To be dead honest, my winter break consisted mostly of meeting up with friends and family over steaming bowls of gumbo and trying my hardest not to fall asleep on the drive from Phoenix to California as I passed through yet another endless desert plain. That said, I didn’t play too many games when I was back home – my 3DS even stayed inside of its case during the trip, which is rare considering how much I love the thing. However, when I came back to Arizona, the usual shoot, hack and slash affairs came back in full. Here’s what I played over the break.
Mass Effect 3 (PC)
(Photo courtesy of Electronic Arts)The final act of the Shepard trilogy sees the hero take the fight to a mass alien death squad bent on destroying all life across the galaxies. Having to use a mouse and keyboard for a series I was used to playing on a console was a little weird, but it didn’t take long to click through and I quite like the accuracy of the mouse in the shooting galleries. Not having to bring up that massive item wheel to select powers and weapons was a plus as well. It still would be nice to have control options, but I can’t be too picky when the game costs as much during a sale as a large shake from Jack in the Box.
Kritika (Mobile)
I was lucky enough to get a Nexus 7 tablet for Christmas, and was thus happy to get back into mobile gaming. My Windows Phone, much as I like it, has an app store that’s as quiet as the West campus. As I scanned the Play Store looking for something new, I stumbled across Kritika, an action-RPG made by Korean developers, Gamevil. Wrapped in an MMORPG dressing, it has a great sense of progression very rarely found in other “freemium” games, with modes and different forms of energy that let you keep playing. Look for a non-review of the game here soon.
Freedom Wars (Vita)
(Photo courtesy of Sony Computer Entertainment)I got amnesia during a fight and had my 1,000,000-year prison sentence extended by 1,000 more years. Four steps taken inside my cell instead of the three? Tack on another 60 some-odd. Hell, Big Brother slapped 200 on me for not taking an exam.
This is the darkly humorous world of Freedom Wars, where to rid yourself of a million-year prison sentence, you fight giant monsters and rescue citizens. The game has been quite fun despite a bit of a slow start. It’s an Orwellian future taken to the extreme then dipped in an Anime veneer, where there’s a well-earned sense of satisfaction after each mission. It has a great cast of characters (so far), and the Japanese voice-acting is the icing on the cake, despite some sketchy issues with the camera and team AI.
Oh look, 600 years for a group meeting.
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC)
(Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)The stars aligned back in 2014, and we managed to get a couple of great licensed games that weren’t obvious cash-ins. Alien Isolation (which I’m too scared to play), and Shadow of Mordor, a title that’s landed on more than a few game of the year lists, despite being led by guy who’s essentially Liam Neeson’s Taken character if he was dropped into Iceland, I mean, Middle Earth.
That said, I’ve had quite a bit of fun with Mordor since I bought it. The game’s open-world invites exploration with different missions strewn across the map, and the combat borrows the best parts of the Arkham Asylum series with single-button attacks and counters, though these end in dismemberment instead of broken limbs. I'm still in the early hours of the game, but already it has become something I look forward to playing more.
Reach the reporter at djulienr@asu.edu or follow @legendpenguin.
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