So, about the Borderlands 1.08 update...

 It received an update...

 ...and everyone's been talking about how it has fixed everything. Well, I decided to put it to the test. I launched the game, started at Scarlet's DLC, which I stopped mid-way since I was tired of all the freezes. Well, the Framerate is definitely much better. But that's not enough for me, I had to truly test the game, so I went to Lynchwood, the glitchiest part of the game, and.... 10 minutes later the game froze. I kid you not, I got 10 minutes of gameplay out of the game before it froze on me.

 To put it bluntly, the framerate is indeed better, but the freezes are still there, and these break the game. The fact that you can't get more than 10 minutes out of game time before a freeze is unacceptable. The game is still broken.

Review #295: Vitamin Z

 Not to be confused with the Japanese dating sim.

 Vitamin Z on Playstation Vita is a free to play game I've been playing on and off since last year, and I think it deserves me talking about it, seeing how much time I've spent on it.

 You play as this cutesy scientist girl, who must defend herself from wave after wave of mutant vegetables. This is a 'Defense game', in this case your character is firmly stuck to the center of the screen, and you use the analog sticks to direct her firing. Normal shots are done automatically, but the more enemies you kill, the more Heat you generate which allows you to use your special shots. There's also a Stomp attack that pushes all surrounding enemies back, but this is governed by some kind of invisible cooldown period. I say 'invisible', because sometimes the game won't let me use the stomp, even though I haven't even used it yet on a playthrough. It always bugged me, since I just can't figure out when I can or can't use it, I used to think that it had to do with the color of the platform, or that it reloaded when steam came up, but... doesn't seem to be that way.

 The more enemies you kill before dying, the more money you'll earn which you can then spend on all types of upgrades. From health upgrades, to damage upgrades, to unlocking possible power ups like Spread Shot or Ice beam. Frankly, I thought the differences these upgrades did was negligible, I never really felt much stronger or sturdier than before. Also, scrolling through the store is done with the touchscreen, but sometimes it seems to get stuck, which makes it annoying to go through. If you can't be arsed to earn the money, you could always buy the microtransactions. Seeing how the game is free to play, and everything can be earned in-game, I don't really have any complaints about them.

 The review would've ended there and then, but I just booted out the game(To check out what the Microtransactions offered) and... it turns out it didn't save my progress from the last time I played. I don't know why it didn't save, but it's mighty annoying, since I'm missing the last two fire power upgrades!

 Vitamin Z is not a very good game, but damn if it isn't addictive. I've played this game more than I like to admit, and hey, it's completely free!
 4.5 out of 10

Review #294: Katamari Forever

 What the hell, Namco...?

 I like the Katamari franchise, they are quirky, fun games that can be enjoyed by anyone. But as creative as the premise is, why is it that Namco always fails to put the same amount of originality into the sequels? The fact that the original creator jumped ship after the second one might be the reason...

 The story this time around involves the King of all Cosmos losing his memories, while the Prince and his Cousins build a RoboKing and... stuff happens. Story has never been an important part of the Katamari games, but they've always offered funny cutscenes, specially the Vita storyline, but this game just didn't make it for me. I don't remember even cracking a smile during the cutscenes. Again, this didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the game, since the story is always fluff, but still...

 For the uninitiated, in the Katamari games you play as the Prince, or as a cousin if unlocked(They all have the same abilities), as you roll a ball around different environments. This ball, the Katamari, has the special property that rolls up onto it anything it rolls over smaller than itself, and slowly grows in size. Basically, roll up small stuff in order to increase the size and then roll up bigger stuff. Some levels, my favorite ones, have you starting from the bottom, rolling up mice and nickels, before eventually going around grabbing entire pieces of land. It's fantastic. This time around levels are divided into two 'branches', the Roboking and the King of all Cosmos. Usually the RoboKing has the more straightforward levels, 'make the biggest Katamari you can', while the King gets more gimicky levels, like 'Roll up hot stuff', or 'grab the biggest Bear or Cow you can'. Oh, and I should mention this game doesn't take itself seriously, at all. Everything is done in a very cartoony style, and you'll see all kinds of weird characters doing weird stuff, or even stuff in weird places, like cats underwater!

 This game will either be the best Katamari game you play, or the worst. Before I get into the meaty stuff, I'd like to delve into some of its features. Firstly, you can unlock different graphical styles for when you replay levels. There's Sepia, Wood, Comic(Cell Shaded/traditional) and New, which looks as if everything has been painted by hand, which is beautiful. It's a neat addition, but you can only switch styles when replaying a level, and only on Modes that you've already played that level in. Modes are another addition, almost every level has 4 variations: Forever, which is the standard, that lets you jump(Which, unlike the awesome stretch ability from the Vita game. is fairly useless and unwieldy) and grab power ups(There's up to two per level, they either instantly attract all nearby stuff to your Katamari or makes nearby stuff attract to your Katamari as you roll around for a short while), there's Drive Mode, which is Forever but sped-up, Eternal, which lets you play a level without any kind of time limit and finally Classic, which removes the Jump ability and the power ups. This is a great addition, since it adds variety, buuuuuuut, the conditions for unlocking Eternal and Classic variations for each level are unknown to this day, seems to have to do with how much you replay a level and how you score. I've read that some people replayed a level up to 24 times before they unlocked one of these modes. Plus, the game doesn't tell you if you can unlock Eternal on a level(Since not every level has Eternal), which is a bit of an oversight.

 Had I not foreshadowed it before, so far everything sounds really cool. Multiple graphical filters as well as modes? Sounds like the best Katamari game, and it could be. It could. The problem is that this game is the ultimate example of everything that's wrong with the Katamari series: Originality, or lack there of. The game has 34 levels, which sounds like a ton, until you realize that only 3 of these levels are entirely new.  About 14 of them come from We Love Katamari, another 14 from Beautiful Katamari and the rest from the first game. Almost every unlockable customization item is recycled from previous games, and there's only two new cousins. So you see, if you've played both We Love Katamari as well as Beautiful Katamari, you've basically played most of this game already. Now, in my case, I haven't played We Love Katamari(Yet) or Beautiful Katamari(Since I don't own a 360), so most levels were new(Except the ones from Katamari Damacy and, well, the levels that the Vita Katamari game would use in the future) to me. But that's me. I got a ton of new levels, cousins I hadn't seen before, a ton of modes and even graphical filters, which makes it the best Katamari game I've played yet. But that's my case, if you've been following the franchise, there's almost nothing new for you here, and there's no real reason for you to invest on this one.

 All that said, the game still has the same issues it has had ever since I can remember: A rather low draw distance and some framerate issues. On weaker consoles, this was understandable, but why is this still happening on the PS3? Sure, there's a lot of stuff on the screen at the same time, but everything is so simple that it shouldn't be taxing the system so much. For what it's worth, the framerate issues are fairly unusual, and the draw distance seems to grow as... well, as your Katamari grows in size. It seems that when the Katamari is smaller, the draw distance is smaller as well, so you'll see a lot of stuff just pop into view as you move forwards.

 Katamari Forever is a hard game for me to score. I loved the game to bits, I really did, but it's hard to ignore the fact that most of this game is recycled content. So you see, if you want to get into the series, I'd say that this is the game to get. If you've played either We Love Katamari or Beautiful Katamari, then it's a tougher sell, as you've played half of the levels already, but maybe the new filters and additional levels can make it worth it. If you've played both, just skip this one.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #293: The Evil Within

 Survival Horror is(was) back. Kinda.

 Shinji Mikami's at it again, after the action-shooter Shadows of the Dead, he decided to go back to Survival Horror. Kinda. I'm not gonna beat around the bush, this is what Survival Horror is in modern gaming, for reference, it's a little bit more Survival-y and a little bit less Action-y than Resident Evil 4.

 The game follows Sebastian Castellanos, a detective, who after answering a call for help, arrives, alongside his partner Joseph(whom I like to call Broseph) and rookie cop Juli Kidman, to a hospital where everyone's been killed. Things soon turn to worse, as the world comes crashing down, and Sebastian keeps getting thrust into different places and maybe... eras? There's an explanation as to why everything, from locations to weapons, seem to come from an anachronistic stew and why there's ammunition everywhere, but I'd rather let the game explain it. As for your teammates, you'll get to interact with Broseph a whole lot, and I grew rather fond of, while Juli is just there to be rescued a couple of times and then disappear.... which is probably why she had two DLC starring her. Mind you, the DLCs explain a couple of things that go unexplained in the main game, which is just no cool at all. Still, I found the game to be perfectly enjoyable by itself.

 The more I played the more I thought 'THIS is, probably, what Mikami wanted to do when he made Resident Evil 4'. The game plays from a third-person perspective, but interestingly, aiming turns it into a quasi-first person camera. It's an interesting approach, and one that works very well, I'd say it's even better than REvil 4. As a matter of fact, Sebastian can move while aiming, so suck on that Leon. There's also stealth in the game, which works rather well and is a must if you want to conserve Ammo, and boy, do you want to conserve ammo. While in REvil 4 ammo would drop pretty frequently, and usually ammo pertaining to the weapon you are using, ammo is very scarce in the game, particularly in the first few chapters. It's not unusual to run out of ammo for your preferred weapons, although I'll admit that I was never left completely defenseless. Another thing to note, is that the ammo you can carry is limited as well. Oh, and enemies hate staying dead, there's only two ways to know for sure that they won't get back up again: Either if they drop something(Ammo, Green Gel, etc) or by burning them by using matches.

 Green Gel is a currency that you can use in the Safe Houses to upgrade Sebastian. You can upgrade things like: Stamina(For sprinting), health, effectiveness of healing items, how much ammo you can carry as well as your weapons. Green Gel is not all that rare,  but you'll want to think carefully about what you want to upgrade. If you ask me, invest on how much ammo you can carry for the revolver and shotgun, as well as how many Syrenges you can carry first. There's also a ton of traps on every level, and their use is twofold. You can disarm them and convert them into ammo for the crossbow, which is what I did, or use them against your enemies! Frankly, I was pretty adept at pistol headshots, and I cared too much about ammo, so I just disarmed every single trap I saw.

 The game is divided into 15 chapters, and each chapter takes place in a different location. There's no backtracking, and puzzles are rather few. Most of the time is about going forward, rather than staying on the same place for too much time. There's exceptions, like the fantastic level based on Resident Evil's mansion, in which you must find stuff to activate stuff and solve puzzles in order to progress. Still, while there're more survival horror elements than say Resident Evil 4, the focus is still on action. Sure, sometimes it's better to avoid enemies rather than waste bullets, and sure, there are a few puzzles here and there, but shooting your way through is always a viable option. As far as difficulty goes, I thought it was just fine. I played on Normal(Survival) and accumulated 83 deaths, but I didn't think it was too tough, besides a couple of cheap deaths and instakills. Yes, there's a ton of stuff, mostly bosses or boss-like enemies that have instakill attacks, and they are not fun, not fun at all. While there are very few 'Safe Houses' to save your game, there's a moderate amount of checkpoints as well, although the placement isn't the... kindest. If you die, get ready to replay some rather tough sections every now and then, but hey, you'll do better upon continuing, since now you'll know what's coming! Anyways, back to the difficulty setting, I thought Survival was just fine, but apparently a lot of people thought the game was rather hard even on its easier difficulty, so a new patch has actually made 'Easy', well, easier.

 Something that annoyed a lot of people, although I didn't care for it, was that the entire game is played on letter box mode(Meaning, black bars above and below the screen). Supposedly it was done for cinematic effect, but... I didn't mind it. I got into the game every time I played, so I honestly never even noticed them. That said, supposedly the new patch allows you to turn them off, but then again, I don't usually download patches. What I did notice however, was that on a few, select occasions, the camera gets a bit too close to Sebastian's back. It happens only in places where there're no enemies, but as someone who likes to explore for items, it annoyed me a few times, since I wanted to see more of my surroundings. There's tons of texture pop-in as well, both in cutscenes and in gameplay, which is impossible not to notice. Once again, it didn't affect me in any way, but from what I've heard, it annoys a few. Lastly, loading times are a bit too long. About 10 seconds(Which sounds like little, but trust me, it's a lot) when loading a chapter it doesn't matter, since its the only loading screen you'll see in a chapter.... but if you die, you'll have to go through it again. And as I mentioned previously, there's a couple of very cheap deaths that you can't see coming(Or have little time to react), as well as finding out firsthand which enemies can instakill you and how, so... get ready to wait. A lot.

 I loved The Evil Within, it's a fantastic game. While I wouldn't call it a 'return' to Survival Horror, I'd call it more like a... 'rebirth'. Unlike games from the past, it's not about encumbering the player with stiff controls and movement, rather, control is excellent, aiming is simple and what not, so the difficulty is not 'artificial' so to speak. You have to make the most of what you are given, because ammo and healing items are scarce. That means knowing when to fight and when to run, and how to fight. Maybe you'd rather waste a match instead of bullets, so hit'em in the knees and burn them, Even better, run around, group'em together and blast their knees with a shotgun shell, and then burn them all together with a single match. Because of that, even people who were turned off by REvil 4 might want to give it a try. While the game plays very similarly, this game has a lot more survival horror elements to it.
 9.5 out of 10

Review #292: Short Peace - Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day

 Suda 51 in its purest form.

 Short Peace is a 5 piece project by Katsuhiro Otomo, made up of four shorts and a videogame. And it fell upon Suda 51 to write the game, and it shows, oh boy, does it show!

 The story makes absolutely no sense. Seriously. But it's downright hilarious, there's a bunch of cutscenes and they all use different animation styles, to very amusing results. Mind you, the game is rather short, made up of about 10 stages, each one 1 to 3, at most, minutes long, for a game that can be beat in under an hour. UNDER ONE HOUR. The game is packed with unlockable concept art(By finding certain boxes and killing certain enemies), as well as unlockable in-game costumes, but even then, you'll be lucky to get over an hour worth of gameplay out of this... but what an hour! Even taking that into account, the game is packed with all four shorts, in beautiful, crisp HD, which add little less than an hour of entertainment. Each short features different animation styles, plot and themes, and they are... interesting, to say the least.

 This game is what modern-day Sonic wishes it was. This is a high speed action game, that has you jumping and slashing your way to victory. I hesitate to call it a platformer, since pits don't mean death, they just mean multiple routes, and there's a ton of alternate routes on each level. The square button is used to attack enemies on your way, but you won't do much of that, since killing enemies results in visually overloading 'side effects' upon their deaths that will kill even more enemies, and sometimes, even produce platforms so that you can access alternate routes. The real challenge comes in the way of an unbeatable enemy-type-thing-wall-thingie that's chasing you, and you can only slow it down by firing your laser, of which you have limited shots, and you earn more by killing enemies. Honestly, the game is very, very easy. I only died during the game's three boss battles, and only once per boss, as I figured out how to defeat them. This is a very easy game, but a very fun one.

 The controls are responsive, and work well... when you are on the move. There's a few sections in which you might have to backtrack slightly to defeat a certain quota of enemies, or find something, and in these instances you'll notice that the jumping is a bit... finicky. Sometimes it's hard to get your jumps to stop where you want them to stop, which isn't a big issue when you are constantly running to the right, but when you require precision, that's when they let you down a bit. The localization is also rather lazy, they didn't even translate the in-game dialogue windows, opting instead for annotations that look straight out of a Youtube video. There's some cutscenes in which either the subtitles either go by too fast or some lines go unstranslated, it's very noticeable in the 'animated manga' cutscene.

 I had a blast with Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day, but it's not a game for everyone. It's probably the craziest game Suda has ever worked on, and that's saying something. Plus, the short length of the game will turn a lot of people off, but I think it's worth it, there's few games like Ranko, and you even get the animated shorts! Plus, Sonic could certainly learn some lessons from this game...
 8.0 out of 10

Review #291: Chocobo Racing

 Square really could do no wrong back then!

 Based off the Chocobo Dungeon series, Chocobo Racing was Squaresoft's attempt at a mascot racing. Mind you, even if you're not interested in Chocobo Dungeon, there's plenty to amuse Final Fantasy fans, from the magic spells to even Squall and Cloud as playable racers! It's an interesting experiment that could've used a little more time in the oven.

 The game offers a 9-Chapter Story Mode that serves as a sort of tutorial, with each chapter introducing a new racer, and a new spell type, to ease you into the game. It's also incredibly tedious since you have to play it 10 times in order to unlock all characters, at least the game lets you turn 'Handicap' on in order to make you faster and help you cruise through this mode. After each full playthrough you are allowed to customize one of the non-secret characters, and the stat points you are awarded depend on how fast you were. There's also Grand Prix, for up to two players, but there's no 'cups' instead playing 4 tracks(Either player selected or random), Time Attack, VS(Which is a strictly 2 racer race) and Relay Race, which I found rather interesting, as you pick 3 different characters and switch every lap! It's a decent amount of modes, and if after going through the story mode 10 times you're stilling feeling up to it, you can finish every course in Grand Prix in order to unlock a faster vehicle class(Think the 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc classes in Mario Kart) and then Mirror mode.

 Racer selection is more than decent, there's 8 'basic' characters, and 10 unlockable ones, and 10 different 'abilities'. Abilities are separate from 'spells' and run on a gauge that's constantly refilling as you race. Sadly, some of these are definitely more useful than others, take 'Megaflare', which makes all your rivals spin out, or dash, which grants you a rather long boost. Then there's 'Flap' which allows you to fly... which a few characters do by default, and only allow you to dodge a couple of spells. As for the characters, I don't think they are well balanced. As previously mentioned, some characters fly by default, allowing them to ignore a few spells, and some of the secret characters are joke characters, which are too slow to be able to compete with the others, or even making it through a certain obstacle in one of the tracks.

 The Weapon pick ups work a bit like Diddy Kong Racing. You will find line of orbs spread throughout each track, and picking an orb grants you different spells. You can pick an specific spell by its color, or grab a '?' orb in order to get a random spell. Furthermore, you can carry multiple spells at the same time(Though if someone smashes into you they will steal the last orb you picked), and you can level up a spell up to three times by picking up three straight orbs of the same type.

 The game is also prone to the same pitfall of every single Mascot racer: It's not much fun while playing alone. Playing with friends is fun, but unlocking everything means going through the single player mode. TEN TIMES. And frankly, it seems as if all of them love to gang up on you, as a matter of fact, whenever the CPU Goblin is on the race, forget about storing spells for later use, as it seems like he ONLY steals, by using his ability, orbs from you. After my first time through this mode, I just turned 'handicap' on, in the options menu, and cruised through it, I was not gonna stand through the whole ordeal again. Oh, and by the by, SAVE your custom character after your second time through the mode, otherwise Squall won't challenge you.

 I had fun with the game, but there's too little of it. There's only 10 tracks, and they are not very memorable, sans the Black Wizard one, which is really fun. It also feels like they run out of time, money or both, as it feels somewhat incomplete. Only 9 characters(8 basic ones plus Bahamut) get an ending, and only ten of them(The basic ones, Bahamut and Squall) get character portraits, as a matter of fact, the only time you get a 'Warning, a Challenger approaches'(Like Smash Bros!) is with Squall, the game doesn't even let you know that you unlocked more characters after him, or even how to access them! Which is done by holding different combinations of the shoulder buttons over Squall, in case you were wondering. Heck, you can even unlock Aya Brea... except that 'she' is only a Police Car.

 The game is pretty fun to play, and it offers neat ideas(Carrying spells, enhancing them, abilities) to the genre, but sadly, it's pretty lacking. There's only 10 stages, less than the competition, and even then, they are not very memorable. Still, it's fun for a couple of rounds.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #290: Naruto Shippuden - Ultimate Ninja 4

 Pitiful.

 Before Ultimate Ninja Storm, there was Ultimate Ninja. During the PS2 era there were two brands of Naruto games kinda competing with each other: Clash of the Ninja and Ultimate Ninja, while Clash of the Ninja tried to be more of a traditional fighting game, Ultimate Ninja went for the fanservice.

 Now then, when it comes to fighters, I usually say: 'Story doesn't matter', but this being a licensed game, it kinda does. There's two story modes, Master Mode and Hero Mode. Hero Mode goes through a very condensed version of Naruto's pre timeskip story. It's told mostly through dull anime stills, with the occasional in-game cutscene. It also glances over a lot of details, Naruto and Kiba's fight is skipped entirely, and while Neji and Naruto talk about destiny, before their fight, there's no backstory as to WHY they are talking about, which is hilarious when you consider that they actually make you fight the Sound 5(Well, Tayuya, Kimimaro and Sakon anyways) twice. But in order to access most of the fights in here, you have to play through Master Mode and collect Memory Pieces(Even funnier, the counter bugs out eventually, so even though it says that you have '0 pieces left', you've got more, so you can simply unlock the last Hero Mode nodes with 0 Memory Pieces).

 Master Mode is a disappointing mess. It starts off with a filler substory before starting with the cannon story. At first you'll wonder why they did it... and it's because the 'real' story mode is incredibly short. Y'see, Namco Bandai was so desperate in releasing a Naruto game, that they couldn't even wait for the 'Rescue Gaara' arc to end, so the game starts with Gaara's kidnapping and ends before it finishes, as a matter of fact, it ends after Naruto VS Itachi. The story mode is so bland, that they actually make you fight Kisame FIVE TIMES STRAIGHT in order to make it seem lengthy, and then, right after that fight, you get to fight Itachi THREE TIMES STRAIGHT. And then it ends. Pathetic. Master Mode also offers free-roaming, which is interesting, and a very basic 'combat system' exclusive to this mode, in which you simply mash Circle. Eventually 'random encounters' will become a norm, and they are a drag. They are not challenging, fun or even fun to look at, they are just there to waste your time when going through areas. There's also sidequests if you are willing to endure this torture. The character roster is also disappointing as well, among the grown up Chunin 9, you only get Team Kakashi and Team Guy. There's no adult Sasuke, no adult Kiba, Sai, etc. Very disappointing. But Bandai Namco just couldn't wait for the manga or anime to just advance further, they just had to get this game out.

 For what it's worth, I kinda liked this battle system. It takes place on a 2D plane, excuse me, 2 2D planes, which you can switch at will by tapping up or down twice plus X. While it only uses the circle button for melee attacks, like Ultimate Ninja Storm, this engine is much more entertaining, allowing you to make combos and juggle opponents. Playing this game is surprisingly fun, although it took me a little while to get the hang of it. However, I did not like the mini-games involved in battles, for instance, clashing attacks engages a Rock-Paper-Scissors mini game, and landing a Ultimate Jutsu starts a mini-game in which you and your opponent must press buttons, if you do worse than the enemy, they might even interrupt your move altogether! All these minigames I could've done without.

 A needless cash-in, that's what this game is. Even more disappointing is the fact that Japan and Europe actually got Ultimate Ninja 5, which features the entire grown up Chunin 9 characters, and I'm guessing it concludes the Gaara storyline. At least the fighting is somewhat fun, although I could do without the mini-games. Oh! And the game froze twice on me during Hero Mode, and you can only save your game by exiting the mode and then pressing start, which made it a bit of a drag having to save more frequently just so that I wouldn't have to replay anything in case it froze again. Why not add an option to save while on Hero Mode?
 5.0 out of 10.