Alright! I assume we all know the format now (but here it is again anyway). In my eternal quest to clear up my backlog of games from the PlayStation Plus service, I dedicate tiny portions of my day to trying out new games. What comes next (naturally) is that I make sweeping generalizations and provide do or die opinions based on a small fraction of the game’s entirety. First impressions: your move video games!

 

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Extra Point
Trine 2 (PS3)

You start off in the hut of a wizard who is hanging out in his man-wizard cave to avoid his wife. A light beckons you forward. This is all nothing new if you played Trine. You do a few things and progress a short way when you are confronted with your knight friend. A brief flashback in his shoes and suddenly you’re in a flashback of the female protagonist who happens to be a loot digging thief vixen. So far so good with the character and gender stereotypes. Each character has a unique set of skills which can be enhanced via experience points. The game is a side scrolling action/puzzler hybrid that tries to force you to balance all three characters because…once you go through that intro you can swap between them at any time (unless one died).

• What’s three times awesome: Character swapping is balanced quite well actually. The wizard can levitate objects and create boxes out of thin air to jump on or act as weights for various puzzles. Offensively he’s a joke and will get you killed. The thief character has a grappling hook to swing around and a bow to get things at range. She’s by far the most mobile and great for jumping sequences or reaching high areas (sometimes with the wizard’s help). The knight is of course the brawler who you’ll want for most actual combat. Apart from that and smashing some obstacles he’s not overly involved with puzzle solving. Unless of course you bring in his shield which is good for hostile territory. I played a few areas and each one had numerous puzzles or hidden items that could be solved multiple ways. Do I create a box to jump on or swing up with the grappling hook? Should I levitate this or try to smash things? Do I get by the fire spitting flower with a box or shield to block? Or just swing over it? Or shoot the box above it with an arrow? You get the idea, there are a lot of ways to play this game according to your preference. The art style looks like something out of a felt poster that glows under a blacklight, but this isn’t a bad thing. The overtly cliche fantasy feel goes hand in hand with the less than serious tone of the characters.

 

• What’s one third cool: Due to the swapping that often occurs pretty quickly, combat can be hard to manage sometimes. The only character capable of handling true assaults is the knight. If you swap out wrong (for instance thief to wizard) you’re in for a rough start. Even the knight can get beat up quickly if you’re not on your toes,  As a result combat can play out as less fun than just roaming around looking for treasure. Jumping puzzles can be tricky at times due to the free from nature of solving. If I create a box to jump on, will it be balanced properly? Or using the grappling hook can sometimes be a chore if you didn’t land the hook in the right spot. Often I found myself knowing the solution I wanted and having to try a few times to nail it.

 

How far did I get: I made it just past the first “boss” which is a giant snake that you don’t actually fight. You maneuver around the board trying to trick into smashing things which makes rubble fall onto it. It was only a few areas but they varied wildly from drug induced hallucination colorful (I’m guessing) to dreary caves.

Who is this for: It’s hard to pinpoint this one due to the hybrid nature of the game. It’s not an intense combat scroller like Ghouls and Ghosts and it’s not a true puzzler like Escape Plan. It’s more similar to Dokuro as a puzzler with some combat worked in. The combat is more fleshed out here and the character swapping is more pronounced but it’s the same idea. Some combat, some puzzles.

Safety
Stacking (PS3)

One of the most unique puzzlers I’ve come across has you in the role of Charlie, the smallest nesting doll in his family. Yes, nesting doll. Charlie is overall considered to be useless so when his father disappears and his siblings are all forced to work in coal mines and such even his own mother doubts that he can shoulder the load of trying to set things right. The concept is simple:  as the smallest nesting doll it’s up to you to sneak behind larger nesting dolls and jump inside them which turns into an equivalent forced demonic possession allowing you to control their every move. Wait, that’s not simple at all is it? Anyway, Charlie is limited to talking to others while the dolls he possesses have other abilities which can be put to use to solve the area’s puzzles.

• What stacks up: Graphically it’s a treat. The style takes elements from silent movies, puppet theater and of course traditional nesting doll design to make a pretty fantastic theme. Not only do you possess other dolls but you’re only allowed to move up one size at a time, up to a few layers of dolls. In order to use the largest dolls and steal their powers you need to first take over small and medium dolls. The “powers” are often ludicrous yet useful. Puzzles reward you for solving them in different ways. The first puzzle for example sees you able to take control of a mechanic to open up an air vent. Or find a doll with terrible flatulence to use his “powers” in said vent to clear the building out. Or a doll with the “seduce” power to distract the doorman to sneak in. Unique dolls are also littered around the level with powers that seem to be just for fun (like beating a drum or blowing obnoxious smoke at people). The story is humorous and fits the game nicely.

• What falls apart: Powers you use from other dolls, while generally interesting, are never all that complex. So while it’s funny to blow a bubble, or play tag, or use a toilet, it’s always just “hit x” and see what happens. As a result, all the puzzle solutions I encountered were the formula “Go find a doll with a specific power, hit x, move on.” I would imagine that over time this could lead to tedium regarding the main story progression.

How far did I get: I played the entire first area which had the main puzzle with three solutions mentioned above  as well as a “lost boy” mini game in which you try to make a matched set of nesting dolls by finding his sister and mother and then using your forced demonic possession skill to put them all together.

Who is this for: Anyone who can appreciate highly stylized or artistic games will enjoy this. Puzzle lovers may not love it as again, my first impression is that they would all be solved with “wander around until you find the right doll.” If you’re looking for a very easygoing game that is like nothing else this is a tremendous option.

Field Goal
Rock of Ages (PS3)

Enter Sisyphus, punished by the gods and forced to roll a boulder up a hill over and over for all eternity. So far we’re off to a great start with character progression. Except Sisyphus was known for his cleverness and using trickery to get what he wants. Following in that vein he uses all of his wit to start smashing stuff with the boulder. Ok, it’s not witty, but it’s a pretty wild way to set up a game in which the objective is to control a rolling boulder around an arena and smash enemy gates down before they do the same to you. First up: Hades. And then onward through time.

• What’s timeless: The story and cutscenes are AMAZING. From the opening montage of Sisyphus rolling the boulder over and over until he snaps, to the parody of the movie 300 when you reach Sparta. In addition to the rolling of boulders, during the game it takes time to rebuild your rock after smashing it against a gate. In between boulders you can build things like towers or catapults to stop the enemy boulder from hitting your gate. Or cows. You can make cows. That try to nudge the enemy boulder out of the way. Overall the strategy elements create a different pace to a ball rolling game that can be pretty interesting.  There’s a few mini games available as well, such as skee ball which is a pretty fun take on the “rolling ball” game genre. You can select your hero for mini games (I often used the Archangel Michael) and you can choose different boulders. I had a great time rolling a giant Jack O’ Lantern around.

• What’s fleeting: It’s a rolling ball game. Like Super Monkey Ball or Hamsterball with a real time strategy twist. I found that it was less useful to spend money on fortifying defenses than it was on power ups for the boulder. I made entire walls of towers with cows to push the ball away after the collision and still found that the enemy nailed my gate with every boulder they had. Additionally, they never seemed to have much damage variation. Conclusion: my fortifications had very little impact. Maybe they slowed the boulder a little but it was hard to tell even if that happened. I also found myself getting around enemy towers and cows and elephants pretty easily meaning that the game is more a damage per second contest.

How far did I get: I got all the way into the middle ages, beating Justinian and his army. On the way I smashed through some other fun history including the aforementioned victory at Thermopylae.

Who is this for: It’s a great casual game for anyone. If you like history enough to know who the historical figures being parodied are then it’s for you. The story elements are good enough where I often felt like the game was a distraction to the cutscenes and not the other way around.

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