Rainbow Moon Review

SideQuest Studios may be an unknown quantity to most gamers, but for the hardcore PlayStation Network audience, the small German developer has made a name for itself. Its two previous titles -- side-scrolling shooters known as Soldner X and Soldner X-2 – were popular forays into a retro genre. And for its third outing, SideQuest Studios decided to throw a curveball in the form of an equally retro RPG called Rainbow Moon.

Rainbow Moon may have a deceptive name suggesting that it’s more of an ‘80s cartoon than a hardcore role playing experience, but rest assured that it’s very much the latter. Taking inspiration from a variety of games from the past, Rainbow Moon combines obsessive grinding, equipment and character upgrading with strategy-based battling. While it doesn’t quite soar to the heights occupied by the best RPGs ever created, it’s still a worthwhile purchase for those looking to dump scores of hours into something that we don’t see too much of today: a bona fide old-school RPG.

The plot of Rainbow Moon is simple and, like many old-school RPGs, largely unimportant. The game’s protagonist, Baldren, finds himself stranded on a mystical satellite aptly known as Rainbow Moon. The same dimensional rip that deposited him there also brought a plethora of monsters to the once serene moon, and it’s up to him, along with the various characters that join him on his adventure, to rid the moon of its unwelcome new inhabitants before getting back home. Don’t expect a story in the vein of Final Fantasy VI or Wild Arms here; Rainbow Moon emphasizes mechanics and gameplay far more than plot. Mountains of roughly-translated (yet strangely endearing) text and an almost complete lack of character development affirm this fact.

As soon as the game begins, it becomes impossible to ignore Rainbow Moon’s crisp graphics and vivid colors. Sure, the character designs leave something to be desired, but the enemies you fight might as well have been lifted straight out of Dragon Warrior on your NES. Battle a poison-hurling scorpion here, a laser-firing mech there, or a fast-moving zombie in another locale; the variety of enemies is fairly vast, but expect palate swaps as enemy types get stronger (no doubt a nod to the RPG glory days of yore). Rainbow Moon also benefits from a strong soundtrack with some truly catchy tunes and a limited voice track that gives virtually all characters you speak with quirky “hello” and “goodbye” sound bytes bound to put a smile on your face with their ridiculousness.

But let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: gameplay and, more succinctly, combat. As you explore, you’ll run into enemies both directly (like in Chrono Trigger) and via random battles (like in Final Fantasy IV). Regardless of how an enemy party is engaged, things typically play out the same way. Your party – which can consist of up to three characters at a time – will be pitted against a hostile crew that may only contain a single enemy, 20 enemies, or anywhere in between. Even if the way you initially get launched into battle proves conventional, the actual fights themselves are anything but.

Don’t assume you’re going to get a deep combat experience like Final Fantasy Tactics here, but you’ll still get something very much inspired by that kind of game. Turn-based combat plays out on a grid, forcing you to think more tactically than many other games in the genre. Your characters will have various skills at their disposal, varying speeds at which they move, and even a certain amount of moves they get to execute each turn. Enemy and character strengths and weaknesses also play a huge part in combat. Fighting is only marginally deep, but still exceptionally satisfying and quite different from what you’d find in other likeminded games.

Outside of battle, Rainbow Moon assaults players with all manner of options, upgrades, equipment and more. The game’s two currency types – Rainbow Coins and Rainbow Pearls – serve different purposes that make your party stronger in equally different ways. Coins purchase items, weapons, armor, skill scrolls and more, while Pearls upgrade specific character traits ranging from strength and defense to speed and luck. Purchased equipment can be further upgraded by using items found during and after battle. These items provide varying types of permanent statistical boosts to your gear that can make a strong character setup even stronger.

All of these features mix seamlessly with a fairly straight-forward questing and side-questing system that’s shallow on story but still fun to work your way through. The main quest often sends you from character to character for brief conversations, an occasional fetch quest or a foray into a deadly dungeon. Side quests have you doing all kinds of activities, from retrieving lost items to killing devious enemies. Combined with Rainbow Moon’s vast map to explore – rife with geographic diversity and plenty of territory to cover – the game is dense. For the audience that this game is aimed squarely at, that’s a good thing.

Source : ign[dot]com

E3 2012: Microsoft Press Conference -- 5 Biggest Winners & Losers

With another Microsoft E3 press briefing in the books, who are the biggest winners and losers? We were live in the audience at the Galen Center and we're ready to pick the top -- and bottom -- five. First, let's meet the conference's biggest winners. Click over to page 2 for the losers.

5. Xbox SmartGlass

Let's be honest: the concept of a Wii U-like tablet application meant to interact with your games and entertainment apps could flame out in spectacular fashion in an Xbox Live Vision type of way. We're going to take the SmartGlass-half-full approach here, however (sorry). Though we could not possibly care less about having our tablet tell us where we are in Westeros while we're watching Game of Thrones, the gaming possibilities here could bear tasty fruit. Drawing up a play (or even just sorting through your playbook quickly) in Madden NFL 13? Love it. Having a Halo Bible-esque information database that interacts with what we're seeing on Halo 4's mysterious new planet of Requiem? We're in. Naturally, Microsoft only mentioned a Windows 8 version of this, but they're going to have to swallow their pride and put out an iOS version of SmartGlass if they want to have any hope whatsoever of this catching on.

4. South Park: The Stick of Truth

To paraphrase from one of the greatest comedies of our generation, that was frickin' sweet. Trey Parker and Matt Stone themselves came out on stage to introduce the game, eschewing the teleprompter and mocking the SmartGlass demo that preceded it to boot. Better, their game looks amazing...not literally, of course, as the duo were quick to mock the "sh*tty" look of their own show. But to that end, the game does, in fact, look exactly like the show, and is fantastically structured in such a way that they're able to incorporate nearly everything and everyone in the South Park universe, from Mr. Slave to Jesus to a fully rendered and navigable town. And even in the trailer, Parker and Stone's humor brightly shone through in the game. Screw you guys, we're going home...to watch this trailer over and over again.

3. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist

What do you get when you take some of the best elements from every Splinter Cell game so far? You get knifed in the face by Blacklist. Yes, the Tri-Goggled One is back, and he's got a knife to cut through cloth, Sticky Shockers to zap enemies dumb enough to stand in pools of water, the Mark and Execute gameplay introduced in Splinter Cell: Conviction, and -- oh yeah -- Spies vs. Mercenaries multiplayer mode. You'll also get a healthy dose of painful interrogations that always end up with enemies having their bones snapped like twigs and/or their eyeballs gouged out by Sam's knife. One potentially giant problem: longtime Sam Fisher voice actor Michael Ironside was noticeably absent. If he doesn't end up lending his signature pipes to Sam in the final game, we're going to (seriously consider but not actually) cancel our pre-order.

2. Halo 4

A lot is riding on Halo 4 for Microsoft. It's a new development team at 343 Industries and the start of a new trilogy aimed at carrying the franchise into the next generation of consoles. It's also the long-awaited return of Master Chief after the previous pair of Halo titles were clearly lacking in the badass hero department. The good news is that 343 came out smelling like a rose after debuting the first campaign footage of their debut project. A dark, mysterious new Forerunner enemy was revealed as Master Chief trudged through the jungles of Requiem in pursuit of a fallen UNSC ship. The sharp new graphics engine (particularly the lighting) clearly separated Halo 4 from its predecessors, while the from-scratch sound effects rocked the entire arena. More importantly, the new Forerunner weapon we got to see -- it literally pieced itself together in Chief's hands -- proved to be a badass railgun-y boomstick.

1. Tomb Raider

Sorry, Master Chief, but the lovely Lara stole the Microsoft Press Briefing...and our hearts. We first saw a promising "vertical slice" of the Tomb Raider reboot a full year ago, and it appears developer Crystal Dynamics has spent the 365 days since wringing every last bit of potential out of Croft's re-imagining. Visually, the game looks almost next-gen -- you probably wouldn't believe us if we told you that this game is built off of the same engine used to power Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Gorgeous vistas, incredibly detailed character models, and stunning art direction highlight the graphics, while gameplay is simply off the charts. Everything was on display, from bow-and-arrow combat to platforming to free-roaming elements. And to think that this game has another 7-8 months of development time and polish left. Tomb Raider was unquestionably the highlight of the Microsoft Press Conference.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/05/e3-2012-microsoft-press-conference-5-biggest-winners-losers

The Unfinished Swan preview

Sony has been making a huge push for independent games as of late, looking to make PlayStation Network the home for original efforts that deserve to find an audience.  Shawn McGrath’s Dyad is certainly making a few waves, as is the upcoming Papo & Yo.  Joining the party this week is The Unfinished Swan, a game that began development way back in 2008 under the guidance of a young Ian Dallas.  Now, with the help of his team at Giant Sparrow, it’s just about ready for its unveiling on PlayStation Network this year.  Ian and his fellow programmers recently invited us to get a first look at the game in action.



There’s an interesting story behind The Unfinished Swan.  A boy finds himself orphaned when his mother passes on, and the only thing he has to remember her by is a series of unfinished paintings, as she never found the motivation to complete them.  Upon being transferred to an orphanage, he’s told he can only take one with him, so he chooses an Unfinished Swan drawing, since that’s most endearing to him.

One night, the Swan actually disappears from the painting, and on his quest to go searching for it, the boy finds himself in an alternate world, one which was once ruled by a king and has now been left in a solid white state.  Seriously.  Everything — the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the statues — have been colored white.  In order to navigate his way through the world and find a way home, the boy must literally paint his way out by throwing paintballs at everything, staining objects a solid black (and possibly other colors later on in the game) and eventually finding his way around.

The way that The Unfinished Swan uses a world that isn’t there one minute and then comes completely to life is startling, and a rather neat effect.  Each object you hit with paintballs reacts to the splatters in real time, so you can see the forms of statues, collapsible walls and other things as you hit them.  It plays out in a first-person perspective, and it works remarkably well.  Furthermore, objects you paint stay painted, as you’re able to see by peering out into the distance and seeing what’s been impacted by your paint.

Along with painting your way around this white world, you’re also able to discover bits and pieces of the story, figuring out why the king left this world the way he did, and the significance of the swan itself.  You can also locate hidden items, including little swan footprints and balloons that you can collect in each stage, which enable you to unlock a few Trophies.  In addition, the game supports PlayStation Move, if you’re looking for a new game to support that peripheral.

Though it may look simplistic at first, The Unfinished Swan has a superb graphic engine — one that really sucks you in as you discover bits and pieces of the world during your journey.  It’s definitely a startling effort that’ll shake up the PlayStation Network, perhaps even in the same way Journey did last month (but for different reasons, obviously).

The Unfinished Swan also includes a mysterious “Toys” extra feature, though Dallas and his team are keeping that under wraps until around E3 time.  We’ll learn more about it then.



For a game that’s been in the works for some time, we’re happy to see that The Unfinished Swan will soon be, um, finished?  Released.  Yeah, that’s a better word.  We’ll let you know how it’s progressing when it shows at E3 next month

Source : http://gamezone.com/previews/the-unfinished-swan-preview