equipped.

Skylanders features a proprietary peripheral called the Portal of Power that when combined with RFID technology bring your figures to life inside the game, storing your characters stats, money and current accessory on the chip instead of your game save. This allows you to take your Skylander with you to a friend’s game as well as use them in the web companion game for more adventuring.

Instead of going the route of selling DLC in a digital form, Skylanders released Adventure Packs to keep the fun times going and can be played at any point of the game. To activate and store that level in your game save, simply pop the location piece on the Portal of Power and head to your new destination. Adventure Packs come with one Skylander as well as bonus item objects that can prove useful in any level of the game. Darklight Crypt came with a Healing Potion that can be used once per level until the timer runs out and heals the Skylander currently in use, as well as an Hourglass which helps slow down your enemies until it’s juice is out (also with a one full cycle per level stipulation).

Tripper Happy, my husband's current favourite

The hardest part of Skylanders isn’t the game itself, but finding the figures not packaged with the starter packs. Since the holiday boom, figures have been slowly trickling into stores and selling out within hours of hitting the shelves. We’ve been making weekly runs to Toys R Us, Walmarts, Target and Best Buy looking for the toys to fill my husband’s collection (he currently needs 8 of the regular figures, and we have no Legendary or special edition figures at the moment) and I just would like to have one from each element in my personal arsenal. Here’s hoping the wave of figures rumoured to come March 21st last long enough for us to get our hands on the ones we need.

Overall Opinion

It’s been a while since I’ve played an adventure game as endearing, vibrant and fun as Skylanders. The fact that my husband and I can play cooperatively together on one person’s 360 and then switch to the other’s without that excitement dulling is a testament to that. Sure, there are some slight hiccups with glitches, but nothing that has broken either of our games to date (knock on wood here).

My experience with the web game has been decent enough, I suppose. The Portal likes to forget I’ve installed the drivers every time I hook it up and it does take longer than PixelJunk Monster Online (Facebook) to load most days, but it’s a cute little addition and helps bump up my Skylanders’ stats. Plus, I get to customize and expand my own lair, which isn’t part of the console version.

If only it didn’t make me feel creepy for adding other players who ages are unknown to me to my “Friends” list……

You can buy the Skylanders game and additional characters/adventure packs on Amazon

Status: Completed Alone ending and all Souji Okita endings

My weakness for feudal Japanese tales always gets the best of me. Slap in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” twist and a bevy of hot samurai and you have won my love.

Set in the late 1800s, Chizuru sets out from Edo to search for her father. Their letter correspondence ends suddenly and worried for the only parent she has, Chizuru makes her way to Kyoto hoping a friend of her father’s can shed some light on the issue. When she finds herself witness to one of the shogunate’s dirty secrets, Chizuru finds herself a guest in the home of the Shinsengumi, defenders of Kyoto from the unruly ronin who now roam the country.

The Shinesengumi are not only trying to protect Kyoto from the unruly ronin, they are also fighting to keep the ways the Japanese have always known. The world around them is shifting to adopt the ways of the Westerners and heading towards a purely Imperial rule. They soon discover a supernatural force is aiding the Imperialists, demons who seem to know something about Chizuru that she doesn’t.

The setting for Hakuoki may seem like something out of a Lian Hearn novel but it is important to remember that this game is ultimately more about the wooing than anything else. You may be disguised as a young man to keep you safe, but you are living with some of the hottest men Kyoto has to offer. There are five men from the small handful who know your true identity for you to cozy up to: Hijikata Toshizo, the commander of the Shinsengumi; Souji Okita, master swordsman always ready with a joke; Sanosuke Harada, a real softy under is tough exterior; Hajime Saito, the quiet Iai master; and Heisuke Toudou, the youngest and most headstrong of the Shinsengumi captains.

Chizuru’s tale follows set events that will be slightly altered or presented differently depending on which actions you choose for her. Certain potential suitors will prefer one response over another, with positive actions for that particular man highlighted with cherry blossoms floating before them. For example, one of your first choices in the game will be to either find a way to escape or attempt to explain your situation to the Shinsengumi captains. Choosing the first option will help sway a couple of the men to your side and the opposite will do the same for the other two. It is important for you to decide who it is you wish to pursue early on so you can focus your attention on that person. I also recommend saving right before making your choices (which is easy to do seeing as you can save at any time after you’ve been captured).

For my first time through, I didn’t particularly focus on any specific suitor, although I had been making some progress with the boyish Heisuke before trying to see what would happen if I switched focus halfway through. Needless to say I ended up with the worst possible ending: being alone. There is nothing worse than getting the worst ending possible, but I looked at it as getting that one out of the way early and picked a target for game number two: Souji Okita.

With Souji in my sights (and with the help of a poorly translated walkthrough for a couple of scenes), I was able to weave my way to his various story endings. I started with the happiest one, and then went back to make changes where I needed them to see the others. This time through I met characters I hadn’t in my first attempt at happiness and learned new things about Chizuru. I was more than satisfied with this happier ending.

There are up to nine chapters for you to experience in Hakuoki – determined ultimately by the choices you make in men. At the start of Chapter Four you will find yourself traveling with the person whose ending you will most likely see. Because of my choices in my first game, I ended up traveling with the one non-Shinsengumi love interest of Chizuru’s, but due to the path I took, I did not get that character’s ending or unlock his Chapter Six synopsis in the Records of Service. The Records of Service are located in the main menu and show you which stories you’ve unlocked along your way. Souji’s story went seven chapters long; the longest is Hijikata’s at nine.

One of my favourite features of Hakuoki is the ability for the player to “rewind” a scene to a certain point in the chapter, allowing them to replay an event or backtrack without having to save to quickly change the decision you just made. It also helps if you’ve been button mashing to scroll the text faster and end up missing some dialogue because the line is shorter than you think. That happened to me quite a bit, seeing as I am a fast reader and letting the text load itself was slower than I liked.

Hakuoki also proves a handy encyclopedia of terms of the people, places and Japanese words used in the game. You’ll notice that as you experience different versions of the story, new words will be added to the glossary. Another bonus is the Theatre in the Media section which allows you to re-watch endings you’ve unlocked.

Overall Opinion

There aren’t many visual novels available in the North American market for consoles or handheld systems, as what few there are tend to be PC/MAC only, so Aksys took a bit of a risk in bringing Hakuoki over here. Not to mention that this is a game geared toward the female otome genre fan, narrowing it down a touch further. But otome fans who are starved for English translated games will enjoy having a portable game to keep them entertained for hours as they explore the various relationships available to them. And it doesn’t stop there, as there is a whole slew of anime which spawned after the release of this game in Japan for us to watch as well.

Which I will get around to, just as soon as I finish unlocking every ending.

Purchase Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom on PSP from Amazon

Of the two bits of Fallout New Vegas DLC I have played so far, Dead Money had to be the dullest and most pointless of them both. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt if it ends up as my least favourite of all the DLC for this game. Set in a closed area which can only be accessed one time via a Brotherhood of Steel bunker, you follow the signal of an old broadcast offering the time of your life at the new Sierra Madre Casino. Turns out that the radio broadcast was just a trap to lure adventurers so as to do the dirty work for a crazy old kook called Father Elijah.

After being KO-ed in the bunker thanks to some surprise gas, you wake up with a bomb collar strapped to your neck and find yourself the newest recruit in Father Elijah’s master plan to break into the Sierra Madre Casino. You’ll have to hook up with three other prisoners (Christine, the muted Brotherhood woman, DOG/GOD, a dog with a split personality, and the famous Dean Domino) in order to perform your task and deal with the holographic security men keeping an eye on the place as you plan the biggest heist of your career.

You'll need to sic DOG on them if you want them to stay dead

The town surrounding Sierra Madre wasn’t always populated by holographic security and undead murderers. Once it housed the people building the place for it’s eccentric owner, so you’ll be able to explore the old quarters for better gear and unique items. The gun Father Elijah gives you after stripping you of all your personal items doesn’t do much damage, especially should you find yourself no longer dealing with holo-officers. The “men” walking the streets can be incapacitated with bullets, but you’ll need DOG by your side if you want to disable them permanently. I did love how the town was littered with vending machines offering you the basics: food, stimpaks, cigarettes. You could even collect cigarettes throughout the area and turn them in for Sierra Madre chips (the form of payment accepted in this section of the game). And if you come across the right notes laying around town, you can unlock some weapon upgrades and ammunition.

Try as the story might, it just never really grabs me as much as I want it to. There is a story in there, of love, addiction, and greed. But it’s so weakly presented that playing Dead Money was too much of a chore. At no point did I ever feel I was having fun with this chunk of additional story, only that I wanted it to be over as soon as possible. Not being able to go back and really clean out the safe was a bit of a downer, too.

Overall Opinion

Dead Money is definitely not worth the full DLC price tag, and if you play it as part of the content on the Ultimate Edition, then get this one out of the way earlier on. Aside from finding some pretty nice loot in the safe, the only other perk that benefited me from purchasing this was the +5 boost to my level cap.

Available on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC/Mac

Dean Domino looks nothing like the posters you spot around the Wasteland

I just can't get away from spiders in video games

Status: Finished all levels on Casual and Regular (unlocked Hard-core mode), finding that I am awful at earning Medals (I have 2 of 24)

PixelJunk Monsters was one of the first PSN demos I gave any time to. Thanks to my time as a part of Sony’s now defunct Gamer Advisory Panel, I’d been aware of Q-Games new tower defense title for the PSN and was anxious to try it out. The demo gave me a small taste of what life would be like if I owned the game and I was excited for more. But I was working in video game retail at the time, and the amount of new games I told myself I needed every week kept pushing PJ Monsters to the back of my mind.

But I never forgot about it completely. It was on my video game wishlist on Amazon for a reason – even if years had passed, I still wanted that game. I was lucky enough to finally get my own copy of PJ Monsters Deluxe for my birthday, and promptly popped it into my PSP where it remained for 3 and a half months. I played it in the car, on the couch while watching TV, and even in bed instead of reading a book to help me fall asleep. When I wasn’t doing housework or playing Persona 4, PixelJunk Monsters was all I had on the brain.

PJ Monsters features three islands and a combined total of 47 levels, with difficulties ranging from Easy to Hard as you progress on each island. By clearing a stage without losing any of the little Tiki babies, you’ll earn a Rainbow. You’ll need  these in order to open new areas on each island. Earning rainbows isn’t always easy, but play a level a couple of times to find the best  spots to place the towers you’ll need to take out the enemy. And if you become obsessive about it as I did, you may just find yourself striving to perfect every stage because you’re just that anal about it.

So many towers!

The backbone of any tower defense game are the towers you have at your disposal. At the start of each level, certain base towers will be unlocked, such as the Arrow, Cannon and Anti-Air Gun. Other towers in your building wheel need to be unlocked by collecting blue gems dropped by the enemy or hidden among the trees. Once you have the gems you need to unlock a new tower, head over to the Tiki hut to unlock it. You’ll have to unlock these towers every time as they are not a permanent unlock. Some of the more unique towers will require completion of a particular level before they will show up in your building wheel, so don’t worry if you think you’re missing something.

Upgrading your towers can be done two ways: spending blue gems or dancing in front of them. Spending your rarely obtained gems will help you power up towers quickly but takes away from your ability to unlock new towers. Dancing takes more time but helps you save up for those more powerful towers. Each tower’s flag has five stages: base blue, yellow, red, purple, and finally black. Once you hit black, you’ll have the most powerful version of that tower with the best range it can get. Depending on the sort of level I am playing, I may power level one or two towers early on immediately around my hut as a last line of defense. The only way to figure out your best move is to play often and watch the movements of the enemy. A tower will also get a small boost of leveling when it successfully kills an enemy.

Some levels in the main section of the game will throw challenges at you, like the monsters won’t drop coins or gems so you need to be wise with what you have. This really enforces some creative strategizing with tower placement and getting the optimal range in the designated level. I love the challenge, even when I have to restart the level six or seven times because I placed a tower in a bad spot.

One challenges dares you to not cross the bridge

And then, if you haven’t driven yourself crazy trying to get rainbows on every level, you can venture to the Tiki Hut from the main menu and take on up to 24 different challenges. These challenges unlock once you’ve cleared the level in the main game. So far I’ve been able to knock out two of these – one which dared me to complete the level without a single flag upgrading to yellow, the second a Scrooge challenge where I was tasked to clear the level with over 10000 coins. Sadly, I haven’t figured out the winning formula to the other twenty two challenges just yet.

Overall Opinion

Even after spending hours upon hours with PixelJunk Monsters, I find that going back to it for “just one level” ends up turning into hours. I believe that is a sign of a truly enjoyable game. There are few of these more casual style titles in my “Completely Addicted” list, Ninjatown and Plants vs Zombies being the other two. And just when I thought I had weened myself off of the PJ high, Q-Games went and put a version of PJ Monsters on Facebook . Needless to say that just pumped fuel back in my fire tower.

(As of posting this, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe for PSP is on sale for $3.99 on Amazon. $3.99!!!! You cannot go wrong here, people.)

You can buy PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe from Amazon or the original game and the Encore expansion on the Playstation Store

Watch out! The snowy levels are slippery. You don't want to slide into the monsters.

Status: Completed
Achievements: 10 of 12
Gamerscore: 155/200
DLC Purchased: None

Things seemed to be all well in good in Spanktopia after DeathSpank collected all of the Thongs of Virtue and vanquished Sandy. But the peace didn’t last forever, as DeathSpank soon discovers his wearing of all of the Thongs at once has created a new evil: the AntiSpank. Now he must travel across SpankTopia seeking out the Bacon Fires and destroy the extra Thongs that caused the problem in the first place if he hopes to bring down his evil creation and get back to mocking orphans and keeping overdue library books.

If you have played the previous two installments of DeathSpank’s adventure, you’ll find that The Baconing is pretty much the same thing. A humour-packed action RPG from Hothead Games, it follows the same sort of quest-based storyline combines with hack and slash real time battles that we’ve played previously. All new locations have been added for us to explore like the Forest of Tomorrow, a twisted Disney park of sorts for the scientifically-inclined, the Forbidden Zone, an expansive wasteland home to a city hosting a great Arena, and the TRON-inspired house of Z.I.M.O.N., to name a few.

Let's play Z.I.M.O.N. Says

All new locations does not mean completely new characters for DeathSpank to toil for. Familiar faces like Strunken and his wife are around, still with their marital issues for you to work out, as well as the Thongolith Researcher and a few others. There are also orphans a plenty for you to mock, should you so choose. And let’s not forget DeathSpank’s mentor, the wise cow. New to the game are Cyborques, cybernetic Orques who lust for DeathSpank’s head on a stick. And like their ancestors, they aren’t really the brightest enemy out there. Each location also has unique new pests for you to exterminate, my favourite being the weirdos in the casino Rainbow’s End.

Each location has a Bacon Fire to be discovered, so you will need to solve puzzles, help out the locals and fight your way to them and one by one burn the Thongs until you come face to face with your new nemesis. New equipment and stronger weapons will drop the further you progress or as you finish doing chores for the seemingly lazy people you fight so hard to protect. Vendors can be found in your major areas if you are running short on supplies, like Mutoe chunks (which I still find a tad bit disturbing).

Fighting Evil Leprechauns

Where Thongs of Virtue added Weapons of Justice, The Baconing gives us new battle techniques such as Shield Bash and Perfect Reflect. Shield Bash is great for knocking back hordes of enemies when they surround you, and Perfect Reflect lets you reflect (obviously) ranged attacks, instead injuring the enemy who dared hurt DeathSpank in the first place. The real time fighting works the same as it did before, with barrels respawning and fallen foes returning to life after leaving and re-entering an area.

Compared to TOV, The Baconing has about the same amount of playtime, taking me somewhere around 10 hours or so to run through on normal mode and fully leveling up to level 20. The addition of the Arena and the challenges there helped me gain some ground early on in the game, but I did have to wait until I was level 18 or 19 to go back and finish it up for the achievements. I’m not one for playing these kinds of games co-op unless the character is already included with the purchase of the game, but since Roesha was another 160 points, I passed on her and only played the game in single player mode.

Overall Opinion

Yes, a lot of people will tell you that The Baconing is more of the same, just with a new coat of paint. And you know what? I am okay with that. I love the humour Hothead has incorporated in the series, even the pokes at their Canadianism (Canoonies!) which may only be understood by gamers such as myself. But it’s because of that humour and the relative ease of play that I keep coming back to them. On days where I really don’t want anything plot heavy, I can pick up a DeathSpank title and lose myself in a vibrant and slightly disturbing world where orphans have a God, unicorn poop is highly sought after manure and something that looks like a skinned Mickey Mouse is encouraging me to kill him.

Pick up The Baconing on Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network or Steam

Welcome to the Forest of Tomorrow