Portal 1 Reivew : Late To The Party As Usual

  Now I like puzzle games just as much as the next gamer who loves to be frustrated, but surprisingly I haven't finished many of them. I started to think I wasn't good at puzzles since when I get stumped, I give up. But this time was different. Portal has been played, laughed at, cursed at, completed, cheered at, played again, cried at, and played even more. Do you get my gist? Yes, I had trouble with some puzzles, but I learned that if I just put the game down for a day or even a few hours and come back to it, I would find the solution! What is it about Portal that kept me entertained? Well, for one, GlaDOS. GlaDOS is the robot's voice the player hears when entering the game, but let me tell you a few things before this.

Portal's main menu is simplistic, but gives off a slight ominous vibe which intrigued the mystery-lover in me. The mechanics of the menu screen rotates the viewer halfway around the room. A toilet, sleep-chamber, conspicuous IV-rack, and clock radio reside in a glass room in the center of the outer room. The glass room is situated above what appears to be a fiery, presumably lava pit. Little can be seen of it, but much can be assumed. The overall room's white balance is skewed to look a soft blue from the florescent light emissions, as well as a few glowing cyan wall strips and buttons. There is an eerie white cylindrical camera above the main door with a peering red eye which one can only imagine that one's every move is being observed in this facility.

Upon entering the game you find yourself in that glass room with an unstably tuned robot voice welcoming you “again” to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. She speaks briefly about beginning a series of tests and then suddenly an orange portal opens in your room and a blue one can be seen in the hall. Through the glass wall, as you stand in front of the orange portal, you can see the image of yourself in the blue portal, and may be alarmed as I was to discover you're wearing an orange outfit much like an inmate or citizen of a possibly-gone-horribly-wrong medical ward.

 The hallway was dark....

 The first few levels is much like a tutorial before you are able to use the portal gun, and then also just using 1 portal instead of both. I was thankful for these few levels before the puzzles started getting a little more complicated because quite frankly when I began this game I knew three things: Robot named GLaDOS is amazingly witty but dry, its a puzzle game, everyone is still talking about the game. Now you aren't killing anything with this gun. It is what it says it is: a portal gun. You make portals, in case that wasn't clear. This is another reason I enjoy puzzle games because you aren't shooting everything to a bloody pulp. The only creatures you replicate death to are the Turrets which you are more like "disabling." They are also sentient robots, or so is hinted at as they make comments like "Please put me down," or "Hello, target acquired  :) Dispensing product," "Would you come over here? Hello? Hello? There you are." Their immensely cute, sincere voices would make any person happy, and you almost feel bad having to take the out in order to finish the level. Once you experience all the "type of" tutorials, the challenges begin. Mind bending, thought-wrenching, fist-slamming puzzles await you! The variety of challenges are good, I never felt like I was just doing "one more of this kind, ugh". You have to come up with new ways to "think with portals" in several different environments, some involving insta-death (also known as toxic sludge), some have barely any walls that can have portals applied to them, sometimes you have to vault yourself across the room, or drop cubes (an item Portal also focuses on) onto floor buttons, or turrets, or anything you can think of.

But let me say, the game felt really short. If I had played it all in one day, it might have only taken me 3-4 hours.  Even so, it is a game that can be played over and over, and once you reach the end you can go back to the test chambers where you can play similar puzzles to the ones you already experienced but they'll have specific new challenges, like how many steps you can take to complete it or how many new portals you can open. Cool stuff like that.

So, although I was late to the party of Portal 1, I believe in retrospective, it's held up pretty well as a game. I've honestly never spoken to anyone who didn't like the game. If you buy through  Steam, it's only $9.99, but don't run off yet, you can buy The Orange Box for only $19.99 (and it includes 5 Valve games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode One, Half-Life 2 Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress - which are also all fun games). 

Happy Portaling!

Do I recommend this? Oh, yes. Yes, I do.

Dungeon Defenders PC Review : Mates, Modes, and Music

“Etheria was once a land of living legends….”

Okay, let's work with this. Dungeon Defenders starts with comic-book style beginning while a comforting male voice narrates. He speaks about four distinct people who are left by their elders to take care of the boring castle chores. I found this an interesting start instead of being charged immediately with those trusty words, "You, SuchandSuch, are now tasked with saving the world" or rants about how all 4 "types" of people will be essential to winning the war against evil,  I was able to see what these four chums were doing before they unleashed a terrible force by accident and made me have to answer for their mistakes.

So, who do you wanna be?

You can choose from four original classes! 

Apprentice (Mage), Huntress(Hunter), Monk(Healer), Squire(Warrior)

Oh, sorry. Were you expecting something more creative?

Well, you're in luck if you want to spend extra money.

Other classes you can pick, not counting the other sex counterparts of the above are:

Barbarian, Series EV, Jester, and Summoner. These four classes are more or less combinations of the above in some way or the other. I've only played the Summoner out of those special classes, and I can say, it is definitely fun. Instead of risking your own health points lowering, you get to breeze around the maps creating minions left and right to fight for you. Ah, the life of a passive-aggressive class. Plus, Summoners look so cool!

His name is Pumpernikle.

Dungeon Defenders is designed to be played with more than just you. However, you do have the option to struggle all by your lonesome through complicated levels, but are you really playing the game just to play a strategy game? Or are you interested in experiencing something new?  

I like new. Dungeon Defenders isn't just a strategy game, it’s merged with the action RPG genre. Single player isn't very intense until higher levels when there are more doors and many more enemies to manage. Can you imagine a game that offers levels beyond easy, medium, and hard? Well, now you don't even have to ponder it. Dungeon Defenders has 6 modes you can play: Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane, Nightmare, and Hardcore Mode. Personally, I've only played on Easy and Medium. I tried Hard but was soloing at the time and I had so much trouble. 

So you're trying out easy mode in single-player, but you yearn to work with other people. First things first!  You must know your class before playing in a team. If you fail to grasp the intricacies of your class, then not only will your team get frustrated because you’re taking too long setting traps, defenses, healing pots, or minions, but also you won’t get invited back for future rounds. This seems common knowledge, but you would be surprised how many people lack this understanding.

If you're stuck in game, here's a helpful website Dungeon Defenders Guide To Classes.

Dungeon Defenders' Music

Like any game that has a music loop, the dungeon music can get annoying. But if you’re someone like me who doesn't pay attention to the music after a while since I’m so focused on surviving, then you’re good. Overall though, I like the map musics.

Opening menu music –heroic – strong brass sounds

Tavern music – relaxing, with a harp and pipe. There is soft chatter in the background from the miscellaneous NPCs in the background. No distinguishable words, but there are rises and falls in their voices. There’s some dish clinking and creaking floor boards. So even though you’re there all by yourself, you feel like there are others around.

Dungeon or Build Phase music entails soft to medium volume stringed instruments

Combat Phase music has a nice set of choral voices alongside a faster version of strings played during the Build Phase.

I like the music simply because it rewards the player positively (like when you survive a wave -"du du duuuuh!")  and keeps the player pumped during the fights. Claps all around, Trendy Entertainment.

Recommend? Yes.

DC Universe Online Free To Play PC Review : Customization And Gameplay Mechanics

As many Free-To-Play(FTP) versions of games keep game-play, interaction with other players, customization of characters, or places you can travel to limited; DCUO doesn't. DCUO FTP did not make me feel like I needed to pay a subscription fee to enjoy the game.

          Let's put the story concept shortly: DC Universe Online is an MMO based on DC comic book universe and lets you fight along side or against DC superheroes. Sounds cool enough, right? Who doesn't want to fight as their similar as possible favourite superhero? Or, villain for that matter? When I say similar, I mean this... You aren't capable of playing as the actual comic book hero/villain, but you do have a set of choices for mentors. I can tell you- having The Joker as a mentor is definitely a ride on its own. The Joker is voiced by Mark Hamil and the way he reads his lines just makes me giddy inside. Here's a clip of The Joker's Vault, a mini-game, that for free-to-play players can open every 24 hours. The gist of the game is to open all the presents and you get miscellaneous items, some good, some awful  It's not a competitive game, but more of a "come here everyday and get rewarded for smashing presents!"

           DCUO has a lot of character customization. Not only in the way you can create your characters body type, height, weight, face, hair, skin even, etc, but also in their gear. Instead of wandering through the game from low levels in shabby, mismatched gear that no one would ever wear willingly, you can set your gear to look the way you want at the start of the game. When you receive new gear in game, you can either change to the appearance of the new gear or keep the appearance of the old gear but get the new stats. So for example, my hero (mentored by Wonder Woman) was designed to have big, white wings. But when I receive an item called "cloak" and equip it, I can still say that I want my wings to be the appearance of my back item.

"Who's that laaady? Sexy lady!"

          Another customization part of character creation is their personality and "stance" along with powers. The trifecta or "holy trinity": healer, tank, and damage dealers exist within the game, but aren't divided up into individual classes. Each character has options to execute one of those roles at any given time. So, my hero, focuses on healing, but when she's soloing, she's in damage mode otherwise...She wouldn't get very far. Because I typically roll healers in MMOs, I found myself constantly unable to play the game correctly because healing isn't the same in this game as I've experienced in the generic MMO. Instead of healing a targeted person, the character must be pointed in the direction of the targets in order to spread heals. The fact that you don't use the mouse (unless in chat window or quest logs) ensures that you won't be able to click on another player.
Apparently the designers of DCUO did not feel the need to add more tutorial-like information in game on how to execute the different roles. I had to browse the web in order to decipher the best way to not only heal others, but also which skills or powers would be more useful to the healing role. What makes this even more con-oliscious is that the power trees could use some streamlining because many of the power-types have similar abilities. If you're playing a co-op game, everyone wants to feel needed, so it would really help to have a few skills that are particular to the specific power-type.

          One more thing about customization of female models that really bugs me. Breast size. There, I've said it. I know that if you Google "DC comic book heroes small breasts" you have to scroll for forever to find a possibly, MAYBE hero or villain that has smaller breasts. I would really like to be able to adjust my villain's breast size. Because of her hunkered over stance (that being part of the Feral personality type), her already double D's become what..like F's? H's? J's? Who knows? They are absolutely massive! Maybe that's the real reason why she's hunched over.

          Oh and, your character doesn't have to be wearing any clothing at all! Shocking. My villain typically wears a bikini top, but to illustrate her ta-tas, she's in stripper mode for y'all.



Recommend? Yes.