Monthly Archives: March 2015
White Night Review
A striking aesthetic can grab your attention, but a game needs more than looks if it's going to keep it. The noir-inspired White Night gets caught in a loop of offering more before taking it away, making for a horror experience that is sometimes wonderful, often lackluster, and frequently frustrating.
White Night is a horror story told in black and white. Set in the 1930s during the Great Depression, it's a noir tale that's part serial killer mystery, part supernatural ghost story. You break into a nearby house to look for help after being hobbled in a car crash. The game could be compared to Resident Evil largely due to its fixed camera angles, but you won't be shooting any monsters. Instead, you spend the majority of your time exploring the house and the mysteries it holds, all while intoning your thoughts in typically stilted and melodramatic noir fashion.
It is more adventure game than survival horror, though one element of White Night that stays true to the survival horror genre is item management; specifically, you collect matchsticks, which are your only source of light for most of the game. Matchbooks can be found littered liberally throughout the house, but you can only hold a handful of them at a time. They burn out quickly, making your stock of them something you always want to keep an eye on. If you're caught in the dark for too long, you're dead.
Matchstick management is one of several examples of good ideas in White Night that often go wrong. Matchsticks are perfect for mood lighting, and using your supply provides good tension, but their implementation can be frustrating. For one thing, many actions in the game (including saving, which is done manually by sitting in a well-lit armchair) require you to put your match out. Just lit your next-to-last match? Sorry: you've got to extinguish it if you want to open a chest to get the items inside.
On random occasions, your matches also fail when you try to light them. Sure, there's some realism to this, and there's something horror movie-esque about desperately trying to strike a match that won't light, but when you're forced to replay sections of the game because two of your four remaining matches ran out and you got stuck in a dark room, this isn’t moody--it’s annoying.
White Night's fixed camera angles are similarly hit-and-miss. While they provide a more cinematic look, they don't play well with the two-tone look of the game. There isn't much detail to the game's black and white environments--your character notices a statue’s hand protruding from the ground, but you could never yourself tell based on the smudge of black and white that depicts it--and thus, it can sometimes be hard to get a great sense of your surroundings when the camera switches from one angle to another. What begins as a striking look becomes a tedious visual obstacle.
This is most evident--and most upsetting--when you're running away from danger. There's no combat in White Night, but there is an antagonist: a woman who manifests herself as several ghosts that can kill you if you touch them. A ghost can only be harmed by electric light (which is why they break the house's lights at every opportunity), so you spend most of your time trying to avoid them. At times, this system functions well enough. Other times, it's frustrating. You often have to weave your way through several ghosts to reach your destination, and you may find yourself running the wrong way after the camera changes on you--that is, if you're not already caught in the geometry of the environment.
Your ability to save only in select corners of select rooms (with a few, story-determined exceptions) leads to tedious scenarios in which you know exactly where you need to go and what you need to do, but you have to retry the same sections over and over again because you keep getting caught heading from one save point to another. On the upside, the ghosts are appropriately creepy--they are unsettling images that don’t rely on cheap tricks, like loud noises, to induce jump scares. But your fear of the ghosts evaporates the more times they catch you, because the death sequence isn't horrifying; it's just a path to your most recent save.
Despite its faults, the methodical exploration of the house is typically satisfying. When you're given room to breathe and you can simply poke around, White Night is an intriguing adventure game. Most of the puzzles are simple to solve and aren’t annoyingly convoluted. When you do find yourself stuck, useful hints can be found in the in-game newspaper (which is really more of a journal), and the main character himself will ponder possible solutions if you wander aimlessly for too long. The game's story is something of a saving grace, most of the time. Told mostly through collectible diaries, letters, and newspaper articles scattered throughout the house, the tale of White Night's main characters comes together well. Unfortunately, the game comes to a predictable conclusion, and the dialogue occasionally drifts into tangents that try to convey a deeper meaning than they can actually accomplish.
White Night has other minor issues, such as its lack of a useful map, but these flaws stand out primarily because of the possibilities the game never realizes. But there are frightful joys to uncover, nonetheless. There were numerous moments when I was exploring the environment, reading the back story, and solving the puzzles, that I enjoyed myself. I wanted to find the next journal entry and see how the story ended, and at times (particularly early on), I was genuinely creeped out by the atmosphere. The pieces that make up White Night could have added up to a great interactive horror story. Sadly, the good game you can imagine is stuck lurking in the shadows of the game it became.
Another Character Deconfirmed for Mortal Kombat X
During a Mortal Kombat X livestream today, NetherRealm announced that Mokap, a secret character from a previous series entry, will not be included in the upcoming release.
During a fan-question segment of the livestream, NetherRealm was asked about characters who definitely won't appear in MKX. Mokap –– the second deconfirmed character –– made his series debut in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. In it, he played a motion-capture actor called by Johnny Cage to work on an upcoming film, mainly because of his wide knowledge of martial arts.
Remembering Chrono Trigger
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Get your time machines ready folks! IGN's Nintendo show kicks off this week with a discussion about the 20th anniversary of Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest JRPGs in history. Then, the crew of host Jose Otero, Peer Schneider, Brian Altano, and Marty Sliva talk about IGN's Code Name STEAM review and some Mario Party 10 impressions. And, finally, we tackle a few news stories at the end of the show.
Mortal Kombat X Story Inspired by Godfather II
The story for Mortal Kombat X is inspired by the storytelling technique employed in The Godfather II, NetherRealm said today during its Mortal Kombat X livestream. It was also revealed that beating the story mode will unlock a character, but NetherRealm didn't reveal which one.
Modern events will play out in one section of the story, while one giving the backstory of an important new character will weave in and out of the modern tale. Six minutes of story were shown off during the stream. Spoilers follow, so be advised.
Johnny Cage, Kenshi, and Cassie are seen travelling by helicopter to expel from Shinnok from Raiden's temple. There's a helicopter battle, which is played out as a quick-time event, but the fighting quickly moves into a traditional battle. Scorpion and Cage square off, and defeating Scorpion leads into a cut scene whereupon Subzero appears, freezes Cage nearly solid, and forms a sword of ice.
Get the Keys to San Andreas Through Cities: Skylines
One person has made it possible to experience Grand Theft Auto V from an entirely new perspective.
Using Steam Workshop, modder grockfeller has accurately recreated the entire area of South San Andreas in the recently-released Cities: Skylines.
Including faithful representations of Los Santos, Palomino, and Sandy Shores, the mod gives players the chance to run one of the infamous faux cities from Rockstar Games' blockbuster action game franchise.
"Ever wanted to challenge and continue the vibrant metropolis of Rockstar Games?" the creator said on the Steam Workshop page. "Now you could!"
Suicide Squad: New Joker & Deathstroke Rumors
Rumor has it that the Suicide Squad movie's Joker is not going to be as lanky and physically unimposing as he is in the comics.
Jared Leto's Clown Prince of Crime is supposedly going to be muscular from working out in prison. His skin will also reportedly be bleached white; he will not simply be wearing makeup like Heath Ledger's Joker.
According to Latino-Review, this film's Joker is "lean & scarred but his suit does have broad shoulders. Joker works out in his cell like an inmate when he is interrogated by Amanda Waller. He's doing hand stand push ups so it makes sense that Jared Leto said he is putting on weight."
Apple Watch vs. Android Wear: Which is Right for You?
Thanks to Apple's big event on Monday, the Apple Watch has a release date and a price tag—well, several of the latter, actually. But even with that info now in the wild, you might be wondering what makes Apple’s first wearable different from the offerings powered by the other big name in the space (a.k.a. Google and its Android Wear-enabled watches). Or why the Apple Watch is so much more expensive.
If you need a primer, we’ve put together a quick rundown of how the rival smartwatches work and coexist with your smartphone—as well as what you're getting for your money and a bit of analysis about what it all means.
As confirmed this week, the Apple Watch will debut in North America and several other countries on April 24, with pre-orders going live on April 10. And it's not just one watch, but actually three models—and with dozens of total options thanks to different sizes and various bands available for each watch. All three models have the same interface and functionality, with the differences coming down to materials.
Phil Spencer Talks Xbox Absence From VR Space
Head of Microsoft Studios Phil Spencer isn't ruling out Microsoft's entry into the world of virtual reality.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Spencer didn't rule out Microsoft dipping its toes into the virtual space, saying that while the company will focus on its Hololens tech, that doesn't mean VR is out of the question.
The Hololens "doesn't preclude us from doing anything in the VR space either from a first-party or partnership perspective," he said.
"The discussions are great as all of us look forward into where this space is going to go," Spencer said, adding that while the technology is certainly exciting, he doesn't believe the tech has quite yet matured for market. He's confident, however, in the innovative presence brought to the space by the game industry.
Daily Deals: Xbox Live for $37, Fast and Furious Blu-rays, 15% Off iTunes Credit
A Year of Xbox Live for $37, Delivered By Email
I wasn't familiar with CDKeys.com, so I tried it first, and the code showed right up and redeemed perfectly. $36 is the cheapest I ever see years of Live these days, so this is a good opportunity to bank another year at a low price. The base price is actually $38.90, but if you like CDKeys.com on Facebook, you'll get a code that knocks another $2 off the price.
App Store Update: March 13
Every day hundreds of new apps make their debut on the App Store, and hundreds more are updated or reduced in price. We have sifted through the noise and highlighted those select few that might be worth your attention.
Note: The prices and deals compiled below are accurate at the time we published this story, but all are subject to change.
Five Nights at Freddy's 3 – ($2.99)
This being Friday the 13th, it's only appropriate that we lead today's ASU with a game that has the potential to make you wet yourself. Five Nights at Freddy's 3 continues the adventures of employees trapped inside a haunted kid's amusement restaurant all night, and though I don't play horror games myself, I know there are tons of you out there who do and love them.