Demon's Souls - one out of one

By: Sergio

Game: Demon's Souls

Score: one out of one

I seem to always pick the worst games to look forward to.

It happened with Kane & Lynch: Dead Men when someone described the story as being a pair of characters trying to fix their increasingly wrecked lives, but with guns. I bought it, beat it in two days on the hardest difficulty and questioned why the developers decided that one billion zillion expletives could in no way be seen as being over the top or less than subtle. It happened again with Alone in the Dark when I saw a trailer with the main character hanging from a burning building and throwing McGuyver'd cans of explosions. That game was universally panned for being broken and nigh unplayable. And it happened AGAIN with Persona 4, which I begrudgingly sunk nearly 100 hours into after deciding pretty early on that the creators obviously put more effort into MO-AY than character development and game design principles.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it happened again. It happened before I even owned a PS3, when I saw a trailer for this game. It was strange because it seemed like such a no-brainer for a video game. Why hasn't anyone cornered the guy-in-knight-armor-fighting-demons-in-macabre-medieval-setting genre yet? It's like Zelda meets Ninja Gaiden! I waited breathlessly for a North American launch date, planning to import it first, buy a PS3 second. I wanted this game that bad.

I almost learned another language for this.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it takes place in a fantastic Medieval Dark Fantasy setting (think Berserk and you're close) where you are just a stranger to the strange land of Boletaria, a nation shrouded in evil fog that has propagated demons and wickedness and heralds the end of the world by way of the Old One, the greatest demon to ever demon around the block. The main task in the game is killing all the demons and liberating Boletaria of it's Silent Hill sickness. But beyond that there isn't really a "plot". You take on sections of the game, accessed from the hub-like Nexus, at your choice and leisure with no guiding hand or urgency. Despite this, the game is absolutely steeped in backstory. There are enough gods and demons and fantastical names thrown around to rival Tolkien, and it's all fed to you piece by piece if you pursue it.

And now that Atlus has graciously brought the disc to America all the mainstream games media can talk about is its difficulty. That is, parroting the fact that this game is motherfucking hard. While it isn't to me the main appeal of the game, it's a cool aspect and there is certainly something that needs to be said about the difficulty.

Every gamer has their paradigm perfect game by which all others are judged, and mine is Ninja Gaiden Black for the original XBOX. The creator of the series, Tomonobu Itagaki once called God of War a half-assed game because it's reliance on quick-time events (it might've been Heavenly Sword actually, but no one remembers that game, so whatever). It rips you out of the experience and you're no longer this person fighting demons or stabbing harpies or what have you. You're suddenly just the sap holding the controller.

Demon's Souls never does this to you. You are this guy (or girl) in this suit of armor (or lack thereof if you're a badass) at all times. Every step and slash, dodge and sidestep, it is all you. Nearly any creature in the entire game is very capable of killing your stupid head off, almost regardless of level. But from your modest set of skills and tools you have at the beginning, you are completely on your own to grow into someone better. You will likely die along the way. You will likely die many times, and yes this means losing all your progress since your last visit to the Nexus(if you screw up really badly). But if you die you aren't blocking right, or you aren't attacking at the right time. You die because you haven't been growing, because you haven't been learning.

Education.

Which brings me to another point. Last year gamers balked at the new Prince of Persia game because it was too easy since you never “die”. Or rather, it was death without consequences. Demon's Souls is a similar scenario, you may die but you can easily get all your stuff back and be on your merry way, its just a matter of making it to where you died and recovering your bloodstain. If you die a second time (read: screw up really badly) well the previous bloodstain disappears and... there's your consequences! Apparently this minor alteration is the difference between easy casual game for babies, and the hardest motherfucking game you will play this year.

But the game really isn't as hard as everyone has made it out to be. You dodge when you have to, slash when it's wise, maybe cast a spell. The game piles on healing items and you can find weapons that suit you by world jumping pretty easily. The game is essentially an action-RPG though, a lot like if Dragon Quest had beat-'em-up style combat and the party was only one member, so it's easy to see why someone would choose a knight class, buff strength stats, run headfirst into every challenge, die, and call the game hard. This is where the game gets really cool though.

See, Demon's Souls was made to be withholding and secretive. As a result it is this beautiful symphony of secrets and lies. The online component lets you collaborate a little with fellow warriors through a messaging system, but if you have someone else playing the game or a good forum to discuss on, then the game truly opens up. It's a game made for those kids (or, ahem, totally mature adults like myself) that play all night and run to school the next day to tell everyone on the blacktop how they beat this one boss, or where they found this one sword. Characters get matched against characters, where who stacked their stats and what they're equipping for what. It's just a really great game where possibility fosters creativity, not by means of a blank canvas like, say, Little Big Planet, but by necessity. You get creative because you want to kill skeletons better, or avoid getting stabbed through the chest by gooey phalanx creatures.

All of these elements, the story, the vulnerability, and the synchronization you begin to feel with your character all come together really well when you're in the thick of gameplay, roaming a castle or underground mine. This is even further compounded by something that took me a while to notice, there is almost no music. It seems insane, I mean, there's even a soundtrack released with the game, but while you creep slowly through a prison level listening for the bells that herald the mindflayers you're too preoccupied with being terrified to notice. The danger is somehow amplified through the tension.

When Shadow of the Colossus meets YOUR NIGHTMARES.

Demon's Souls is very stoic. It is content with what it does, and this makes it hard to reprimand any single point because everything that seems like a flaw, could also have been done intentionally. Like the lack of a true pause. You press start, your inventory and stats appear, but you can still run around and be killed. I can see people screaming bloody murder over this. How DARE a modern game lack a pause button to accommodate my busy schedule!? Well, it makes sure your on your toes, and that you think about your equipment constantly. It's there for a reason. It's all there for a reason, and that reason is absolutely precious when people were yelling about how Prince of Persia was way too easy because it never jarringly ripped you out of the driver's seat (never mind the insane abundance of QTEs).

Mega Man X2 - one out of one - Henry Arrambide

Mega Man X2 – 1/1 – Henry Arrambide

A Capcom title for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

I know you’re out there - people who play videogames because they think they’re actually fun. Don’t be afraid. It’s not a bad thing. I see it all the time. You go on a forum or some comment section or something like that, and you can see the divide. You see, for some reason there is, as with almost any collective, a breed of gamer out there who doesn’t enjoy games. I realize this is a bad way to start; alienate the readers, come off as a jackass. But go back to those forums you crawled from. Take a look. Has anyone brought up the ‘games as art’ argument? Someone talking about “depth” or “story” and how Game A is better than Game B or how Game C should be heralded as Product D? Look at that for a moment. Read their reasoning. Ask yourself does this person know what the hell they are talking about? Why aren’t they playing games and discussing games?

As far as I can recall, it started around the PSX era. Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears. Grand sweeping pre-rendered cut-scenes and dialogue boxes delivered stories of sword wielders and mech pilots going on adventures and facing ultimate evil. These games were mature. These games were deep. Never mind the fact that FF7 was stereotypical or that Xenogears was burdened with so much high school philosophical referencing that rendering individual personal interpretation was impossible. “Artistic Gaming” was here. I’m sure you’ve seen people come into Book and Lit boards asking for books as “deep” or “compelling” as Game A or Game B. You have to be careful with these types, recommending them something that plays with subtext or personal interpretation and metaphor too much will have them resorting to the same complaints they have with games like Silent Hill 2 or Shadow of the Colossus: It’s boring. It’s got no story. You do nothing.

As far as I can tell, this stems from the fact that there are people out there who play games not because they are fun, but because it’s a subculture, a group they can fall back on, some way they can socialize. They think what they’re doing is somewhat childish, and yearn for some kind of ‘maturation’ of the genre into who knows what. Yes, insult the masses why don’t I?

As far as gaming and art are concerned, I’ve always believed one thing: do what only your medium can deliver, and excel at it. That is when you know a game is excellent, or possibly that term that can throw any message board into a fit of rage: artistic. Possibly.

Mega Man has been around since the eight bit days, spawning hundreds of sequels, spinoffs, and guest appearances. Much like any other character, he has been forced to evolve and move along with the times. This has brought us recent titles such as the Mega Man Zero series and the Mega Man ZX series. Oddly enough, the Zero series was originally made as a ‘return to roots’ project. But they filled it with Cyber Elf collectibles, the patented Capcom ranking system, and odd ways of upgrading and collecting power ups which demanded you bend over backwards and perform feats of strength for the game. All bloat.

The Mega Man ‘formula’ is moving right while shooting anything that is going left. You could make a case that “listening to badass midi’s and blasting away cartoonish enemies” should also count somewhere in there. Mega Man X2 is the Mega Man formula perfected. It is everything that was known about making a Mega Man game at that point in time dumped into a single cart. Mega Man 7 was a step back to tradition for the sake of the fans, Mega Man X3 was a step into overindulgence and too many ideas for the sake of “advancing the series", and its predecessor was still setting up the ground rules and not having enough fun.

Let’s fire up Mega Man X2. It’s nighttime. The sky is a rich purple, bright green lasers are flying in from the right side of the screen. In from the left speeds Mega Man and the Green Biker Dude, on future motorcycles. Who needs plot or exposition? In the first twenty seconds of the game, the only time you aren’t controlling Mega Man, it is the stuff of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Speed and suspense. Your green biker companion is shot, going out in a spectacular 16-bit explosion. Mega Man jumps off his bike as it crashes into an enemy, coming to a standstill. Knowing you’re watching all this unfold to a hyperactive midi, the game simply flashes READY. You sure as hell are. No long text dumps or pre-rendered scenes – just visual language.

With it’s opening cinematic, the only one for the rest of the game until you fell the final boss, everything has been setup. Move to the right quickly as possible or you may end up like your green biker friend. Objects coming at you can hurt you. Know when to jump. The only thing not in the intro to appear after the READY alert is simply a health bar. Easy enough, no instructions needed on how to use it. You get hit, it goes down. From here on out, kill everything. The music will keep you pumped and the cartoonish graphical presentation will make everything easy to see.

Not that the game is a straight line you must keep going right on. You can take your time, explore, blast away. It may or may not help. If you want to speed through, that’s fine too. This isn’t Mega Man Zero, where that S Rank will be needed to unlock the best power ups. The game is about fun, not meeting some arbitrary standard. The game does not lose when the player wins. But be warned, just because you can choose whatever boss you want doesn’t mean the game is going to hold your hand – the game is fair with the player, but it isn’t going to hold back being hard if you actively go after the evil looking spike riddled alligator or mean looking fire boss. Slow down and explore, learn strategies, find power ups, AND THEN go fight the meanest looking dude in the room.

Go ahead. Pick the Gator first. I fucking dare you.

There’s no Capcom ranking system which will prevent you from getting the best equipment because you failed to complete the game in ten minutes. Why would a developer want to punish players for wanting to explore?

Exploring can yield you health upgrades or body part upgrades, but nothing essential to beating the game (in theory, if you’re a sadist). That is all up to you, the player to decide, adding a sliding scale of difficulty to the game, once again some sense of fairness. Power-ups aren’t esoteric in their concealment, half lay out in the open, just out of reach. The other half hide just off the trail, hidden on a side-path requiring maybe a little more out of the player. They can make the game easier if you are having trouble. They are not what later X games would bring to the table. There is one set of armor. Eight health expansions if needed. That is all. Unlike what X3 did with a suit, then upgrades to that suit, then a golden upgrade to that suit but only if you didn’t get the previous upgrades. This is simple (don’t get me started on X5 or 6’s “Here’s a suit now, there’s three more suits hidden in the stages, some are time sensitive and you only have one opportunity to find them” mentality). Hell, you might not even need these upgrades (once again, X6 had among its multiple suits the Shadow Armor, a ninja armor which was required to beat the second or third to last level – take THAT players).

There are no endless seas of spikes or pixel perfect jumping sections. Every level plays with the “Go right, shoot enemies” formula a little. One level has various weather effects that change the way enemies fight or how you can move. Another level places you on a motorcycle from the opening, only you’re in control now. You can choose not to use it at all. I think one of the best levels is a junkyard where these Ceiling bound magnets allow you to jump and float around. Parasitic robot bugs fill the level; there is a nice midboss setup showing you what they are capable of. When you encounter them minus the host, you are good food for them. They don’t do copious amounts of damage, they just stop and control you for a minute or so. They could theoretically run you into enemies and the like, but the only certainty is that they will eat up time. They are enemies of the impatient. Stop, breathe, beat them. There is no ranking system here, the game won’t punish you for getting hit, because getting hit is already punishment enough. You don’t have to die from your mistakes every time, just learn from them. You will have to learn, even with a fully powered Mega Man.

The game isn’t a walk in the park. You will die. You will have to learn boss strategies. But they never turn into mind numbing puzzles with abstract solutions. It’s all visual language – you have a gun, keep shooting about until you find what works. Go right, shoot enemies. Sometimes you have to shoot more than once. Boss’s visually react to the proper weakness. The game is consistent with this method. You never have the genre switch up on you – things stay action/platformer, never are you suddenly playing a racing game or intricate puzzle game (once again, later era X games began to implement puzzle levels and racing levels for the sake of ‘advancement’ or ‘variety’, even though by this time the X series had become more of a cash grabbing ritual). It’s clean, it’s fast, it’s simple. Blow shit up. If it were a movie, book, or cartoon, it would be mindless, maybe boring, action. As a videogame, it is crunch, flow, and pure fun.

Never forget.

WET - zero out of one - Gilbert Lucero

Game: WET

Genre: Third-Person Shooter

Boners Triggered: 1

Number of Monkey References: A Great Many

On a whim, I decided to pick up a copy of WET at the local haberdashery (that’s French for “Game-Parlor”), for the Xbox 360. I hadn’t heard about this game in the slightest, so I had no idea what to expect. As such, I expected the world, since I figured hey, might as well expect as much as I can, so as not to insult the game. Bolstered by this expectation, I decided to pop the game in right away. As the disc tray closed, I buckled myself in, ready for an adventure. Literally, buckled myself in.

My right hand on the controller, and my left hand on the steering wheel, I backed up out of the driveway as the first cinematic began to play. Skipping past both that and the curb, I sped off just as the first real cutscene began to play. It is here we are introduced to the alluring, yet terrifying, Rubi; a mercenary-for-hire, whose personality consists of “angry” and “has guns.” She’s a woman of few words, but she makes up for a lack of vocabulary with an uncomfortably massive supply of bullets. The game consists of our anti-heroine Rubi flip-tricking around and shooting guys, for the most part. You can jump, wall-run, and slide, each action thrusting you into bullet time, for an easier time murdering countless anonymous dudes. The game gives us little time to evaluate the motives of the enemies, so whether they deserve death or really were just in the wrong place at the wrong time is a question that will weigh heavily on the minds of the player, just as those pedestrians will forever regret walking out onto the road at the moment they did.

Like this, but the deer is people.

As I thumped over the little girl with all the badges and what was no doubt her grandmother, I noticed an interesting thing about the game; while in bullet-time, there is only one reticle for two guns, but not by virtue of her shooting both guns at the same target. While you aim one gun, Rubi fires the other one, at her own discretion, usually at the nearest threat. This is great, since you only need to aim with one hand. I was having a hard time as it was, moving around with my knee; the thought of aiming with it also was out of the question. It does you a favor in that it shows you which one she’s firing at, so you can either shoot the guy faster or take out two henchmen at once. An interesting little piece of gameplay, I thought, that at the time I couldn’t fully appreciate because of the horns honking on any side of me.

The level progression is pretty standard, with the layouts consisting of alleys, much like the ones I was charging through currently, that lead to a big room where you fight hordes of guys while trying to pull levers. You use Rubi’s amazing acrobatic skills, a la Prince of Persia, to navigate and/or murder your way through these foes and hit the switches, which incrementally stop the flow of bad guys. The levels rarely deviate from this pattern. Even as the game progresses, the only change is the amount of bad guys (there’s more), and the introduction of turret-guy. The game as a whole is rather repetitive, much like the blaring of the multiple sirens coming from around the next corner.

This part of the game is sooo boring.

A welcome variance came by a level wherein you are falling through the air, miles up in the sky, shooting at henchmen who also happen to be falling with you. The dynamics are a frustrating, but the feeling of freefalling while keeping your kills-per-minute count consistent make up for that. With all of the excitement I felt here, it was as if I had steered into oncoming highway traffic! The game really picks up here, a place unfortunately closer to the end than the beginning. It is from here and on that most of what little story there is takes place, and soon after is a scene where our Rubi kills a guy in her underwear, which really made the game, I thought, up until she put her pants back on.

One thing I have neglected to mention thus far is the deal with the namesake of the game. The opening scene shows us that WET refers to being covered in blood. Given the body count of this game (which is rivaled only by the number of felonies I was, and in fact still am, committing), this certainly makes sense, but the phrase more correctly applies to specific sections of the game where Rubi goes into “Rage” mode. The game gets heavily filtered, edges are blurred, and everyone looks like pudding. The bad guys die faster in this setting, there’s more of them to kill, and every corpse fades into the distance, like the screaming populace now far behind me. These sections have very little meaning, since you would be killing exactly the same way without them, and no reason is given for why it happens.

Mmmm.... Pudding.

Underneath the whole experience is a rudimentary leveling system and periodic introductions to a new weapon every so often, with interchangeable “training” levels for each one. You also have a sword, but that’s not too important. It’s understandable to want to place these components in the game; it wants to keep your attention. But everything about them felt unnecessary and insignificant. These sections should have been worked on more, or taken out completely. Oh also I drove through a mall, or whatever.

Surrounding the mediocrity of the WET experience, however, is a border of wonder, a soundtrack of amazitude. The music is well done and sets the mood wonderfully for any given part of the game. It is the soundtrack itself, rather than any of the plot elements, that sets the pace, telling you when you should be happy, or angry, or running stop lights, or driving through police barriers, or shooting a guy, or even shooting two guys.

Pictured: Music

WET in an interesting experience, to say the least. Combining acrobatics with third person shooting, and splicing in some interesting game mechanics, is good in theory, and good in practice, for a while. There are some awkward hiccups in the flow, which is understandable, but frustrating. Mix this with the one level this game really seems to have, and you are left with a deflated soufflé, saved only by the creamy chocolate soundtrack you pour on top of it. That’s what you put on soufflés, right? Chocolate? I thought about this, wondering what else you could put on soufflés, as the arresting officer pushed me up against his car. As for the game, there are some good aspects, but the picture is not complete enough to buy.

I give this game 0 “I didn’t mean to, officer, I swear”s out of 1.

Brutal Legend - one out of one - Henry Arrambide

By: Henry Arrambide

The world of heavy metal and what is and isn’t metal and who is true and what is metal and false and kvlt yadda yadda yadda is just too complicated. Screw that whole debate. So when it comes to talking about Brutal Legend, let’s not focus on what’s in the soundtrack and whether or not it’s trve metal or false or that Jack Black annoys you or Dio was kicked out and replaced by Tim Curry. This is a goddamn game, play it.

Having that cleared up, Brutal Legend does the Heavy Metal shtick justice. You don’t get a super tongue in cheek parody of metal music and culture, or a super serious take. The story actually grabs you, takes you for a ride, has fun, and then it’s over. The music is placed tastefully, and it pulls you in. Whether you think Cradle of Filth and Quiet Riot are poser bands doesn’t matter, they fit the atmosphere. The voice acting is excellent, the characters are animated with expressions that actually emote – no uncanny valley here, the game definitely had some care put into it.

Now, for what you can actually control. You play for the first oh, 10%-15% of the game alone, hacking around, fighting Spider Queens and Big Fisted bosses. It’s hack and slash, no complicated combo’s or real difficulty curve. Fun stuff, fighting the Metal Queen, riding Razor Boars, listening to Brocas Helm, cutting up Cultists with your axe. Then the RTS elements kick in. You get a stage, you harvest fans, you build units, and then you destroy the enemy stage. Every RTS battle is like this. They are quite epic, being the big setpieces that move the story – this is where Brutal Legend’s soundtrack really shines. Try not to storm your way to victory as Rob Halford wails about how you have one shot at glory. Try not saving the world from the Painkiller. Throughout the campaign you acquire new units with their own special moves, team ups (you can land in the battlefield and tag team enemies with different units, very fun), and costs, and the campaign forces you into using each one at least once. The actual battles are quite fun, your character sprouts wings, flies over the fields making commands in a setting similar to a traditional RTS, and then you get to drop down into battle and join your troops. This is the meat of the game, and it’s a good “My First RTS” type affair. Commanding armies of headbangers as you survey the lands on demon wings and lead the horde to victory, pretty metal. Not to mention when you drop in, you’re probably going to land and pull off a kick ass solo in the heat of battle to rally the troops and power your army before joining your brethren in battle against the demons of hell. It’s fun, and the RTS stuff never gets tiring. Makes for good multiplayer.

The problem with Brutal Legend is, that’s about it.

The non-RTS missions basically serve as learning the new units. At the start of the game, you storm mines and free headbangers. They become the first unit you can purchase. Next non-RTS mission, you help harvest Razorfire Boars, creating the Razor Girl unit. These kinds of missions are mixed in with the RTS battles, all the way to the end. Literally, before the final RTS mission gauntlet, you recruit the final unit in your arsenal. I wish that the game had at least three or four more battles where you were free to reign and defeat the enemy however you wished – but usually, you end up with RTS missions where the latest member of your army tends to be key for victory.

If all you do is the campaign, be ready for a fun as hell five or six hours. Sure, the game gives you sidequests to do between missions, but there’s only five or so types of quests, repeated twenty times over. Fun at first, tiring later. You can lead a small squad to victory in an ambush (never lasting more than two minutes max – not even enough time for the music to get good), you can get on rails and defend a key hill or road on the world (once again, boiling down to taking out a small enemy squad lasting only two or three minutes), you can help a Mortar defend a key point – very familiar sounding, isn’t it? Aside from those quests, there’s always hunting wildlife (boiling down to Run Over Fifteen of Animal X, Ten Animal Y, and so on), and Racing. The races only happen four or five times, one accompanying each area of the map – it stays fun and tasteful, unlike the others which sprout up like weeds – 5 or more per area.

Racing also does something helpful – shows you the map. You see, outside of the main plotline, there are two major zones of the map you never explore, and the other three zones you sort of just drive through – the game gives you a vehicle at the beginning, a summon vehicle solo quickly after, and expects you to just drive from point A to point B. The main campaign is fun, engaging, and plotted really well – too well. There never is a time when it feels appropriate to go do sidequests without breaking the pace of the game. And when you do go questing, it’s just the same repetitive missions you’ve been playing from the start of the game. Racing at least shows you around, reminds you there’s cool stuff in the world.

The game world is littered with monuments, bound serpent statues, legends of yore, hidden music, and jumps, all of which add so much to the game. Seeing the monuments and the legends adds a whole lot more backstory to the world, it’s just a shame that the game never makes you stumble upon one. The jumps are just fun distractions and the hidden tracks give you some excellent music to listen to (Mastodon, Emperor, Megadeth…some of the best stuff on the soundtrack is hidden in the most obscure corners of the world), but there’s just so much in the world that you know the developers wanted you to explore. Not just explore to kill time either – every collectible contributes somehow to your character (playing on Brutal would have been a lot tougher if I just plowed through the campaign), and the Legends and Monuments are really something. They wanted you to explore and see the world they created because it really is something to look at – so why fill it with the most repetitive of sidequests and the shortest of campaigns? They even allow you a post-campaign save so you can finish collecting everything, but by that time you don’t need any of it. Sure you can still look for the Legends, Jumps, and Races, but everything else – especially the 120 Bound serpents, loses interests simply because you don’t need it and they weren’t interesting to begin with.

So rent the game, play it, have fun. Don’t rush through it. It’s tempting to do so, seeing as the game IS fun, the story IS engaging, and you can’t find an easy stopping point – but slow down, savor the game, see the sights and learn the legends. Play on Brutal Difficulty, the game isn’t too hard to begin with, but if you do get stuck on Brutal, it encourages you to go out into the world and find serpents, learn solo’s (a particularly awesome Led Zepplin inspired one shows up near the end), and the difficulty will force you to actually use everything in your arsenal rather than facemelting and power sliding everything.

In the world of film critique, the term mise en scène refers to all the aspects of production and how they pull together to create a final product’s atmosphere. For the lack of a pre-existing term in the gaming world, Brutal Legend definitely has mise en scène. It’s just that there happens to be some extra, fun, unused stuff slapped around the edges.

Play it. It will stick with you for sure.

The gist.

So, we're all pretty busy people.
But one thing I always make time for is video games. They're my hobby, and my passion, and I like to know which ones are good and which ones are bad.
So I made this site(with a little help from some friends) to deliver our honest opinions on the good, the bad, and that is all. There will be no 8 out of 10s or 3 and a half stars. This site and the reviewers who write for it utilize a two star scale, or what I've taken to calling "The Binary Scale". The games we look at will be judged either good or bad. You couldn't get any more clear cut than that.
Of course, we'll be telling you why we think something is good or bad, that's half the fun. It's just a sort of experiment to cater to gamers who are sick of trying to decide whether or not they want to invest in an 8.8 or an 8.9. Instead, we'll give you the only number that matters. 1 or 0. Buy or skip.
We'll be taking a look at everything from the latest blockbuster, to pretty far back. I won't promise NES, but at least SNES-era games. We just play what we like, and we review what we play.
And yes, it's likely most games we review will be good, simply because we love video games, and maybe because we're sappy young men who can see the good in ever nigh 60 dollar disc or 30 dollar cartridge we invest it.
It's what we do, and a little opinion never hurt anybody.