Magrunner: Dark Pulse Review

Magrunner: Dark Pulse may owe heavy debts to Portal, but its combination of magnetism and Cthulhu make it an enjoyable game in its own right.

The Good

• Focus on magnetism in puzzles delivers some fun challenges  
• Excellent horror ambience  
• Sharp, intuitive controls.

The Bad

• Flimsy story a little too serious for its own good  
• Many load screens.

The echoes of Portal reverberate so loudly throughout every moment of Magrunner: Dark Pulse that it's easy to find yourself listening for references to cake that never come. Whether it's in the haunting messages scrawled on walls, in the sci-fi nonlethal weapon with a mere two functions, or even in the elevators that shuttle you between almost every level, Magrunner doesn't concern itself with concealing its inspiration. It even has the slightly annoying overabundance of loading screens. But, oh, what an inspiration. At the risk of oversimplification, Magrunner is Portal with Cthulhu, and its tale of magnetism and descents into madness make it a trip worth taking.

The nine-stage tutorial does an excellent job of communicating the ropes.

Alas, it tends to take itself too seriously. You play as Dax Ward, a cocky youth who resembles Infamous' Cole MacGrath in both attitude and appearance (although you rarely get a glimpse of him), and progression hinges on guiding him through a series of tests designed to qualify him for space exploration. There's banter and occasionally snarky lines from his observers who pop up as holograms on his device (one of whom sports a name that's an obvious anagram of "Zuckerberg"), but in ultimately, weightier themes take over, and serve as a sobering reminder that the joys of playing Portal sprang as much from the witty narration of GLaDOS as from the gameplay.
In time, the influence of H.P. Lovecraft's favorite tentacle-bearded overlord begins to corrupt the shiny, garish surfaces of Dax's futuristic world, a move that in itself recalls the ruined Aperture facility of Portal 2. The move naturally allows Magrunner to gain a personality of its own, even though it ultimately amounts to few real differences since the puzzles Dax solves inexplicably continue to function despite the sudden appearance of oily ooze and forbidding iron portals. It's striking stuff, although it's clearly aimed at eliciting cries of "Awesome!" rather than Dead Space-style shivers of fear. Indeed, if anything, there's not quite enough of Cthulhu and his minions in Magrunner.

The story largely progresses through holographic interactions on your Magtech glove.

But when he does encounter them, you can't help but feel that poor old Dax would have been better off than Portal's Chell with a good old-fashioned projectile gun, but he's stuck with the device he brought along with him for his tests. This device is a power glove of sorts that shoots out opposite magnetic charges with clicks of the left and right mouse button. In direct opposition to actual magnetics, likely for the sake of immediate visual comprehension, Magrunner operates on the principle that opposites repel and likes attract. Accurate or not, the concept takes mere seconds to understand, and a brilliantly intuitive tutorial makes the transition even simpler.
Much of Magrunner's fun springs from discovering the possibilities inherent in this setup. To take a simple example, if you stack two of the many cubes scattered about (another Portal reference!), and then use your magtech gun to activate a red charge on the bottom one and a green charge on the top one, the top cube goes flying into the air. The resulting force propels you upward if you're standing on it or shatters glass obstacles if the cube is flying solo. Greater subtleties abound in the decision to give individual cubes their own magnetic fields of varying strengths (made visible by pressing the "F" button), adding far greater challenges than simply stacking two cubes on top of one another and hoping for the best.

While the narrative sags in parts, Magrunner gets the tone of the Cthulhu mythos right.

But Magrunner isn't just about blocks; puzzle completion often depends on using yourself or (later) a lovable robotic dog named Newton as a trigger. There's no falling damage or crouching, and secondary elements such as catapults and moving platforms allow greater challenges as the game progresses. The puzzles themselves present their share of "Aha!" moments so familiar to Valve's own puzzler, although they're balanced with an equal number of snoozers. They're also fairly accessible, and in general, the challenges don't become worthy of the word "challenge" until the final third or so of the game. A pity, then, that that's when some of the limitations of the presentation start to reveal themselves, such as turrets that kill you with gunshots so silent that you may not even realize what hit you.
If you're hungry for an extra helping of Portal with a different topping, Magrunner should satisfy your appetite for a single 11-hour playthrough--certainly enough to justify its asking price of 20 bucks on Steam. Indeed, its magnetic themes work so well that you might walk away hoping that any third adventure of Chell's will feature some combination of Magrunner's magnetics and her own familiar portals. An ominous final scene isn't impressive enough to make up for the absence of a GLaDOS figure, but as a first-person puzzler, Magrunner: Dark Pulse manages to combine its myriad borrowed and original pieces into a satisfying whole.

Deadpool Review

Deadpool tries to hide its many faults behind the protagonist's buoyant personality, but it doesn't take long for the bigger problems to surface.

The Good

• Unexpected references to classic franchises  
• Some funny jokes.

The Bad

• Camera and control issues in combat  
• Challenge comes from flooding the screen with enemies.

Deadpool's defining characteristic seems to be his uncensored personality. But if you spend time with this nearly immortal superhero, you discover that his most important traits are the scars he's burdened with. He dons a skintight suit that covers every inch of his disfigured body, complete with a mask that lacks even a basic mouth hole. However, Deadpool's scars aren't limited to physical imperfections. His mind is as damaged as his monstrous skin. Psychotic bouts affect his every mood, creating a character whose incredible powers are compromised by the hardships he carries. This dichotomy is realized all too well in this action-heavy beat-'em-up. Playful fight sequences are hampered by underlying flaws in the core mechanics, dragging this off-kilter adventure down from its promising perch.

Wolverine and other Marvel mainstays make brief cameos.

Deadpool is a character whose upfront nature makes him impossible to ignore. Always ready with a lecherous quip, he keeps a running diary of his darkest thoughts as you slice through a ragtag assortment of the Marvel universe's B-tier baddies. His unabashed misogyny and incessant sexual jokes are puerile at best, but as disgusting as he can be, you can't accuse him of being insincere. The jokes feel natural coming from his hidden lips. He's the embodiment of extreme baditude, but instead of sounding like the cynical mind of someone in the marketing department, he instead mirrors the inane ramblings of a teenage boy. And even if your tastes clash with Deadpool's, the sheer wealth of attempted humor means something should tickle your funny bone. Disliking cows because they're only an "l" and an "n" away from being clowns might just be ridiculous enough to put a smile on your red-nose-hating face.
Just because Deadpool enjoys talking nonstop does not mean that he confronts enemies with pacifism on the mind. The way out of any situation involves copious amounts of slicing and dicing, with the occasional shooting thrown in for good measure. Deadpool bounces around tightly constructed environments like he's battling attention deficit disorder, knocking one enemy into the air and then delivering a whirling dervish to a group of would-be attackers before firing his plasma gun at a far-off sniper. It's a screaming-fast confluence of steel and spandex, so fast that the camera often lags behind your actions. Throw in a magical teleportation move, and you spend as much time trying to get your bearings as you do unleashing hell on your dim-witted foes.

Cartoon animals provide a sharp change for the merc with a mouth.

Thankfully, fights are usually easy enough that you can dispatch the horde of attackers by just gleefully mashing the buttons. Your only defensive maneuver is the aforementioned teleport, so you whale away with your swords or guns and then vanish in a flash before you get your comeuppance. It's a smart technique that sadly doesn't always work because of finicky controls. Deadpool may not do what you want, when you want him to, so you wind up with a face full of fist instead of disappearing in a cloud to safety. Such unresponsiveness can lead to frustrating situations, but you can usually stay alive if you get even a little breathing room. Regenerating health is Deadpool's most handy superpower, so you can get back up to full strength pretty easily if you keep one eye glued to your life bar.
Fights are fast and bloody affairs that urge you to mix up your attacks to earn the highest rewards from your downed attackers. Dropped currency can be used to purchase upgrades in the pause menu, giving you access to new weapons, handheld explosives, and a variety of character enhancements. It's a system that urges you to experiment so you find the best weapons for your style (the slow and powerful hammers suit a different style than the fast but weak sais, for instance), and you unlock new techniques deep into the adventure. Because of the well-paced skill unlocks and the immediacy of the action, Deadpool is usually a pleasant enough, turn-off-your-brain kill-a-thon.

A conversation on a social networking site provides some silly laughs.

It's when the game tries to ramp up the challenge that things take a turn for the worse. When the game wants your back against the wall, it floods the screen with attackers. Deadpool may carry guns, but they're clearly secondary to his melee attacks, so a few far-away gunners can sap away your life in a hurry. Couple the difficulty of aiming while in a jam with the limited ammunition, and you may find yourself out of long-range killing instruments in the middle of a fight. Dozens of enemies, of both the gun-toting and sword-swinging variety, may try to stop your beating heart, and it's in the most hectic moments that the game becomes frustrating. Unkind checkpoints don't do the game any favors, either. If you fall to the last enemy, you may have to carry out the prolonged encounter all over again, changing the simple fun into pure tedium.
Despite the combat flaws, Deadpool makes a valiant attempt at being entertaining. A few brief diversions from the core action add some much-needed variety to the unceasing killing. Nintendo's most timeless franchises receive unexpected homages, and there's even a brief turret sequence that delivers a silly take on this tired trope. Who would have thought a Sentinel's detached shoe could be so fun? However, there are just too many flaws in the overarching mechanics to make this a consistently satisfying endeavor. Deadpool tries to hide its problems behind an exuberant personality, but all the talking in the world can't smooth over some fundamental flaws.

Company of Heroes 2 Review

Company of Heroes 2 is an entertaining strategy game that excels when it pulls out all the stops.

The Good

• Many matches are a test of skill and resolve  
• Theater of War missions offer a variety of great challenges  
• Winter maps demand different tactics  
• The best missions emphasize the despair of war  
• Fantastic production values get the adrenaline pumping.

The Bad

• It's too easy to exploit the campaign's endless conscripts  
• Balance issues and grind to contend with  
• Some tedious missions showcase inconsistent enemy behavior.

It is said that war never changes; war's intensity, its perils, its world-shifting consequences remain unflinchingly true. Company of Heroes 2 demonstrates this weary axiom by overwhelming your senses with the heat and light of battle--battle that closely recalls the kind of skirmishes you once triumphed over in the original Company of Heroes. This is not a real-time strategy revolution, but a fun revival of enduring mechanics that pulls you into the trenches of the eastern front.

There is no shame in retreating so that you may live to fight another day. Unless you are Russian.

Given the series' penchant for explosive multiplayer confrontations, you might be inclined to overlook Company of Heroes 2's campaign, though you would be missing out on some of the game's better moments in doing so. The narrative is not, however, a return to form for developer Relic Entertainment, whose Homeworld games brought RTS storytelling to great heights. Given the excellence of many of the campaign missions, it's disappointing that the surrounding cutscenes can't meet their levels of excitement, try as they might. It's best to ignore the decidedly old-looking cinematics, the cast's uncomfortable accents, and the cliched attempts at dramatizing a strained soldier-commander relationship. Instead, let the missions themselves do the talking; the best ones communicate the hopelessness and despair the cinematics fail to capture.
Even early missions impress upon you the disposability of your troops, frequently commanding you to retreat when you are overrun, all while you order in one nameless conscript squad after another. Interesting new mechanics, too, effectively communicate the helplessness of an individual combatant, and not only during the campaign, but in AI skirmishes, online multiplayer, and elsewhere. On snowy maps, the fearsome rush of cold and wind don't just make for a chilly sight, but also make for chilly soldiers. Soldiers feeling the frosty sting need a warm fire (provided by a resourceful engineer or pioneer) or the confines of an available structure to avoid succumbing to a frigid death. Infantry trudge slowly through drifts of snow, and crossing an icy pond could prove fatal if the weight of a tank--or the eruption of a grenade--proves too much for the flimsy ice to handle.

A flaming tank is not the kind of warmth a soldier needs to stay alive.

And so you don't confront just the forces of the enemy, but the forces of nature too, and make important tactical considerations in the process. Do you risk sending unprotected soldiers to a desolate capture point, hoping they can make the trek without freezing to death? If it's later in a skirmish or multiplayer match, you might have half-tracks for transport purposes, but the possibility of an early lead might make it worth taking a gamble with a few squads. The weather is not an issue on every map, but when it's a concern, your usual tactical approach (say, leading a few squads around the map to capture victory points while advancing far enough to build heavy tanks) may not work well, if at all.
The campaign excels when making you feel the heartlessness of your commander's orders. Voice-overs frequently remind you that you are sending troops out to die for the motherland, and the endless stream of free conscripts most missions gift you on medium difficulty reinforce the idea that no one individual is indispensable. Unfortunately, this huge supply of free infantry makes it too easy to win by steamrolling across the map using sheer numbers. It's far more satisfying to win a mission by sending out multiple, carefully constructed control groups across the map and micromanaging their abilities. (Some infantry can toss Molotovs, and snipers can fire debilitating rounds, for instance.) Most campaign missions don't require that kind of high-end strategizing, however.
Even with the use of free soldiers, campaign missions still manage to be varied and intense. Some of the intensity comes from the chaos of tanks lighting up the map and artillery demolishing entire buildings that then collapse before your very eyes. These are spectacular moments from a visual perspective in a sharp-looking game, but rarely are such sights just for show. When a squad hits the ground, pinned by oppressive fire, it looks authentic, of course, but it also hinders your progress. A Katyusha's rockets might hit a structure and make a grand fireworks show, but that structure may be in the way of your actual target, forcing you to fully destroy it so your rockets can reach their mark--or to find a better position. Company of Heroes 2 is a one-two punch of powerful production values and nail-biting confrontations. Just bear in mind that you can't experience the fireworks if you are still using Windows XP, because the game doesn't support that operating system. Nor, for that matter, does it support dual video cards in Crossfire or SLI configuration.

Armor is vital, but you need infantry to capture victory points.

Company of Heroes 2 excels when it sticks to its standard strategic formula. In a typical match, you start with a squad of engineers or pioneers and construct the necessary structures to pump out new units. You don't send out resource gatherers to collect wood and iron as you might in a traditional RTS game, but rather move infantry quickly across the map to capture victory points. At such points, you might build add-ons that increase your flow of fuel and munitions, which are the resources, along with manpower, required to create units. It takes a lot of time for the campaign to introduce its resource-gathering mechanics, however, so if you're new to the series, don't expect the campaign to do an entirely great job of getting you prepared to take on human opposition.
The campaign, however, isn't the only way to get in some offline practice. As is usual for an RTS game, you can play skirmishes against the AI, but there's another suite of options called the Theater of War. The Theater includes a number of cooperative and solo challenges, which are typically much more challenging than the campaign. While the campaign is focused on the Russians, the Theater includes both USSR and German missions, some of which are wildly intense and entertaining.

    
A Crimean mission, for instance, lulls you into a sense of security as you lead your German infantry from one victory point to another, only for legions of Russian tanks to invade your main base, less concerned with map control than with attacking the heart of your operation. Managing various infantry squads while using antitank weaponry and heavy armor to fend off the aggressive Russian army requires you to keep every scuffle under tight control. This is the kind of entertaining test of wits that shows Company of Heroes 2 at its strongest, and this intensity is replicated in other solo and co-op missions that have you holding off tank invasions and holding your own in the unforgiving winter.

Running into campaign trouble? Order in more conscripts.

Company of Heroes 2 occasionally deviates from formula, likely for the sake of variety, but reveals some fundamental drawbacks in doing so. Sniper-focused missions in both the campaign and the Theater are a bit of a slog in and of themselves, but also showcase odd enemy AI behavior, with squads moving out of the line of fire only to return to their starting positions, or simply not responding at all. Luckily, another puzzle-type mission is more successful, and has you hunting down a tank with a small selection of units that must scour the map for appropriate antitank weaponry. This game of cat and mouse is then contrasted by the following mission that concludes with an all-out assault on the citadel at the heart of Poznan. Having big tanks to play with is an appropriate reward for dancing around a similar armored hulk in the previous mission.
You might see all of this offline and cooperative play as the lead-up to Company of Heroes 2's multiplayer suite, and it's online that you see some of strategy gaming's finer moments, along with a few nods to modern gamification that don't improve the online game in any meaningful way. Balance is key to successful multiplayer matches, and the game mostly hits the right marks in this regard, with some exceptions. A miniature swarm of Panzer 4s or a couple of half-tracks stuffed with snipers can ruin your day in a hurry, for instance, and it takes a good bit of high-level online play before you can start managing your resources and find ways to counter units that seem too powerful.

Pinned troops are useless troops.

Once you've reached that point, you've probably earned a relatively high rank--meaning you have also earned persistent unit bonuses, such as increased accuracy for your antitank guns, or increased damage for your T-34s. It's easy to bristle at the thought of units unbalanced by design, and at the need to grind levels for such small perks. Luckily, the bonuses are too small to affect you as you learn the ropes. By the time you level up high enough for the small enhancements to matter, you'll be playing opponents who are on equal footing, more or less.
What fun it is to face evenly matched competition. You see human competitors exploiting mechanics the AI never can, such as the authentic line-of-sight mechanic, which unveils the fog of war based on what the unit should be expected to see, rather than a set radius. A mortar team in the right nook can wreak havoc on your progress, forcing you to fire position-revealing flares or order expensive recon aircraft lest you continue to get blown to bits. The recon comes courtesy of your chosen commander, who affords you certain abilities you can perform once you earn enough commander points during the match. You might find air recon useful--but ordering in an artillery barrage or a flamethrower tank could also change the tide of battle.

Put a tiger in your Tiger tank.

Online battles can be wonderful. Your decisions from the very beginning of a match can have far-reaching consequences, from the way you handle your engineer or pioneers, to your ability to get infantrymen into cover, to the effectiveness of your flanking maneuvers. Careful planning can culminate in a tense standoff at a single victory point, with your tank rolling in at the last minute to pick off the remaining enemy shock trooper vying for point control. But heartbreak also comes, often in the form of a flame-spewing half-track capable of burning multiple squads to a crisp.
Of course, such multiplayer mayhem recalls the original Company of Heroes' best moments, and you couldn't accuse this sequel of reaching the heights of the classic that spawned it. This familiarity is unlikely to breed much contempt, however, given Company of Heroes 2's consistent level of enjoyment. Its barrage of online and offline skirmishes doesn't always hit its mark. But when it finds its target, Company of Heroes 2 delivers a loud and mighty payload.

Hotline Miami Review

Hotline Miami is an intoxicating celebration of violence that will have you pounding the restart button for more.

The Good

• Responsive controls let you play recklessly  
• Outstanding soundtrack  
• Entrancing visual design  
• Levels are tough but fair  
• Gloriously violent.

The Bad

• Boss battles can be frustrating.

Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter where you murder everybody you see. You require nothing more than an answering machine message and an address to butcher each and every soul within the game's pixelated, 2D walls. But you're never given a reason for your psychotic actions--the focus is on the joy of murder, and though Hotline Miami can be frustrating at times, its frantic gameplay and slick presentation make for some gloriously satisfying bloodshed.

Environments are vividly coloured, but they all end up red in the end.

The game opens with the nameless protagonist standing in a room. And, mysteriously, there are three men wearing animal masks making cryptic comments about your identity and actions. Is this real, or some drug-induced fever dream? You're not given much time to contemplate it. The screen fades to black, and you awake in a filthy apartment in April 1989. A bloodstained shirt lies in the hall as an answering machine light blinks on and off. This is the setup for most of the 19 chapters that make up Hotline Miami. A short message asks you to "clean up" or "visit" a certain address, which is followed by a trip to a building full of supposed criminals that you must slaughter floor by floor.
You move around and aim using the analogue sticks in the vein of a dual joystick shooter. You can expand your viewing radius to spy further into the levels--an important factor, given that even a single distant gunshot can kill you. If you’re trying to be stealthy, you can opt to throw your weapon, allowing you to knock over and disarm an enemy. You can then stand over your downed foe and finish them off with punches to brutal and nauseating effect. If your shots aren't hitting their mark you can lock onto enemies by tapping them on the touch-screen, which is quick, accurate, and works well.
Before the start of each level, you choose from a selection of animal masks, most of which have useful perks. For instance, if you wear the Tony the Tiger mask, you have faster executions, while George the Giraffe allows you to see farther. They're a neat companion to the combat system, which initially sees you taking down enemies with your fists and with a selection of melee weapons that you pick up, such as baseball bats, iron bars, knives, and swords.
Enemies die with a single blow, as do you, so not being overrun by a group of bloodthirsty malcontents is key to making it through a level alive. Mixing up the weapons you use and the order in which you move through the rooms is just as important, as is getting into a close position for a brutal takedown. The environment plays its part too. Doors can be used to knock over enemies, while certain walls can be shot through. This variety ensures the action is consistently engaging over the course of the game.

The mask you pick informs the strategy you take, and how awesome you look.

If you choose to go in with guns blazing, there are lots of shotguns, automatic rifles, machine guns, and silenced pistols on offer. Gunshots attract the attention of nearby enemies, who quickly come to investigate the disturbance. And while you often find yourself shooting wide of targets, your enemies have fast trigger fingers and always hit their mark.
Despite that, enemy actions are largely dumb and predictable, but this works in the game’s favour. With death always a second away, manipulating and herding baddies into your gunfire is very enjoyable. It may also seem odd that dead bodies often go unnoticed, and enemies sometimes stand so close to your character that they can't hit him. But the action is so frenetic and entertaining that you barely have time to notice.

   

One thing is guaranteed: you will die a lot. Thankfully a single button press gets you back into the action quickly, and a checkpoint system ensures you're not starting from the very beginning of a level once you've killed everyone on a floor and have progressed to the next. This encourages you to trust your instincts and play fast, rather than approach each floor methodically. Hotline Miami feels like Super Meat Boy in this respect. You frequently play one floor 20 or 30 times before you finally reach a checkpoint, but it rarely feels cruel. When you die, it's due to your own poor execution, and the run-and-gun action is so downright entertaining that replaying sections is enjoyable.

Using a variety of weapons nets you more points.

The few times Hotline Miami does get it wrong, though, are deeply frustrating. For instance, one floor starts with a few lines of dialogue that you must sit through. This means that every time you restart the floor, you're forced to read through the same four lines of dialogue before getting to the action. Issues also arise in boss fights where you can't just shoot the boss dead like other enemies. Instead, you die and then respawn back to the start of the fight with little clue as to how to defeat the boss. And once you figure out some of the convoluted attack patterns through trial and error, you feel relief rather than satisfaction.
However, even the roughest parts of Hotline Miami are softened by its outstanding soundtrack and entrancing visuals. The music is a mixture of down-tempo psychedelic grooves and fast-paced electro that feels right at home with the intense visuals. The levels sway and pulsate as your character moves around the environment. Scan lines sweep across the screen while the background flashes matte colours with every kill. Death animations are absolutely brutal, with your character clubbing skulls and bisecting torsos with ease. By the end of each level, the floor is flooded with the blood and detached limbs of your victims.

Boss encounters can be mighty frustrating.

The entire experience feels like a psychotic cocaine-fueled rampage, an homage to slasher movies and the drug culture of the '80s. And like most cocaine-fueled rampages, it's short-lived but memorable; you can complete Hotline Miami in two to three hours. Each level gives you a point tally and grade, so aiming for a top leaderboard grade is a great excuse to replay levels. You can also have fun returning to older chapters with your newly unlocked masks, and their resulting perks.
Hotline Miami's vague and unsatisfying ending may irritate some, but it shouldn't stop you from enjoying this wonderful barrage of the senses. Hotline Miami is a discotheque of death that's very hard to walk away from, and a fantastic twitch shooter with a confident sense of style. Many games attempt to use story to explain away the massacre of outrageous numbers of victims. Hotline Miami bathes in the thrill of murder, and cares little about justifying its actions.

New Super Luigi U Review

New Super Luigi U may not offer new worlds or powers, but its emphasis on skill and precision reinvigorates the series in a meaningful way.

The Good

• The redesigned levels are dense and challenging  
• Luigi's distinct physics add a unique feel to the action  
• Optional objectives extend the endgame in a worthwhile way.

The Bad

• Recycled art and music from New Super Mario Bros U.

At first glance, New Super Luigi U looks like any other New Super Mario Bros. game, except that you now control Mario's skinnier, floatier brother, Luigi. Oh, if only it were that simple. There's much more to New Super Luigi U than just a new set of overalls and rearranged assets, including an increased difficulty curve, but it's Luigi's physics and the brevity of each level that set New Super Luigi U apart from its older brother--in a good way, too. The most intriguing part is that it may take place in an alternate dimension where Mario is dead.

Luigi's romp through the cheerful Acorn Plains.

Look at the facts. The game begins in the exact same manner as New Super Mario Bros. U: Bowser, aka the King Koopa, storms Princess Peach's castle with his koopalings in tow, imprisons the princess, and tosses everyone else to the edge of the Mushroom Kingdom. The only difference between the two games' intro sequences is Mario's absence from the dinner table in New Super Luigi U. Only his hat remains, which is a reminder of the sublime plumber's legendary exploits. At no point does he appear in the game, "Bros." is no longer in the title, and once you've defeated Bowser, Luigi can take on Mario's movement characteristics via an in-game item. To put it another way: Luigi allows himself to become possessed by Mario's spirit. Yeesh.
Each level kicks off with the series' iconic 100-second warning, your first clue to the new time limit. Your first instinct might be to rush ahead, but do so, and you quickly learn that Luigi exhibits very different physics than old Mario. For example, when Luigi tries to reverse his direction during a sprint, his increased momentum keeps him moving in his original direction for a second longer than usual. Luigi also jumps noticeably higher and can float in midair if you continue to hold the jump button at the top of his arc. In essence, he's very much like he was in Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES. Though it may take you a moment to adjust to his footwork, he still exhibits the responsive controls the series is known for. Luigi's tendency to float and slide, along with the new time limit, gives New Super Luigi U a feel all its own.

Why is there a cake and what exactly happened to Mario? The plot thickens.

This is good, because otherwise, you might confuse this with a simple remix of New Super Mario Bros. U levels. Though the world map, themes, power-ups, and visual assets are "old," Luigi's physics and the level design at large rise to the top. It isn't just that the arrangement of elements is different this time around. It is, but in keeping with Mario tradition, the placement of platforms, enemies, and runways is tailored to the lead character's capabilities. These paths are most obvious when approaching flagpoles, where a handful of blocks are arranged for well-timed triple jumps, but they can be found throughout most levels when you look for them. Given how short the new levels are, you often feel compelled to speed-run them after discovering these unspoken paths, but player beware: with Luigi, sloppiness is usually punished by death.
Whether you're trying to collect elusive star coins or speed-run a punishing level--the game's real challenges--you're going to die frequently in New Super Luigi U, but it provides you with the tools needed to avoid the progress-crushing Game Over screen. It's common to find 1UP mushrooms hidden in blocks near the start of most stages, and landing on the tops of flagpoles at the end of levels is easier than ever thanks to Luigi's enhanced jump, making them an excellent source of extra lives. The game always provides a way to recover lost lives, which may involve backtracking or cautious play, but ultimately, New Super Luigi U's greatest challenge is the chase of perfection, not survival. It can be punishing, but to call it difficult overall doesn't give due credit to its finely tuned flexibility.

Luigi's extra second of hang-time can be a lifesaver.

Some levels are choreographed so well that it’s not unheard of to occasionally breeze through one in less than 20 seconds. Granted, this requires excellent coordination and focus on your part, but it’s these moments that highlight the joy of mastering Luigi’s physics. When you can start off with a sprint and continue to triple jump, flip, and head stomp your way to the finish line without hesitation, there’s no greater feeling in this game, or New Super Mario Bros. U, quite like it. And with the levels as tightly composed and short as they are in New Super Luigi U, there are plenty of opportunities to discover the joys of a faster, riskier take on the Mario Bros. formula.
Of note is the return of Nabbit, the pesky robber-rabbit from New Super Mario Bros. U, who’s now playable during co-op in Mario’s absence. He controls much like the secondary Toads that populate the rest of a four-playable squad, with one major exception: he’s impervious to common enemies and environmental hazards. Being a plucky thief, his particular set of skills comes in handy when trying to acquire coins, but his considerable advantages come at a cost: he can’t use power-ups. This can be problematic when a player on their last leg misses the chance to power-up because Nabbit inadvertently wastes a nearby mushroom or fire flower, but on the other hand, he can bypass challenging enemies with ease, thus leading the way for other players to pop into a bubble and catch up with him. He’s not a game changer, but rather a nice change of pace from the likes of Toad and Mario.

You've come a long way, Luigi. Don't lose sight of your stout, blocky roots.

Nintendo has done a good job of creating a "new" experience out of old rags. You're still on a quest to rescue Princess Peach, and the same old Mario mechanics persist, but the challenges along the way feel different. Never have levels been this short, nor the emphasis on perfection so explicit, and these elements work in New Super Luigi U's favor. You don't need to be an expert player to save the princess, but there's room for advanced play in speed-running levels, collecting star coins, and, ultimately, tackling the legendary Rainbow Road. It can be a challenging game if you elect it to be, but it's accessible to a wide range of skill levels. The story is a compulsory component devoid of originality--unless Mario's not only missing but actually dead--and the lack of new power-ups or themes is disappointing, but underneath it all is a positively twisted take on the Mario Bros. formula, and it's an excellent add-on to New Super Mario Bros U.

Wargame: AirLand Battle Review

Wargame: AirLand Battle is a rewarding tactical real-time strategy game that is both complex and addictive.

The Good

• Incredible amount of depth  
• Reasonably accessible despite the complexity of combat  
• Blends deep wargame tactics with straightforward action  
• Four involving and lengthy Cold War-era campaigns  
• Solid suite of multiplayer features, including 10-versus-10 showdowns.

The Bad

• Steep learning curve in the early stages  
• Jagged visuals  
• Repetitive music and sound effects.

Whoa.
Apologies to Keanu Reeves, but that's exactly the sort of stunned reaction provoked by Wargame: AirLand Battle. This supersize real-time strategizer set during a Cold War-era WWIII is one of those all-in games that practically punches you in the face with its complexity when you fire it up for the first time. But even though this game is so daunting initially that you want to begin your time with the game by studying Clausewitz, the design is so slick and the combat so deviously challenging that you can't help being drawn into its what-if web pitting the Warsaw Pact against NATO.

Gee, everything looks awfully calm from way up here.

The modes, at least, are straightforward enough. You get a suite of tutorials. There are four solo/multiplayer campaigns, each covering different theaters of World War III in Northern Europe circa 1985. These play out like board games, in that you maneuver units on big turn-based tactical maps of Scandinavia before getting in close on detailed strategic battlefield maps when the guns start going off. Era-specific events pop up during the campaigns as well that alter battle conditions and add flavor to the Cold War setting.
So don't be surprised when that rabble-rousing Vaclav Havel starts mouthing off and causing trouble for your Warsaw Pact. Skirmish mode lets you go toe-to-toe with foes online or off in either small-scale matches or huge 10-versus-10 affairs. There is even something of a Warhammer or collectible card game vibe here: you can set up decks of units based on different themes like era or nationality and then take them into battle against all comers. You get a lot for your money when it comes to the sheer weight of the game options. A thriving community is playing online right now, too, so you can always find fresh opponents to keep battling even long after the single-player options have lost their luster.
Delve a little deeper, however, and you soon find that you need to devote serious time to learning all that this intricate example of modern warfare in a box has to offer. For instance, the game features hundreds of different units, each of which has been loaded up with detailed weapon modeling, armor ratings, firing ranges, and all sorts of other stats that are extremely helpful when you want to roll your T-72 tanks through the Swedish countryside. Units run the full gamut of, well, just about everything you would find on the air or land, with infantry, tanks, jets, choppers, bombers, AA guns, recon trucks, and so on.
Not much here comes easy. The tutorials let you dip your toe into some deep waters, but they're really more like a series of easy-ish to tough missions that serve as an introduction to the combat system. Oddly, they all lack meaningful instructions regarding what you're supposed to be doing. These scenarios just dump you into the middle of a battle with very basic orders, like telling you to start a close-quarters scrap by emptying troop carriers of their riflemen cargo.

And this is why reconnaissance is your best friend. Blindly fly into enemy-held territories, and you stand a great chance of being blown out of the sky.

As much as the game can be viewed as a complicated depiction of contemporary warfare, it remains somewhat simplistic on the surface. This is all about combat, first, last, and always. There are no bases to build or resources to gather. That said, there are plenty of hair-pulling moments early on just dealing with sending units into battle. But there is a strong rock-paper-scissors formula functioning in the background.
Tanks, fighter planes, and so forth are fully featured and realistic, with all of the battlefield strengths and weaknesses that you would expect. Anyone with even rudimentary RTS or wargame experience can figure out the basics just by using common sense. You don't need to know right away that T-72A tanks can fire seven rounds per minute with their main guns, or that your Mi-24V chopper missiles have an accuracy rating of 11. You need to figure these things out eventually to have any chance of winning the tougher campaigns, but there is a nice learning process where you pick up all of the nitty-gritty along the way.
   
   

The minimal interface helps immensely. Units are maneuvered with standard mouse scrolling and typical use of the left- and right-click buttons. All of the onscreen controls are right in your face. There aren't many of them to bother with, either. The focus is a hands-on style where you grab units and order them around. Two clicks are all that it takes to pull up all the key information about any unit in the game. So you never need to fumble around or go on any sort of expedition into nestled menu screens to check unit stats or ratings.

Units are loaded with fine detail modeling, well, pretty much everything. Thankfully, you don't have to understand all the stats right away.

Still, there is some room for complaint. Being able to dumb things down a little and switch to more simplistic numbers for units, like attack and defense ratings, speed, and so forth, would make the game much more approachable in the beginning. These numbers would have really smoothed out the initial learning curve and added a pick-up-and-play dimension that the game currently lacks.
At any rate, the gameplay in Wargame: ALB is so good that it draws you in despite the heavy detail. You're always battling your opponent, not the game itself. There is a superb split focus between the simple us-versus-them strategy that you can recognize from wargames as standard as Risk, and the tremendous depth that comes from all those stats that accurately model every facet of combat. The one flaw comes with the strict time limit on battles in campaign mode. You get just 20 minutes to meet the mission goals, and the whole thing winds up a draw if you fail, no matter how much of a beating you might be laying on the baddies when the clock ticks down to zero.
Map design is also brilliant in its mix of complexity and simplicity. There are multiple ways to secure your objectives, taking advantage of different units, exploiting one set of terrain over another, and so forth. Every map offers you a lot of choices, none of which are ever flatly wrong unless you're tackling everything head-on like Rambo. Do you flank an enemy position or hit it head-on? Take your tanks down the speedier roads or run them across the slower countryside? Sneak infantry through the woods toward an enemy-held town or get them into position on the high ground overlooking the bad guys? Maps open up the more that you play them and begin to figure out just how many choices you have with every move that you make.

Heavy is the head that sees the bird's-eye view.

The visuals and sound don't quite keep pace with the rest of the game. They are more than serviceable, however. Maps and unit models look realistic, if not exactly lifelike. Everything does its job, especially the terrain, which has enough detail to properly depict such features as deep forests and swampy lowlands. And the game moves along quite quickly despite the size of some of the maps, never bogging down even a mid-grade gaming system. The graphics only get bad when the camera zooms in close on urban scenes; things like picket fences go from pleasant to pixelated at ground level. Audio is a bit more obnoxious. Combat booms and bangs sound good enough, but the order acknowledgements are lacking in variety, and both the constant warning klaxons and the blaring martial music are extremely annoying.
Smart and rewarding, Wargame: ALB is one of those rare strategy games that give more back to you the more you put into playing them. It isn't exactly user-friendly, although it is easier to sidle up to than most games of this type because of the elegant design that blends combat basics with the depth that comes with the detailed modeling of hundreds of different units from the Cold War. It is an impressive design in just about every way, remaining at least somewhat accessible for all manner of strategy fans while not compromising any of its depth or details for more hardcore players looking for a serious wargame.

Motorbike Review

Motorbike is a cruel joke of a game that no PlayStation 3 owner should ever consider.

The Bad

• Wildly unpredictable physics  
• Abysmal track design  
• Splitscreen camera is horribly broken  
• A laundry list of technical shortcomings  
• Looks and sounds terrible.

To call Motorbike a Trials clone would be an insult to every Boba Fett and Dolly the Sheep that has ever existed. Sure, there's a cursory link between the two games in the way you travel from left to right on a virtual motorcycle, shifting your rider's weight around as you negotiate one treacherous obstacle after the next. But Motorbike is so much more than just a pale imitation of Trials; it stands on its own as a game that is both spectacularly and mind-numbingly atrocious. Every single aspect of this game, whether it's the awful track design or the litany of game-breaking bugs, serves as an affront to the very concept of fun. It's bad. It's real, real bad.

Motorbike's multiplayer can be a real adventure.

Motorbike's list of sins is a long and egregious one, dominated by a nauseating frame rate and frequent software crashes. But if you're lucky enough to survive the game's penchant for freezing on the title screen, you'll find your troubles are far from over. It all starts with Motorbike's awful, unpredictable, and downright spiteful physics engine. Like in Trials, you're asked to overcome all manner of steep hills, massive jumps, and scattered barriers. But there's absolutely no logic or science to the way your motorcycle interacts with the gameworld.
At best, your bike feels stiff and ambivalent to both your rider and the surface beneath it. At worst, you're sent rocketing into the sky when your wheel so much as grazes an object, or tumbling into the oblivion below when the ground decides it would prefer not to support your weight any longer. You never feel satisfied when you complete a track; you simply feel like you landed on the lucky side of the unpredictable physics engine.
Equally unsatisfying is the game's abysmal track design. The vast majority of Motorbike's levels are a mangled train wreck of obstacles assembled without the slightest concern for what your rider is able to perform. Many tracks break after a certain amount of time, whether it's ladders sliding out of place or crates falling onto a ramp critical to advancing through the level. Combine these courses with the wildly unpredictable physics, and your experience with the game almost always devolves into an exercise in overcoming hair-pulling levels of frustration.

In Motorbike, "cooperative" would be better labeled as "commiserative."

One of the more infuriating things about this track design is the way Motorbike taunts you with its few arbitrary uses of checkpoints. Within the game's 80 standard courses, there's only a small handful that even manage to use a single checkpoint. The game goes out of its way to show you it's capable of easing your frustrations were it inclined to do so, and then proceeds to make you restart almost every track from the very beginning because haha whoops. It's the Bond villain of game design.
There's no incentive to push forward, either. Motorbike fails to grasp the concept of game progression on the most fundamental of levels. Every course is unlocked from the start of the game, with a tiny checkmark acting as the sole indicator that you've completed a track. You don't earn new bikes, either; you simply choose Bike A or Bike B. Good luck trying to tell them apart, too, because the game can't be bothered to explain any performance differences between the two. Why would it ever want to do that? Don't be silly.
In a game full of glaring flaws, co-op is where Motorbike hits rock bottom. For that, you can thank the twisted fever dream that this game calls split-screen. The idea is that the game dynamically follows each player, splitting the screen when they get far enough apart and merging these perspectives when they're close together. But the game struggles mightily with keeping track of each player's location, recklessly panning this way and that while randomly swapping each player's side of the screen for no apparent reason. At various points, the camera gives up and focuses on the empty abyss beneath the track for five seconds at a time, as though the pretend cameraman's arms got tired or he noticed something shiny in the distance.

0 for 2, camera. 0 for 2.

Competitive play is a bit more functional, with a camera that's actually capable of following where each player is at any given moment. That doesn't stop the two players from knocking each other over at random, though, despite the fact that each opponent is represented as a ghost on the other's screen. That shoddy execution pervades the track creation, as well. Building a track forces you into a pitched battle with the game's abysmal menus, where you're forced to scroll through the game's entire list of objects to get from the save button to the test button. Placing those objects, meanwhile, is like hunting for a light switch in the dark. If you'd prefer to partake in tracks other people have made, good luck trying to find the best ones. User-created tracks are dumped into an endless list with no filtering or highlighting to speak of. But at least scrolling through that interminable list of tracks comes with the added benefit of not playing Motorbike.
It probably won't surprise you to hear that Motorbike is not the most handsome of games. Besides a visual design that features such inspired track themes as desert and mountain, you're treated to aggressively bland hard rock background music and sound effects that more closely resemble a series of wet farts than revving engines. In no universe is this a game that comes close to being worth the $15 price tag Motorbike commands on PlayStation Network. There's no two ways about it: this is one of the worst games that could ever grace your PlayStation 3.