Posted by: Nikolas Mason

It’s not very often that you see a game in the style of classic point and click adventures. I still remember my early video game years, playing games like Sam and Max or Day of the Tentacle. They combined mystery with a very unique art direction and talented voice work and music. Over the years, this style of game has been long forgotten by many, but not BugFactory, a small game developing company originating in Finland. They put these ingredients together almost perfectly with their PC point-and-click adventure game The Tales of Bingwood.

You play as Tom, the fisherman’s son, who has been chosen by the town’s people to rescue the Royal Princess who has been kidnapped by the Evil Wizard. The game’s main plot is definitely nothing new to the gaming world, but Bingwood manages to pull it off quite nicely. Featuring many intriguing characters, great voice acting and plenty of comical lines, Bingwood delivers its story well.

The graphics are nothing groundbreaking by far, but that isn’t a problem in this case. The art direction is refreshing and very reminiscent of early computer games. The locations are all very creative and done in a pixilated but very artistic manor.  At times it can be kind of hard to tell what objects can be interacted with, but never is it too big of a problem.

The game features a large cast of fully voiced characters, all of which have unique personalities and very good voice acting, especially for the main character, Tom. Tom is a laid back young man who seems indifferent about the fact that it is up to him to save the Princess. His only fear is that he has to marry her. Besides the conversations, the game features dialog for almost every action and item, making it more entertaining than if you had to read everything like most games make you do. Along with the voice acting, the game features a great musical score that really fits the style and art direction. The story, while not terribly deep, is fun to follow thanks to the sound work.

The controls are very simple point-and-click. If you see an item that you think is important, you can use the eye tool to have Tom explain what it is, and in some cases, you can use the hand tool to pick up the item and put it in your inventory. Other tools include a foot tool (to allow you to walk to wherever you click), and a mouth tool, which you use to talk to other characters. The game also features dialogue trees, allowing you to select what you want to say next out of a short list of options. There are times, when the game changes what tool you have selected without you realizing, causing in slight annoyances, especially if it reactivates a long line of dialogue that you just sat through. This doesn’t happen very often though.

The game is simple, but very well done. At times it can seem a little slow, but that’s to be expected from a mystery game, especially one of point-and-click nature. Although I could still just be suffering from the side effects of the action packed carnage of Motorstorm. At only ten dollars, The Tales of Bingwood is a great game for fans of the genre and is sure to bring back plenty of nostalgic memories.

Sound: 5

Graphics: 4

Story: 3

Replayability: 3

Gameplay Mechanics: 4

Visit the game’s official site.

Posted by: Nikolas Mason

Game players are no strangers to World War II. In fact, the war has long overstayed it’s welcome. Last year, one of the most famous game series to take place in that time period finally moved on, creating what many consider to be one of the best war games ever, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Naturally it came as a surprise to hear the game was going back to it’s roots with it’s newest addition: Call of Duty World at War.

Luckily, World at War retains the same aspects that made Modern Warfare so great. The story tells a different side of the war than previous games. Instead of being mainly in Europe, the game uses the same story telling technique as Modern Warfare to follow two separate stories in both Russia and Japan. The settings are varied enough to not get boring and the tropical settings and jungles look stunning.

The cinematic elements in the game make you feel like you’re part of a very epic war, even though the part you play is actually very linear. Most of the action is shown to you or happening around you, and very rarely do you actually cause a major event. Much like Modern Warfare however, these events are shown in very impressive ways, and even though you aren’t controlling them, they are still amazing to see happen.

The graphics of World at War are very good, almost photorealistic at times. The enviornments are very well crafted, especially some of the Russian locations. The sound is also very good, with both the music and sound effects working together to make the game feel like a much larger and frantic war.

While the game presents itself very well, it does have some flaws. At times the enemies seem to keep coming and coming until you physically pass a certain point. I tend to like to find a good spot to fight from and take out all of the enemies, but this time around it seems as though they will keep coming until I walk past a certain area. This can be rather annoying as sometimes it’s impossible to make it to that area without first clearing some of the enemies, who then are just replaced once you kill them.

Also at points in the game, you seem to die for no reason at all. Sometimes the bonsai attackers run up and surprise you too fast to react, killing you instantly, and other times no matter how far you run, grenades still seem to be close enough to kill you. While those two examples are reasonable, there were several moments in the game where there’d be no health warning, no grenade warnings, nothing, and I’d just drop dead. I might’ve been sniped, but at the moments, that didn’t seem very plausible.

The game also introduces a new weapon to the series, the flamethrower. This is a very fun weapon to use, allowing you to torch your enemies really quickly, ending brief struggles instantly. This makes up for my biggest complaint. The weapons of World War II games just simply aren’t as fun to use as modern weapons. Heavy automatic fire is a rare thing, making the battles seem a little slower and less intense as oppose to Modern Warfare.

Multiplayer is much the same as Call of Duty 4, allowing you to earn perks and upgrades, many of which are the exact same as before, but there are several new ones. The main game also allows for a co-op playthrough, a first for the Call of Duty series, letting you and up to three friends play through the campaign together.

Additionally to the main game and to multiplayer is a brand new mode, putting you and several friends into an old house, which you must defend from oncoming Nazi zombies. Yes, that’s right, zombies. You fight against wave after wave of them, and the longer you go, the more perks you can unlock, such as barricading windows more.

In the end, Call of Duty World at War impressed me more than I thought it would. I was never a fan of World War II games, but this one keeps enough of the aspects I liked from Modern Warfare to keep me happy, and while the story mode was short, the multiplayer and zombie mode will certainly keep me busy for some time.

Sound: 5

Graphics: 5

Story: 4

Replayability: 4

Gameplay Mechanics: 4

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Posted by: Nikolas Mason

Survival horror has long been a favourite genre of mine, from Silent Hill to Resident Evil, and several lesser-known games in between. So naturally Dead Space from EA caught my attention. The game puts you in the shoes of Isaac Clarke, an engineer in the distant future for a space mining ship. Communications with the ship USG Ishimura have been lost, and it’s up to Isaac and his ship’s crew to fix the problem. However, once on board, things turn out to be much worse than just a technical malfunction.

With your ship destroyed and most of your crew dead, it’s up to you to restore power to the Ishimura and escape. In order to do so, however, you must fight your way through the massive ship, fighting what’s left of the crew, who have been transformed by an alien life form into Necromophs – nightmarish monsters whom the only way to kill is to dismember them.

Doing so is by no means easy, but Dead Space is, to put it simply: awesome. The controls are easy to get used to, the battles aren’t overly frustrating, but definitely not overly easy either, and the story takes roughly ten to twelve hours to complete. Throughout the course of the game, more of the story develops, and it is quite interesting.

Graphics wise, Dead Space is beautiful. All of the locations are unique from one another, and the ships architecture is really well designed. Running with all specs maxed out on my MacBook Pro, the game looked great. Not only was the lighting almost perfect, but also the level of detail put into everything was outstanding. The monsters were disturbing, and most of the levels were grotesque and gave me a sense of unease, which after the let down that was Silent Hill Homecoming, was a very welcome feeling.

One thing I really liked about Dead Space was its heads up display. Gone are the days where health and ammo count are static on your screen, but rather they are built into your suit and weapons. Your health bar runs down Isaac’s back, an oxygen counter is on the back of your helmet, and your ammo is displayed on your gun as you aim. It gives the game a much more immersive feeling.

Ammo and health are not overly abundant, but there is no shortage, making this game rather easy to get through without dying very often, if at all. Even experienced gamers should find it challenging to survive some parts, but replaying them was never something I would complain about.

To be honest, there was hardly anything I didn’t like about this game. At times I’d get lost, but it wouldn’t be long before I’d make it back on track, and there were a few moments where the enemies seemed to completely overwhelm me, but again, playing back through those parts wasn’t too bad, especially once I had a strategy planned out.
The best part about Dead Space isn’t the zero gravity moments, the suit upgrades, or the architecture, but the simple fact that this game actually had a lot of good scares. Some parts were really intense, while others were just extremely startling. All in all, I give Dead Space a 5 out of 5.

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