Donlevy's Goodie-Bag: Part Two!

Time for another Goodie-Bag! If you missed the first one, the main theme for this recurring column is that the games listed here must be A, fun, and B, fifteen bucks or less! There's a LOT of these games out there, so I, as your prophet Donlevy, will do my best to recommend the best of the bunch!

Also, for Part Two here, I have a little mini-review of one of the recent games that's on the list. Look for it at the bottom! :)

Papers, Please

Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Lucas Pope
Platforms: PC & Mac via Steam/GOG
Genre: Puzzle Simulation of the border inspection variety

What sounds like a mundane and boring concept, checking papers as a border inspection agent, quickly becomes a morally testing and detail-intensive introspective simulation that is equal parts fascinating, and terrifying. As a border inspector for the fictitious country of Arstotzka, you are tasked with letting through nationals and immigrants, and keeping out possible terrorists and those without the right authorization. Papers, Please might be considered the adult equivalent of "One of these things is not like the others," in that your duty is primarily to highlight discrepancies among the growing amount of required papers. Soon, you will also be required to X-ray potential suspects, and alert the authorities and detain certain individuals. As the days go by, sometimes ending in a terrorist attack, you will be called upon for inspections, and in between have various choices presented to you, such as letting in a family without their papers, or holding another passport for a shady organization. All the while you must preserve the well-being of your family, purchasing medicine if they are sick or making sure they are properly sheltered.

It's a special kind of tension that results from awaiting to see if you accidentally missed a discrepancy, and perhaps let an unscrupulous fellow in by mistake, and hearing the *click-click* of a warning appear on your desk. Papers, Please, is certainly more than it may at first seem, and multiple playthroughs are encouraged with the multiple endings the game offers.

Glory to Arstotzka!

The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures

Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: FreakZone Games
Platforms: PC via Steam, future releases planned for Wii U and 3DS.
Genre: Retro Action Platformer

Hell yeah, it's a game based on the Nerd himself! In the style of the many games he plays, AVGN Adventures is fast-paced, over-the-top, and absurdly difficult. In fact, the game is just a little notorious for being too hard. Still, I recommend the game to fans of the Nerd wholeheartedly, and even someone looking for a crazy platformer.

You essentially run and shoot your way through the various platform stages, each with a bizarre and amusing theme (ex. Assholevania). You can unlock additional characters, each with a special move and style of play, and there's plenty of references and cameos to look for as well. You will undoubtedly die a lot, mostly from insta-death spikes and skull-blocks. It really pushes the notion of fairness, and you will likely end up as engraged as the Nerd is. Still, I think it's fun for what it is, and it is charming in its own twisted, strange way!



Hotline Miami

Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Dennaton Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam/GOG, PlayStation 3, 4, and Vita.
Genre: Top-down Arcade Action

Oooooh yes, I was waiting to add this one. Relentlessly fast-paced and brutal, Hotline Miami is strange, twisted, addicting, and insane. From a top-down perspective, you control a character known only as "Jacket" as he enters multiple dens of gangsters and viscerally takes them out, spurned on by visions and psychoanalysis from the various masks he dons. Fuelled by an absolutely stellar electronica soundtrack, Hotline Miami is drenched in its neon-stylized 80's setting, backed up by a staggering amount of ultra-violence.

You choose an unlocked mask and are let loose into the gangster hideouts, and you have a one-hit life. You have to be quick and precise to take out the enemies systematically and survive. If you die, one button press puts you right back into the action. A score at the end rates you on your time and effectiveness, and contributes to the high replayability of the game. Hotline Miami is bloody and brutal, and I mean it. Not for everyone, especially you young folk out there. But the soundtrack? That's for all to hear.


Orcs Must Die!

Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Robot Entertainment
Platforms: PC via Steam, Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
Genre: Third-person Tower Defense

I...have to admit that I'm not normally into tower defence games. A lot of people talk about their favourite ones, and how addicting they can be. I can't speak for anyone else, but damn if I didn't get sucked into Orcs Must Die!. It probably helps that game plays from a third-person perspective, as opposed to the usual overhead view, and that the combat and controls feel much more in-depth and responsive. As most TD games go, your objective is to protect a certain point, in this case a portal, from the hordes of Orcs that charge toward you. You have various weapons and traps you can use and set to stem the tides, as you must prevent a certain number of Orcs from crossing the portal. This game has a killer style to it, and a really pleasing and inviting aesthetic (you know, for a game where you kill a bunch of orcs), and similarly, the traps and weapons are all super cool, and you'll need to use them all to complete the many different stages/levels in front of you. It certainly has a few stages that stretch your abilities, but I always felt that with a new strategy, any level could be overcome. Easy to play, and a good mastering curve, I highly suggest giving this one a shot, even if you don't like tower defense games!

Of note is that there's a sequel with improved gameplay and levels, and a co-op mode! I haven't had a good playthrough of it yet, but at fifteen dollars, it makes the list in spirit! See if you can't catch a price drop for the bundle on Steam, I'm always seeing it go on sale.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Normal Price: $14.99
Developer: Starbreeze Studios AB
Platforms: PC via Steam, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Puzzle Adventure

In stark contrast to some of the other entries on this list, Brothers is sombre, emotional, and incredibly investing. Brothers is a twin-stick puzzle adventure that has you take control of two brothers, each with a different trigger and analog stick (with a controller, ideally) as you guide them across the land to find a cure for your ailing father. Brothers is a stunning and beautiful game both aesthetically and narrative-wise. You truly feel like you're on a breathtaking journey from beginning to end, as you traverse the ever-changing landscape from rolling hills, to icy peaks, to war-torn battlefields of a mysterious war. Brothers expresses everything from the characters and the environments through both subtlety and visual power, without anyone ever uttering more than a grunt. The puzzles are not always obvious but never obtusely difficult, and it helps keep a constant flow and pace to the adventure. Like Journey from the previous list, I feel like Brothers is a game where everyone will relate to and take away something different and something special from playing the game, and that in itself is enough for me to recommend a playthrough.

Shovel Knight

Normal Price: $14.99
Developer: Yacht Club Games
Platforms: PC via YachtClubGames.com, Wii U, 3DS, Mac and Linux to come later
Genre: Old-School Platformer/Adventure

Aha, oh Shovel Knight is just pure joy! And it's barely a month old! Shovel Knight was created out of a successful Kickstarter, and the result is something quite special indeed! The game takes inspiration from many classic NES games like Mega Man, Castlevania, Ducktales, and Zelda II, and merges the best of them all into a cohesive, triumphant, and epic retro adventure, while still maintaining a special identity of its own.

You play as Shovel Knight, who lost his beloved Shield Knight when they entered the Tower of Fate, and he retreated into a solitary life. When the Tower comes to life again and the evil Enchantress rises to power, Shovel Knight grabs his trusty shovel to bring shovel justice to the Enchantress and her Order of No Quarter, a group of knights that stand between Shovel Knight and the Tower. There's not much more to the story, apart from some witty and funny dialogue and more shovel jokes than you can shake a...er...shovel at.

The controls are incredibly simple, with the normal run left/right, jump, and attack buttons, with "down" used in air to use your shovel as a sort of pogo-stick and jump on enemies (like the cane from Ducktales), and the "up" used in conjunction with attack to utilize one of the many items you obtain as you play at the cost of magic (like Castlevania). The controls are tight and simple, and makes for some smooth and excellent gameplay. There's a hugely satisfying difficulty curve that makes the transitions between early and later stages as smooth as they could be, and the overall level design feels refined and fair. You will more often than not die from a silly mistake, rather than through any fault of the game, and it's that balance of difficulty and player skill that really makes Shovel Knight shine.

Each stage feels wholly unique and memorable, as do the bosses you fight and items you receive. Boss fights feel deliciously old-school, where pattern recognition and timing play crucial roles. The neat thing is that you are not required to use the items you found on the stage, or elsewhere, to defeat them. As long as you have your trusty shovel, you're good to go. That being said, the items (called relics) themselves are great, and some are hugely useful. Admittedly, some will be used way more than others, but there's just the right amount of them to make it balance properly when the situation requires another relic.

You select your stage via an overworld screen (a la Super Mario Bros. 3) and you can access several special areas and boss levels at a time, as well as two villages where you can buy items and upgrades for your health, magic, shovel, and armour. This offers you a degree of freedom, where you can tackle some bosses in several different orders, although there isn't a real strategy to be found by playing certain stages first, unlike the case with Mega Man.
Each area has various enemies, and mounds of dirt and rock that when shovelled, reveal precious gems that add to your currency. The catch here is that as you shovel about the levels, if you die, you do not lose a life, rather, you lose some of your gold in relation to how much you possess. This can mean that if you happen to be a rich Shovel Knight and you die, you're gonna lose quite a lot. But fear not, good Shovel Knight, for you have one chance to make it to the place that you died and retrieve three winged bags of gold from where you met your end. Die again before reaching the bags, and they disappear forever.

This method of a life/death cycle is a little unusual, and it really stinks to have sometimes basically lost all the gold you gained on the level, but the trade-off is that it encourages you to SPEND SPEND SPEND when you're in the villages, so as to not lose as much money if you die.

This can mean all the difference if you choose to go balls-to-the-wall and do the entire stage in one go. To elaborate, the stages themselves are actually quite lengthy (maybe a bit too lengthy at times), and to balance that out, there are various checkpoints set up throughout the levels in the shape of glass orbs. Well, you can actually destroy the checkpoints so you gain the large amount of money from within the orbs, but rendering the checkpoint useless as a result. Yeah, so, if you got greedy on one of the longer levels and died, you're going to be doing the entire level over again. That's some Ghosts N' Goblins craziness right there.

The stage graphics and sound are superb. Meant to be an homage to the games of the past, the soundtrack is brimming with chiptune awesomeness, and the graphical palettes are evocative and well-used. Some might say it's the presentation that makes Shovel Knight the love letter it is to retro gaming, but I think it's also thanks in equal part to the balance of gameplay that Shovel Knight makes its own.

I personally have...mixed feelings on newer games trying to emulate the style of classic 8-bit or 16-bit games. Some titles take the Mario-style platforming to an exact clone, and try to put in fake-pixel graphics to achieve the intended result. I believe that's missing the point. And it's also why I adore Shovel Knight so much for what it is. Sure, it's not technically 8-bit, but the heart is there, and the gameplay definitely is. Shovel Knight doesn't just try to emulate classic games, it learns from them, and that makes it a huge success in my books. And hey, as icing on the cake, there's plenty of collectibles to find, an arena to participate in, and a New Game Plus mode that amps up the difficulty, but allows you to keep your items and upgrades!

Just an excellent game, truly.

Donlevy Reviews -- Wolfenstein: The New Order!

Released: May 20, 2014
Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC.
Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Rating: M

First...

--Hypothetical developer meeting:

Person 1: Okay, we should do a shooter for our next game. Of the first-person variety.
Person 2: Really? Aren't there enough of those? They're like a cancer now...
Person 3: Nonsense! We'll make ours different! We just need an old IP to use.
Person 1: Oh! How 'bout Wolfenstein?
Person 3: YEAH! Now I'm pumped, there's so much NAZI KILLIN' to be had! ARRRGGHHH BOOOOM SHOOT NAZI DEATH HITLER GUNS GUNS MEIN LEBEN AMERICA F*CK YEAHHHHHHH
Person 2: Uh....that's supposed to be...different?
Person 1: Oooh you bet! We'll make it throwback-style! None of this silly "Stay Frosty" crap. We'll make it balls to the wall Nazi death stuff.
Person 2: Hmm...alright! But we need to have an actual story this time around.
Person 3: What? Who cares about stories anymore? Bring on the GUNNNNNNZZZZZ.
Person 2: No, screw that. We're going to have an honest-to-god actual freaking story now.
Person 3: Awww...well let's at least get a multiplayer mode going as well! We need to get our target demographic of 12 year-olds in on this too!
Person 1: No. I'm liking Person 2's idea. Forget it. Let's focus on a single-player story. Maybe we'll actually make a half-decent game out of it.

As it happens, Person 1 and Person 2 were quite correct.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is more than just a half-decent game. It's a dang good one.

It's almost unheard of for games like Wolfenstein to have outstanding stories and characters to tout. Wolfenstein 3D, for instance, had a few niblets of a narrative here and there, but you primarily had two objectives: reach the end of the level, and kill as many Nazis as you can on your way out (and maybe find some gold or secrets along the way). Simple, yeah?

Aha, well, honestly that's still the core idea of The New Order. BUT.

The New Order follows, eh, loosely with the past two Wolfenstein games (Return to Castle Wolfenstein from 2001, and 2009's Wolfenstein). The setting at this point is essentially an alternate universe, although gone is the supernatural element from before (mostly), and gone is the timeframe of the real World War II. In fact, The New Order is quite unique in that it begins with the Allied powers losing the war -- and badly. Nazi technological advances have decimated Allied troops, and now, in 1946, one final push is made on the compound of one Wilhelm Strasse, also known as Deathshead (one of the few constants TNO has with past games: Strasse has been a perpetual villain). Leading the charge? Our good ole' pal B.J. Blazkowicz, the rootinist, tootinist Nazi killin' machine since reason and decency. There is, however, one noticeable change in ole' B.J. He talks to himself. A lot.

Right, what I mean is that Blazkowicz as a character has begun to be fleshed out considerably. His outward appearance might suggest an American gung-ho potato, but his inner monologue reveals the demons that he must face as he watches the young kids around him go to their deaths in a war that has stretched on for far too long. Blazkowicz knows he's the best at running and gunning, but he's grown tired of it, and tired of the endless futility of it all. He has dreams of a world without war, where he can settle down and have a family in peace.

And it's not just Blazkowicz that gets some depth. There are more characters and villains you meet that make up what is ultimately a highly competent and intriguing story. It adds a strong layer to the game as a whole, and it makes your actions, and the consequences, feel more meaningful and worthwhile, however limited they may be. It helps that the voice acting is particularly strong, although Blazkowicz's is a bit...mundane by comparison.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is still, however, a shooter. And unfortunately it's this stipulation that harms the pacing of the story progression. The transition to 1960 after the prologue is strong and warranted, but you'll find yourself quickly being whisked away to different places in the blink of an eye, and you'll be left reeling from where you just where/what you're doing now, right before you're tossed into the next destination, wondering where you are and why. This method doesn't work in the story's favour, since you'll likely be wanting more details on things like: "How did I get back"? Or,  "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED"?!?

That of course leads me to a small issue. You aren't told much about external or past events (particularly in regards to past games), and sometimes you might find yourself combing through the collectibles or character art you unlock throughout the levels in the hope that the description comes of each might expand the story or setting. For some cases, it's worthwhile, and for others, no grand reason is ever really given. I find that it balances out, but I can't help but feel that there is way more to the story and setting that I would be delighted to see explored.

The frantic pacing of the story has a trade-off though: it makes the combat transitions much less boring and uneventful as they could have been. The quick cuts mean that you're almost right away tossed back in, and it makes sense given the nature of the gameplay.

The New Order is yet another proper showing of how best to tie-in more modern first-person shooter mechanics with the classic run n' gun nature of the old ones. Gone is the over-used regenerative health bar and two-weapon limit, replaced with classic med-pacs and armor, and a weapon wheel. You can dual-wield pretty much every weapon, and each one has an alternate firing method to utilize as well. Shooting feels strong and responsive, and the extra mobility offered to you is an added bonus. B.J.'s pretty fast, and you also have the option to lean in any direction, ideally behind some cover.

Knives also play an important role, as you can melee someone at close range for an instant takedown, or you can play it safe and attempt to be stealthy, also using any extra knives you have to throw for silent kills. Stealth sections are put upon you frequently, but they are not entirely necessary. You can use the opportunity to take out officers who might radio for backup if you are spotted, so stealth is encouraged if you want as few ridiculous encounters as possible. Aside from that, there's not really any other incentive for staying in stealth; you'll likely be put in a mandatory combat scenario soon after anyway. Still, the stealth element is a neat and actually rather fun addition, although it is admittedly lesser in comparison to more stealth-heavy and awesome games like Dishonored and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Among the levels lay various collectibles like Gold Pieces (a throwback to Wolfenstein 3D), concept and character art, and enigma codes, which when solved unlock some extra modes. These things encourage replayability, especially if there's ones you know you might have missed due to an abrupt change of phase in the level. The level design is solid overall, with different heights and added corridors to give combat a varied feel. It's a pain however that the objective system is just too vague at times, often giving no helpful directive, and no clear set of end results to achieve. This is apparent when you encounter certain enemies that you either can't defeat yet, or can be defeated but only unconventionally. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice feeling when you figure out how to take down a tough enemy, but when you have no idea if you're even supposed to, that's another matter.

If you do find yourself wandering around aimlessly however, at least the sights are nice. Every level feels varied and unique, and the aesthetic design of the Nazi architecture and machinery is really quite cool. It won't blow your mind with sheer graphical power, but no matter what system you play it on, the style makes up for it.

And all the points are there for good sound design too. I already pointed out the strong voice cast, and the music too fits just as well, and adds to some great backdrops during pivotal fights. The sound effects, especially of the weapons, sound particularly clean and awesome.

A shooter with a story. A dang good shooter with a dang respectable story, I might add! It's a notable and fun experience all around, and it feels oddly refreshing in an industry so reliant on modern mechanics. Classic shooter fans, be on the lookout for this!  
Wolfenstein: The New Order is one you shouldn't pass up.

And hey, for you younglings out there, give your Call of Duty a break and pay your respects to the granddaddy of FPS's, new and reborn. You might come away more impressed than you might think.

YAY

• Nazi killin'. Lots of Nazi killin'.
• Increased emphasis on story and characters adds a surprisingly nuanced layer to the experience.
• Core shooting gameplay is rock solid. The exact opposite of your bland military shooter, and the game knows this. Should not be as refreshing as it is.
• (Mostly) optional stealth sections change up the pace and variety for some really cool moments.
• Multiple throwbacks to the Wolfenstein games of the past, and classic first-person shooters in general. Lots of collectibles and secrets to be found.
• Superb sound effects and voice acting.
• Looks great on any system, but the artistic style and aesthetic really make it notable. The designs and building architecture are varied, and just damn cool. I mean, LOOK AT THAT "PANZERHUND."

NAY

• Stilted pacing from a narrative standpoint. Lots of location shifts. Makes for swift gameplay, but shuns the story.
• Bizarre and unclear directions at times make it rather annoying to defeat an enemy or complete an objective.
• The stealth, while fun, is pushed onto the player a bit much, and it isn't perfect. Deus Ex, or Dishonored, this is not.
• Hard to discern what's canon and what's not when relating to previous Wolf games (and, well, history in general), and this means that there's going to be a few WTF? moments during the story that are not well explained.

Donlevy Note: My honest opinion tells me that I couldn't possibly fault this game for not having a multiplayer mode. As much as some people wanted one...tough. Haha. For what's it worth though, I will say that the gameplay mechanics are certainly there! If there were a mode to speak of, I have the impression that it would be somewhere more in line with Unreal Tournament, rather than Call of Duty. And that would be totally fine with me. (The single-player alone still makes up for this, in any case.)

Anyway, on to the Spectrum...